By Kevin Cole
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
A Council Bluffs man was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder early Sunday after his wife was found dead in the couple's apartment.
Bobbie Jean Tucker, 54, was pronounced dead about 12:40 a.m. in the apartment at 619 S. Sixth St.
Michael A. Tucker, 45, was arrested after being questioned at Council Bluffs police headquarters. He was being held in the Pottawattamie County Jail.
Michael Tucker called 911 to report that his wife was unresponsive, said Sgt. Dave Dawson. After medics determined that Bobbie Jean Tucker was dead, police were called.
Bobbie Jean Tucker appeared to be have been “violently assaulted,” Dawson said.
An autopsy was scheduled for today in Ankeny, Iowa.
A neighbor of the Tuckers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the couple had lived in the apartment for three months. The neighbor said the Tuckers often fought and did so again Saturday night.
Bluffs police asked anyone with information about the case to call the Criminal Investigation Bureau at 712-328-5737.
Contact the writer:
444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com
Monday, December 21, 2009
Donna, TX: Elderly Donna couple killed in murder-suicide
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 4:58 p.m.
R
An elderly Donna couple killed in an apparent murder-suicide were both reported to be terminally ill.
Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call at the Palm Shadows RV Park off Val Verde Road outside Donna around 1:40 p.m. Monday.
Sheriff Lupe Treviño said the elderly couple’s bodies were killed in an apparent murder-suicide.
Treviño told Action 4 News that the RV park manager used a pass key to get into the couple’s home after not hearing from them in a day and a half.
Deputies recovered a weapon used in the couple’s deaths.
Sheriff Treviño said both the man and woman had contact gunshot wounds to their heads.
Treviño said both of them were in their 80s and terminally ill.
Investigators have not released the couple’s names pending notification of next of kin.
Treviño said deputies are interviewing neighbors and others to establish a timeline and develop clear background information about the couple.
For the moment, investigators believe the couple's terminal illnesses were the motive in the murder-suicide.
Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Bobby Contreras ordered an autopsy for the couple.
Preliminary results are not expected back until later this week.
R
An elderly Donna couple killed in an apparent murder-suicide were both reported to be terminally ill.
Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call at the Palm Shadows RV Park off Val Verde Road outside Donna around 1:40 p.m. Monday.
Sheriff Lupe Treviño said the elderly couple’s bodies were killed in an apparent murder-suicide.
Treviño told Action 4 News that the RV park manager used a pass key to get into the couple’s home after not hearing from them in a day and a half.
Deputies recovered a weapon used in the couple’s deaths.
Sheriff Treviño said both the man and woman had contact gunshot wounds to their heads.
Treviño said both of them were in their 80s and terminally ill.
Investigators have not released the couple’s names pending notification of next of kin.
Treviño said deputies are interviewing neighbors and others to establish a timeline and develop clear background information about the couple.
For the moment, investigators believe the couple's terminal illnesses were the motive in the murder-suicide.
Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Bobby Contreras ordered an autopsy for the couple.
Preliminary results are not expected back until later this week.
Kennedale, TX: Man accused of setting fatal fire near Fort Worth
Monday, December 21, 2009
A Fort Worth-area man was arrested at the California-Mexico border after he was sought in an arson fire that killed his pregnant wife, 6-year-old daughter and father-in-law.
MORE NEWS
Mexico City assembly legalizes same-sex marriage 12.21.09
Gov't imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings 12.21.09
Obama signs bill for defense, jobless benefits 12.21.09
Kennedale Police Chief Tommy Williams says Johnny Hummel is in custody in San Ysidro, Calif., near San Diego, and awaits extradition to Texas after his Sunday arrest.
The three died Friday shortly after midnight after a fire swept through the family house in Kennedale, 10 miles southeast of Fort Worth.
Kennedale police haven't released the victims' identities. However, family members told news organizations over the weekend that the dead are 57-year-old Eddie Bedford, his pregnant daughter and Hummel's wife, Joy Hummel, and 6-year-old Jody Hummel.
Williams tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Hummel's held on an arson warrant based on evidence uncovered over the weekend.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/21/state/n135734S97.DTL&type=science#ixzz0aNMOAZ7c
A Fort Worth-area man was arrested at the California-Mexico border after he was sought in an arson fire that killed his pregnant wife, 6-year-old daughter and father-in-law.
MORE NEWS
Mexico City assembly legalizes same-sex marriage 12.21.09
Gov't imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings 12.21.09
Obama signs bill for defense, jobless benefits 12.21.09
Kennedale Police Chief Tommy Williams says Johnny Hummel is in custody in San Ysidro, Calif., near San Diego, and awaits extradition to Texas after his Sunday arrest.
The three died Friday shortly after midnight after a fire swept through the family house in Kennedale, 10 miles southeast of Fort Worth.
Kennedale police haven't released the victims' identities. However, family members told news organizations over the weekend that the dead are 57-year-old Eddie Bedford, his pregnant daughter and Hummel's wife, Joy Hummel, and 6-year-old Jody Hummel.
Williams tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Hummel's held on an arson warrant based on evidence uncovered over the weekend.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/21/state/n135734S97.DTL&type=science#ixzz0aNMOAZ7c
Hampton, VA: Police identify couple who died in murder-suicide
by 13 News
Posted on December 21, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Updated today at 12:51 PM
******
Hampton double shooting
HAMPTON -- A man and a woman died from gunshot wounds overnight in Hampton in what police say was a murder-suicide.
Police found the couple just after midnight at a home in the 100 block of Michigan Drive.
Investigators believe a 34-year old man shot a 28-year old woman and then turned the gun on himself.
Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police have identified the male suspect as Antoine Larosa Fulgham of Michigan Drive.
The female victim was identified as Charlene Stephany Scott of the same address.
Posted on December 21, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Updated today at 12:51 PM
******
Hampton double shooting
HAMPTON -- A man and a woman died from gunshot wounds overnight in Hampton in what police say was a murder-suicide.
Police found the couple just after midnight at a home in the 100 block of Michigan Drive.
Investigators believe a 34-year old man shot a 28-year old woman and then turned the gun on himself.
Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police have identified the male suspect as Antoine Larosa Fulgham of Michigan Drive.
The female victim was identified as Charlene Stephany Scott of the same address.
Jacksonville, FL: Identities released of three found dead in Jacksonville murder suicide
BY DANA TREENSTORY UPDATED AT 4:01 PM ON MONDAY, DEC. 21, 2009
Jacksonville police have confirmed the identities of three people found dead in a Jacksonville home nearly a week ago.
Mary Ann Geoghagan, 54, her husband, Richard Stanley Gordon, 56, and her son Michael Bradford Lewit, 37, were found Wednesday at the couple's home at 12784 Del Rio Drive in Mandarin when a family member went by the house to check on their welfare, authorities told the Times-Union at the time.
Jacksonville police said the deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide. Monday, Geoghagan's brother, Wayne Geoghagan said police said Gordon shot Mary Ann Geoghagan and her son before turning a second gun on himself.
The shootings likely occurred about 10:30 p.m. the night before the bodies were discovered, he said.
Jacksonville police have confirmed the identities of three people found dead in a Jacksonville home nearly a week ago.
Mary Ann Geoghagan, 54, her husband, Richard Stanley Gordon, 56, and her son Michael Bradford Lewit, 37, were found Wednesday at the couple's home at 12784 Del Rio Drive in Mandarin when a family member went by the house to check on their welfare, authorities told the Times-Union at the time.
Jacksonville police said the deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide. Monday, Geoghagan's brother, Wayne Geoghagan said police said Gordon shot Mary Ann Geoghagan and her son before turning a second gun on himself.
The shootings likely occurred about 10:30 p.m. the night before the bodies were discovered, he said.
Cortez, CO: Man convicted of second-degree murder in death of girlfriend
By Associated Press
12:18 PM MST, December 20, 2009
CORTEZ, Colo. (AP) — A Cortez man has been convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of his girlfriend.
Ignacio "Michael" Ray Rael had faced a first-degree murder charge in the October 2008 death of Diane Cordova. A jury convicted him Friday of the lesser charge, which carries a maximum 48 year prison sentence.
Prosecutors say Rael donned leather gloves with weights in them and beat his girlfriend to death. Medical experts testified during the three-week trial that Cordova suffered at least 15 blows to her face and multiple blows to the head.
Defense attorneys say witnesses, many with felony records, offered confusing testimony.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 12.
12:18 PM MST, December 20, 2009
CORTEZ, Colo. (AP) — A Cortez man has been convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of his girlfriend.
Ignacio "Michael" Ray Rael had faced a first-degree murder charge in the October 2008 death of Diane Cordova. A jury convicted him Friday of the lesser charge, which carries a maximum 48 year prison sentence.
Prosecutors say Rael donned leather gloves with weights in them and beat his girlfriend to death. Medical experts testified during the three-week trial that Cordova suffered at least 15 blows to her face and multiple blows to the head.
Defense attorneys say witnesses, many with felony records, offered confusing testimony.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 12.
Omaha, NE: Husband held in wife's death
By Juan Perez Jr.
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Omaha police arrested a man Sunday after finding his wife dead inside their home near 30th and State Streets.
Police found the body of Evelyn Cain, 57, inside the house at 3118 State St. at 9 a.m. Sunday, said Officer Jacob Bettin, a police spokesman.
Fire and rescue personnel had responded to a call about a possible death at the house. Homicide investigators determined that the death was suspicious.
The victim's husband, Patrick K. Cain, also 57, was arrested Sunday afternoon on suspicion of criminal homicide, Bettin said.
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He declined to say how Evelyn Cain died or to release other details about her death.
Ellen Minturn lives near the house and said she knew the couple simply as “Pat and Evie.”
“I didn't know a whole lot about them,” Minturn said. “They've lived here for a long time.”
Minturn occasionally heard what sounded like arguing from the house but said it never sounded very serious.
Minturn said she last spoke with Evelyn Cain shortly after the most recent big snowstorm.
“She just talked about how fun it was to shovel herself out,” Minturn said.
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Omaha police arrested a man Sunday after finding his wife dead inside their home near 30th and State Streets.
Police found the body of Evelyn Cain, 57, inside the house at 3118 State St. at 9 a.m. Sunday, said Officer Jacob Bettin, a police spokesman.
Fire and rescue personnel had responded to a call about a possible death at the house. Homicide investigators determined that the death was suspicious.
The victim's husband, Patrick K. Cain, also 57, was arrested Sunday afternoon on suspicion of criminal homicide, Bettin said.
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He declined to say how Evelyn Cain died or to release other details about her death.
Ellen Minturn lives near the house and said she knew the couple simply as “Pat and Evie.”
“I didn't know a whole lot about them,” Minturn said. “They've lived here for a long time.”
Minturn occasionally heard what sounded like arguing from the house but said it never sounded very serious.
Minturn said she last spoke with Evelyn Cain shortly after the most recent big snowstorm.
“She just talked about how fun it was to shovel herself out,” Minturn said.
Albuquerque, NM: Mother of baby shot to death speaks out
Posted at: 12/20/2009 6:30 PM
By: Misa Maruyama, Eyewitness News 4; Taryn Bianchin, KOB.com
Ashley Trujillo is presented with a $1000 dollar check from the Vargas family.
The mother of the baby girl who was shot to death three weeks ago broke her silence on Sunday. Ashley Trujillo is the mother of 9-month-old Trinity, who was killed by her father in early December. Investigators say Christopher Rains killed his baby girl because he didn't want to see Trujillo move on with another man.
Now Trujillo is encouraging other victims of domestic violence to ask for help.
“No one deserves to stay in the dark too long," Trujillo said. "It's time that each of us reaches a hand to someone in the dark and pulls them out before it's too late.”
She made her tearful statement shortly after another Albuquerque family presented her with a $1000 check on Sunday morning. The money had been raised in the memory of Lawrence Vargas, who was shot to death at an Albuquerque parking garage in July of 2008. The Vargas family reached out to the Trujillo family to offer their strength and support .
Although the recent weeks have been horrendous, through her faith Trujillo says she's found forgiveness. “We can not judge people because we make mistakes too, even though some are greater, some fight bigger demons,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo says she has not spoken to Rains since the shooting happened.
Rains is scheduled to make another court appearance Monday morning.
By: Misa Maruyama, Eyewitness News 4; Taryn Bianchin, KOB.com
Ashley Trujillo is presented with a $1000 dollar check from the Vargas family.
The mother of the baby girl who was shot to death three weeks ago broke her silence on Sunday. Ashley Trujillo is the mother of 9-month-old Trinity, who was killed by her father in early December. Investigators say Christopher Rains killed his baby girl because he didn't want to see Trujillo move on with another man.
Now Trujillo is encouraging other victims of domestic violence to ask for help.
“No one deserves to stay in the dark too long," Trujillo said. "It's time that each of us reaches a hand to someone in the dark and pulls them out before it's too late.”
She made her tearful statement shortly after another Albuquerque family presented her with a $1000 check on Sunday morning. The money had been raised in the memory of Lawrence Vargas, who was shot to death at an Albuquerque parking garage in July of 2008. The Vargas family reached out to the Trujillo family to offer their strength and support .
Although the recent weeks have been horrendous, through her faith Trujillo says she's found forgiveness. “We can not judge people because we make mistakes too, even though some are greater, some fight bigger demons,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo says she has not spoken to Rains since the shooting happened.
Rains is scheduled to make another court appearance Monday morning.
Franklin, VA: Franklin Man Dies After Standoff With Police
Franklin Man Dies After Standoff With Police
FRANKLIN, Va. - Police say a domestic violence call has ended in the death of a Franklin man.
The Franklin Police Department says 36-year-old Donald Whitley was shot and killed after he pointed a handgun at officers Sunday morning. Police say Whitley had just emerged from his home after a lengthy standoff that started with a call about a man and woman fighting.
The department says the officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave and the state Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating.
FRANKLIN, Va. - Police say a domestic violence call has ended in the death of a Franklin man.
The Franklin Police Department says 36-year-old Donald Whitley was shot and killed after he pointed a handgun at officers Sunday morning. Police say Whitley had just emerged from his home after a lengthy standoff that started with a call about a man and woman fighting.
The department says the officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave and the state Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating.
Des Moines, WA: Investigation: Police shooting appears justifiable
The two Des Moines Police officers who shot and killed an armed 40 year-old man on Saturday appear to have used justifiable force, according to the Federal Way Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.
By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter
The two Des Moines police officers who shot and killed an armed 40 year-old man on Saturday appear to have used justifiable force, according to the Federal Way Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.
"All indications are that the officers acted appropriately and according to their training and state law," said Federal Way Police Commander Stan McCall.
The two officers, whose names have not been released, shot a 40-year-old man after responding to a 911 call for domestic violence at around 2:40 p.m. on Saturday. The man was sought by police for allegedly pointing a handgun at his ex-girlfriend, a 47-year-old woman who had a no-contact order against the man, according to McCall.
The man ran from the woman's apartment but was seen by Des Moines police in a parking lot near South 272 Street and Pacific Highway South. The officers fired when the man showed a handgun after being confronted, McCall said.
The Federal Way Police Department, which was investigating at the request of Des Moines police, found that several shots were fired, but investigators are unsure if the shooting victim fired his gun.
The shooting victim — who had a criminal history, according to McCall — is expected to be identified today. The officers will be identified after the shooting investigation is finished.
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com
By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter
The two Des Moines police officers who shot and killed an armed 40 year-old man on Saturday appear to have used justifiable force, according to the Federal Way Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.
"All indications are that the officers acted appropriately and according to their training and state law," said Federal Way Police Commander Stan McCall.
The two officers, whose names have not been released, shot a 40-year-old man after responding to a 911 call for domestic violence at around 2:40 p.m. on Saturday. The man was sought by police for allegedly pointing a handgun at his ex-girlfriend, a 47-year-old woman who had a no-contact order against the man, according to McCall.
The man ran from the woman's apartment but was seen by Des Moines police in a parking lot near South 272 Street and Pacific Highway South. The officers fired when the man showed a handgun after being confronted, McCall said.
The Federal Way Police Department, which was investigating at the request of Des Moines police, found that several shots were fired, but investigators are unsure if the shooting victim fired his gun.
The shooting victim — who had a criminal history, according to McCall — is expected to be identified today. The officers will be identified after the shooting investigation is finished.
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com
Angola, IN: Police: Angola woman kills husband with ax
Associated Press
1:36 PM CST, December 20, 2009
ANGOLA, Ind.
Northeastern Indiana police say an Angola woman fatally attacked her husband with an ax, striking him several times as the couple's two teenage boys were at home.
Court documents state that 44-year-old Norma Mote summoned police to the couple's home early Friday and told dispatchers she had just killed her husband with an ax.
Police found 56-year-old Kevin Mote dead in a second-floor bedroom. The Steuben County coroner's office ruled his death due to numerous ax strikes to the head.
Norma Mote is charged with murder and is being held without bail at the Steuben County Jail. Police say they don't know why Mote attacked her husband.
Neighbors say the Mote family was quiet and kept to themselves in the area just outside Angola city limits about 40 miles north of Fort Wayne.
1:36 PM CST, December 20, 2009
ANGOLA, Ind.
Northeastern Indiana police say an Angola woman fatally attacked her husband with an ax, striking him several times as the couple's two teenage boys were at home.
Court documents state that 44-year-old Norma Mote summoned police to the couple's home early Friday and told dispatchers she had just killed her husband with an ax.
Police found 56-year-old Kevin Mote dead in a second-floor bedroom. The Steuben County coroner's office ruled his death due to numerous ax strikes to the head.
Norma Mote is charged with murder and is being held without bail at the Steuben County Jail. Police say they don't know why Mote attacked her husband.
Neighbors say the Mote family was quiet and kept to themselves in the area just outside Angola city limits about 40 miles north of Fort Wayne.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Article: The uneven hand of justice in TN murders
December 20, 2009
Comparison of similar crimes leaves you wondering: Why is Gaile Owens facing execution?
By John Seigenthaler
There was no obvious link between the two recent national headlines.
One said: "Woman who killed preacher husband gets custody of their three children."
The other read: "Woman on death row loses her last appeal."
There are many striking factual similarities — and one stark difference — in the tragic stories of http://www.tennessean.com/article/20060325/PROMO/91220005">Mary Winkler and http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091209/NEWS03/912090391/Woman-on-death-row-awaits-execution-date-from-court">Gaile Owens, two Tennessee women who killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart.
Court documents in the separate cases recite the similarities:
• Both women, raised as fundamentalist Christians, suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse from the spouses they killed.
• Both had small children — Winkler three daughters and Owens two sons — all younger than 12 at the time of the murders.
• Both of them were examined — some 20 years apart — by the same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager of Memphis, who said that both suffered from battered woman's syndrome — a condition that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."
• Both had concealed from relatives and close friends the suffering they endured at the hands of their husbands; both minimized the abuse when first questioned by police.
• Both were in financially troubled marriages and constantly were blamed by their husbands for being "spendthrift wives." Winkler had kited checks and argued with her husband about money the night before she killed him. Owens had stolen money from her employer, a doctor.
• Both women confessed when questioned by police, and both told the officers they blamed themselves for problems in their marriages.
• In both cases, the spousal abuse included lurid sexual details. In Owens' case, the sexual encounters were more violent and also involved her husband's extramarital affairs.
Mary Winkler's husband, Matthew, was a Church of Christ minister in Selmer in West Tennessee. In 2006, while he was in bed, she confronted him with a shotgun in an effort to discuss their marriage. With her children in the house, she shot him in the back, shattering his spine. Without calling 911, she left him to bleed to death while she drove with her daughters toward an Alabama beach.
Gaile Owens' husband, Ronald, was a nursing supervisor at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was beaten to death with a tire iron in 1985 by Sidney Porterfield, a complete stranger Gaile Owens hired on the streets of Memphis. He was never paid. Porterfield is on death row, and his most recent appeal asserts that he is mentally challenged.
Both women were invited at different times to tell their stories on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winkler did so. Owens declined.
The court documents also recite the stark difference in the two killings:
Mary Freeman Winkler, 36, indicted on charges of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. She has custody of her children and lives in McMinnville.
Gaile Kirksey Owens, 57, is due to be executed by lethal injection on death row at Tennessee State Prison. The state Supreme Court will soon set the date. Owens, who works as a clerk in the prison, would be the first woman executed by the state since Eve Martin, found guilty of murder, was hanged in 1820.
Judges, lawyers played part in differences
The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their "battered woman" defenses.
Winkler testified personally about the abuse she suffered. Her jury heard from her that she was subjected to mental and sexual abuse, forced by Matthew to watch pornographic films and required to wear seductive attire before having relations. The jurors also heard that she was required to engage in oral sex, which she believed to be "abnormal."
Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman testimony nor about her spouse's cheating with a nurse who was his lover. Documents filed in her appeal detail the physical and emotional abuse that began on her wedding night and continued during marriage.
At the time of trial, Owens told her lawyers she would not testify in her own defense because she wanted to protect her young sons from the details of the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered from their father. Her lawyers say it is for this reason that she has consistently declined requests to tell her story to national news interviewers. The court documents disclose that the abuse included sexual penetration with objects that included a wine bottle and a marijuana pipe. Owens' husband accused her of not properly using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Just before the birth of their second son, as a result of rough sex, she suffered a torn placenta and was hospitalized.
Neither did her jurors learn of sexually explicit love letters her spouse had received from the nurse who was his paramour. The prosecutor claimed the letters did not exist, but they were returned by prosecutors to the nurse who wrote them. Police made notes of the letters and some of the sexually explicit language is contained in appeals documents.
At trial, Winkler, still in financial trouble, was surrounded by a team of experienced, able criminal lawyers, whose expenses were paid by her friends, many from her church. Friends also arranged her $750,000 bond. Her jurors heard that she suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of battered woman's syndrome and had no recollection of pulling the shotgun trigger.
Judge Weber McCraw, who presided at her trial, permitted the jurors to hear expert testimony from Dr. Zager and other psychologists who had found that she was suffering from battered woman's syndrome.
Owens, also in deep financial difficulty, had trouble getting legal representation for her trial. Stephen Shankman, the first lawyer assigned by the court to represent her, immediately recognized that she had a battered woman defense. He withdrew, however, because she could not pay him.
Two other Memphis attorneys, Wayne Emmons and James Marty, then were named by the court to take over her case. When they learned that Owens was entitled to a battered woman defense, they asked the court to provide funds to employ an expert psychologist to develop that evidence.
Unlike Judge McCraw in the Winkler case, Judge Joseph McCartie allowed Dr. Zager to speak only to the narrow question of whether Owens was sane and competent to stand trial. Dr. Zager has filed an affidavit stating that had the court allowed her to do so, she would have told the jury about the "battered woman" evidence.
During a pre-trial motion, Emmons, in seeking help from psychologists, admitted that he knew little about the theory of battered woman syndrome. Judge McCartie told him to "school yourself, . . . either get into the books or talk to psychiatrists." Emmons withdrew from the case 30 days before trial, replaced by another Memphis lawyer, Brett Stein. At trial, Stein and Marty abandoned their battered woman defense and Owens' jurors heard not a word about the abuse she suffered. Two federal public defenders, Gretchen Swift and Kelley Henry, took over her appeal and submitted the first credible evidence that she was subjected to spousal abuse.
The clearest dichotomy between Owens' trial and Winkler's was related to their pleas. Winkler's jurors heard that she was "not guilty" on the grounds that she was a battered wife. Owens tried to plead guilty.
Expressing deep remorse for her actions, she told her lawyers she wanted to accept the prosecutor's offer: a guilty plea in return for a life sentence. She signed the plea-agreement document. But prosecutors then refused to accept it because Porterfield, the actual slayer, would not accept the same plea. Judge McCartie said he had "absolutely no authority" to accept her independent plea. Owens and Porterfield were tried together. The jury sentenced them to death.
As a result Gale Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor's offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.
Other cases raise more questions
The history of fatal domestic violence cases in Tennessee courts provides other legalistic outcomes that make even more puzzling the plight of Gaile Owens.
In 1982, Kathryn England, a mother of four in Limestone in East Tennessee, murdered her husband, Frank, by punching a hole in the bedroom ceiling and shooting him with his hunting rifle. She remained in the upstairs room while her husband, pleading for help, bled to death.
The prosecution told her jury that the act was premeditated: that she had drugged him and planned the shot through the ceiling before the slaying. The jury rejected her spousal abuse claim and sentenced her to life in prison. She contracted cancer in prison and appealed to Gov. Lamar Alexander to commute her sentence on two grounds: she had been a battered woman and she was suffering from life-threatening cancer.
In 1984, Alexander commuted her life sentence to the 15 months she had served after a recommendation from the state parole board, and she was freed. Alexander, in granting her plea because of her illness, said of her battered woman defense: "There may be other cases where it should be considered as a basis for release." England, who has since died, married again three years after her release.
And then there is the Memphis case of William E. Groseclose, who hired two men to murder his wife, Deborah Lee, in 1977. He was convicted and sentenced to death along with Ronald Eugene Rickman, the man he paid to kill her.
The Tennessee Supreme Court, in rejecting an early appeal, described the slaying as "the most atrocious and inhuman conceivable." Rickman and a colleague, Phillip Michael Britt, kidnapped and raped Deborah Groseclose, stabbed her repeatedly in the back and left her in the trunk of a car in a Memphis parking lot. Groseclose and Rickman were sentenced to death. In 1997, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed their sentences on grounds that their lawyers had so bungled the defense that they had been effectively denied legal counsel. Both killers were re-sentenced to life.
Gaile Owens' appeals also contended that her lawyers were incompetent because they failed to introduce evidence of battered woman syndrome. In the Groseclose and Rickman cases, two of three federal judges, James Ryan and Damon Keith, found clear evidence that their lawyers failed them and reversed their convictions. A third judge, Richard Suhrheinrich, dissented.
In Gaile Owens' case, two of the three federal appeals judges, Danny Boggs and Eugene Siler, found that she did not cooperate with her lawyers and that they were competent. The third judge, Gilbert Merritt, found that her lawyers were unprepared and failed to give her an adequate defense. In federal appeals cases, two-judge majorities prevail. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her case.
Within a few weeks, Gaile Owens will be the seventh inmate executed by lethal injection since 2000. The sixth, Cecil J. Johnson, died by lethal injection earlier this month.
In a letter written to Gov. Phil Bredesen earlier this year, Owens expressed her continuing remorse over her actions. Surprisingly, nowhere in the letter does she ask the governor to commute her death sentence to life.
George Barrett, who now is representing Owens, has joined Swift and Henry, the federal public defenders, in filing a formal plea asking the governor to commute her sentence to life in prison. That was the plea she tried to make in a Memphis trial court almost a quarter century ago.
Comparison of similar crimes leaves you wondering: Why is Gaile Owens facing execution?
By John Seigenthaler
There was no obvious link between the two recent national headlines.
One said: "Woman who killed preacher husband gets custody of their three children."
The other read: "Woman on death row loses her last appeal."
There are many striking factual similarities — and one stark difference — in the tragic stories of http://www.tennessean.com/article/20060325/PROMO/91220005">Mary Winkler and http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091209/NEWS03/912090391/Woman-on-death-row-awaits-execution-date-from-court">Gaile Owens, two Tennessee women who killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart.
Court documents in the separate cases recite the similarities:
• Both women, raised as fundamentalist Christians, suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse from the spouses they killed.
• Both had small children — Winkler three daughters and Owens two sons — all younger than 12 at the time of the murders.
• Both of them were examined — some 20 years apart — by the same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager of Memphis, who said that both suffered from battered woman's syndrome — a condition that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."
• Both had concealed from relatives and close friends the suffering they endured at the hands of their husbands; both minimized the abuse when first questioned by police.
• Both were in financially troubled marriages and constantly were blamed by their husbands for being "spendthrift wives." Winkler had kited checks and argued with her husband about money the night before she killed him. Owens had stolen money from her employer, a doctor.
• Both women confessed when questioned by police, and both told the officers they blamed themselves for problems in their marriages.
• In both cases, the spousal abuse included lurid sexual details. In Owens' case, the sexual encounters were more violent and also involved her husband's extramarital affairs.
Mary Winkler's husband, Matthew, was a Church of Christ minister in Selmer in West Tennessee. In 2006, while he was in bed, she confronted him with a shotgun in an effort to discuss their marriage. With her children in the house, she shot him in the back, shattering his spine. Without calling 911, she left him to bleed to death while she drove with her daughters toward an Alabama beach.
Gaile Owens' husband, Ronald, was a nursing supervisor at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was beaten to death with a tire iron in 1985 by Sidney Porterfield, a complete stranger Gaile Owens hired on the streets of Memphis. He was never paid. Porterfield is on death row, and his most recent appeal asserts that he is mentally challenged.
Both women were invited at different times to tell their stories on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winkler did so. Owens declined.
The court documents also recite the stark difference in the two killings:
Mary Freeman Winkler, 36, indicted on charges of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. She has custody of her children and lives in McMinnville.
Gaile Kirksey Owens, 57, is due to be executed by lethal injection on death row at Tennessee State Prison. The state Supreme Court will soon set the date. Owens, who works as a clerk in the prison, would be the first woman executed by the state since Eve Martin, found guilty of murder, was hanged in 1820.
Judges, lawyers played part in differences
The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their "battered woman" defenses.
Winkler testified personally about the abuse she suffered. Her jury heard from her that she was subjected to mental and sexual abuse, forced by Matthew to watch pornographic films and required to wear seductive attire before having relations. The jurors also heard that she was required to engage in oral sex, which she believed to be "abnormal."
Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman testimony nor about her spouse's cheating with a nurse who was his lover. Documents filed in her appeal detail the physical and emotional abuse that began on her wedding night and continued during marriage.
At the time of trial, Owens told her lawyers she would not testify in her own defense because she wanted to protect her young sons from the details of the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered from their father. Her lawyers say it is for this reason that she has consistently declined requests to tell her story to national news interviewers. The court documents disclose that the abuse included sexual penetration with objects that included a wine bottle and a marijuana pipe. Owens' husband accused her of not properly using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Just before the birth of their second son, as a result of rough sex, she suffered a torn placenta and was hospitalized.
Neither did her jurors learn of sexually explicit love letters her spouse had received from the nurse who was his paramour. The prosecutor claimed the letters did not exist, but they were returned by prosecutors to the nurse who wrote them. Police made notes of the letters and some of the sexually explicit language is contained in appeals documents.
At trial, Winkler, still in financial trouble, was surrounded by a team of experienced, able criminal lawyers, whose expenses were paid by her friends, many from her church. Friends also arranged her $750,000 bond. Her jurors heard that she suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of battered woman's syndrome and had no recollection of pulling the shotgun trigger.
Judge Weber McCraw, who presided at her trial, permitted the jurors to hear expert testimony from Dr. Zager and other psychologists who had found that she was suffering from battered woman's syndrome.
Owens, also in deep financial difficulty, had trouble getting legal representation for her trial. Stephen Shankman, the first lawyer assigned by the court to represent her, immediately recognized that she had a battered woman defense. He withdrew, however, because she could not pay him.
Two other Memphis attorneys, Wayne Emmons and James Marty, then were named by the court to take over her case. When they learned that Owens was entitled to a battered woman defense, they asked the court to provide funds to employ an expert psychologist to develop that evidence.
Unlike Judge McCraw in the Winkler case, Judge Joseph McCartie allowed Dr. Zager to speak only to the narrow question of whether Owens was sane and competent to stand trial. Dr. Zager has filed an affidavit stating that had the court allowed her to do so, she would have told the jury about the "battered woman" evidence.
During a pre-trial motion, Emmons, in seeking help from psychologists, admitted that he knew little about the theory of battered woman syndrome. Judge McCartie told him to "school yourself, . . . either get into the books or talk to psychiatrists." Emmons withdrew from the case 30 days before trial, replaced by another Memphis lawyer, Brett Stein. At trial, Stein and Marty abandoned their battered woman defense and Owens' jurors heard not a word about the abuse she suffered. Two federal public defenders, Gretchen Swift and Kelley Henry, took over her appeal and submitted the first credible evidence that she was subjected to spousal abuse.
The clearest dichotomy between Owens' trial and Winkler's was related to their pleas. Winkler's jurors heard that she was "not guilty" on the grounds that she was a battered wife. Owens tried to plead guilty.
Expressing deep remorse for her actions, she told her lawyers she wanted to accept the prosecutor's offer: a guilty plea in return for a life sentence. She signed the plea-agreement document. But prosecutors then refused to accept it because Porterfield, the actual slayer, would not accept the same plea. Judge McCartie said he had "absolutely no authority" to accept her independent plea. Owens and Porterfield were tried together. The jury sentenced them to death.
As a result Gale Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor's offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.
Other cases raise more questions
The history of fatal domestic violence cases in Tennessee courts provides other legalistic outcomes that make even more puzzling the plight of Gaile Owens.
In 1982, Kathryn England, a mother of four in Limestone in East Tennessee, murdered her husband, Frank, by punching a hole in the bedroom ceiling and shooting him with his hunting rifle. She remained in the upstairs room while her husband, pleading for help, bled to death.
The prosecution told her jury that the act was premeditated: that she had drugged him and planned the shot through the ceiling before the slaying. The jury rejected her spousal abuse claim and sentenced her to life in prison. She contracted cancer in prison and appealed to Gov. Lamar Alexander to commute her sentence on two grounds: she had been a battered woman and she was suffering from life-threatening cancer.
In 1984, Alexander commuted her life sentence to the 15 months she had served after a recommendation from the state parole board, and she was freed. Alexander, in granting her plea because of her illness, said of her battered woman defense: "There may be other cases where it should be considered as a basis for release." England, who has since died, married again three years after her release.
And then there is the Memphis case of William E. Groseclose, who hired two men to murder his wife, Deborah Lee, in 1977. He was convicted and sentenced to death along with Ronald Eugene Rickman, the man he paid to kill her.
The Tennessee Supreme Court, in rejecting an early appeal, described the slaying as "the most atrocious and inhuman conceivable." Rickman and a colleague, Phillip Michael Britt, kidnapped and raped Deborah Groseclose, stabbed her repeatedly in the back and left her in the trunk of a car in a Memphis parking lot. Groseclose and Rickman were sentenced to death. In 1997, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed their sentences on grounds that their lawyers had so bungled the defense that they had been effectively denied legal counsel. Both killers were re-sentenced to life.
Gaile Owens' appeals also contended that her lawyers were incompetent because they failed to introduce evidence of battered woman syndrome. In the Groseclose and Rickman cases, two of three federal judges, James Ryan and Damon Keith, found clear evidence that their lawyers failed them and reversed their convictions. A third judge, Richard Suhrheinrich, dissented.
In Gaile Owens' case, two of the three federal appeals judges, Danny Boggs and Eugene Siler, found that she did not cooperate with her lawyers and that they were competent. The third judge, Gilbert Merritt, found that her lawyers were unprepared and failed to give her an adequate defense. In federal appeals cases, two-judge majorities prevail. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her case.
Within a few weeks, Gaile Owens will be the seventh inmate executed by lethal injection since 2000. The sixth, Cecil J. Johnson, died by lethal injection earlier this month.
In a letter written to Gov. Phil Bredesen earlier this year, Owens expressed her continuing remorse over her actions. Surprisingly, nowhere in the letter does she ask the governor to commute her death sentence to life.
George Barrett, who now is representing Owens, has joined Swift and Henry, the federal public defenders, in filing a formal plea asking the governor to commute her sentence to life in prison. That was the plea she tried to make in a Memphis trial court almost a quarter century ago.
Article: Providence’s murder rate spikes in 2009
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, December 20, 2009
By W. Zachary Malinowski
Journal Staff Writer
Eugene Briggs, 28, was shot and killed Wednesday.
PROVIDENCE — The peaceful holiday season has been anything but tranquil in the state’s largest city.
An unusually violent year was punctuated last week with an explosion of violence that left two people dead, three officers wounded in a drug raid and two other young men hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
The recent carnage has spiked the murder rate in Providence to 22, its highest level in four years and a significant jump from last year’s total of 13 homicides.
“There are too many shootings and too much violence,” said Police Chief Dean M. Esserman. “It’s hard to tell what we have prevented, but we haven’t prevented enough.”
The jump in murders has also been accompanied by a steady climb in shootings over the past five years. Police Department statistics show that through Thursday 83 people had been shot in the city, 5 more than last year and the most since 2003, when 92 people were victims of gunfire.
The surge in murders gives Providence the dubious distinction of having one of the highest murder rates in New England for cities with populations topping 100,000. Hartford, the poor and depressed capital of Connecticut, has 31 murders and 167 shootings so far this year, while New Haven has had 13 murders and 142 shootings. Meanwhile, Bridgeport, the largest city in Connecticut with 139,000 residents, has dropped to 12 murders and 76 shootings, its lowest totals in recent memory.
Nearby, Worcester, Mass., which is about the same size as Providence with a population of 175,000, has had just 6 murders this year and a total of 12 in the past two years.
Boston, with some 600,000 residents, has had 42 homicides so far this year, versus 63 in 2008.
Assistant Bridgeport Police Chief Lynn Kerwin attributes the drop in murders in her city to increased cooperation with federal agencies, such as Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI. Federal laws allow the local police to take advantage of federal racketeering laws that can send players in criminal organizations to prison for a long time.
A few years ago, she said, the city topped out at 63 murders.
“It seems we’ve been pretty successful keeping a lid on things,” Kerwin said.
Providence is really a city of two worlds. The fashionable East Side, home of Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design and many stately homes, has recorded no murders this year. The same can’t be said for downtown, where two weeks ago two Boston men were shot to death and a third man wounded when the police say a gunman walked up to their car as they waited in traffic by the J. Joseph Garrahy Courthouse on Dorrance Street soon after the area’s clubs had closed. The police have not publicly discussed a motive for the bloodshed.
The vast majority of the murders take place on the west side of Route 95 in neighborhoods such as Washington Park, Elmwood, South Providence and the West End. Many of the areas are among the poorest in the city.
The most recent homicide was Wednesday night. Eugene Briggs, 28, had stepped out onto the porch of his Elmwood home for a smoke when he was shot to death. The motive is unclear. That morning, a 16-year-old Hartford neighborhood boy who was shot, along with a brother, on Dec. 13 after leaving a birthday party they had crashed in Elmwood, died at Rhode Island Hospital. A 20-year-old North Providence man surrendered Friday in connection with the shooting.
Five of the slaying victims were women. The oldest was a 56-year-old man and the youngest, the 16-year-old boy.
There is no real pattern to the violence. In other cities, such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., a sudden surge in murders can be attributed to warring drug gangs. That’s not the case in Providence.
Most killers know their victims well.
“The violence is not stranger-to-stranger,” Esserman said. “It’s intimate. Most of the violence is relationship driven.”
Cmdr. Paul J. Kennedy, deputy police chief, attributes much of the bloodshed to economic conditions and unemployment. The state had a 12.7-percent unemployment rate in November, the second highest in the nation behind Michigan .
“I think there are a lot of stresses that come into play that are difficult to define,” he said.
The 2000 Census ranked Providence as the third poorest city in the United States for youth under the age of 18, and as a result, its teenagers are at greater risk of being victims of violent crime, studies show. Only Brownsville, Texas, and Hartford were ranked lower.
Kennedy believes economic stresses have been a contributing factor in eight domestic homicides this year. There were none in 2008. This year’s first murder, on Feb. 2, was a domestic case involving an Army soldier, Richard Reyes-Tavares, on leave. He fatally shot his girlfriend, Betsy Rodriguez, while they sat in a Chevy Trailblazer in the West End.
On May 14, the city experienced one of its more brutal acts of domestic violence. Herbert Byrd was arrested for strangling his estranged girlfriend, Linda Encarnacao, and stabbing her more than two dozen times. He left her dying and unconscious on the floor of her Reservoir Triangle apartment that he set on fire.
Encarnacao had two young children, including one that Byrd had fathered. He pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and arson charges and has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Kennedy said that it’s nearly impossible for the police to control crimes of passion, and, if anything, he said that 2008 was an anomaly because there were no reported domestic murders.
“How do you predict this?” he said. “How do you prevent them?”
So far, the police have made 12 arrests in the 22 murders and a grand jury is reviewing evidence in another case that may soon lead to a murder indictment, said Detective Capt. James Desmarais. The clearance rate is 55 percent, just under the national rate of 62 percent recorded by the Justice Department’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
The police say the constant back-and-forth between rival gangs or groups of warring youths is also driving the violence. Several nights a week, gang members are involved in drive-by shootings in which they cruise past an enemy’s home and open fire.
Usually, no one is struck, but sometimes the gunplay turns fatal.
In March, Angelo J. Camarena, 17, a known associate of Members of Pine, a South Side gang, was shot dead at a backyard party on Friendship Street. Five days later, Edwin Dilone, 17, an associate of C-Block, another South Side gang, was shot and critically wounded in retribution for Camarena’s slaying.
Dilone survived the shooting.
Two weeks later, Dominque Gay, 22, was ambushed and fatally shot near Roger Williams Park. Investigators said that Gay was a member or close associate of the Goonies, a relatively new street gang based in Smith Hill and Manton.
Stolen, borrowed and legally owned handguns were used in most of the murders. In recent years, the Providence police have been aggressive in taking illegally held guns off the street and having felons in possession of firearms charged with federal crimes.
Oftentimes, the police said, the legal owner of a gun isn’t aware it has been stolen — or never bothers to report to the police that the weapon is missing.
This year, the Providence police have recovered 123 illegally held guns, up from 94 in 2008. Kennedy conceded that more gun seizures means there are more illegal weapons on the street.
Three of the murders have stumped investigators: a slaying in June in Federal Hill and the downtown double homicide.
On June 12, Charles T. Joiner Jr., 27, was walking two women to their apartment door on Federal Hill when a gunman fired a single shot and killed him. The police believe that he was the victim of an attempted robbery.
On Dec. 6, David E. Thomas, 22, and Domingo Ortiz, 21, were killed, while a third Boston man in the car, Dwaynne Thomas, was wounded in the Dorrance Street shooting.The Providence police have been working with the Boston Police Department in an attempt to determine whether the men had a run-in with someone at a downtown nightclub, or whether the killer followed them from Massachusetts.
Every day, Esserman and Kennedy talk about what the department can do to reduce the number of murders and shootings. Esserman, the father of three children, finds it particularly disturbing that the killers and victims are getting younger. He blames much of the violent behavior on what they experience or witness at home.
“Our young are finding that violence is a response to conflicts,” he said. “And, almost always, the weapon of death is a gun.”
Esserman makes it a practice of rushing to the hospital whenever anyone suffers from what appears to be a life-threatening gunshot wound. This year, he has worn a path between police headquarters and Rhode Island Hospital.
On Tuesday afternoon, Esserman raced to the hospital after Javon Parrott, 18, was shot while he walked on Taylor Street in South Providence. He hugged the teenager’s mother and approached Parrott, who was being wheeled on a gurney from the trauma unit to the operating room.
“I told them that I love them and everything is going to be OK,” Esserman said.
The next day, two young men were charged in connection with the shooting. One of them, Carron Smith, 23, was arrested five years ago for shooting a teenager at the Davey Lopes Recreation Center in South Providence.
BY THE NUMBERS
Homicide rate climbing again
The annual number of murders in Providence since 2000.30
200023
200123
200220
2003 18
2004 23
2005 11
2006 14
2007 13
200822
2009
By W. Zachary Malinowski
Journal Staff Writer
Eugene Briggs, 28, was shot and killed Wednesday.
PROVIDENCE — The peaceful holiday season has been anything but tranquil in the state’s largest city.
An unusually violent year was punctuated last week with an explosion of violence that left two people dead, three officers wounded in a drug raid and two other young men hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
The recent carnage has spiked the murder rate in Providence to 22, its highest level in four years and a significant jump from last year’s total of 13 homicides.
“There are too many shootings and too much violence,” said Police Chief Dean M. Esserman. “It’s hard to tell what we have prevented, but we haven’t prevented enough.”
The jump in murders has also been accompanied by a steady climb in shootings over the past five years. Police Department statistics show that through Thursday 83 people had been shot in the city, 5 more than last year and the most since 2003, when 92 people were victims of gunfire.
The surge in murders gives Providence the dubious distinction of having one of the highest murder rates in New England for cities with populations topping 100,000. Hartford, the poor and depressed capital of Connecticut, has 31 murders and 167 shootings so far this year, while New Haven has had 13 murders and 142 shootings. Meanwhile, Bridgeport, the largest city in Connecticut with 139,000 residents, has dropped to 12 murders and 76 shootings, its lowest totals in recent memory.
Nearby, Worcester, Mass., which is about the same size as Providence with a population of 175,000, has had just 6 murders this year and a total of 12 in the past two years.
Boston, with some 600,000 residents, has had 42 homicides so far this year, versus 63 in 2008.
Assistant Bridgeport Police Chief Lynn Kerwin attributes the drop in murders in her city to increased cooperation with federal agencies, such as Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI. Federal laws allow the local police to take advantage of federal racketeering laws that can send players in criminal organizations to prison for a long time.
A few years ago, she said, the city topped out at 63 murders.
“It seems we’ve been pretty successful keeping a lid on things,” Kerwin said.
Providence is really a city of two worlds. The fashionable East Side, home of Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design and many stately homes, has recorded no murders this year. The same can’t be said for downtown, where two weeks ago two Boston men were shot to death and a third man wounded when the police say a gunman walked up to their car as they waited in traffic by the J. Joseph Garrahy Courthouse on Dorrance Street soon after the area’s clubs had closed. The police have not publicly discussed a motive for the bloodshed.
The vast majority of the murders take place on the west side of Route 95 in neighborhoods such as Washington Park, Elmwood, South Providence and the West End. Many of the areas are among the poorest in the city.
The most recent homicide was Wednesday night. Eugene Briggs, 28, had stepped out onto the porch of his Elmwood home for a smoke when he was shot to death. The motive is unclear. That morning, a 16-year-old Hartford neighborhood boy who was shot, along with a brother, on Dec. 13 after leaving a birthday party they had crashed in Elmwood, died at Rhode Island Hospital. A 20-year-old North Providence man surrendered Friday in connection with the shooting.
Five of the slaying victims were women. The oldest was a 56-year-old man and the youngest, the 16-year-old boy.
There is no real pattern to the violence. In other cities, such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., a sudden surge in murders can be attributed to warring drug gangs. That’s not the case in Providence.
Most killers know their victims well.
“The violence is not stranger-to-stranger,” Esserman said. “It’s intimate. Most of the violence is relationship driven.”
Cmdr. Paul J. Kennedy, deputy police chief, attributes much of the bloodshed to economic conditions and unemployment. The state had a 12.7-percent unemployment rate in November, the second highest in the nation behind Michigan .
“I think there are a lot of stresses that come into play that are difficult to define,” he said.
The 2000 Census ranked Providence as the third poorest city in the United States for youth under the age of 18, and as a result, its teenagers are at greater risk of being victims of violent crime, studies show. Only Brownsville, Texas, and Hartford were ranked lower.
Kennedy believes economic stresses have been a contributing factor in eight domestic homicides this year. There were none in 2008. This year’s first murder, on Feb. 2, was a domestic case involving an Army soldier, Richard Reyes-Tavares, on leave. He fatally shot his girlfriend, Betsy Rodriguez, while they sat in a Chevy Trailblazer in the West End.
On May 14, the city experienced one of its more brutal acts of domestic violence. Herbert Byrd was arrested for strangling his estranged girlfriend, Linda Encarnacao, and stabbing her more than two dozen times. He left her dying and unconscious on the floor of her Reservoir Triangle apartment that he set on fire.
Encarnacao had two young children, including one that Byrd had fathered. He pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and arson charges and has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Kennedy said that it’s nearly impossible for the police to control crimes of passion, and, if anything, he said that 2008 was an anomaly because there were no reported domestic murders.
“How do you predict this?” he said. “How do you prevent them?”
So far, the police have made 12 arrests in the 22 murders and a grand jury is reviewing evidence in another case that may soon lead to a murder indictment, said Detective Capt. James Desmarais. The clearance rate is 55 percent, just under the national rate of 62 percent recorded by the Justice Department’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
The police say the constant back-and-forth between rival gangs or groups of warring youths is also driving the violence. Several nights a week, gang members are involved in drive-by shootings in which they cruise past an enemy’s home and open fire.
Usually, no one is struck, but sometimes the gunplay turns fatal.
In March, Angelo J. Camarena, 17, a known associate of Members of Pine, a South Side gang, was shot dead at a backyard party on Friendship Street. Five days later, Edwin Dilone, 17, an associate of C-Block, another South Side gang, was shot and critically wounded in retribution for Camarena’s slaying.
Dilone survived the shooting.
Two weeks later, Dominque Gay, 22, was ambushed and fatally shot near Roger Williams Park. Investigators said that Gay was a member or close associate of the Goonies, a relatively new street gang based in Smith Hill and Manton.
Stolen, borrowed and legally owned handguns were used in most of the murders. In recent years, the Providence police have been aggressive in taking illegally held guns off the street and having felons in possession of firearms charged with federal crimes.
Oftentimes, the police said, the legal owner of a gun isn’t aware it has been stolen — or never bothers to report to the police that the weapon is missing.
This year, the Providence police have recovered 123 illegally held guns, up from 94 in 2008. Kennedy conceded that more gun seizures means there are more illegal weapons on the street.
Three of the murders have stumped investigators: a slaying in June in Federal Hill and the downtown double homicide.
On June 12, Charles T. Joiner Jr., 27, was walking two women to their apartment door on Federal Hill when a gunman fired a single shot and killed him. The police believe that he was the victim of an attempted robbery.
On Dec. 6, David E. Thomas, 22, and Domingo Ortiz, 21, were killed, while a third Boston man in the car, Dwaynne Thomas, was wounded in the Dorrance Street shooting.The Providence police have been working with the Boston Police Department in an attempt to determine whether the men had a run-in with someone at a downtown nightclub, or whether the killer followed them from Massachusetts.
Every day, Esserman and Kennedy talk about what the department can do to reduce the number of murders and shootings. Esserman, the father of three children, finds it particularly disturbing that the killers and victims are getting younger. He blames much of the violent behavior on what they experience or witness at home.
“Our young are finding that violence is a response to conflicts,” he said. “And, almost always, the weapon of death is a gun.”
Esserman makes it a practice of rushing to the hospital whenever anyone suffers from what appears to be a life-threatening gunshot wound. This year, he has worn a path between police headquarters and Rhode Island Hospital.
On Tuesday afternoon, Esserman raced to the hospital after Javon Parrott, 18, was shot while he walked on Taylor Street in South Providence. He hugged the teenager’s mother and approached Parrott, who was being wheeled on a gurney from the trauma unit to the operating room.
“I told them that I love them and everything is going to be OK,” Esserman said.
The next day, two young men were charged in connection with the shooting. One of them, Carron Smith, 23, was arrested five years ago for shooting a teenager at the Davey Lopes Recreation Center in South Providence.
BY THE NUMBERS
Homicide rate climbing again
The annual number of murders in Providence since 2000.30
200023
200123
200220
2003 18
2004 23
2005 11
2006 14
2007 13
200822
2009
Article: For abused women, Christmas is hunting season
Jan Jarboe Russell - Jan Jarboe Russell
In one fairy-tale version of Christmas, San Antonio families will gather around peaceful hearths to give each other gifts of joy.
But Marta Peláez knows a dark side of Christmas — one in which emotions run high, money runs low and women receive gifts of violence.
“I call it the hunting season,” said Peláez, director of Family Violence Prevention Services Inc. “It's the time of year when men who regularly abuse women go hunting.”
The facts bear her out.
Last Christmas Eve, Kimberly Tello, 18, was shot in the head and killed. Her boyfriend Richard Nathan Gallardo, of the same age, was indicted in March and is out on bail awaiting a February trial. Since her slaying, 15 more women in San Antonio have been killed, allegedly by their husbands or boyfriends, all of them domestic violence victims. That number does not include women with histories of abuse who fell into despair and committed suicide, leaving children with the agonizing question: What could I have done to save her life?
On the day I interviewed Peláez, 148 people were in residence at the Battered Women and Children's Shelter, hiding from their “hunters.” All these residents want for Christmas: safe harbor.
Meanwhile, there also are those victims of abuse no longer at the shelter but whose Christmas will never again be peaceful.
One abuse victim in her early 30s is home now, recuperating from a physical assault by her husband, who stabbed her deep in the mouth with a large kitchen knife, cutting her tongue and permanently disfiguring her face. For now, the man is in jail, charged with the abuse. “How will this young woman ever really heal?” Peláez asked. “What is the mindset of a man who does that to his wife?”
It's a rhetorical question because Peláez, who has worked in this field a very long time, knows the mindset well.
Once a woman stays in an abusive relationship, even for one year, it's difficult to overcome the erosion in self-esteem and the humiliation of having “failed” at the relationship or marriage. Too often, pastors and priests advise women to stay in abusive marriages, characterizing abuse as a cross to bear. Popular culture routinely equates violence with sex.
What's not acknowledged is how persistent sexism destroys men's lives as well. Over the years, Peláez has heard the stories of broken men who felt frustrated by the confusing uncertainty of their own lives — job insecurity, mounting bills, the need to feel in control — and took those frustrations out on wives.
For everyone who lives in a real family, and not in a fairy tale, here's the truth: Times are difficult, globally and locally. None of us needs more discouragement, anger, criticism or chaos.
If you are in an abusive relationship: Leave. There is no comfort or security in the familiar pattern of abuse. If you are in crisis, call the Battered Women and Children's Shelter at (210) 733-8810.
For those with the ordinary problems of family life — kids with rumbling stomachs or broken hearts, parents who are old and lonely, friends who feel hopeless, spouses who occasionally feel overwhelmed — count your blessings. These are tender mercies.
jrussell@express-news.net
In one fairy-tale version of Christmas, San Antonio families will gather around peaceful hearths to give each other gifts of joy.
But Marta Peláez knows a dark side of Christmas — one in which emotions run high, money runs low and women receive gifts of violence.
“I call it the hunting season,” said Peláez, director of Family Violence Prevention Services Inc. “It's the time of year when men who regularly abuse women go hunting.”
The facts bear her out.
Last Christmas Eve, Kimberly Tello, 18, was shot in the head and killed. Her boyfriend Richard Nathan Gallardo, of the same age, was indicted in March and is out on bail awaiting a February trial. Since her slaying, 15 more women in San Antonio have been killed, allegedly by their husbands or boyfriends, all of them domestic violence victims. That number does not include women with histories of abuse who fell into despair and committed suicide, leaving children with the agonizing question: What could I have done to save her life?
On the day I interviewed Peláez, 148 people were in residence at the Battered Women and Children's Shelter, hiding from their “hunters.” All these residents want for Christmas: safe harbor.
Meanwhile, there also are those victims of abuse no longer at the shelter but whose Christmas will never again be peaceful.
One abuse victim in her early 30s is home now, recuperating from a physical assault by her husband, who stabbed her deep in the mouth with a large kitchen knife, cutting her tongue and permanently disfiguring her face. For now, the man is in jail, charged with the abuse. “How will this young woman ever really heal?” Peláez asked. “What is the mindset of a man who does that to his wife?”
It's a rhetorical question because Peláez, who has worked in this field a very long time, knows the mindset well.
Once a woman stays in an abusive relationship, even for one year, it's difficult to overcome the erosion in self-esteem and the humiliation of having “failed” at the relationship or marriage. Too often, pastors and priests advise women to stay in abusive marriages, characterizing abuse as a cross to bear. Popular culture routinely equates violence with sex.
What's not acknowledged is how persistent sexism destroys men's lives as well. Over the years, Peláez has heard the stories of broken men who felt frustrated by the confusing uncertainty of their own lives — job insecurity, mounting bills, the need to feel in control — and took those frustrations out on wives.
For everyone who lives in a real family, and not in a fairy tale, here's the truth: Times are difficult, globally and locally. None of us needs more discouragement, anger, criticism or chaos.
If you are in an abusive relationship: Leave. There is no comfort or security in the familiar pattern of abuse. If you are in crisis, call the Battered Women and Children's Shelter at (210) 733-8810.
For those with the ordinary problems of family life — kids with rumbling stomachs or broken hearts, parents who are old and lonely, friends who feel hopeless, spouses who occasionally feel overwhelmed — count your blessings. These are tender mercies.
jrussell@express-news.net
Beaver County, PA: Center Twp. couple’s deaths ruled murder-suicide
By: Bill Vidonic Beaver County Times
Saturday December 19, 2009 11:05 PM
CENTER TWP. — The deaths Thursday of a Center Township couple were a murder-suicide, Center police Chief Barry Kramer said Saturday.
Kramer said police were called to 744 Bunker Hill Road around 12:40 p.m. Thursday, after a co-worker of Lucy Manning went to check on her because she hadn’t shown up for work.
Looking through a window, the co-worker saw a foot, Kramer said, and called police. When police entered the home, Kramer said, they found Manning dead in her living room of a rifle slug wound to the head, along with her pit bull.
Police then went into a bedroom in the house, and found Manning’s husband, William M. Moore, also dead of a rifle slug wound to the head.
Kramer said family members said that the couple, in their mid-30s, apparently had been having problems recently.
He said Moore had left a note in which he apologized for the killings.
Kramer said there was no sign of a struggle in the couple’s home, which they had been renting, and it appeared that Manning had been killed first.
Kramer said the couple did not have family in the area.
Saturday December 19, 2009 11:05 PM
CENTER TWP. — The deaths Thursday of a Center Township couple were a murder-suicide, Center police Chief Barry Kramer said Saturday.
Kramer said police were called to 744 Bunker Hill Road around 12:40 p.m. Thursday, after a co-worker of Lucy Manning went to check on her because she hadn’t shown up for work.
Looking through a window, the co-worker saw a foot, Kramer said, and called police. When police entered the home, Kramer said, they found Manning dead in her living room of a rifle slug wound to the head, along with her pit bull.
Police then went into a bedroom in the house, and found Manning’s husband, William M. Moore, also dead of a rifle slug wound to the head.
Kramer said family members said that the couple, in their mid-30s, apparently had been having problems recently.
He said Moore had left a note in which he apologized for the killings.
Kramer said there was no sign of a struggle in the couple’s home, which they had been renting, and it appeared that Manning had been killed first.
Kramer said the couple did not have family in the area.
Idaho Falls, ID: Police Call Shooting Murder/Suicide
Posted: Dec 20, 2009 01:00 AM
Reporter: Aaron Kunz
The Idaho Falls Police Saturday released more information - giving us an idea of what may have caused one man to shoot another then turn the gun on himself.
Police say the incident began with a dinner between the shooter and his wife - where the wife told him she was seeing someone else.
The shooting began here, at the Wal-Mart on Utah Avenue in Idaho Falls...the shooter then led police on a slow speed pursuit that ended here on the corner of south Boulevard and 16th.
But it really began earlier Friday evening at dinner between 49-year-old Keith Matthias and his wife Jennifer.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Her and her husband had been having marital problems and had talked about splitting up because her husband Keith Matthias had found out Jennifer Matthias and Jack Purcell had been involved in some sort of relationship."
Jennifer told police - her husband seemed to accept the revelation of his wife extramarital affair...but that soon changed when Jennifer who left the dinner alone noticed her husband following her in a white 93 mazda 6-2-6.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Jennifer went to the Wal-Mart parking lot on Utah because she felt it would be a safe place - at that time she saw Keith arrive and park in the Wal-Mart parking lot a short distance away."
Jack Purcell arrived at the Wal-Mart parking lot in this blue Ford F-150 pickup - within two minutes of a confrontation - witnesses and the store security camera's recorded multiple shots fired by Keith Matthias.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "There's a point just after - where Jennifer runs over and has a short conversation of some sort with Keith. He drives in a circle, it appears he's going to leave the scene - drives in a circle, parks next to Jacks vehicle again, gets out and fire another shot at Jack. Keith then leaves the area."
Matthias then left the parking lot - traveling left on Utah - then right on Broadway. Police caught up to him on the corner of Broadway and Yellowstone.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Officers attempted to stop the vehicle as it continued east on elm, the driver of the vehicle didn't stop."
After a short slow speed pursuit - police decided to end the chase by pushing his car into a spin that ended on the front lawn of Hawthorne Elementary.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "The suspect got out of the vehicle at that point, had a handgun down to his side. One officer attempted to tase him, the probes didn't appear to go into the suspect - had little to no affect. The suspect then put the gun to his head and fired."
Keith Purcell used a five shot revolver - police said Friday they believe he reloaded at least once but haven't released the total number of shots fired.
Reporter: Aaron Kunz
The Idaho Falls Police Saturday released more information - giving us an idea of what may have caused one man to shoot another then turn the gun on himself.
Police say the incident began with a dinner between the shooter and his wife - where the wife told him she was seeing someone else.
The shooting began here, at the Wal-Mart on Utah Avenue in Idaho Falls...the shooter then led police on a slow speed pursuit that ended here on the corner of south Boulevard and 16th.
But it really began earlier Friday evening at dinner between 49-year-old Keith Matthias and his wife Jennifer.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Her and her husband had been having marital problems and had talked about splitting up because her husband Keith Matthias had found out Jennifer Matthias and Jack Purcell had been involved in some sort of relationship."
Jennifer told police - her husband seemed to accept the revelation of his wife extramarital affair...but that soon changed when Jennifer who left the dinner alone noticed her husband following her in a white 93 mazda 6-2-6.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Jennifer went to the Wal-Mart parking lot on Utah because she felt it would be a safe place - at that time she saw Keith arrive and park in the Wal-Mart parking lot a short distance away."
Jack Purcell arrived at the Wal-Mart parking lot in this blue Ford F-150 pickup - within two minutes of a confrontation - witnesses and the store security camera's recorded multiple shots fired by Keith Matthias.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "There's a point just after - where Jennifer runs over and has a short conversation of some sort with Keith. He drives in a circle, it appears he's going to leave the scene - drives in a circle, parks next to Jacks vehicle again, gets out and fire another shot at Jack. Keith then leaves the area."
Matthias then left the parking lot - traveling left on Utah - then right on Broadway. Police caught up to him on the corner of Broadway and Yellowstone.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "Officers attempted to stop the vehicle as it continued east on elm, the driver of the vehicle didn't stop."
After a short slow speed pursuit - police decided to end the chase by pushing his car into a spin that ended on the front lawn of Hawthorne Elementary.
Sgt. Phil Grimes/Idaho Falls Police Dept.: "The suspect got out of the vehicle at that point, had a handgun down to his side. One officer attempted to tase him, the probes didn't appear to go into the suspect - had little to no affect. The suspect then put the gun to his head and fired."
Keith Purcell used a five shot revolver - police said Friday they believe he reloaded at least once but haven't released the total number of shots fired.
Nacogdoches, TX: East Texas man charged with murder of his estranged wife
Posted: Dec 20, 2009 12:54 AM EST
Updated: Dec 20, 2009 1:57 AM EST
By Morgan Chesky - bio | email
NACOGDOCHES, TX (KLTV) - The man authorities say killed his estranged wife is now charged with murder.
Today John Presley of Nacogdoches was arraigned, receiving felony charges.
The indictment comes after his wife, stephanie fowler presley's body was discovered Thursday morning in a wooded area in Nacogdoches County.
Authorities apprehended John Presley yesterday as he attempted to cross into Mexico with this 40 year old Charlotte Mallow.
Mallow is charged with hindering arrest, a third degree felony and is currently in Nacogdoches County Jail with Presley. Both are awaiting questioning.
Updated: Dec 20, 2009 1:57 AM EST
By Morgan Chesky - bio | email
NACOGDOCHES, TX (KLTV) - The man authorities say killed his estranged wife is now charged with murder.
Today John Presley of Nacogdoches was arraigned, receiving felony charges.
The indictment comes after his wife, stephanie fowler presley's body was discovered Thursday morning in a wooded area in Nacogdoches County.
Authorities apprehended John Presley yesterday as he attempted to cross into Mexico with this 40 year old Charlotte Mallow.
Mallow is charged with hindering arrest, a third degree felony and is currently in Nacogdoches County Jail with Presley. Both are awaiting questioning.
Geismar, LA: Woman shot, killed by ex-boyfriend
By KIMBERLY VETTER
Advocate staff writer
Published: Dec 20, 2009 - Page: 2B
GEISMAR — A man shot and killed his former girlfriend late Saturday and then turned the gun on himself, officials with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
The shooting occurred just before 9 p.m. at a 37346 Anderson Road residence, where a group of people had gathered to watch the New Orleans Saints game, said Chief Deputy Tony Bacala.
The shooter knocked on the door and asked for his former girlfriend, who met him outside under a carport, Bacala said.
People inside the residence then heard gunshots, went under the carport and found both the man and the woman fatally shot, Bacala said.
Investigators believe the man shot the woman and then himself, Bacala said.
A man who knew the shooter called investigators 26 minutes before the killings and said that the shooter told him that he was going to kill a woman and then himself, Bacala said.
The informant did not know where the shooting was going to take place, Bacala added. Deputies then tried to find him before he got to the woman.
The victims’ names had not been released as of late Saturday, pending family notification. But, Bacala said, the man was from Thibodaux and the woman was from St. Gabriel.
Advocate staff writer
Published: Dec 20, 2009 - Page: 2B
GEISMAR — A man shot and killed his former girlfriend late Saturday and then turned the gun on himself, officials with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
The shooting occurred just before 9 p.m. at a 37346 Anderson Road residence, where a group of people had gathered to watch the New Orleans Saints game, said Chief Deputy Tony Bacala.
The shooter knocked on the door and asked for his former girlfriend, who met him outside under a carport, Bacala said.
People inside the residence then heard gunshots, went under the carport and found both the man and the woman fatally shot, Bacala said.
Investigators believe the man shot the woman and then himself, Bacala said.
A man who knew the shooter called investigators 26 minutes before the killings and said that the shooter told him that he was going to kill a woman and then himself, Bacala said.
The informant did not know where the shooting was going to take place, Bacala added. Deputies then tried to find him before he got to the woman.
The victims’ names had not been released as of late Saturday, pending family notification. But, Bacala said, the man was from Thibodaux and the woman was from St. Gabriel.
Alamosa, CO: Alamosa couple found dead in possible domestic dispute
Husband may have shot wife, then himself, according to preliminary investigation.
By MATT HILDNER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
December 19, 2009 01:10 am
ALAMOSA - Authorities are investigating the shooting deaths of a married couple found Thursday at a West Side apartment complex.
A neighbor trying to get into the manager's office to see Carmen Martinez, 49, found the woman and her husband Tommy Martinez, 52, there at roughly 3 p.m.
"Preliminarily, it's hard for me to speculate," Police Chief John Jackson said. "But it would appear that Tommy Martinez may have shot Carmen Martinez."
Jackson said Tommy Martinez then may have turned the gun on himself.
The home address for the couple was at the complex at 2315 Vigil Way where Carmen Martinez was a manager, although Jackson said the couple had separated.
Investigators did not know what caused the dispute but were checking domestic court records Friday for leads.
The couple did not have children living with them.
Investigators were in the process of trying to determine if anyone else may have been in the room at the time of the shootings.
They are also awaiting preliminary results from autopsies performed Friday by the El Paso County Coroner.
Jackson said the accident likely happened just before the couple was found given that one neighbor reported hearing two gun shots just prior.
The two were pronounced dead at the scene.
matth@chieftain.com
By MATT HILDNER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
December 19, 2009 01:10 am
ALAMOSA - Authorities are investigating the shooting deaths of a married couple found Thursday at a West Side apartment complex.
A neighbor trying to get into the manager's office to see Carmen Martinez, 49, found the woman and her husband Tommy Martinez, 52, there at roughly 3 p.m.
"Preliminarily, it's hard for me to speculate," Police Chief John Jackson said. "But it would appear that Tommy Martinez may have shot Carmen Martinez."
Jackson said Tommy Martinez then may have turned the gun on himself.
The home address for the couple was at the complex at 2315 Vigil Way where Carmen Martinez was a manager, although Jackson said the couple had separated.
Investigators did not know what caused the dispute but were checking domestic court records Friday for leads.
The couple did not have children living with them.
Investigators were in the process of trying to determine if anyone else may have been in the room at the time of the shootings.
They are also awaiting preliminary results from autopsies performed Friday by the El Paso County Coroner.
Jackson said the accident likely happened just before the couple was found given that one neighbor reported hearing two gun shots just prior.
The two were pronounced dead at the scene.
matth@chieftain.com
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Geneva, NY: Suspect in Geneva double homicide held on $250,000 bail
By The Associated Press
December 18, 2009, 9:29PM
CANANDAIGUA, NY — Less than two weeks before completing parole, a man stabbed to death his girlfriend and her 12-year-daughter with a razor knife at an apartment in New York’s Finger Lakes region, a prosecutor said Friday.
John Brown, 35, who served 2 1/2 years in prison for violently shaking his infant daughter in 2003, was indicted Friday on first-degree and second-degree murder charges in the slayings of Helen Buchel, 34, and her daughter, Brittany Passalacqua, at their home in Geneva the night of Nov. 19.
Buchel’s 14-year-old son, Brandon, discovered the bodies the following afternoon.
“Obviously, it’s very, very difficult for him,” Ontario County District Attorney R. Michael Tantillo said.
Brown, who is unemployed, displayed no emotion at his arraignment and a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Calls to defense attorney Robert Zimmerman went unanswered Friday.
Brown, who wears his 18-inch-long hair in a weaved ponytail, lives in Palmyra, about 20 miles from Geneva. He was arrested the day the bodies were found. No other details about the circumstances of the slayings have been disclosed.
Prison officials say Brown drew a three-year sentence in January 2004 for causing serious physical injury to his infant daughter in March 2003. She has since recovered, but the nature of her injuries were not disclosed.
Brown got out of prison in June 2006, but returned in March 2008 on a parole violation for illegal drug use and associating with someone who has a criminal record, officials say. Released again in February, his parole term was due to expire on Dec. 2.
He was jailed for two weeks in September for taking Buchel’s car without permission and told he could no longer live with her.
December 18, 2009, 9:29PM
CANANDAIGUA, NY — Less than two weeks before completing parole, a man stabbed to death his girlfriend and her 12-year-daughter with a razor knife at an apartment in New York’s Finger Lakes region, a prosecutor said Friday.
John Brown, 35, who served 2 1/2 years in prison for violently shaking his infant daughter in 2003, was indicted Friday on first-degree and second-degree murder charges in the slayings of Helen Buchel, 34, and her daughter, Brittany Passalacqua, at their home in Geneva the night of Nov. 19.
Buchel’s 14-year-old son, Brandon, discovered the bodies the following afternoon.
“Obviously, it’s very, very difficult for him,” Ontario County District Attorney R. Michael Tantillo said.
Brown, who is unemployed, displayed no emotion at his arraignment and a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Calls to defense attorney Robert Zimmerman went unanswered Friday.
Brown, who wears his 18-inch-long hair in a weaved ponytail, lives in Palmyra, about 20 miles from Geneva. He was arrested the day the bodies were found. No other details about the circumstances of the slayings have been disclosed.
Prison officials say Brown drew a three-year sentence in January 2004 for causing serious physical injury to his infant daughter in March 2003. She has since recovered, but the nature of her injuries were not disclosed.
Brown got out of prison in June 2006, but returned in March 2008 on a parole violation for illegal drug use and associating with someone who has a criminal record, officials say. Released again in February, his parole term was due to expire on Dec. 2.
He was jailed for two weeks in September for taking Buchel’s car without permission and told he could no longer live with her.
Leschi, WA: Boyfriend Arrested In Stabbing Death Of Girlfriend In Leschi
Posted: 5:33 pm PST December 17, 2009
SEATTLE -- A man called 911 Wednesday night to report that he had just stabbed his girlfriend, said the Seattle Police Department.
When police arrived at the apartment in the 300 block of 28th Avenue South they found a 49-year-old woman with a life-threatening stab wound to her body.
She was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she later died.
Detectives responded to the payphone where the 911 call was made in the 2300 block of South Jackson and took a 53-year-old man in custody.
He was interviewed by homicide detectives and later booked into the King County Jail for investigation of homicide.
Detectives will determine if charges will be filed.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
SEATTLE -- A man called 911 Wednesday night to report that he had just stabbed his girlfriend, said the Seattle Police Department.
When police arrived at the apartment in the 300 block of 28th Avenue South they found a 49-year-old woman with a life-threatening stab wound to her body.
She was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she later died.
Detectives responded to the payphone where the 911 call was made in the 2300 block of South Jackson and took a 53-year-old man in custody.
He was interviewed by homicide detectives and later booked into the King County Jail for investigation of homicide.
Detectives will determine if charges will be filed.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Raleigh, NC: Patel found guilty in wife's death
Posted: Dec. 18 4:10 p.m.
Updated: Today at 6:39 a.m.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Wake County jury on Friday found Harish Patel, of Cary, guilty of killing his estranged wife and setting her body on fire last year. He faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
The body of Vanlata Patel, 57, was found in a brush fire along Interstate 85 in Mecklenburg County, Va., on Jan. 16, 2008. Her husband was arrested days later and charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutors argued that Harish Patel suffocated his wife in his apartment because they were going through a contentious divorce. They fought over money, and he was suspicious that she was involved romantically with a mutual friend, witnesses said.
"My sister will never come back, but I think she's at peace," Mina Patel said. "I just miss her dearly."
Defense attorneys argued that authorities quickly focused on their client, and that investigators avoided evidence that might have led them in another direction.
Harish Patel immediately declared his intention to appeal the conviction and thanked his lawyers and supporters.
Reporter: Amanda Lamb
Updated: Today at 6:39 a.m.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Wake County jury on Friday found Harish Patel, of Cary, guilty of killing his estranged wife and setting her body on fire last year. He faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
The body of Vanlata Patel, 57, was found in a brush fire along Interstate 85 in Mecklenburg County, Va., on Jan. 16, 2008. Her husband was arrested days later and charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutors argued that Harish Patel suffocated his wife in his apartment because they were going through a contentious divorce. They fought over money, and he was suspicious that she was involved romantically with a mutual friend, witnesses said.
"My sister will never come back, but I think she's at peace," Mina Patel said. "I just miss her dearly."
Defense attorneys argued that authorities quickly focused on their client, and that investigators avoided evidence that might have led them in another direction.
Harish Patel immediately declared his intention to appeal the conviction and thanked his lawyers and supporters.
Reporter: Amanda Lamb
Dumas, TX: Dumas police kill armed man
Shooting is third in 2 months
By Brenda Bernet
brenda.bernet@amarillo.com
A Dumas police officer shot and killed an armed man Thursday night after responding to a domestic-violence call, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday.
Texas Rangers are investigating the matter.
The incident marks the third officer-involved shooting in two months in the Texas Panhandle.
Dumas police responded Thursday night to a 911 call from a woman in the 200 block of Peach Street in Dumas.
The woman reported a domestic dispute about 9:20 p.m. with her boyfriend, John Calhoun Ward IV, 38, according to information from DPS. Ward had obtained a pistol, pointed it at the woman and threatened to kill her before a Dumas police officer arrived on the scene, according to DPS.
Ward confronted the officer at the front door and pointed a gun at him.
The officer, who has not been identified, shot Ward, who was pronounced dead at Moore County Hospital, the DPS said.
The woman has credited the Dumas police officer with saving her life, DPS officials said. She was taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries suffered in the attack and has been released. The officer was not injured.
The Dumas Police Department referred questions about the incident to David M. Green, 69th District attorney. Green did not know whether the officer was on paid leave from his job or not.
Green and Dumas Police Chief Dale Alwan have delayed the release of the officer's identity to give him time to cope with the incident.
"This has been a very traumatic incident on the officer," Green said.
Four Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting, Green said, and an autopsy was ordered Friday on Calhoun.
Green said he could not remember any other situations when a Dumas police officer shot and killed anyone since he began practicing law in Moore County in 1986.
"Based on the briefings that I have received, I do not anticipate any charges being filed against this officer," Green said.
But Green will present all information and evidence gathered by Rangers to a grand jury, possibly Jan. 7 or Feb. 11. The grand jury will determine if deadly force was justified and whether or not charges will be filed.
A police officer can use deadly force when the officer has an imminent or immediate fear of deadly force toward the officer or someone else, Green said, and pointing a firearm at close range is typically an imminent threat.
Texas Rangers are expected to conclude their investigation of two unidentified police officers from Childress who shot and killed Tabaris Kashawn Brown, 28, on the morning of Nov. 21. In that incident, an officer tried to stop Brown for speeding, and authorities believe Brown led the officer on a chase before stopping and exiting his vehicle. Luke Inman, the 100th District attorney, has said Brown had a loaded gun in his hand and pointed it at officers before they fired their weapons.
Rangers have submitted a report on the incident to their captain for approval, Inman said. He anticipates receiving the report next week. Police Chief Reece Bowen could not be reached Friday.
Another officer-involved shooting occurred in September in Amarillo. The shooting occurred in the 900 block of South Browning Street after a 20-minute standoff in which officers had asked a 24-year-old man to drop his gun more than 50 times. The man motioned his gun in a threatening manner, and an officer shot the man in the neck, Amarillo police said. The man had blocked his girlfriend into the driveway of a residence so she couldn't leave. The man survived.
By Brenda Bernet
brenda.bernet@amarillo.com
A Dumas police officer shot and killed an armed man Thursday night after responding to a domestic-violence call, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday.
Texas Rangers are investigating the matter.
The incident marks the third officer-involved shooting in two months in the Texas Panhandle.
Dumas police responded Thursday night to a 911 call from a woman in the 200 block of Peach Street in Dumas.
The woman reported a domestic dispute about 9:20 p.m. with her boyfriend, John Calhoun Ward IV, 38, according to information from DPS. Ward had obtained a pistol, pointed it at the woman and threatened to kill her before a Dumas police officer arrived on the scene, according to DPS.
Ward confronted the officer at the front door and pointed a gun at him.
The officer, who has not been identified, shot Ward, who was pronounced dead at Moore County Hospital, the DPS said.
The woman has credited the Dumas police officer with saving her life, DPS officials said. She was taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries suffered in the attack and has been released. The officer was not injured.
The Dumas Police Department referred questions about the incident to David M. Green, 69th District attorney. Green did not know whether the officer was on paid leave from his job or not.
Green and Dumas Police Chief Dale Alwan have delayed the release of the officer's identity to give him time to cope with the incident.
"This has been a very traumatic incident on the officer," Green said.
Four Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting, Green said, and an autopsy was ordered Friday on Calhoun.
Green said he could not remember any other situations when a Dumas police officer shot and killed anyone since he began practicing law in Moore County in 1986.
"Based on the briefings that I have received, I do not anticipate any charges being filed against this officer," Green said.
But Green will present all information and evidence gathered by Rangers to a grand jury, possibly Jan. 7 or Feb. 11. The grand jury will determine if deadly force was justified and whether or not charges will be filed.
A police officer can use deadly force when the officer has an imminent or immediate fear of deadly force toward the officer or someone else, Green said, and pointing a firearm at close range is typically an imminent threat.
Texas Rangers are expected to conclude their investigation of two unidentified police officers from Childress who shot and killed Tabaris Kashawn Brown, 28, on the morning of Nov. 21. In that incident, an officer tried to stop Brown for speeding, and authorities believe Brown led the officer on a chase before stopping and exiting his vehicle. Luke Inman, the 100th District attorney, has said Brown had a loaded gun in his hand and pointed it at officers before they fired their weapons.
Rangers have submitted a report on the incident to their captain for approval, Inman said. He anticipates receiving the report next week. Police Chief Reece Bowen could not be reached Friday.
Another officer-involved shooting occurred in September in Amarillo. The shooting occurred in the 900 block of South Browning Street after a 20-minute standoff in which officers had asked a 24-year-old man to drop his gun more than 50 times. The man motioned his gun in a threatening manner, and an officer shot the man in the neck, Amarillo police said. The man had blocked his girlfriend into the driveway of a residence so she couldn't leave. The man survived.
Alamosa, CO: Thursday deaths called murder-suicide
Posted: Saturday, Dec 19th, 2009
By JULIA WILSON
ALAMOSA — Police are calling the Dec. 17 deaths of Carmen Martinez, 49, and Tommy Martinez, 52, a murder/suicide. Their bodies were found Thursday afternoon in the office of an apartment complex at 2303 Vigil Way in Alamosa.
In a plea bargain in circuit court on Dec. 16, Tommy Martinez pled guilty to one charge of harassment, a class three misdemeanor. In exchange the charge of domestic violence was dropped, and the court granted a 12 month deferred sentence.
Martinez was assessed fines and costs of $78 to the victims assistance fund; $78 to the victim compensation fund; $35 court costs; $5 court security cash fund; $2.50 genetic testing surcharge; and $28 address confidentiality fund. A $200 misdemeanor fine was suspended.
In addition the court ordered Martinez to report to the probation office and comply with any conditions of probation that were imposed, to complete a domestic violence evaluation and take any recommended classes.
Martinez was also ordered to comply with a restraining order that had been imposed. Instead he went to Carmen’s place of work the next day, killed her and then killed himself.
The domestic violence charge was brought against Martinez on Nov. 10.
According to court papers, Alamosa Police Department officers were called to an apartment at 2315 Vigil Way that night because Tommy Martinez was threatening his wife with a gun.
Carmen Martinez told officers she and her husband had gone to a movie and had gotten into an argument when they returned home. Carmen said her husband would not let her leave the bedroom, blocking the doorway so she could not get out.
According to the officer’s report to the District Attorney’s Office, Carmen said that after about 10 minutes her husband allowed her to leave the bedroom and go downstairs.
She said she saw a gun in his waistband and became frightened, and managed to leave the house.
The couple’s adult daughter heard the argument and she also saw the gun, according to the report. When she asked her father about the gun he told her it was for hunting.
The daughter said she stayed with her father for a while, and he told her that “if he found out Carmen was cheating on him he would kill her.”
The daughter said she left and told Carmen what her father had said.
Tommy Martinez told officers that he and Carmen had been having marital problems and that he was going to leave her.
He told them that the gun belonged to a friend and that he had returned it already. When officers found a gun, a Smith and Wesson 32-20 caliber revolver, in the apartment on a closet shelf, Martinez said he didn’t tell them about the gun because he was afraid he would get into trouble.
The gun was taken by the officers and placed in evidence. Information on the gun used in the murder/suicide has not been released, nor has any information been released on whether the gun held in evidence was returned to Martinez after his plea bargain.
Martinez was arrested in November on three charges: Menacing, a class 5 felony because a gun was involved; false imprisonment, a class two misdemeanor; and domestic violence, listed just as a misdemeanor without a defining class number.
The District Attorney’s Office charged Martinez on two counts: One count of harassment, a class three misdemeanor; and one count of domestic violence, with no defining designation at all. In the plea bargain the count of domestic violence was dropped, leaving only the harassment charge.
Carmen and Tommy Martinez had been married 30 years, and had two children.
By JULIA WILSON
ALAMOSA — Police are calling the Dec. 17 deaths of Carmen Martinez, 49, and Tommy Martinez, 52, a murder/suicide. Their bodies were found Thursday afternoon in the office of an apartment complex at 2303 Vigil Way in Alamosa.
In a plea bargain in circuit court on Dec. 16, Tommy Martinez pled guilty to one charge of harassment, a class three misdemeanor. In exchange the charge of domestic violence was dropped, and the court granted a 12 month deferred sentence.
Martinez was assessed fines and costs of $78 to the victims assistance fund; $78 to the victim compensation fund; $35 court costs; $5 court security cash fund; $2.50 genetic testing surcharge; and $28 address confidentiality fund. A $200 misdemeanor fine was suspended.
In addition the court ordered Martinez to report to the probation office and comply with any conditions of probation that were imposed, to complete a domestic violence evaluation and take any recommended classes.
Martinez was also ordered to comply with a restraining order that had been imposed. Instead he went to Carmen’s place of work the next day, killed her and then killed himself.
The domestic violence charge was brought against Martinez on Nov. 10.
According to court papers, Alamosa Police Department officers were called to an apartment at 2315 Vigil Way that night because Tommy Martinez was threatening his wife with a gun.
Carmen Martinez told officers she and her husband had gone to a movie and had gotten into an argument when they returned home. Carmen said her husband would not let her leave the bedroom, blocking the doorway so she could not get out.
According to the officer’s report to the District Attorney’s Office, Carmen said that after about 10 minutes her husband allowed her to leave the bedroom and go downstairs.
She said she saw a gun in his waistband and became frightened, and managed to leave the house.
The couple’s adult daughter heard the argument and she also saw the gun, according to the report. When she asked her father about the gun he told her it was for hunting.
The daughter said she stayed with her father for a while, and he told her that “if he found out Carmen was cheating on him he would kill her.”
The daughter said she left and told Carmen what her father had said.
Tommy Martinez told officers that he and Carmen had been having marital problems and that he was going to leave her.
He told them that the gun belonged to a friend and that he had returned it already. When officers found a gun, a Smith and Wesson 32-20 caliber revolver, in the apartment on a closet shelf, Martinez said he didn’t tell them about the gun because he was afraid he would get into trouble.
The gun was taken by the officers and placed in evidence. Information on the gun used in the murder/suicide has not been released, nor has any information been released on whether the gun held in evidence was returned to Martinez after his plea bargain.
Martinez was arrested in November on three charges: Menacing, a class 5 felony because a gun was involved; false imprisonment, a class two misdemeanor; and domestic violence, listed just as a misdemeanor without a defining class number.
The District Attorney’s Office charged Martinez on two counts: One count of harassment, a class three misdemeanor; and one count of domestic violence, with no defining designation at all. In the plea bargain the count of domestic violence was dropped, leaving only the harassment charge.
Carmen and Tommy Martinez had been married 30 years, and had two children.
San Diego, CA: Man out of jail held in slaying of girlfriend, 31
By Kristina Davis, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Karen Kucher, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Saturday, December 19, 2009 at 12:58 a.m.
A man who spent the past month in jail for domestic violence returned to his Golden Hill apartment late Thursday and killed his girlfriend in front of the couple’s two young children, authorities said.
Police found Christina Jones, 31, badly injured inside the apartment, and she died about an hour later at a hospital.
Her boyfriend, Melvin Carter, 29, has been booked into jail on suspicion of murder, said police homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert. An arraignment has been set for Tuesday in San Diego Superior Court.
Detectives said Carter, who posted bail earlier that day, went to the apartment on A Street near Granada Avenue and began arguing with Jones about visiting the children, who are 4 months and 17 months old.
Jones’ roommate, a relative, left the apartment and called 911 about 11:15 p.m.
Carter answered the door when officers arrived. Inside, officers found Jones injured. Paramedics took her to the hospital, where she died about 1 a.m.
No weapon was found, Herbert said. Her cause of death has not been released.
Herbert said investigators were told the couple had been together about five years. Jones also has an older daughter from a previous relationship.
Neighbor Jeffrey Osbrink, 23, said he heard a woman screaming outside his apartment late Thursday. When he looked outside his window moments later, he saw officers swarming the apartment across from him and police carrying out the victim’s toddler.
Neighbors said Jones mostly kept to herself.
Osbrink also said a man from the District Attorney’s Office came by the building looking for her a few days earlier, telling the neighbor Jones wasn’t in trouble but he needed to speak with her.
Carter, who was on probation after pleading guilty to an earlier misdemeanor domestic violence charge, had been arrested Nov. 24 after another domestic dispute, the Sheriff’s Department said. He was held on a probation violation before posting $35,000 bail, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The victim’s sister, Andrea Martin, told KGTV Channel 10 that she was worried Carter was going to hurt Jones.
“I knew he was going to be angry because she had me call police just a couple weeks ago. That was the reason he was in jail,” she said.
Martin also said her sister had planned to seek a restraining order against Carter.
Friend Kristyna Flowers described Jones as a strong woman and a generous, loyal friend. The two met at Chula Vista Jr. High and remained close friends through the years.
“If she had it and you needed it, she’d give it to you,” said Flowers, 30, who lives in Atlanta. “She was very outgoing and fun. She had big spirit.”
Karen Kucher, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Saturday, December 19, 2009 at 12:58 a.m.
A man who spent the past month in jail for domestic violence returned to his Golden Hill apartment late Thursday and killed his girlfriend in front of the couple’s two young children, authorities said.
Police found Christina Jones, 31, badly injured inside the apartment, and she died about an hour later at a hospital.
Her boyfriend, Melvin Carter, 29, has been booked into jail on suspicion of murder, said police homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert. An arraignment has been set for Tuesday in San Diego Superior Court.
Detectives said Carter, who posted bail earlier that day, went to the apartment on A Street near Granada Avenue and began arguing with Jones about visiting the children, who are 4 months and 17 months old.
Jones’ roommate, a relative, left the apartment and called 911 about 11:15 p.m.
Carter answered the door when officers arrived. Inside, officers found Jones injured. Paramedics took her to the hospital, where she died about 1 a.m.
No weapon was found, Herbert said. Her cause of death has not been released.
Herbert said investigators were told the couple had been together about five years. Jones also has an older daughter from a previous relationship.
Neighbor Jeffrey Osbrink, 23, said he heard a woman screaming outside his apartment late Thursday. When he looked outside his window moments later, he saw officers swarming the apartment across from him and police carrying out the victim’s toddler.
Neighbors said Jones mostly kept to herself.
Osbrink also said a man from the District Attorney’s Office came by the building looking for her a few days earlier, telling the neighbor Jones wasn’t in trouble but he needed to speak with her.
Carter, who was on probation after pleading guilty to an earlier misdemeanor domestic violence charge, had been arrested Nov. 24 after another domestic dispute, the Sheriff’s Department said. He was held on a probation violation before posting $35,000 bail, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The victim’s sister, Andrea Martin, told KGTV Channel 10 that she was worried Carter was going to hurt Jones.
“I knew he was going to be angry because she had me call police just a couple weeks ago. That was the reason he was in jail,” she said.
Martin also said her sister had planned to seek a restraining order against Carter.
Friend Kristyna Flowers described Jones as a strong woman and a generous, loyal friend. The two met at Chula Vista Jr. High and remained close friends through the years.
“If she had it and you needed it, she’d give it to you,” said Flowers, 30, who lives in Atlanta. “She was very outgoing and fun. She had big spirit.”
Manhattan, NY: Actor Who Killed Girlfriend's Cat in West Village Accepts Misdemeanor Plea Deal
December 18, 2009 2:54pm Updated December 18, 2009 5:10pmcommentshareprint
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A "Sex and the City" actor and former minor league ballplayer who said he killed his girlfriend's cat in self defense got to walk away Friday with a misdemeanor rap.
Having completed more than 500 hours of community service over the death of a fluffy feline called Norman, Joseph Petcka was allowed to plead guilty to attempted animal cruelty, a misdemeanor.
The 6-foot-two Petcka, who was credited with a role in one episode of Sex in the City's fifth season, was originally tried on felony animal cruelty charges.
Joseph Petcka was credited with a role in one episode of Sex in the City's fifth season. (Shayna Jacobs/DNAinfo)
"You love that cat more than me!" Petcka allegedly screamed at his then girlfriend Lisa Altobelli on March 27, 2007 before kicking her cat to death at her West Village apartment.
But after the 205-pound Petcka claimed Norman attacked him and made him fearful of contracting rabies, a jury could not reach a verdict in the September, 2008 trial.
"The cat attacked me when my hand was dangling. My right hand was down," Petcka told an investigator from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, according to transcripts submitted in the trial.
"I had to get him off. I pushed him off. He bit my thumb and my knuckle and my ring finger."
Prosecutors told Petcka they would retry the case if he failed to enter a plea deal, the New York Post reported. Petcka did 496 hours of community service at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, his lawyer said. He also served 33 hours at Gifted Hands, an organization that serves disadvantaged New Yorkers with arts and crafts activities.
Petcka's attorney, Charles Hochbaum, said his client currently has "no relationship" with Altobelli.
Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20091218/manhattan/west-village-actor-who-killed-girlfriends-cat-accepts-misdemeanor-plea-deal#ixzz0a8Z7n6FW
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A "Sex and the City" actor and former minor league ballplayer who said he killed his girlfriend's cat in self defense got to walk away Friday with a misdemeanor rap.
Having completed more than 500 hours of community service over the death of a fluffy feline called Norman, Joseph Petcka was allowed to plead guilty to attempted animal cruelty, a misdemeanor.
The 6-foot-two Petcka, who was credited with a role in one episode of Sex in the City's fifth season, was originally tried on felony animal cruelty charges.
Joseph Petcka was credited with a role in one episode of Sex in the City's fifth season. (Shayna Jacobs/DNAinfo)
"You love that cat more than me!" Petcka allegedly screamed at his then girlfriend Lisa Altobelli on March 27, 2007 before kicking her cat to death at her West Village apartment.
But after the 205-pound Petcka claimed Norman attacked him and made him fearful of contracting rabies, a jury could not reach a verdict in the September, 2008 trial.
"The cat attacked me when my hand was dangling. My right hand was down," Petcka told an investigator from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, according to transcripts submitted in the trial.
"I had to get him off. I pushed him off. He bit my thumb and my knuckle and my ring finger."
Prosecutors told Petcka they would retry the case if he failed to enter a plea deal, the New York Post reported. Petcka did 496 hours of community service at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, his lawyer said. He also served 33 hours at Gifted Hands, an organization that serves disadvantaged New Yorkers with arts and crafts activities.
Petcka's attorney, Charles Hochbaum, said his client currently has "no relationship" with Altobelli.
Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20091218/manhattan/west-village-actor-who-killed-girlfriends-cat-accepts-misdemeanor-plea-deal#ixzz0a8Z7n6FW
Waynesville, MO: Man gets life prison term for murder of ex-girlfriend in Dent County in 1982
WAYNESVILLE, Mo. -- A man from Beaufort got a life prison sentence with no chance of parole on Friday for the murder of a woman from Salem in 1982. A jury convicted Donald Nash on Oct. 30 for the shooting and strangling death of Judy Spencer, his ex-girlfriend.
Spencer's body turned up in rural Dent County. DNA testing that wasn't available in 1982 is what led to Nash, 67, being charged last year. Investigators say Nash's DNA was on material under Spencer's fingernails, indicating a struggle before she was killed.
Judy Spencer's family now helps other crime victims deal with their pain and sorrow. They're also planning to write a book about the murder and their 27-year wait to see her killer convicted.
The trial was in Phelps County with a jury from Crawford County to try to ensure a fair outcome. Senior Judge Douglas Long, a retired circuit judge from Waynesville, presided at the trial on a special appointment from the Supreme Court. He held the sentencing hearing in Waynesville.
Life without parole was the only sentence available to the judge because the attorney general's office, acting as a special prosecutor, did not seek a death penalty. Nash was convicted of capital murder under a state law in effect in 1982.
Spencer's body turned up in rural Dent County. DNA testing that wasn't available in 1982 is what led to Nash, 67, being charged last year. Investigators say Nash's DNA was on material under Spencer's fingernails, indicating a struggle before she was killed.
Judy Spencer's family now helps other crime victims deal with their pain and sorrow. They're also planning to write a book about the murder and their 27-year wait to see her killer convicted.
The trial was in Phelps County with a jury from Crawford County to try to ensure a fair outcome. Senior Judge Douglas Long, a retired circuit judge from Waynesville, presided at the trial on a special appointment from the Supreme Court. He held the sentencing hearing in Waynesville.
Life without parole was the only sentence available to the judge because the attorney general's office, acting as a special prosecutor, did not seek a death penalty. Nash was convicted of capital murder under a state law in effect in 1982.
Buffalo, NY: Howard found guilty of killing Buffalo couple
By Matt Gryta
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: December 18, 2009, 3:14 PM /
Byron Howard was convicted Thursday of murdering his ex-fiancee and the father of her young son and then setting fire to the house where their bodies were found Jan. 18.
After the week-long nonjury trial that Howard had demanded, Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D’Amico found him guilty as charged of two counts of first-degree murder,
four counts of second-degree murder, arson, burglary and weapons offenses.
He was convicted of killing Chisha Hawkins, 27, 27 and Vernard Millner, 39, in her Dartmouth Avenue home after waiting there three hours for the victims to return from a night out celebrating Hawkins’ birthday and the couple’s recent reunion.
Jailed since his arrest in April, Howard, 22, of Easton Avenue, was sent back to jail until his sentencing Jan. 14. Though he could face 20 years to life in prison, prosecutors said they will urge that he be sentenced to life without parole on his first-degree murder convictions.
After the verdict, Howard’s mother wept loudly, but the victims’ relatives denounced him as a remorseless killer.
While feeling justice had been done, Hawkins’ sister Danielle Johnson—who has obtained custody of her sister’s 3-year-old boy — said, “I don’t wish this type of nightmare on any other families” and denounced Howard as “a sick individual.”
After being shot dead in the second-floor bedroom, both victims were burned beyond recognition.
Though Hawkins had been planning to change the locks after forcing out Howard, who had lived with her about two years, he still had keys to the house and waited there for the victims to come home at about 6 a. m.
Prosecutors Thomas M. Finnerty and Lauren A. Gauthier proved through telephone and cell phone records that Howard was in the house for hours before the murders. The prosecutors also proved through telephone records that between 12:30 and 2:30 a. m. that day Howard made 19 threatening cell phone calls to Millner’s cell phone.
On the stand, Howard claimed that he and Hawkins had mutually agreed to delay their marriage while he enlisted in the U. S. Air Force and completed basic training. He also told the judge the powerfully built Millner had regularly threatened him.
He insisted his friend Brandon “Cobi” Barr, also 22, had actually committed the murders and set fire to the corpses as a favor to him.
But Finnerty and Gauthier had Barr testify Monday about supplying Howard with the .22-caliber murder weapon. Barr said that when he gave Howard the loaded handgun, he was unaware what his friend had planned to do with it.
mgryta@buffnews.com
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: December 18, 2009, 3:14 PM /
Byron Howard was convicted Thursday of murdering his ex-fiancee and the father of her young son and then setting fire to the house where their bodies were found Jan. 18.
After the week-long nonjury trial that Howard had demanded, Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D’Amico found him guilty as charged of two counts of first-degree murder,
four counts of second-degree murder, arson, burglary and weapons offenses.
He was convicted of killing Chisha Hawkins, 27, 27 and Vernard Millner, 39, in her Dartmouth Avenue home after waiting there three hours for the victims to return from a night out celebrating Hawkins’ birthday and the couple’s recent reunion.
Jailed since his arrest in April, Howard, 22, of Easton Avenue, was sent back to jail until his sentencing Jan. 14. Though he could face 20 years to life in prison, prosecutors said they will urge that he be sentenced to life without parole on his first-degree murder convictions.
After the verdict, Howard’s mother wept loudly, but the victims’ relatives denounced him as a remorseless killer.
While feeling justice had been done, Hawkins’ sister Danielle Johnson—who has obtained custody of her sister’s 3-year-old boy — said, “I don’t wish this type of nightmare on any other families” and denounced Howard as “a sick individual.”
After being shot dead in the second-floor bedroom, both victims were burned beyond recognition.
Though Hawkins had been planning to change the locks after forcing out Howard, who had lived with her about two years, he still had keys to the house and waited there for the victims to come home at about 6 a. m.
Prosecutors Thomas M. Finnerty and Lauren A. Gauthier proved through telephone and cell phone records that Howard was in the house for hours before the murders. The prosecutors also proved through telephone records that between 12:30 and 2:30 a. m. that day Howard made 19 threatening cell phone calls to Millner’s cell phone.
On the stand, Howard claimed that he and Hawkins had mutually agreed to delay their marriage while he enlisted in the U. S. Air Force and completed basic training. He also told the judge the powerfully built Millner had regularly threatened him.
He insisted his friend Brandon “Cobi” Barr, also 22, had actually committed the murders and set fire to the corpses as a favor to him.
But Finnerty and Gauthier had Barr testify Monday about supplying Howard with the .22-caliber murder weapon. Barr said that when he gave Howard the loaded handgun, he was unaware what his friend had planned to do with it.
mgryta@buffnews.com
Fort Worth, TX: Woman is convicted of killing husband
Posted Friday, Dec. 18, 2009
BY NATHANIEL JONES AND MARTHA DELLER
njones@star-telegram.com
FORT WORTH — A 31-year-old woman was convicted of murder Friday in the shooting death of her husband three years ago after he broke into her second-floor apartment.
A Tarrant County jury deliberated for about 15 hours over two days before finding Jennifer Brinkman guilty.
She admitted shooting Brian Brinkman, 32, on Dec. 30, 2006, but said she acted in self-defense. The guilty verdict means that the jury believed that she killed him intentionally.
The eight men and four women deliberated for about nine hours Thursday, then were sequestered overnight at a Fort Worth hotel.
After deliberations resumed Friday morning, jurors sent a message to state District Judge Louis Sturns that they were at an impasse, prosecutor Sean Colston said.
After asking for and reviewing the evidence, the jury came to a decision about 4 p.m.
"We’re pleased with the verdict," said Colston, who tried the case with Michelle Dobson.
When the verdict was read, Brinkman’s attorney, Mark Daniel, comforted her as she slumped in her chair with her head bowed.
Throughout the two-week trial, Daniel portrayed his client as the victim of a violent, sadistic drug addict
Many of Brinkman’s 30 relatives and friends cried. One supporter ran from the courtroom.
Brinkman’s father, Mike Penninger, declined to comment as he and other family members left the courthouse. Penninger testified during that trial that his son-in-law beat him twice, once so severely that he was hospitalized with 80 stitches.
Jennifer Brinkman hugged her 7-year-old twins, Lexie and Lance, for about five minutes before she was taken to the Tarrant County Jail. She had been free on bail.
The punishment phase of the trial is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday in the 213th District Court.
"We are certainly disappointed," Daniel said. "The jury obviously worked hard. We intend to be fully prepared for the second phase of the trial."
The maximum sentence for a murder conviction is life in prison. But Brinkman is eligible for probation. Judges are required to follow the jury’s sentencing recommendation. But they are allowed to order the defendant to serve up to 180 days in jail as a condition of probation.
What his relatives said
About 10 of Brian Brinkman’s relatives were in the courtroom Friday but declined to comment. An aunt, Lynda Schraub, testified that she had never witnessed the violent acts that Brinkman and her relatives said Brian had committed. She said he was a kind, loving, generous man whom she trusted with her own grandchildren.
Brian Brinkman was killed by a bullet that entered just below his right eye, shattering his jaw and entering the cranial area, causing brain damage, a deputy medical examiner testified.
A firearms expert estimated that he was shot from a distance of about 6 inches and no more than 12 inches.
Daniel said the short range showed that Brian was nearly on top of Jennifer when she shot him. She testified that Brian was in a methamphetamine-induced rage when she reached into a backpack, got a gun her father had given her for protection and closed her eyes as she shot him.
Jennifer said that because of his previous violent actions, including her father’s beatings, she feared that Brian would beat her to death if she didn’t stop him.
But several Fort Worth police officers said her story didn’t make sense because her versions of what happened changed multiple times — from the initial 911 call reporting the shooting to a May 2007 interview with a homicide detective.
Police had initially considered Jennifer a burglary victim because she said Brian pried open the patio doors of her apartment the day of the shooting. But Detective Jose Hernandez said her inconsistent statements plus a 30-minute recording that Brian made on his cellphone during their argument led him to seek the murder charge about six months later.
That recording and information about the murder weapon were among the items that jurors asked to see during deliberations.
NATHANIEL JONES, 817-390-7742 MARTHA DELLER, 817-390-7857
Looking for comments?
BY NATHANIEL JONES AND MARTHA DELLER
njones@star-telegram.com
FORT WORTH — A 31-year-old woman was convicted of murder Friday in the shooting death of her husband three years ago after he broke into her second-floor apartment.
A Tarrant County jury deliberated for about 15 hours over two days before finding Jennifer Brinkman guilty.
She admitted shooting Brian Brinkman, 32, on Dec. 30, 2006, but said she acted in self-defense. The guilty verdict means that the jury believed that she killed him intentionally.
The eight men and four women deliberated for about nine hours Thursday, then were sequestered overnight at a Fort Worth hotel.
After deliberations resumed Friday morning, jurors sent a message to state District Judge Louis Sturns that they were at an impasse, prosecutor Sean Colston said.
After asking for and reviewing the evidence, the jury came to a decision about 4 p.m.
"We’re pleased with the verdict," said Colston, who tried the case with Michelle Dobson.
When the verdict was read, Brinkman’s attorney, Mark Daniel, comforted her as she slumped in her chair with her head bowed.
Throughout the two-week trial, Daniel portrayed his client as the victim of a violent, sadistic drug addict
Many of Brinkman’s 30 relatives and friends cried. One supporter ran from the courtroom.
Brinkman’s father, Mike Penninger, declined to comment as he and other family members left the courthouse. Penninger testified during that trial that his son-in-law beat him twice, once so severely that he was hospitalized with 80 stitches.
Jennifer Brinkman hugged her 7-year-old twins, Lexie and Lance, for about five minutes before she was taken to the Tarrant County Jail. She had been free on bail.
The punishment phase of the trial is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday in the 213th District Court.
"We are certainly disappointed," Daniel said. "The jury obviously worked hard. We intend to be fully prepared for the second phase of the trial."
The maximum sentence for a murder conviction is life in prison. But Brinkman is eligible for probation. Judges are required to follow the jury’s sentencing recommendation. But they are allowed to order the defendant to serve up to 180 days in jail as a condition of probation.
What his relatives said
About 10 of Brian Brinkman’s relatives were in the courtroom Friday but declined to comment. An aunt, Lynda Schraub, testified that she had never witnessed the violent acts that Brinkman and her relatives said Brian had committed. She said he was a kind, loving, generous man whom she trusted with her own grandchildren.
Brian Brinkman was killed by a bullet that entered just below his right eye, shattering his jaw and entering the cranial area, causing brain damage, a deputy medical examiner testified.
A firearms expert estimated that he was shot from a distance of about 6 inches and no more than 12 inches.
Daniel said the short range showed that Brian was nearly on top of Jennifer when she shot him. She testified that Brian was in a methamphetamine-induced rage when she reached into a backpack, got a gun her father had given her for protection and closed her eyes as she shot him.
Jennifer said that because of his previous violent actions, including her father’s beatings, she feared that Brian would beat her to death if she didn’t stop him.
But several Fort Worth police officers said her story didn’t make sense because her versions of what happened changed multiple times — from the initial 911 call reporting the shooting to a May 2007 interview with a homicide detective.
Police had initially considered Jennifer a burglary victim because she said Brian pried open the patio doors of her apartment the day of the shooting. But Detective Jose Hernandez said her inconsistent statements plus a 30-minute recording that Brian made on his cellphone during their argument led him to seek the murder charge about six months later.
That recording and information about the murder weapon were among the items that jurors asked to see during deliberations.
NATHANIEL JONES, 817-390-7742 MARTHA DELLER, 817-390-7857
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Eastlake, OH: Man Charged in Estranged Wife's Murder
FOX8.comStaff Writer
December 18, 2009
EASTLAKE, Ohio -- A Willowick man has been charged in connection with his estranged wife's murder.
According to Eastlake Police, 39-year-old Nancy Rose, was found dead in her home at 1204 E. 331 Street Wednesday morning.
Her estranged husband, 45-year-old, Gregory A. Rose, was arrested and charged with her murder Friday.
It started early Wednesday morning when the Rose's daughter was woken up by a disturbance in her mother's room, Fox 8's Jack Shea reports.
Hours later, both of the Rose's two young children tried waking their mother so she could take them to school, but the door was locked.
The young girl then summoned her father to help, who then began screaming and ran out of the home.
Meanwhile, the Rose's daughter called 9-11 for help. Police say she called saying she "couldn't get into her mother's bedroom, couldn't get her awake and when we responded to the scene, we had found the mother, Nancy Rose, dead," Detective Chris Bowersock explains to Fox 8 News.
Neighbors say Gregory Rose appeared to be hysterical after he alleged finding his wife in distress.
"He was shaking like a leaf, and jumping up and down and saying, 'she's dying, she's dying,'" says Moe Morgillo.
According to police, Nancy Rose had recently filed for divorce from her husband, and even had a restraining order against him. Police say one of the reasons for the order was because Gregory Rose had been seen driving up and down his estranged wife's street at night.
Rose is being held in the Lake County Jail. His bond has been set at $500,000.
A coroner's report revealed Nancy Rose died from strangulation.
The Rose children are being cared for by relatives, a source tells Fox 8 News.
Gregory Rose is scheduled to appear in court again on December 22.
December 18, 2009
EASTLAKE, Ohio -- A Willowick man has been charged in connection with his estranged wife's murder.
According to Eastlake Police, 39-year-old Nancy Rose, was found dead in her home at 1204 E. 331 Street Wednesday morning.
Her estranged husband, 45-year-old, Gregory A. Rose, was arrested and charged with her murder Friday.
It started early Wednesday morning when the Rose's daughter was woken up by a disturbance in her mother's room, Fox 8's Jack Shea reports.
Hours later, both of the Rose's two young children tried waking their mother so she could take them to school, but the door was locked.
The young girl then summoned her father to help, who then began screaming and ran out of the home.
Meanwhile, the Rose's daughter called 9-11 for help. Police say she called saying she "couldn't get into her mother's bedroom, couldn't get her awake and when we responded to the scene, we had found the mother, Nancy Rose, dead," Detective Chris Bowersock explains to Fox 8 News.
Neighbors say Gregory Rose appeared to be hysterical after he alleged finding his wife in distress.
"He was shaking like a leaf, and jumping up and down and saying, 'she's dying, she's dying,'" says Moe Morgillo.
According to police, Nancy Rose had recently filed for divorce from her husband, and even had a restraining order against him. Police say one of the reasons for the order was because Gregory Rose had been seen driving up and down his estranged wife's street at night.
Rose is being held in the Lake County Jail. His bond has been set at $500,000.
A coroner's report revealed Nancy Rose died from strangulation.
The Rose children are being cared for by relatives, a source tells Fox 8 News.
Gregory Rose is scheduled to appear in court again on December 22.
Baltimore, MD: Jury finds man, 37, guilty of killing woman he met online
By Nick Madigan | nick.madigan@baltsun.com
December 19, 2009
A 37-year-old Florida man who met a Cockeysville woman through the Internet was found guilty Friday of stabbing her to death on Thanksgiving Day 2008, less than two months after moving in with her.
Rex N. Wesley's first-degree murder conviction came after a three-day trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court and less than an hourlong deliberation by a jury.
Prosecutor Stephen R. Roscher said Wesley was discovered standing over the body of Donna Jean Brown, 31, in the kitchen of her father's house in Randallstown, her body and head slashed and pierced by "scores" of wounds.
"She died during the six-minute helicopter ride" to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Roscher said by phone after Wesley's conviction. "She basically had too much blood loss. The photographs of her hands were shocking. She'd tried to defend herself, and she had stab wounds right through her hands."
When he took the stand Thursday, Wesley said he did not remember killing Brown. He testified to drinking heavily at a Thanksgiving dinner in Howard County with some of the woman's relatives. The couple then stopped by her father's house.
"He claimed that he got so intoxicated that he suffered a blackout and remembers nothing of the crime itself," Roscher said.
Wesley had only recently moved to Maryland from Florida to be with Brown after corresponding with her on the Internet, and they set up house together in Cockeysville.
Roscher and his fellow prosecutor, Christina Cuomo, plan to ask Judge Timothy J. Martin to sentence Wesley to life without parole. A sentencing date has not been set.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
December 19, 2009
A 37-year-old Florida man who met a Cockeysville woman through the Internet was found guilty Friday of stabbing her to death on Thanksgiving Day 2008, less than two months after moving in with her.
Rex N. Wesley's first-degree murder conviction came after a three-day trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court and less than an hourlong deliberation by a jury.
Prosecutor Stephen R. Roscher said Wesley was discovered standing over the body of Donna Jean Brown, 31, in the kitchen of her father's house in Randallstown, her body and head slashed and pierced by "scores" of wounds.
"She died during the six-minute helicopter ride" to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Roscher said by phone after Wesley's conviction. "She basically had too much blood loss. The photographs of her hands were shocking. She'd tried to defend herself, and she had stab wounds right through her hands."
When he took the stand Thursday, Wesley said he did not remember killing Brown. He testified to drinking heavily at a Thanksgiving dinner in Howard County with some of the woman's relatives. The couple then stopped by her father's house.
"He claimed that he got so intoxicated that he suffered a blackout and remembers nothing of the crime itself," Roscher said.
Wesley had only recently moved to Maryland from Florida to be with Brown after corresponding with her on the Internet, and they set up house together in Cockeysville.
Roscher and his fellow prosecutor, Christina Cuomo, plan to ask Judge Timothy J. Martin to sentence Wesley to life without parole. A sentencing date has not been set.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Binghamton, NY: Binghamton man accused of beating ex-girlfriend to death in August
Associated Press - December 19, 2009 3:05 AM ET
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) - A 30-year-old Binghamton man has been accused of beating to death his former girlfriend in August.
Police say Francis Joseph Rogers was arrested on second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and other charges in the death of 25-year-old Katie Chappell, whose body was found in her apartment on Aug. 13.
Rogers pleaded not guilty to the charges and was being held Friday without bail in the Broome County Jail.
Police tell the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin that the couple's relationship was "on-again, off-again" and despite an order of protection she got against Rogers, Chappell was last seen drinking with him the day before she was found dead.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) - A 30-year-old Binghamton man has been accused of beating to death his former girlfriend in August.
Police say Francis Joseph Rogers was arrested on second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and other charges in the death of 25-year-old Katie Chappell, whose body was found in her apartment on Aug. 13.
Rogers pleaded not guilty to the charges and was being held Friday without bail in the Broome County Jail.
Police tell the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin that the couple's relationship was "on-again, off-again" and despite an order of protection she got against Rogers, Chappell was last seen drinking with him the day before she was found dead.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
West Jordan, UT: Texts lead Utah police to 4 dead in murder-suicide
(AP) – 15 hours ago
WEST JORDAN, Utah — Two adults and their two children were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide after friends, relatives and co-workers received text messages from the father saying he had killed his family, police said.
Justin Zachariah Matern, 34; his estranged wife Melissa Ann Matern, 31; and their sons, 6-year-old Gabriel and 4-year-old Raiden, were found dead from apparent gunshot wounds Thursday night in a unit at the Willow Cove apartment complex, West Jordan police Sgt. Drew Sanders said.
Officers started searching for the family Thursday evening after police in Salt Lake City and Midvale were contacted by people who had received text messages from Justin Matern at about 7 p.m. The texts indicated he had just killed his family and that he planned to kill himself, Sanders said.
No one who received the text messages, however, had an address for the family, Sanders said.
After a possible address was located on an old police report, West Jordan officers went to the apartment and discovered the bodies around 8:45 p.m., Sanders said.
He said no one in the apartment complex reported hearing gunshots.
"Had the people that got the text messages not called police, we still might not know about this," Sanders said.
Sanders said the married couple was separated but had no history of domestic violence. He said Melissa Matern and the two boys had recently moved into the West Jordan apartment.
Police also say Justin Matern left a letter at his workplace revealing his plans. It wasn't discovered until after the deaths, police said.
(This version CORRECTS that text messages said he had already killed his family, not that he was going to kill them.)
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
WEST JORDAN, Utah — Two adults and their two children were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide after friends, relatives and co-workers received text messages from the father saying he had killed his family, police said.
Justin Zachariah Matern, 34; his estranged wife Melissa Ann Matern, 31; and their sons, 6-year-old Gabriel and 4-year-old Raiden, were found dead from apparent gunshot wounds Thursday night in a unit at the Willow Cove apartment complex, West Jordan police Sgt. Drew Sanders said.
Officers started searching for the family Thursday evening after police in Salt Lake City and Midvale were contacted by people who had received text messages from Justin Matern at about 7 p.m. The texts indicated he had just killed his family and that he planned to kill himself, Sanders said.
No one who received the text messages, however, had an address for the family, Sanders said.
After a possible address was located on an old police report, West Jordan officers went to the apartment and discovered the bodies around 8:45 p.m., Sanders said.
He said no one in the apartment complex reported hearing gunshots.
"Had the people that got the text messages not called police, we still might not know about this," Sanders said.
Sanders said the married couple was separated but had no history of domestic violence. He said Melissa Matern and the two boys had recently moved into the West Jordan apartment.
Police also say Justin Matern left a letter at his workplace revealing his plans. It wasn't discovered until after the deaths, police said.
(This version CORRECTS that text messages said he had already killed his family, not that he was going to kill them.)
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Seattle, WA: Boyfriend Arrested In Stabbing Death Of Girlfriend In Leschi
Posted: 5:33 pm PST December 17, 2009
SEATTLE -- A man called 911 Wednesday night to report that he had just stabbed his girlfriend, said the Seattle Police Department.
When police arrived at the apartment in the 300 block of 28th Avenue South they found a 49-year-old woman with a life-threatening stab wound to her body.
She was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she later died.
Detectives responded to the payphone where the 911 call was made in the 2300 block of South Jackson and took a 53-year-old man in custody.
He was interviewed by homicide detectives and later booked into the King County Jail for investigation of homicide.
Detectives will determine if charges will be filed.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
SEATTLE -- A man called 911 Wednesday night to report that he had just stabbed his girlfriend, said the Seattle Police Department.
When police arrived at the apartment in the 300 block of 28th Avenue South they found a 49-year-old woman with a life-threatening stab wound to her body.
She was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she later died.
Detectives responded to the payphone where the 911 call was made in the 2300 block of South Jackson and took a 53-year-old man in custody.
He was interviewed by homicide detectives and later booked into the King County Jail for investigation of homicide.
Detectives will determine if charges will be filed.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Charleston, SC: Man sentenced to 20 years for Christmas Day murder
Posted: Dec 17, 2009 6:12 PM EST
Updated: Dec 17, 2009 6:12 PM EST
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CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A Charleston County jury found 60-year-old Bobby Sloan guilty of Voluntary Manslaughter Thursday. Sloan killed his wife, Darlene Sloan, December 25th, 2008.
Sloan and his wife got in an argument after leaving a nightclub, early that morning. When they got back downtown, where they were staying, Sloan pulled out a .38 caliber Revolver, fired one shot at close range, hitting his wife in the head.
The couple was visiting from Georgia. Sloan's mother-in-law witnessed the murder. She testified that she saw the defendant raise his hand towards her daughter shortly before she saw a bright flash. She then saw her daughter fall to the ground.
Sloan's defense was that he just wanted to threaten or intimidate his wife, but never meant to shoot her.
"The latest stats show that South Carolina consistently ranks in the top 10 states for women being killed by men. The rate of women killed by men they knew is almost twice that of the national average," said Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson. Wilson stated, "We refused the notion of an 'accident' being someone threatening their spouse during a heated argument, waiving a handgun in their face and putting a bullet in their head. Fortunately, the judge and jury did, too."
Circuit Court Judge Roger Young, Sr., sentenced Sloan to 20 years in prison for the shooting death.
Updated: Dec 17, 2009 6:12 PM EST
L
CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A Charleston County jury found 60-year-old Bobby Sloan guilty of Voluntary Manslaughter Thursday. Sloan killed his wife, Darlene Sloan, December 25th, 2008.
Sloan and his wife got in an argument after leaving a nightclub, early that morning. When they got back downtown, where they were staying, Sloan pulled out a .38 caliber Revolver, fired one shot at close range, hitting his wife in the head.
The couple was visiting from Georgia. Sloan's mother-in-law witnessed the murder. She testified that she saw the defendant raise his hand towards her daughter shortly before she saw a bright flash. She then saw her daughter fall to the ground.
Sloan's defense was that he just wanted to threaten or intimidate his wife, but never meant to shoot her.
"The latest stats show that South Carolina consistently ranks in the top 10 states for women being killed by men. The rate of women killed by men they knew is almost twice that of the national average," said Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson. Wilson stated, "We refused the notion of an 'accident' being someone threatening their spouse during a heated argument, waiving a handgun in their face and putting a bullet in their head. Fortunately, the judge and jury did, too."
Circuit Court Judge Roger Young, Sr., sentenced Sloan to 20 years in prison for the shooting death.
Orlando, FL: Man charged with killing wife who was trying to leave him
An Orange County man allegedly killed his wife Thursday morning after a domestic dispute. Then he turned himself in.
Cedric Harp, 33, showed up at an Orlando Police substation and said he seriously injured his wife. The case was turned over to Orange County, who sent deputies to the Harp home.
When fire and rescue arrived on scene, they pronounced Mrs. Harp dead. Two kids were in the home when Harp allegedly killed his wife, but were sleeping and told investigators that they didn't hear anything.
It's believed Harp's marriage was failing, and his wife was trying to leave the house. When he tried to stop her, that's when things may have gotten out of hand. Harp has an extensive criminal history. He's been charged with 2nd degree murder.
Cedric Harp, 33, showed up at an Orlando Police substation and said he seriously injured his wife. The case was turned over to Orange County, who sent deputies to the Harp home.
When fire and rescue arrived on scene, they pronounced Mrs. Harp dead. Two kids were in the home when Harp allegedly killed his wife, but were sleeping and told investigators that they didn't hear anything.
It's believed Harp's marriage was failing, and his wife was trying to leave the house. When he tried to stop her, that's when things may have gotten out of hand. Harp has an extensive criminal history. He's been charged with 2nd degree murder.
Scotts Bluff, IA: Animal abuse case brings recognition to county attorney
By MAUNETTE LOEKS, WHNS
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:46 AM CST
The Animal Legal Defense Fund will recognize Scotts Bluff County Attorney Tiffany Wasserburger for efforts earlier this year to protect a cat owned by a domestic violence victim.
Wasserburger served as the prosecutor in a domestic violence case involving an 18-year-old victim who lived with her boyfriend. In January, prosecutors charged the boyfriend after the victim told police that he had assaulted her. The victim told police the assailant kicked her cat, named Max, down a flight of stairs and that he had also killed a kitten the woman owned.
After the victim, who had filled a protection order, reunited with the man, Wasserburger sought to protect Max, who had been seized from the couple's home and placed at the Humane Society shelter. The victim had sought return of the cat and Wasserburger argued that it needed protection, consulting with Animal Legal Defense Fund Criminal Justice Program Director Scott Heiser.
"As prosecutors, we have always seen a direct correlation between child abuse, animal abuse and domestic violence," Wasserburger said, explaining why she sought to remove Max. "The circumstances of this case fit the animal abuse statutes exactly as it was intended."
In Max's case, Wasserburger said she had to show that the court had jurisdiction over the victim of domestic violence, not just the perpetrator. By the conclusion of the case, the judge also recognized the cat as a victim, sentencing the offender to a total of 22 months in prison on charges of domestic assault, two counts of animal cruelty and violating a protection order.
While Wasserburger has seen other cases of abuse involving animals, she said some things set this case apart.
"I think it was isolated in that (the abuse) was reported right away and we were able to seize the animal. We were able to produce medical exams and prove the abuse... The decision was important in that it acknowledged that there are different victims (in the case) and sentence imposed by the judge recognized that."
Protecting Max was a cooperative effort, Wasserburger said, citing the help of Pioneer Animal Clinic vet Joe Skavdahl and the Panhandle Humane Society.
"As a result of this case, I received letters and e-mails from across the state from victims of domestic violence and people in the field. They felt it was really important that attention was brought to this issue. And, now, we have those tools to help animals, because like the victims of domestic violence or child abuse, animals are helpless and it is our jobs as prosecutors to protect them."
Today, Wasserburger said, Max is doing well. Although he has some lingering effects of the neurological damage caused the abuse, "he is doing fantastic," she said. "He is a very loving kitty in a loving home and the family says he is a joy to have with them."
Wasserburger said she is excited about the honor, particularly as the ALDF will be highlighting the correlation between domestic violence and animal abuse during its observances.
The ALDF will be citing Max's case in a year-end publication, naming his story "The Story of the Year," Wasserburger said. She will be recognized during the ALDF's National Justice for Animals Week, which will be observed Feb. 21 through Feb. 27. While Wasserburger will not be able to attend any activities during the weeklong observation, she will be interviewed and recognized on the ALDF's Web site, www.aldf.org, for her efforts.
"I think that this is a fantastic case to call attention to the issue," she said. "This honor is a very proud moment in my professional career."
The Scottsbluff (NE) Star-Herald
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:46 AM CST
The Animal Legal Defense Fund will recognize Scotts Bluff County Attorney Tiffany Wasserburger for efforts earlier this year to protect a cat owned by a domestic violence victim.
Wasserburger served as the prosecutor in a domestic violence case involving an 18-year-old victim who lived with her boyfriend. In January, prosecutors charged the boyfriend after the victim told police that he had assaulted her. The victim told police the assailant kicked her cat, named Max, down a flight of stairs and that he had also killed a kitten the woman owned.
After the victim, who had filled a protection order, reunited with the man, Wasserburger sought to protect Max, who had been seized from the couple's home and placed at the Humane Society shelter. The victim had sought return of the cat and Wasserburger argued that it needed protection, consulting with Animal Legal Defense Fund Criminal Justice Program Director Scott Heiser.
"As prosecutors, we have always seen a direct correlation between child abuse, animal abuse and domestic violence," Wasserburger said, explaining why she sought to remove Max. "The circumstances of this case fit the animal abuse statutes exactly as it was intended."
In Max's case, Wasserburger said she had to show that the court had jurisdiction over the victim of domestic violence, not just the perpetrator. By the conclusion of the case, the judge also recognized the cat as a victim, sentencing the offender to a total of 22 months in prison on charges of domestic assault, two counts of animal cruelty and violating a protection order.
While Wasserburger has seen other cases of abuse involving animals, she said some things set this case apart.
"I think it was isolated in that (the abuse) was reported right away and we were able to seize the animal. We were able to produce medical exams and prove the abuse... The decision was important in that it acknowledged that there are different victims (in the case) and sentence imposed by the judge recognized that."
Protecting Max was a cooperative effort, Wasserburger said, citing the help of Pioneer Animal Clinic vet Joe Skavdahl and the Panhandle Humane Society.
"As a result of this case, I received letters and e-mails from across the state from victims of domestic violence and people in the field. They felt it was really important that attention was brought to this issue. And, now, we have those tools to help animals, because like the victims of domestic violence or child abuse, animals are helpless and it is our jobs as prosecutors to protect them."
Today, Wasserburger said, Max is doing well. Although he has some lingering effects of the neurological damage caused the abuse, "he is doing fantastic," she said. "He is a very loving kitty in a loving home and the family says he is a joy to have with them."
Wasserburger said she is excited about the honor, particularly as the ALDF will be highlighting the correlation between domestic violence and animal abuse during its observances.
The ALDF will be citing Max's case in a year-end publication, naming his story "The Story of the Year," Wasserburger said. She will be recognized during the ALDF's National Justice for Animals Week, which will be observed Feb. 21 through Feb. 27. While Wasserburger will not be able to attend any activities during the weeklong observation, she will be interviewed and recognized on the ALDF's Web site, www.aldf.org, for her efforts.
"I think that this is a fantastic case to call attention to the issue," she said. "This honor is a very proud moment in my professional career."
The Scottsbluff (NE) Star-Herald
Charlotte, NC: Domestic dispute leads to the death of NFL player Chris Henry
Domestic violence stemming from domestic disputes are the leading cause of injury to women. Over 1,200 women are killed each year by an intimate partner. However, when things get out of control, anyone involved in a domestic dispute can get seriously injured.
Although the details surrounding the domestic dispute between Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver Chris Henry and his fiancee are still emerging, it would appear that an out of control domestic dispute led to the death Henry, only 26 years old.
Henry was rushed to a hospital in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday after he was found lying on a residential road about a half mile from the home of Loleini Tonga, who appears to be Henry's fiancee. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say the couple's dispute began at the residence. When the dispute had gotten out of control, Tonga attempted to drive away from the home in a pickup truck. Chris Henry jumped into the bed of the truck while his fiancee was driving the vehicle.
The domestic dispute continued on the road with Henry in the back of the vehicle. While the vehicle was in motion, Police say that somehow Chris Henry "came out of the back of the vehicle." Chris Henry suffered severe head wounds as a result of the fall from the vehicle. Henry was placed in Intensive Care and was on life support. He passed away this morning at 6:36 a.m.
Chris Henry's coaches, teammates, and family are devastated by his untimely passing. Known in the past for having a bad temper and getting into trouble with the law, Henry was looking to turn his life around after getting a second chance with the Bengals; a team that released him after last season. At the time of his death, he was away from the Bengals healing from a broken forearm he sustained during a game against the Baltimore Ravens on November 8th.
At this time, police have not filed charges against Henry's fiancee, Loleini Tonga. Homicide detectives are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding Henry's fall from the truck. There has been no information on whether Henry's fall was accidental or deliberately caused during the domestic dispute.
Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry dies after domestic dispute
Chris Henry and fiancee Loleini Tonga had a domestic dispute that led to Tonga leaving their home in a pickup truck and Henry jumping into the bed of the moving vehicle. Henry fell from the bed of the truck and suffered fatal injuries.View Slideshow »
Although the details surrounding the domestic dispute between Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver Chris Henry and his fiancee are still emerging, it would appear that an out of control domestic dispute led to the death Henry, only 26 years old.
Henry was rushed to a hospital in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday after he was found lying on a residential road about a half mile from the home of Loleini Tonga, who appears to be Henry's fiancee. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say the couple's dispute began at the residence. When the dispute had gotten out of control, Tonga attempted to drive away from the home in a pickup truck. Chris Henry jumped into the bed of the truck while his fiancee was driving the vehicle.
The domestic dispute continued on the road with Henry in the back of the vehicle. While the vehicle was in motion, Police say that somehow Chris Henry "came out of the back of the vehicle." Chris Henry suffered severe head wounds as a result of the fall from the vehicle. Henry was placed in Intensive Care and was on life support. He passed away this morning at 6:36 a.m.
Chris Henry's coaches, teammates, and family are devastated by his untimely passing. Known in the past for having a bad temper and getting into trouble with the law, Henry was looking to turn his life around after getting a second chance with the Bengals; a team that released him after last season. At the time of his death, he was away from the Bengals healing from a broken forearm he sustained during a game against the Baltimore Ravens on November 8th.
At this time, police have not filed charges against Henry's fiancee, Loleini Tonga. Homicide detectives are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding Henry's fall from the truck. There has been no information on whether Henry's fall was accidental or deliberately caused during the domestic dispute.
Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry dies after domestic dispute
Chris Henry and fiancee Loleini Tonga had a domestic dispute that led to Tonga leaving their home in a pickup truck and Henry jumping into the bed of the moving vehicle. Henry fell from the bed of the truck and suffered fatal injuries.View Slideshow »
Glen Burnie, MD: Teen admits he murdered his mother
By Andrea F. Siegel
December 18, 2009
A Glen Burnie teenager found playing a video game at home the day after killing his mother and leaving her body in her bedroom pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder.
William Joseph Skiratko, 18, stood motionless while relatives watched as he admitted to Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North that he fatally stabbed Elizabeth Anne Skiratko, 45.
Conditions of the plea include a recommendation that Skiratko be evaluated for treatment in the youthful offender program of Patuxent Institution. But there was no cap on the prison sentence - the maximum prison term for first-degree murder is a life sentence - and Assistant State's Attorney Frank Ragione said outside the courtroom that he has not decided what sentence to seek.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 16.
"She tried her best to be a mother, and he didn't like direction she was giving him. He just disagreed with a lot of things she was saying," Ragione said. Neighbors told reporters that Skiratko argued with his mother about going to school and that he had been staying out late.
Assistant Public Defender Denis O'Connell declined to comment.
Ragione said that on April 21, police were called to a home in Severn and received a note from a friend of William Skiratko's. In it, William Skiratko said he was going to kill his mother and himself. Police then went to the apartment Elizabeth Skiratko shared with her sons, where they found William Skiratko, then 17.
"He told the officers it was too late for his mother," Ragione said. They found her body with a note the youth had signed taped to her wrist saying, "I did kill Elizabeth Skiratko."
Ragione said he told detectives that he killed his mother in the hall, first hitting her as many as 10 times until she passed out. When choking did not seem to kill her, he got a knife and stabbed her several times, he told police. But he decided the knife was not long enough, so he returned to kitchen for a longer knife and stabbed her again.
A psychological evaluation said in October that Skiratko has problems but was fit to stand trial. Court records indicate that his parents accused each other of child abuse after their 1995 divorce, and for a time his father was barred from having contact with him and his younger brother. The father filed for a protective order against his ex-wife, alleging she had abused the elder son; a judge denied that request.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
December 18, 2009
A Glen Burnie teenager found playing a video game at home the day after killing his mother and leaving her body in her bedroom pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder.
William Joseph Skiratko, 18, stood motionless while relatives watched as he admitted to Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North that he fatally stabbed Elizabeth Anne Skiratko, 45.
Conditions of the plea include a recommendation that Skiratko be evaluated for treatment in the youthful offender program of Patuxent Institution. But there was no cap on the prison sentence - the maximum prison term for first-degree murder is a life sentence - and Assistant State's Attorney Frank Ragione said outside the courtroom that he has not decided what sentence to seek.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 16.
"She tried her best to be a mother, and he didn't like direction she was giving him. He just disagreed with a lot of things she was saying," Ragione said. Neighbors told reporters that Skiratko argued with his mother about going to school and that he had been staying out late.
Assistant Public Defender Denis O'Connell declined to comment.
Ragione said that on April 21, police were called to a home in Severn and received a note from a friend of William Skiratko's. In it, William Skiratko said he was going to kill his mother and himself. Police then went to the apartment Elizabeth Skiratko shared with her sons, where they found William Skiratko, then 17.
"He told the officers it was too late for his mother," Ragione said. They found her body with a note the youth had signed taped to her wrist saying, "I did kill Elizabeth Skiratko."
Ragione said he told detectives that he killed his mother in the hall, first hitting her as many as 10 times until she passed out. When choking did not seem to kill her, he got a knife and stabbed her several times, he told police. But he decided the knife was not long enough, so he returned to kitchen for a longer knife and stabbed her again.
A psychological evaluation said in October that Skiratko has problems but was fit to stand trial. Court records indicate that his parents accused each other of child abuse after their 1995 divorce, and for a time his father was barred from having contact with him and his younger brother. The father filed for a protective order against his ex-wife, alleging she had abused the elder son; a judge denied that request.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Brownsville, TX: Police: Man gets angry and kills puppy
By ILDEFONSO ORTIZ, The Brownsville Herald
Brownsville police arrested a teenager accused of brutally kicking and stabbing a puppy resulting in the animal’s death, officials said.
Mario Gasca, 18, and Jesus Javier Martinez, 17, were arrested Wednesday afternoon in the Southmost area and later charged with animal cruelty, said police spokesman Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique.
On Thursday morning, a municipal judge set a $25,000 bond for Gasca and a $5,000 bond for Martinez.
Police officer arrived at the 2700 block of La Plaza Drive and met with a female who said Gasca had killed her puppy, Manrrique said.
The woman told police that two female neighbors ages 12 and 17, had seen Gasca kill the animal, police said.
"The witnesses said that Gasca had become angered when some neighbors accused him of burglarizing their home," Manrrique said. "Gasca became so angry that when he saw the black puppy walk nearby, he got a running start and kicked it."
According to police the dog flew about 15 yards and began yelping while it crouched in pain. Seconds later, Gasca got another running start and kicked the dog again.
"Gasca then got a pair of garden shears and stabbed the puppy in the midsection and then began stabbing the puppy’s mouth," Manrrique said.
During the attack, Martinez laughed and encouraged Gasca to kill the animal, police said.
After the attack, Gasca carried the puppy behind the house and dumped the carcass in a ditch, the spokesman said.
Gasca remains in custody at Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center while Martinez is out on bound.
Brownsville police arrested a teenager accused of brutally kicking and stabbing a puppy resulting in the animal’s death, officials said.
Mario Gasca, 18, and Jesus Javier Martinez, 17, were arrested Wednesday afternoon in the Southmost area and later charged with animal cruelty, said police spokesman Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique.
On Thursday morning, a municipal judge set a $25,000 bond for Gasca and a $5,000 bond for Martinez.
Police officer arrived at the 2700 block of La Plaza Drive and met with a female who said Gasca had killed her puppy, Manrrique said.
The woman told police that two female neighbors ages 12 and 17, had seen Gasca kill the animal, police said.
"The witnesses said that Gasca had become angered when some neighbors accused him of burglarizing their home," Manrrique said. "Gasca became so angry that when he saw the black puppy walk nearby, he got a running start and kicked it."
According to police the dog flew about 15 yards and began yelping while it crouched in pain. Seconds later, Gasca got another running start and kicked the dog again.
"Gasca then got a pair of garden shears and stabbed the puppy in the midsection and then began stabbing the puppy’s mouth," Manrrique said.
During the attack, Martinez laughed and encouraged Gasca to kill the animal, police said.
After the attack, Gasca carried the puppy behind the house and dumped the carcass in a ditch, the spokesman said.
Gasca remains in custody at Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center while Martinez is out on bound.
Greeley, CO: Sandoval to be tried in ex-wife's disappearance
Associated Press - December 16, 2009 11:34 PM ET
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) - A judge says a man accused in his ex-wife's presumed death will face trial on a charge of first-degree murder.
The judge bound John Sandoval over for trial Wednesday. Sandoval is being held without bond after being arrested in Las Vegas this summer to face charges in the disappearance of Kristina Tournai Sandoval.
She disappeared Oct. 19, 1995, after telling friends and family she was going to talk to her ex-husband about money he owed her.
Her body has not been found, but Weld District Attorney Ken Buck has said the passage of time has weakened the likely defense that she just left without telling anyone.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) - A judge says a man accused in his ex-wife's presumed death will face trial on a charge of first-degree murder.
The judge bound John Sandoval over for trial Wednesday. Sandoval is being held without bond after being arrested in Las Vegas this summer to face charges in the disappearance of Kristina Tournai Sandoval.
She disappeared Oct. 19, 1995, after telling friends and family she was going to talk to her ex-husband about money he owed her.
Her body has not been found, but Weld District Attorney Ken Buck has said the passage of time has weakened the likely defense that she just left without telling anyone.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Lebanon, IN: Man pleads guilty to lesser charge in ex-wife's death
By Robert Annis
Posted: December 18, 2009
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LEBANON, Ind. -- A Zionsville man entered a guilty plea Thursday morning in the bludgeoning death of his ex-wife and faces a 43-year prison sentence under an agreement with prosecutors.
Michael Stayer, 32, pleaded guilty to felony counts of voluntary manslaughter and neglect of a dependent as part of a deal struck with Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer. Stayer had been facing a murder charge and other felony counts in connection with the death of Beth Stayer on June 11.
According to Stayer's confession, he and the victim, his ex-wife, got into an argument at her Whitestown apartment. While he was in their daughter's bedroom, he said, Beth Stayer charged at him with a hammer, which he took from her and proceeded to use on her as their son watched.
Prosecutors said Beth Stayer also was beaten with a metal can and other objects for approximately five minutes.
Leaving his ex-wife in a pool of blood on the floor, Stayer called 911. Beth Stayer was rushed to Methodist Hospital, where she died the next day.
The Stayers had been divorced less than two months at the time of her death. According to court documents, Michael Stayer stalked and threatened his ex-wife in the weeks before her death.
Stayer, in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, sat without emotion during a nearly hourlong hearing in Boone Circuit Court. But Meyer showed some emotion as he described his reasoning in seeking the plea deal: to prevent Stayer's 5-year-old son, Carson, from having to testify.
"The cost to get a murder conviction was too great," Meyer said. "In order to get the murder conviction, we would have to call Carson Stayer as a witness. . . . Making him relive the crime is too significant of a burden to put on a 5-year-old child."
Forensic psychiatrist Ned Masbaum warned that requiring the boy to testify "could be more harmful to Carson by his feeling more unrealistic guilt and depression. He is too young to be able to put his role as a witness into the concept of justice for his mother."
Michael Stayer also struck a separate deal with the Department of Child Services that allows Carson and the Stayers' 2-year-old daughter, Ashleigh, to continue living with their maternal grandfather.
In exchange, the state would not seek to terminate his parental rights, Meyer said.
Stayer's attorney, James Voyles, issued a statement from Stayer's family saying they "deeply regret that this tragic incident occurred" and offered their "continued love and support" for the couple's children.
Boone Circuit Judge Steve David will sentence Stayer at 9 a.m. Feb. 17. Authorities said that under the plea agreement, Stayer would be eligible for parole in 2030.
Posted: December 18, 2009
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LEBANON, Ind. -- A Zionsville man entered a guilty plea Thursday morning in the bludgeoning death of his ex-wife and faces a 43-year prison sentence under an agreement with prosecutors.
Michael Stayer, 32, pleaded guilty to felony counts of voluntary manslaughter and neglect of a dependent as part of a deal struck with Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer. Stayer had been facing a murder charge and other felony counts in connection with the death of Beth Stayer on June 11.
According to Stayer's confession, he and the victim, his ex-wife, got into an argument at her Whitestown apartment. While he was in their daughter's bedroom, he said, Beth Stayer charged at him with a hammer, which he took from her and proceeded to use on her as their son watched.
Prosecutors said Beth Stayer also was beaten with a metal can and other objects for approximately five minutes.
Leaving his ex-wife in a pool of blood on the floor, Stayer called 911. Beth Stayer was rushed to Methodist Hospital, where she died the next day.
The Stayers had been divorced less than two months at the time of her death. According to court documents, Michael Stayer stalked and threatened his ex-wife in the weeks before her death.
Stayer, in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, sat without emotion during a nearly hourlong hearing in Boone Circuit Court. But Meyer showed some emotion as he described his reasoning in seeking the plea deal: to prevent Stayer's 5-year-old son, Carson, from having to testify.
"The cost to get a murder conviction was too great," Meyer said. "In order to get the murder conviction, we would have to call Carson Stayer as a witness. . . . Making him relive the crime is too significant of a burden to put on a 5-year-old child."
Forensic psychiatrist Ned Masbaum warned that requiring the boy to testify "could be more harmful to Carson by his feeling more unrealistic guilt and depression. He is too young to be able to put his role as a witness into the concept of justice for his mother."
Michael Stayer also struck a separate deal with the Department of Child Services that allows Carson and the Stayers' 2-year-old daughter, Ashleigh, to continue living with their maternal grandfather.
In exchange, the state would not seek to terminate his parental rights, Meyer said.
Stayer's attorney, James Voyles, issued a statement from Stayer's family saying they "deeply regret that this tragic incident occurred" and offered their "continued love and support" for the couple's children.
Boone Circuit Judge Steve David will sentence Stayer at 9 a.m. Feb. 17. Authorities said that under the plea agreement, Stayer would be eligible for parole in 2030.
Scottsboro, AL: Ex-boyfriend charged in Scottsboro woman's slaying
Posted: Dec 17, 2009 4:54 PM EST
Updated: Dec 17, 2009 4:55 PM EST
SCOTTSBORO, AL (WAFF) - Scottsboro police arrested the ex-boyfriend Thursday afternoon of a woman found dead in Marshall County earlier this month.
Investigators said Michael Anthony Bunch, 48, was charged with murder in connection with the disappearance and slaying of Lisa McBride Harper. Bunch and Harper had previously dated for three years, police officials said.
Harper was reported missing by family members on Dec. 6. Her remains were found on Dec. 9 in northern Marshall County.
Police officials said Harper's autopsy revealed she was strangled to death.
Bunch was due to be transferred to the Jackson County jail, where his bond was set at $100,000.
Scottsboro police, sheriff's investigators from both Marshall and Jackson counties, state forensics experts and US Marshals have participated in the investigation into Harper's disappearance and death. The investigation remains ongoing, Scottsboro police officials said.
©2009 WAFF. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Updated: Dec 17, 2009 4:55 PM EST
SCOTTSBORO, AL (WAFF) - Scottsboro police arrested the ex-boyfriend Thursday afternoon of a woman found dead in Marshall County earlier this month.
Investigators said Michael Anthony Bunch, 48, was charged with murder in connection with the disappearance and slaying of Lisa McBride Harper. Bunch and Harper had previously dated for three years, police officials said.
Harper was reported missing by family members on Dec. 6. Her remains were found on Dec. 9 in northern Marshall County.
Police officials said Harper's autopsy revealed she was strangled to death.
Bunch was due to be transferred to the Jackson County jail, where his bond was set at $100,000.
Scottsboro police, sheriff's investigators from both Marshall and Jackson counties, state forensics experts and US Marshals have participated in the investigation into Harper's disappearance and death. The investigation remains ongoing, Scottsboro police officials said.
©2009 WAFF. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Winter Haven, FL: Winter Haven Slaying Man Accused of Killing Woman Is Identified
Hospitalized after shooting himself, Celedonio Sanchez is taken off life support and dies.
By Jeremy Maready
THE LEDGER
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:42 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:42 p.m.
WINTER HAVEN | The man Winter Haven police say shot and killed a 19-year-old woman in a Walmart parking lot Tuesday night was identified Thursday as Celedonio Sanchez.
At least, that's the name police say came up in the national fingerprint database for the 22-year-old, who was declared brain dead Wednesday and died Thursday.
He had shot himself during a traffic stop in Lake Wales, police say.
Sanchez, who was a Mexican immigrant and had numerous aliases, was taken off life support Thursday and his body was turned over to the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office, according to police spokesman Sgt. Brad Coleman.
"Whether that was the name he was born with, I don't know," he said.
"But that's the name we're going with."
Winter Haven detectives said Sanchez shot and killed Gloria Michelle Elvira shortly before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Walmart parking lot at 355 Cypress Gardens Blvd.
Sanchez, who had not been identified as the suspect at the time, was stopped by Lake Wales police after the shooting.
As the police officer approached Sanchez during the traffic stop, Sanchez shot himself.
When a Lake Wales police office found Sanchez in his car, he had a gunshot wound to the head and two different fake identification cards, police said.
"Probably, all he would have gotten was a speeding ticket," Coleman said.
"We didn't have any information on the suspect vehicle or anything. He (Sanchez) probably thought he was getting caught (and shot himself)."
Sanchez was flown to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where he died and the confusion about his identity ensued.
Sanchez was declared brain dead at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, but hospital officials didn't take him off life support until an identity was confirmed Thursday, police said.
Family members gave police and hospital staff conflicting identities, Coleman said. The fingerprint identification proved the most reliable.
"We can't get our hands on a birth certificate," he said.
Details about the relationship between Sanchez and Elvira are also limited.
Police know the pair had two children together, a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, and had been living together as a family recently, Coleman said. It was not known whether the two were legally married.
[ Jeremy Maready can be reached at jeremy.maready@theledger.com or 863-802-7592. ]
By Jeremy Maready
THE LEDGER
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:42 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:42 p.m.
WINTER HAVEN | The man Winter Haven police say shot and killed a 19-year-old woman in a Walmart parking lot Tuesday night was identified Thursday as Celedonio Sanchez.
At least, that's the name police say came up in the national fingerprint database for the 22-year-old, who was declared brain dead Wednesday and died Thursday.
He had shot himself during a traffic stop in Lake Wales, police say.
Sanchez, who was a Mexican immigrant and had numerous aliases, was taken off life support Thursday and his body was turned over to the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office, according to police spokesman Sgt. Brad Coleman.
"Whether that was the name he was born with, I don't know," he said.
"But that's the name we're going with."
Winter Haven detectives said Sanchez shot and killed Gloria Michelle Elvira shortly before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Walmart parking lot at 355 Cypress Gardens Blvd.
Sanchez, who had not been identified as the suspect at the time, was stopped by Lake Wales police after the shooting.
As the police officer approached Sanchez during the traffic stop, Sanchez shot himself.
When a Lake Wales police office found Sanchez in his car, he had a gunshot wound to the head and two different fake identification cards, police said.
"Probably, all he would have gotten was a speeding ticket," Coleman said.
"We didn't have any information on the suspect vehicle or anything. He (Sanchez) probably thought he was getting caught (and shot himself)."
Sanchez was flown to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where he died and the confusion about his identity ensued.
Sanchez was declared brain dead at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, but hospital officials didn't take him off life support until an identity was confirmed Thursday, police said.
Family members gave police and hospital staff conflicting identities, Coleman said. The fingerprint identification proved the most reliable.
"We can't get our hands on a birth certificate," he said.
Details about the relationship between Sanchez and Elvira are also limited.
Police know the pair had two children together, a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, and had been living together as a family recently, Coleman said. It was not known whether the two were legally married.
[ Jeremy Maready can be reached at jeremy.maready@theledger.com or 863-802-7592. ]
Binghampton, NY:
Ex-boyfriend charged with murder in Binghamton woman's death
By Eric Reinagel
ereinage@gannett.com
BINGHAMTON -- Police say they had been to 17 Kneeland Ave. before.
They knew Katie Chappell and Francis Joseph Rogers.
On Aug. 13, Binghamton detectives would return to Chappell's West Side Binghamton apartment, this time to a nightmarish scene.
Chappell was found dead in her bed.
Capt. Alex Minor said police only had one suspect all along -- the 30-year-old Rogers.
Four months after Chappell's death, Binghamton police have charged Rogers with second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and 16 other charges related to previous physical altercations and Rogers breaking an order of protection.
He is in the Broome County jail without bail after being indicted by a Broome County grand jury on the charges brought forward by District Attorney Gerald Mollen. An indictment is not the same as a conviction and only indicates a grand jury believes there is enough evidence to file charges.
Rogers, who lives on East Catherine Street, was taken into custody on a warrant Wednesday afternoon without incident on Webster Street and arraigned Thursday afternoon in Broome County Court. He pleaded innocent to all the charges.
"This was an on-again off-again relationship that had been going for a year and a half," said Minor. "There was some domestic violence in their relationship."
Despite having an order of protection against Rogers, Chappell, 25, was last seen after 12:30 a.m. Aug. 12 in the company of Rogers after a night of drinking at several downtown bars, Minor said.
According to an 18-page indictment, Rogers "created a grave risk of death to Katie Chappell on Aug. 12 by striking her about the body and inflicting blunt force trauma to her head at a location other than 17 Kneeland Avenue, thereby rendering her unconscious."
The indictment continues that Rogers knew Chappell needed immediate medical treatment, but instead took her to her apartment.
An autopsy done by forensic pathologist Dr. James Terzian indicated Chappell died from blunt force trauma to her head. No drugs were found in her system, according to Minor, but she did have a small amount of alcohol in her blood.
According to the indictment the relationship had been abusive well before August:
* In October 2008, Rogers allegedly attempted to cause physical injury to Chappell somewhere in the city by punching and/or physically attacking her.
* On Christmas Eve 2008, the indictment alleges Rogers attempted to hurt her by punching and/or kicking and/or physically attacking her.
* In February 2009, the indictment alleges Rogers attempted to hurt her by choking her and/or physically forcing her head into a bathroom stall divider at the Finish Line Bar in the Town of Chenango.
* On April 17, the indictment alleges Rogers did cause injuries to Chappell by punching and/or choking and/or physically attacking her at 17 Kneeland Ave.
Chappell would get an order of protection against Rogers on April 17, but despite that order, the two continued to have contact, according to the indictment and Minor.
The indictment continues that Aug. 4, 7 and 11, Rogers violated the order of protection with face-to-face contact or cellular telephone text messages. Specifically on Aug. 11, Rogers contacted her five times via text messages and saw her in person.
Minor said detectives, along with Broome County District Attorney's office, launched an "intensive" investigation after Chappell's death and had a lot of forensic evidence to examine. He declined to specify what exactly that evidence is or even if there is a weapon involved.
At one point during the investigation, Rogers may have left the area, but Minor said it was nothing police were overly concerned about.
Minor confirmed that sometime in the last couple of months, Rogers was involved in a disturbance at Rocket Plaza in Kirkwood, which is home to two strip clubs. He continued that a fight occurred there that left Rogers injured and he spent a couple of days in the hospital recovering. But when State Police investigated the incident, Rogers only told them he was hurt in a fall as he left one of the clubs.
Additional Facts
Rogers charges
Below are the charges in the 18-count indictment against Francis Rogers in the death of Katie Chappell
* Second-degree murder, a felony;
* First-degree manslaughter, felony;
* Aggravated criminal contempt, a felony;
* Nine counts of second-degree criminal contempt for violating protection order by having text message conversations on Aug. 4 (three); Aug. 7 (one); Aug. 11 (five), misdemeanors;
* Two counts of second-degree criminal contempt for violating protection order with face-to-face contact on Aug. 4 and 11, misdemeanors;
* Third-degree assault for punching and/or choking and/or physically attacking her at 17 Kneeland Ave., Binghamton, on April 17, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for forcing her head into a bathroom stall divider at Finish Line Bar in Chenango in February, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for punching and/or kicking and/or physically attacking her on Dec. 24, 2008, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for punching and/or physically attacking her in October 2008, a misdemeanor.
By Eric Reinagel
ereinage@gannett.com
BINGHAMTON -- Police say they had been to 17 Kneeland Ave. before.
They knew Katie Chappell and Francis Joseph Rogers.
On Aug. 13, Binghamton detectives would return to Chappell's West Side Binghamton apartment, this time to a nightmarish scene.
Chappell was found dead in her bed.
Capt. Alex Minor said police only had one suspect all along -- the 30-year-old Rogers.
Four months after Chappell's death, Binghamton police have charged Rogers with second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and 16 other charges related to previous physical altercations and Rogers breaking an order of protection.
He is in the Broome County jail without bail after being indicted by a Broome County grand jury on the charges brought forward by District Attorney Gerald Mollen. An indictment is not the same as a conviction and only indicates a grand jury believes there is enough evidence to file charges.
Rogers, who lives on East Catherine Street, was taken into custody on a warrant Wednesday afternoon without incident on Webster Street and arraigned Thursday afternoon in Broome County Court. He pleaded innocent to all the charges.
"This was an on-again off-again relationship that had been going for a year and a half," said Minor. "There was some domestic violence in their relationship."
Despite having an order of protection against Rogers, Chappell, 25, was last seen after 12:30 a.m. Aug. 12 in the company of Rogers after a night of drinking at several downtown bars, Minor said.
According to an 18-page indictment, Rogers "created a grave risk of death to Katie Chappell on Aug. 12 by striking her about the body and inflicting blunt force trauma to her head at a location other than 17 Kneeland Avenue, thereby rendering her unconscious."
The indictment continues that Rogers knew Chappell needed immediate medical treatment, but instead took her to her apartment.
An autopsy done by forensic pathologist Dr. James Terzian indicated Chappell died from blunt force trauma to her head. No drugs were found in her system, according to Minor, but she did have a small amount of alcohol in her blood.
According to the indictment the relationship had been abusive well before August:
* In October 2008, Rogers allegedly attempted to cause physical injury to Chappell somewhere in the city by punching and/or physically attacking her.
* On Christmas Eve 2008, the indictment alleges Rogers attempted to hurt her by punching and/or kicking and/or physically attacking her.
* In February 2009, the indictment alleges Rogers attempted to hurt her by choking her and/or physically forcing her head into a bathroom stall divider at the Finish Line Bar in the Town of Chenango.
* On April 17, the indictment alleges Rogers did cause injuries to Chappell by punching and/or choking and/or physically attacking her at 17 Kneeland Ave.
Chappell would get an order of protection against Rogers on April 17, but despite that order, the two continued to have contact, according to the indictment and Minor.
The indictment continues that Aug. 4, 7 and 11, Rogers violated the order of protection with face-to-face contact or cellular telephone text messages. Specifically on Aug. 11, Rogers contacted her five times via text messages and saw her in person.
Minor said detectives, along with Broome County District Attorney's office, launched an "intensive" investigation after Chappell's death and had a lot of forensic evidence to examine. He declined to specify what exactly that evidence is or even if there is a weapon involved.
At one point during the investigation, Rogers may have left the area, but Minor said it was nothing police were overly concerned about.
Minor confirmed that sometime in the last couple of months, Rogers was involved in a disturbance at Rocket Plaza in Kirkwood, which is home to two strip clubs. He continued that a fight occurred there that left Rogers injured and he spent a couple of days in the hospital recovering. But when State Police investigated the incident, Rogers only told them he was hurt in a fall as he left one of the clubs.
Additional Facts
Rogers charges
Below are the charges in the 18-count indictment against Francis Rogers in the death of Katie Chappell
* Second-degree murder, a felony;
* First-degree manslaughter, felony;
* Aggravated criminal contempt, a felony;
* Nine counts of second-degree criminal contempt for violating protection order by having text message conversations on Aug. 4 (three); Aug. 7 (one); Aug. 11 (five), misdemeanors;
* Two counts of second-degree criminal contempt for violating protection order with face-to-face contact on Aug. 4 and 11, misdemeanors;
* Third-degree assault for punching and/or choking and/or physically attacking her at 17 Kneeland Ave., Binghamton, on April 17, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for forcing her head into a bathroom stall divider at Finish Line Bar in Chenango in February, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for punching and/or kicking and/or physically attacking her on Dec. 24, 2008, a misdemeanor;
* Third-degree attempted assault for punching and/or physically attacking her in October 2008, a misdemeanor.
Torrance, CA: Calif. man convicted of throwing wife off cliff
Fri Dec 18, 1:15 am ET
TORRANCE, Calif. – A 28-year-old man accused of throwing his new wife off a Southern California cliff has been convicted of murder.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated about a day before finding Jason Manai of Torrance guilty of first-degree murder on Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged that Manai threw Julie Rosas off a Rancho Palos Verdes cliff in July 2005 because she wanted to annul their marriage. The two had been married for 13 days.
Manai denied being at the cliff top, but cellular phone records placed him there.
He faces 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 9.
TORRANCE, Calif. – A 28-year-old man accused of throwing his new wife off a Southern California cliff has been convicted of murder.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated about a day before finding Jason Manai of Torrance guilty of first-degree murder on Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged that Manai threw Julie Rosas off a Rancho Palos Verdes cliff in July 2005 because she wanted to annul their marriage. The two had been married for 13 days.
Manai denied being at the cliff top, but cellular phone records placed him there.
He faces 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 9.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Rochester, NY: Fired nurse gets life in prison for double killing
By BEN DOBBIN (AP) – 18 hours ago
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A nursing supervisor enraged at two co-workers who accused him of sexual harassment drew a life sentence Wednesday for killing a nurse and a bystander during a shooting rampage that left four people dead.
"It was a premeditated, calculated, cold act. You're a very frightening ... very disturbing person," Judge Frank Geraci said as he imposed the maximum penalty of life without parole on Frank Garcia. The 35-year-old is already serving a life term for a couple's execution-style slaying later on Valentine's Day.
Investigators say Garcia targeted nurses Mary Silliman and Kimberly Glatz after their sexual harassment complaints led to him being fired from successive jobs at a nursing home in Rochester and Lakeside Memorial Hospital in Brockport, 20 miles away.
Before dawn on Feb. 14, the day after his dismissal in Brockport, Garcia killed Silliman, 23, and Randal Norman, 41, a motorist who intervened when he saw her being roughed up in the hospital parking lot.
He then drove 50 miles east to Canandaigua and killed Glatz, 38, and her 45-year-old husband, Christopher, at their home after holding them captive for three hours. The couple was ordered to lie down and shot from behind while their children cowered upstairs.
Garcia exhibits classic sociopathic symptoms, from his glib charm and excessive narcissism to paranoia, secretiveness and an absence of empathy, prosecutor Doug Randall said.
"He was fired because he couldn't control his ego" and "he couldn't put up with" romantic rejection, Randall said.
Garcia lowered his head at times but displayed no emotion as he got three life terms for two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for wounding Norman's girlfriend, Audra Dillon.
At trial, the hairstylist identified him as the gunman with "very piercing eyes" who killed Norman and wounded her as she sped away in a car. She and Norman were driving past Lakeside Memorial around 5 a.m. when they saw a man drag a woman by the hair across the parking lot and then begin punching and kicking her.
When they approached, Dillon said the man dropped down into a shooter's stance and killed Norman, then turned and shot Silliman as she tried to run away. When Dillon retreated to her car, she said he fired through the windows, hitting her in the arm and side.
"I feel guilty that I survived," Dillon told the judge, saying she misses Norman's kisses on her forehead and "his teddy bear hugs."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A nursing supervisor enraged at two co-workers who accused him of sexual harassment drew a life sentence Wednesday for killing a nurse and a bystander during a shooting rampage that left four people dead.
"It was a premeditated, calculated, cold act. You're a very frightening ... very disturbing person," Judge Frank Geraci said as he imposed the maximum penalty of life without parole on Frank Garcia. The 35-year-old is already serving a life term for a couple's execution-style slaying later on Valentine's Day.
Investigators say Garcia targeted nurses Mary Silliman and Kimberly Glatz after their sexual harassment complaints led to him being fired from successive jobs at a nursing home in Rochester and Lakeside Memorial Hospital in Brockport, 20 miles away.
Before dawn on Feb. 14, the day after his dismissal in Brockport, Garcia killed Silliman, 23, and Randal Norman, 41, a motorist who intervened when he saw her being roughed up in the hospital parking lot.
He then drove 50 miles east to Canandaigua and killed Glatz, 38, and her 45-year-old husband, Christopher, at their home after holding them captive for three hours. The couple was ordered to lie down and shot from behind while their children cowered upstairs.
Garcia exhibits classic sociopathic symptoms, from his glib charm and excessive narcissism to paranoia, secretiveness and an absence of empathy, prosecutor Doug Randall said.
"He was fired because he couldn't control his ego" and "he couldn't put up with" romantic rejection, Randall said.
Garcia lowered his head at times but displayed no emotion as he got three life terms for two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for wounding Norman's girlfriend, Audra Dillon.
At trial, the hairstylist identified him as the gunman with "very piercing eyes" who killed Norman and wounded her as she sped away in a car. She and Norman were driving past Lakeside Memorial around 5 a.m. when they saw a man drag a woman by the hair across the parking lot and then begin punching and kicking her.
When they approached, Dillon said the man dropped down into a shooter's stance and killed Norman, then turned and shot Silliman as she tried to run away. When Dillon retreated to her car, she said he fired through the windows, hitting her in the arm and side.
"I feel guilty that I survived," Dillon told the judge, saying she misses Norman's kisses on her forehead and "his teddy bear hugs."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Long Island, NY: Husband attacks man at wife's NY home, kills self
Associated Press - December 17, 2009 12:15 AM ET
BELLPORT, N.Y. (AP) - Police say an estranged husband armed with a machete and handgun attacked a man visiting his wife's home on Long Island before killing himself.
Suffolk County police say Hernan Rodriguez, of East Patchogue, went to the Bellport home of his wife early Wednesday and used a machete to attack 22-year-old Marlin Aguilar.
Police say Aguilar was hospitalized with a nearly severed ear and severe cuts to his face and hand. No one else was injured.
Police say the 34-year-old Rodriquez fled after the attack and was later found dead with an apparent gunshot wound to his head.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BELLPORT, N.Y. (AP) - Police say an estranged husband armed with a machete and handgun attacked a man visiting his wife's home on Long Island before killing himself.
Suffolk County police say Hernan Rodriguez, of East Patchogue, went to the Bellport home of his wife early Wednesday and used a machete to attack 22-year-old Marlin Aguilar.
Police say Aguilar was hospitalized with a nearly severed ear and severe cuts to his face and hand. No one else was injured.
Police say the 34-year-old Rodriquez fled after the attack and was later found dead with an apparent gunshot wound to his head.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Del City, OK: Del City Man Gets Life for Ex- Wife's Murder
It was an emotional day in the courtroom as Dontee Johnson agreed to a life sentence and then turned to the family and apologized for what happened to his ex-wife.
"I just apologize for what happened, it was an accident," said Johnson.
It was over a year ago when Naketta Smith went missing from her Del City home.
After two weeks of searching Dontee Johnson led officers to her body in Spencer.
"We believe he pulled a gun on her and shot her," said Gayland Gieger, Assistant District Attorney.
Wednesday Johnson agreed to a plea deal.
Although he still says the gun accidentally discharged, he did enter a guilty plea.
The family was moved to tears as they left the courtroom, but prosecutors say they feel like they finally got justice for Naketta.
"We can't make this family whole, nothing we do can make this family whole. But what this does is essentially guarantee he will never be on the streets again," said Gieger.
Under the plea agreement, Johnson will not be able to appeal the ruling, but will be eligible for parole in 38 years.
"I just apologize for what happened, it was an accident," said Johnson.
It was over a year ago when Naketta Smith went missing from her Del City home.
After two weeks of searching Dontee Johnson led officers to her body in Spencer.
"We believe he pulled a gun on her and shot her," said Gayland Gieger, Assistant District Attorney.
Wednesday Johnson agreed to a plea deal.
Although he still says the gun accidentally discharged, he did enter a guilty plea.
The family was moved to tears as they left the courtroom, but prosecutors say they feel like they finally got justice for Naketta.
"We can't make this family whole, nothing we do can make this family whole. But what this does is essentially guarantee he will never be on the streets again," said Gieger.
Under the plea agreement, Johnson will not be able to appeal the ruling, but will be eligible for parole in 38 years.
Norh Plains, OR: Jury finds man guilty of murder for killing woman who wanted to end their relationship
By Lisa Lednicer, The Oregonian
December 16, 2009, 5:59PM
A Washington County Circuit Court jury Wednesday found Delfino Hurtado-Navarrete guilty of murder for killing Juana Rosales-Garcia in March when she told him she wanted out of their relationship. He will be sentenced in January.
View full sizeWCSO
Delfino Hurtado-Navarrete
Hurtado-Navarrete, 37, showed no emotion when the verdict was announced in Judge Rick Knapp's courtroom.
During a discussion in Hurtado-Navarrete's Chevy Blazer, he beat Rosales-Garcia, 40, unconscious when she told him she wanted to end their eight-year partnership. He then slashed her throat and beat her again.
Afterward, he dumped her body on a wooded embankment outside North Plains, parked in a strip mall and went home. For the next month, he pretended he had no idea where she was. When police confronted him with cell phone records that didn't match his alibi, he confessed.
Hurtado-Navarrete's attorneys said he acted in a fit of uncontrollable rage and should be convicted of first-degree manslaughter. But prosecutors said he intended to kill Rosales-Garcia and thus was guilty of murder.
Hurtado-Navarrete also was found guilty of corpse abuse and unlawful use of a weapon.
-- Lisa Grace Lednicer
December 16, 2009, 5:59PM
A Washington County Circuit Court jury Wednesday found Delfino Hurtado-Navarrete guilty of murder for killing Juana Rosales-Garcia in March when she told him she wanted out of their relationship. He will be sentenced in January.
View full sizeWCSO
Delfino Hurtado-Navarrete
Hurtado-Navarrete, 37, showed no emotion when the verdict was announced in Judge Rick Knapp's courtroom.
During a discussion in Hurtado-Navarrete's Chevy Blazer, he beat Rosales-Garcia, 40, unconscious when she told him she wanted to end their eight-year partnership. He then slashed her throat and beat her again.
Afterward, he dumped her body on a wooded embankment outside North Plains, parked in a strip mall and went home. For the next month, he pretended he had no idea where she was. When police confronted him with cell phone records that didn't match his alibi, he confessed.
Hurtado-Navarrete's attorneys said he acted in a fit of uncontrollable rage and should be convicted of first-degree manslaughter. But prosecutors said he intended to kill Rosales-Garcia and thus was guilty of murder.
Hurtado-Navarrete also was found guilty of corpse abuse and unlawful use of a weapon.
-- Lisa Grace Lednicer
Newport News, VA: Newport News woman dies after being shot in face
By Mike Holtzclaw and Ashley Kelly
928-6479 247-4778
11:03 PM EST, December 16, 2009
NEWPORT NEWS — It was a little before 10 p.m. when David Carter Sr. heard someone knocking at his door.
On the other side was his neighbor's 12-year-old daughter, dressed in a towel with blood on her chest.
"Can you help me?" she asked.
"With what?" he said.
"Can you call 911? My mother is dead."
Tynesha Barksdale was shot to death at Auburn Chase Apartments on Tuesday night while her two daughters bathed nearby.
Barksdale, 34, was killed in her apartment on Turlington Road just before 10 p.m. Police arrested her boyfriend, 39-year-old Aaron Lynell Harris, and charged him with murder, use of a firearm in commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Police spokesman Harold Eley said it had been a "domestic situation" between the two, who shared the apartment with Barksdale's 9- and 12-year-old daughters.
Eley said the girls were in the bathroom when they heard gunshots. They came out of the bathroom and found their mother bleeding from a gunshot wound to her face. Harris called police to report that his girlfriend had been shot, Eley said.
Police found Harris sitting in the living room and Barksdale dead in the bedroom. Eley said Harris did not confess but gave officers "a lot of conflicting information." He was questioned, and on Wednesday morning was arrested and charged in the killing, which is the 24th in Newport News this year and the city's third in the last week.
Harris was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon in 2005, according to court documents. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with three years suspended.
Carter said the couple moved in about a month ago. They kept to themselves but would speak in passing, he said. Harris works as a cook, according to an arrest card.
Another neighbor said she heard fussing earlier that night — then she heard screaming. When she looked out, she heard the 12-year-old girl saying: "My mom is dead. My mom is dead."
Barksdale's death marked the second time in the same day that a parent in Newport News was gunned down in close proximity to his or her children.
Earlier Tuesday, 23-year-old Lafayette Bailey was shot to death by intruders who had broken into his mobile home on Spur Drive looking for drugs they believed he had. His fiancee and their two children were in the home but were not harmed. No suspects have been identified in Bailey's homicide.
Eley said Barksdale's two girls are being cared for by relatives.
On Wednesday afternoon, nothing looked amiss outside Barksdale's apartment. A Christmas decoration with pine cones, berries and red bells hung from the front door. Plastered on a window was a picture of a smiling Santa Claus toting a bag full of gifts.
Copyright © 2009, Newport News, Va., Daily Press
928-6479 247-4778
11:03 PM EST, December 16, 2009
NEWPORT NEWS — It was a little before 10 p.m. when David Carter Sr. heard someone knocking at his door.
On the other side was his neighbor's 12-year-old daughter, dressed in a towel with blood on her chest.
"Can you help me?" she asked.
"With what?" he said.
"Can you call 911? My mother is dead."
Tynesha Barksdale was shot to death at Auburn Chase Apartments on Tuesday night while her two daughters bathed nearby.
Barksdale, 34, was killed in her apartment on Turlington Road just before 10 p.m. Police arrested her boyfriend, 39-year-old Aaron Lynell Harris, and charged him with murder, use of a firearm in commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Police spokesman Harold Eley said it had been a "domestic situation" between the two, who shared the apartment with Barksdale's 9- and 12-year-old daughters.
Eley said the girls were in the bathroom when they heard gunshots. They came out of the bathroom and found their mother bleeding from a gunshot wound to her face. Harris called police to report that his girlfriend had been shot, Eley said.
Police found Harris sitting in the living room and Barksdale dead in the bedroom. Eley said Harris did not confess but gave officers "a lot of conflicting information." He was questioned, and on Wednesday morning was arrested and charged in the killing, which is the 24th in Newport News this year and the city's third in the last week.
Harris was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon in 2005, according to court documents. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with three years suspended.
Carter said the couple moved in about a month ago. They kept to themselves but would speak in passing, he said. Harris works as a cook, according to an arrest card.
Another neighbor said she heard fussing earlier that night — then she heard screaming. When she looked out, she heard the 12-year-old girl saying: "My mom is dead. My mom is dead."
Barksdale's death marked the second time in the same day that a parent in Newport News was gunned down in close proximity to his or her children.
Earlier Tuesday, 23-year-old Lafayette Bailey was shot to death by intruders who had broken into his mobile home on Spur Drive looking for drugs they believed he had. His fiancee and their two children were in the home but were not harmed. No suspects have been identified in Bailey's homicide.
Eley said Barksdale's two girls are being cared for by relatives.
On Wednesday afternoon, nothing looked amiss outside Barksdale's apartment. A Christmas decoration with pine cones, berries and red bells hung from the front door. Plastered on a window was a picture of a smiling Santa Claus toting a bag full of gifts.
Copyright © 2009, Newport News, Va., Daily Press
St. Paul, MN: Wilson is found guilty of killing ex-boyfriend
By ANTHONY LONETREE, Star Tribune
December 17, 2009
Michelle Rae Wilson, the self-proclaimed diva whose fatal shooting of an ex-boyfriend was captured in a 911 call, was convicted of second-degree murder Wednesday night in Ramsey County District Court.
She'd claimed self-defense in the slaying of Carl Jackson, 33, who died after Wilson shot him three times in her St. Paul home on Jan. 13, 2008.
But prosecutor Margaret Galvin said Jackson had moved on from that relationship -- and Wilson made sure no one else could have him.
The jury began deliberating about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday after seven days of testimony that included the playing of the 911 call and a Dec. 28, 2007, exchange between Wilson and Jackson during which she said to him: "When did I say we broke up?"
Wilson's attorney, Gary Bryant-Wolf, said that Jackson had used and abused Wilson. In testimony, Jackson had been quoted as saying: "A diva can be broken." Bryant-Wolf argued that the recording Jackson made on Dec. 28, and that he had played for others, was meant as proof that he'd broken Wilson.
Bryant-Wolf said that Wilson killed Jackson only after he barged into her home and tried to force her to have sex. The 911 call, which Jackson made in an effort to have police help him get out of the house, was merely a cover for his actions, Bryant-Wolf argued.
Wilson is to be sentenced Jan. 26 by District Judge Joanne Smith.
Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109
© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
December 17, 2009
Michelle Rae Wilson, the self-proclaimed diva whose fatal shooting of an ex-boyfriend was captured in a 911 call, was convicted of second-degree murder Wednesday night in Ramsey County District Court.
She'd claimed self-defense in the slaying of Carl Jackson, 33, who died after Wilson shot him three times in her St. Paul home on Jan. 13, 2008.
But prosecutor Margaret Galvin said Jackson had moved on from that relationship -- and Wilson made sure no one else could have him.
The jury began deliberating about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday after seven days of testimony that included the playing of the 911 call and a Dec. 28, 2007, exchange between Wilson and Jackson during which she said to him: "When did I say we broke up?"
Wilson's attorney, Gary Bryant-Wolf, said that Jackson had used and abused Wilson. In testimony, Jackson had been quoted as saying: "A diva can be broken." Bryant-Wolf argued that the recording Jackson made on Dec. 28, and that he had played for others, was meant as proof that he'd broken Wilson.
Bryant-Wolf said that Wilson killed Jackson only after he barged into her home and tried to force her to have sex. The 911 call, which Jackson made in an effort to have police help him get out of the house, was merely a cover for his actions, Bryant-Wolf argued.
Wilson is to be sentenced Jan. 26 by District Judge Joanne Smith.
Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109
© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Gastonia, NC: Man charged in girlfriend's murder says he tried to save her life
Corey Friedman
2009-12-15 18:04:54
Lindsey Morgan said he lunged for the rifle, but before he could wrestle the gun away, his girlfriend had fired the shot that would end her life.
Jurors in Morgan’s first-degree murder trial on Tuesday watched a video recording of his first interview with police detectives after the death of 27-year-old Stephanie Belk King. The 33-year-old is accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend, but he maintains she committed suicide.
In the interview, Morgan tells Gaston County Police detectives Reggie Bloom and John Ferguson that King was threatening to kill herself because he planned to leave her and take the couple’s 6-month-old child.
“I was telling her it’s over,” he said. “I was ready to call it quits, and I was taking our baby with me. I come back from the bathroom, and she had the gun up to her head.”
Morgan said he tried “calling her bluff,” challenging her to pull the trigger because he didn’t believe she would shoot herself. Finally, he said, he tried to grab the gun.
“If I’m not mistaken, when I went for the gun, that’s when she shot herself,” Morgan said in the 2007 interview.
King was shot in the face in a bedroom of the mobile home she and Morgan shared on W.H. Kiser Road south of Lincolnton in rural Gaston County. Six children — four hers and two his — were in the home.
Crime scene photos projected to the jury during police testimony Tuesday showed a rifle lying on a bare mattress soaked with bloodstains and a Confederate flag hanging from the wall behind the bed. Specks of blood dotted the wood paneling on the wall beside the mattress.
Morgan called 911 and told a dispatcher that his girlfriend had shot herself. He was cradling her body when police and paramedics arrived.
“Why in the hell would somebody want to shoot someone and then want to hold her and love her?” Morgan said in the police interview.
Police say the evidence contradicts Morgan’s claim, but he refused to admit guilt or change his story when pressured by the detectives. Police told him that King was in emergency surgery and had identified Morgan as the one who had pulled the trigger. They also said King’s children refuted his claim that one of the kids had accompanied him when he fired his gun earlier in the day.
“Between what the kids are saying and what Stephanie’s saying, it’s not looking good for you,” Bloom told him.
Morgan was adamant that he was telling the truth. He was skeptical that his girlfriend had blamed him for the shooting.
“I don’t see how she’s going to be able to talk or comprehend what’s going on right now,” Morgan said.
Bloom admitted on the witness stand Tuesday that King never said who pulled the trigger. Morgan’s claim about firing the gun was later verified, and he was charged with causing injury to personal property and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly shooting out a car window with at least one of the children present.
Ferguson left the interview several times to check on information and re-entered questioning Morgan’s account of the shooting. Morgan grew irritated with the scrutiny, once standing up and saying he would walk out.
“I’m sitting here telling you something truthful, and you’re coming back and saying I’m a liar,” he said.
Morgan, who had not yet been arrested, signed a voluntary statement after the 1 hour and 45 minute interview. Bloom read the statement in court Tuesday.
You can reach Corey Friedman at 704-869-1828.
2009-12-15 18:04:54
Lindsey Morgan said he lunged for the rifle, but before he could wrestle the gun away, his girlfriend had fired the shot that would end her life.
Jurors in Morgan’s first-degree murder trial on Tuesday watched a video recording of his first interview with police detectives after the death of 27-year-old Stephanie Belk King. The 33-year-old is accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend, but he maintains she committed suicide.
In the interview, Morgan tells Gaston County Police detectives Reggie Bloom and John Ferguson that King was threatening to kill herself because he planned to leave her and take the couple’s 6-month-old child.
“I was telling her it’s over,” he said. “I was ready to call it quits, and I was taking our baby with me. I come back from the bathroom, and she had the gun up to her head.”
Morgan said he tried “calling her bluff,” challenging her to pull the trigger because he didn’t believe she would shoot herself. Finally, he said, he tried to grab the gun.
“If I’m not mistaken, when I went for the gun, that’s when she shot herself,” Morgan said in the 2007 interview.
King was shot in the face in a bedroom of the mobile home she and Morgan shared on W.H. Kiser Road south of Lincolnton in rural Gaston County. Six children — four hers and two his — were in the home.
Crime scene photos projected to the jury during police testimony Tuesday showed a rifle lying on a bare mattress soaked with bloodstains and a Confederate flag hanging from the wall behind the bed. Specks of blood dotted the wood paneling on the wall beside the mattress.
Morgan called 911 and told a dispatcher that his girlfriend had shot herself. He was cradling her body when police and paramedics arrived.
“Why in the hell would somebody want to shoot someone and then want to hold her and love her?” Morgan said in the police interview.
Police say the evidence contradicts Morgan’s claim, but he refused to admit guilt or change his story when pressured by the detectives. Police told him that King was in emergency surgery and had identified Morgan as the one who had pulled the trigger. They also said King’s children refuted his claim that one of the kids had accompanied him when he fired his gun earlier in the day.
“Between what the kids are saying and what Stephanie’s saying, it’s not looking good for you,” Bloom told him.
Morgan was adamant that he was telling the truth. He was skeptical that his girlfriend had blamed him for the shooting.
“I don’t see how she’s going to be able to talk or comprehend what’s going on right now,” Morgan said.
Bloom admitted on the witness stand Tuesday that King never said who pulled the trigger. Morgan’s claim about firing the gun was later verified, and he was charged with causing injury to personal property and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly shooting out a car window with at least one of the children present.
Ferguson left the interview several times to check on information and re-entered questioning Morgan’s account of the shooting. Morgan grew irritated with the scrutiny, once standing up and saying he would walk out.
“I’m sitting here telling you something truthful, and you’re coming back and saying I’m a liar,” he said.
Morgan, who had not yet been arrested, signed a voluntary statement after the 1 hour and 45 minute interview. Bloom read the statement in court Tuesday.
You can reach Corey Friedman at 704-869-1828.
Dixonville, PA: Suspect Surrounded, Found Dead At Home After Woman Killed
Police Corner Rodney Wagner In Dixonville, Indiana County
POSTED: 3:39 pm EST December 15, 2009
UPDATED: 1:17 am EST December 16, 2009
DIXONVILLE, Pa. -- Pennsylvania State Police used a cell phone transmission to find a murder suspect Tuesday in Indiana County, but when authorities moved in, police said they found him dead.
Rodney Wagner
Rodney Wagner, 38, was accused of killing his married girlfriend inside her home while her husband and son slept upstairs, police said. A statement released by the Indiana County Coroner's Office determined the incident to be a murder-suicide.
Video - Watch Jon Greiner's Report
Although they never had any contact with him, state police said they suspected Wagner was in his house when they were looking for him. State police said they got a ping from his cell phone during their search.
After three hours, the Special Emergency Response Team went inside the house on Route 403 in Green Township about a block away from the Sandy's Corner Convenience store.
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Police said they found Wagner dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The coroner's office said Wagner had been dead for several hours when he was discovered.
Police said Wagner shot Kim Romagna, 40, with a rifle shortly after noon Tuesday at a house on Hancock Street in Clymer. Romagna was pronounced dead at the scene at 1 p.m. of an apparent single gunshot wound to her head.
Police said Romagna's husband, from whom friends said she was estranged, and her adult son were upstairs, but they didn't hear anything.
Second and Hancock streets in Clymer, Indiana County
(Photo from Ashley Pribicko at 1160 WCCS)
"His grandmother got a phone call -- her mom -- from the boyfriend that said, 'I'm sorry, I shot your daughter,'" said Nancy Isenberg, a friend of Romagna.
Romagna's mother called the house and the husband went downstairs and found Romagna's body. Wagner then drove to his house, where he would shoot himself dead, according to the coroner's office.
Wagner had a criminal record that included assault and burglary, and the victim confided in friends that he had been violent toward her.
"He had been in the past. He hadn't been lately, but yes, he had in the past," Isenberg said. "Normal arguments was all I ever seen, and I have seen him throw a fist at her, but I haven't seen the damage that he's done in the past."
Isenberg said it's ironic because Romagna was always the one trying to diffuse arguments.
"(She was) very nice to everyone. If anybody else was ever fighting, she'd always hear both sides and was always right there trying to give advice you know or just to listen," Isenberg said.
State police said they were not immediately sure of a motive. The coroner's office said there reportedly had been a relationship between the victims but Romagna ended it a short time ago.
Autopsies are scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown. Funeral arrangements for Romagna will be managed by the Moriconi Funeral Home in Northern Cambria. Plans were incomplete for Wagner.
POSTED: 3:39 pm EST December 15, 2009
UPDATED: 1:17 am EST December 16, 2009
DIXONVILLE, Pa. -- Pennsylvania State Police used a cell phone transmission to find a murder suspect Tuesday in Indiana County, but when authorities moved in, police said they found him dead.
Rodney Wagner
Rodney Wagner, 38, was accused of killing his married girlfriend inside her home while her husband and son slept upstairs, police said. A statement released by the Indiana County Coroner's Office determined the incident to be a murder-suicide.
Video - Watch Jon Greiner's Report
Although they never had any contact with him, state police said they suspected Wagner was in his house when they were looking for him. State police said they got a ping from his cell phone during their search.
After three hours, the Special Emergency Response Team went inside the house on Route 403 in Green Township about a block away from the Sandy's Corner Convenience store.
500 yds500 yds© 2009 Microsoft Corporation © 2009 NAVTEQ © AND © 2009 Microsoft Corporation © 2009 NAVTEQ © AND
2D3DRoadAerialLabels
Police said they found Wagner dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The coroner's office said Wagner had been dead for several hours when he was discovered.
Police said Wagner shot Kim Romagna, 40, with a rifle shortly after noon Tuesday at a house on Hancock Street in Clymer. Romagna was pronounced dead at the scene at 1 p.m. of an apparent single gunshot wound to her head.
Police said Romagna's husband, from whom friends said she was estranged, and her adult son were upstairs, but they didn't hear anything.
Second and Hancock streets in Clymer, Indiana County
(Photo from Ashley Pribicko at 1160 WCCS)
"His grandmother got a phone call -- her mom -- from the boyfriend that said, 'I'm sorry, I shot your daughter,'" said Nancy Isenberg, a friend of Romagna.
Romagna's mother called the house and the husband went downstairs and found Romagna's body. Wagner then drove to his house, where he would shoot himself dead, according to the coroner's office.
Wagner had a criminal record that included assault and burglary, and the victim confided in friends that he had been violent toward her.
"He had been in the past. He hadn't been lately, but yes, he had in the past," Isenberg said. "Normal arguments was all I ever seen, and I have seen him throw a fist at her, but I haven't seen the damage that he's done in the past."
Isenberg said it's ironic because Romagna was always the one trying to diffuse arguments.
"(She was) very nice to everyone. If anybody else was ever fighting, she'd always hear both sides and was always right there trying to give advice you know or just to listen," Isenberg said.
State police said they were not immediately sure of a motive. The coroner's office said there reportedly had been a relationship between the victims but Romagna ended it a short time ago.
Autopsies are scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown. Funeral arrangements for Romagna will be managed by the Moriconi Funeral Home in Northern Cambria. Plans were incomplete for Wagner.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Las Vegas, NV: Police: Man accused in girlfriend’s death said he ‘screwed up’
By Cara McCoy (contact)
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009 | 9:17 a.m.
A Las Vegas man was arrested Sunday in the death of his live-in girlfriend after calling his former fiancée in New York and saying he had "hurt his girlfriend real bad," according to a Metro Police arrest report.
Officers found Benjamin Farrey, 29, at about 3 a.m. Sunday bleeding from the head, lying on the concrete pool area below his apartment in the 3700 block of Swenson Street after he apparently jumped from the building, according to the arrest report.
His former fiancée had told police over the phone that Farrey had called her and said he “screwed up.” She told authorities she knew him to be living with a woman and a baby at the apartment.
Inside the home, police found an infant in a playpen. They also found a woman dead with apparent neck trauma, possibly caused by a sharp instrument, police said.
That woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was identified Tuesday by the Clark County Coroner’s Office as Mandi Rose Perez, 28. She died of multiple sharp force injuries and the cause of death was ruled to be a homicide, a coroner’s spokeswoman said.
Farrey was taken to Sunrise Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition. In addition to other injuries, he had a small cut on his hand consistent with a knife wound, police said.
He was booked in absentia in connection with Perez’s death, police said.
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009 | 9:17 a.m.
A Las Vegas man was arrested Sunday in the death of his live-in girlfriend after calling his former fiancée in New York and saying he had "hurt his girlfriend real bad," according to a Metro Police arrest report.
Officers found Benjamin Farrey, 29, at about 3 a.m. Sunday bleeding from the head, lying on the concrete pool area below his apartment in the 3700 block of Swenson Street after he apparently jumped from the building, according to the arrest report.
His former fiancée had told police over the phone that Farrey had called her and said he “screwed up.” She told authorities she knew him to be living with a woman and a baby at the apartment.
Inside the home, police found an infant in a playpen. They also found a woman dead with apparent neck trauma, possibly caused by a sharp instrument, police said.
That woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was identified Tuesday by the Clark County Coroner’s Office as Mandi Rose Perez, 28. She died of multiple sharp force injuries and the cause of death was ruled to be a homicide, a coroner’s spokeswoman said.
Farrey was taken to Sunrise Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition. In addition to other injuries, he had a small cut on his hand consistent with a knife wound, police said.
He was booked in absentia in connection with Perez’s death, police said.
Muncie, IN: Muncie man doesn't remember stabbing his wife to death
WXIN
Detectives say late Saturday night Tom had gone to bed while his wife Crystal and a 14-year-old friend of the family stayed in another room. Officers say Tom grabbed a dagger hanging on the wall and stabbed his wife in the stomach.
Fox59.com
8:02 AM EST, December 15, 2009
A central Indiana man admits to police that he likely killed his wife with a dagger, but he doesn't remember it.
"I think I just killed my wife."
Tom and Crystal Curtis got married seven years ago. Their family and friends say they never knew of any marital problems.
"No fighting. Nothing"
That's why people in the Muncie mobile home community were stunned to find out that officers had arrested Tom, accusing him of stabbing his wife to death with a dagger.
"He talked to everybody here. I mean he said hi to everybody, tried to help a lot of people here."
"I went to bed and I just woke up and she's got....I don't know...I don't know..I'd never hurt anyone..and she's got a knife in her belly. Hurry up...please, please."
Detectives say late Saturday night Tom had gone to bed while his wife Crystal and a 14-year-old friend of the family stayed in another room. Officers say Tom grabbed a dagger hanging on the wall and stabbed his wife in the stomach.
"He went to bed and woke up dreaming and from the military he thought he was in a fight or something and killed my sister in law."
Tom told officers he doesn't remember grabbing anything or walking into the living room. He says he has voices in his head that will not leave him alone. Tom's brother says Tom had been in the military for 13 years, and suffered from Post traumatic stress disorder.
"He didn't mean to do anything. He would never hurt her. He was on medication. Multiple. Like 8 or 9 different meds."
But Tom didn't take his medications the night officers say he killed his wife.
Tom Curtis is being held without bond in the Delaware County jail.
Detectives say late Saturday night Tom had gone to bed while his wife Crystal and a 14-year-old friend of the family stayed in another room. Officers say Tom grabbed a dagger hanging on the wall and stabbed his wife in the stomach.
Fox59.com
8:02 AM EST, December 15, 2009
A central Indiana man admits to police that he likely killed his wife with a dagger, but he doesn't remember it.
"I think I just killed my wife."
Tom and Crystal Curtis got married seven years ago. Their family and friends say they never knew of any marital problems.
"No fighting. Nothing"
That's why people in the Muncie mobile home community were stunned to find out that officers had arrested Tom, accusing him of stabbing his wife to death with a dagger.
"He talked to everybody here. I mean he said hi to everybody, tried to help a lot of people here."
"I went to bed and I just woke up and she's got....I don't know...I don't know..I'd never hurt anyone..and she's got a knife in her belly. Hurry up...please, please."
Detectives say late Saturday night Tom had gone to bed while his wife Crystal and a 14-year-old friend of the family stayed in another room. Officers say Tom grabbed a dagger hanging on the wall and stabbed his wife in the stomach.
"He went to bed and woke up dreaming and from the military he thought he was in a fight or something and killed my sister in law."
Tom told officers he doesn't remember grabbing anything or walking into the living room. He says he has voices in his head that will not leave him alone. Tom's brother says Tom had been in the military for 13 years, and suffered from Post traumatic stress disorder.
"He didn't mean to do anything. He would never hurt her. He was on medication. Multiple. Like 8 or 9 different meds."
But Tom didn't take his medications the night officers say he killed his wife.
Tom Curtis is being held without bond in the Delaware County jail.
Hamlet, NC: Minister who killed wife out of prison
A former Sanford pastor has been released from prison after serving more than five years for killing his wife.
Melvin Bynum, 47, pleaded guilty in January 2007 to voluntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of 40-year-old Marnita Bynum, his wife of 19 years.
Authorities found the body of Marnita Bynum, a substitute teacher, in the trunk of her Chrysler Sebring convertible, which had been abandoned on a rural road north of Hamlet on Aug. 2, 2004.
Melvin Bynum, the pastor of Cry Out Loud Ministries in Sanford, originally was charged with first-degree murder in the case and could have faced the death penalty if convicted on that charge.
He was held in the Richmond County Jail following his arrest in September 2004 and was moved to a state prison following his guilty plea to finish his 64- to 86-month sentence.
Melvin Bynum, 47, pleaded guilty in January 2007 to voluntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of 40-year-old Marnita Bynum, his wife of 19 years.
Authorities found the body of Marnita Bynum, a substitute teacher, in the trunk of her Chrysler Sebring convertible, which had been abandoned on a rural road north of Hamlet on Aug. 2, 2004.
Melvin Bynum, the pastor of Cry Out Loud Ministries in Sanford, originally was charged with first-degree murder in the case and could have faced the death penalty if convicted on that charge.
He was held in the Richmond County Jail following his arrest in September 2004 and was moved to a state prison following his guilty plea to finish his 64- to 86-month sentence.
Beckley, WV: Police: Two elderly victims die from gunshot wounds
By Amelia A. Pridemore
Register-Herald Reporter
December 14, 2009 10:16 pm
— Two elderly people died from gunshot wounds Monday morning, and Beckley Police say their deaths were possibly a murder/suicide.
The shooting in the 100 block of Tolley Drive was reported around 10:30 a.m. Monday, said Capt. Jeff Shumate, chief of detectives. The victims were a man and a woman. One was pronounced dead at the scene, and the other was taken to a local hospital, where he/she was pronounced dead on arrival. Their names are being withheld because of pending family notifications.
One person contacted a neighbor, Shumate said. The neighbor then called for emergency medical service workers, who then contacted police.
The victims have no known domestic violence history, Shumate said.
Police believe both victims resided in the same house, and they were family members, Shumate said. Police are interviewing neighbors and other family members as they investigate the motive. One possible motive involves one victim’s medical condition.
Shumate said police believe they know who the shooter was, but he emphasized the investigation is ongoing.
Register-Herald Reporter
December 14, 2009 10:16 pm
— Two elderly people died from gunshot wounds Monday morning, and Beckley Police say their deaths were possibly a murder/suicide.
The shooting in the 100 block of Tolley Drive was reported around 10:30 a.m. Monday, said Capt. Jeff Shumate, chief of detectives. The victims were a man and a woman. One was pronounced dead at the scene, and the other was taken to a local hospital, where he/she was pronounced dead on arrival. Their names are being withheld because of pending family notifications.
One person contacted a neighbor, Shumate said. The neighbor then called for emergency medical service workers, who then contacted police.
The victims have no known domestic violence history, Shumate said.
Police believe both victims resided in the same house, and they were family members, Shumate said. Police are interviewing neighbors and other family members as they investigate the motive. One possible motive involves one victim’s medical condition.
Shumate said police believe they know who the shooter was, but he emphasized the investigation is ongoing.
Murrietta, CA: Preliminary hearing for man accused of mall stabbing of girlfriend to resume today
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009.
Issue 51, Volume 13.
MURRIETA - A preliminary hearing for a Pala man who allegedly stabbed and killed his girlfriend in a parking structure at The Promenade mall is set to resume today.
Mickey David Beauchamp Wagstaff, 25, is accused of first-degree murder with the special circumstance allegation of committing murder during a rape.
He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted in the death of Elizabeth Kellenbarger Amirian, 27, in a van parked at the shopping center on Winchester Road in Temecula.
The District Attorney chose not to seek the death penalty.
According to authorities, a sheriff's sergeant on patrol spotted the man stabbing a woman and ordered him out of the Toyota minivan but the man would not comply, prompting the sergeant to break the rear window and subdue the man
with a stun gun.
The preliminary hearing, which began Monday, will enable a judge to determine if there are grounds for Wagstaff to stand trial.
Issue 51, Volume 13.
MURRIETA - A preliminary hearing for a Pala man who allegedly stabbed and killed his girlfriend in a parking structure at The Promenade mall is set to resume today.
Mickey David Beauchamp Wagstaff, 25, is accused of first-degree murder with the special circumstance allegation of committing murder during a rape.
He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted in the death of Elizabeth Kellenbarger Amirian, 27, in a van parked at the shopping center on Winchester Road in Temecula.
The District Attorney chose not to seek the death penalty.
According to authorities, a sheriff's sergeant on patrol spotted the man stabbing a woman and ordered him out of the Toyota minivan but the man would not comply, prompting the sergeant to break the rear window and subdue the man
with a stun gun.
The preliminary hearing, which began Monday, will enable a judge to determine if there are grounds for Wagstaff to stand trial.
San Clemente, CA: 4 family members found dead in upscale Calif. home
By AMY TAXIN (AP) – 3 hours ago
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — A woman killed herself and three other family members, including two young children, in what may have started as a child custody dispute in an upscale, gated Orange County community, authorities said Tuesday.
Sheriff's deputies checking on the tenants were sent to a house in the Careyes community shortly before 2 p.m. Monday. They found the bodies of a 38-year-old woman and her daughters, ages 2 and 4, along with a close relative who was in her 60s, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.
The four had been staying temporarily with a friend who was leasing the home, Amormino said.
He said that man was inside the home when a disturbance began.
"It raised a red flag," Amormino said.
Concerned about the welfare of the children, he left and reported the disturbance to authorities at about 1:45 p.m., Amormino said.
Deputies were sent to check on the welfare of the children and found the bodies in a first-floor hallway of the red-roofed, mustard-colored stucco house. Nobody else was in the house.
The cause of death was not immediately released but it "was a very bloody scene," and it appeared that one of the women killed the others and then herself, Amormino said.
Investigators were still piecing together what happened, but one motive being examined was a child custody dispute, Amormino said.
"There was a custody battle going on between the mother of the little girls" and the father, Amormino said. However, the father was not considered a suspect, he said.
The couple was divorced and he was not at the home.
No previous problems were reported at the home, Amormino said.
The deaths jolted the community, which has 42 luxury houses overlooking a golf course. The homes, with four to six bedrooms, sell for more than $1 million.
"It's very shocking," said next-door neighbor Rebecca Vandehei, who lit a stick of incense on her property in memory of the children.
"I did a prayer...I wanted to try to help," she said.
"This is an upscale community," Amormino said. "Crime is very low here."
However, the last homicide report in town also involved a family massacre. Relatives who hadn't heard from relatives broke into a home in another gated community in May 2008 and found five decomposing bodies.
Authorities said Margrit Ucar, 48, shot her husband and herself, while their 21-year-old twin daughters and the family's 72-year-old maternal grandmother died from prescription drug overdoses in an apparent suicide pact. The motive has not been determined.
San Clemente, with about 65,000 residents, lies near the ocean about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Spanish-style mansions and exclusive neighborhoods dot its hills. One home bought by then-President Richard Nixon in the late 1960s was nicknamed the "Western White House." It was the Nixons' vacation home and he hosted several world leaders there.
(This version CORRECTS Corrects with Amormino now saying the 4 victims were visiting the house, didn't lease it, and the real leaser called authorities. CLARIFIES color of house and ADDS neighbor comment, other details. ADDS byline.)
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — A woman killed herself and three other family members, including two young children, in what may have started as a child custody dispute in an upscale, gated Orange County community, authorities said Tuesday.
Sheriff's deputies checking on the tenants were sent to a house in the Careyes community shortly before 2 p.m. Monday. They found the bodies of a 38-year-old woman and her daughters, ages 2 and 4, along with a close relative who was in her 60s, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.
The four had been staying temporarily with a friend who was leasing the home, Amormino said.
He said that man was inside the home when a disturbance began.
"It raised a red flag," Amormino said.
Concerned about the welfare of the children, he left and reported the disturbance to authorities at about 1:45 p.m., Amormino said.
Deputies were sent to check on the welfare of the children and found the bodies in a first-floor hallway of the red-roofed, mustard-colored stucco house. Nobody else was in the house.
The cause of death was not immediately released but it "was a very bloody scene," and it appeared that one of the women killed the others and then herself, Amormino said.
Investigators were still piecing together what happened, but one motive being examined was a child custody dispute, Amormino said.
"There was a custody battle going on between the mother of the little girls" and the father, Amormino said. However, the father was not considered a suspect, he said.
The couple was divorced and he was not at the home.
No previous problems were reported at the home, Amormino said.
The deaths jolted the community, which has 42 luxury houses overlooking a golf course. The homes, with four to six bedrooms, sell for more than $1 million.
"It's very shocking," said next-door neighbor Rebecca Vandehei, who lit a stick of incense on her property in memory of the children.
"I did a prayer...I wanted to try to help," she said.
"This is an upscale community," Amormino said. "Crime is very low here."
However, the last homicide report in town also involved a family massacre. Relatives who hadn't heard from relatives broke into a home in another gated community in May 2008 and found five decomposing bodies.
Authorities said Margrit Ucar, 48, shot her husband and herself, while their 21-year-old twin daughters and the family's 72-year-old maternal grandmother died from prescription drug overdoses in an apparent suicide pact. The motive has not been determined.
San Clemente, with about 65,000 residents, lies near the ocean about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Spanish-style mansions and exclusive neighborhoods dot its hills. One home bought by then-President Richard Nixon in the late 1960s was nicknamed the "Western White House." It was the Nixons' vacation home and he hosted several world leaders there.
(This version CORRECTS Corrects with Amormino now saying the 4 victims were visiting the house, didn't lease it, and the real leaser called authorities. CLARIFIES color of house and ADDS neighbor comment, other details. ADDS byline.)
York County, PA: York County Couple Found Dead; Victims of Murder-Suicide
WPMT
Michael Gorsegner
Morning Reporter
9:42 AM EST, December 15, 2009
FAIRVIEW TOWNSHIP, YORK COUNTY
Police are on the scene of what the coroner has called a murder-suicide along the 500 block of Pleasant View Road, Fairview Township.
The victims have been identified as Bruce and Helen Landis, both 80. It appears Bruce shot Helen in a chair and then went into the backyard and shot himself, the coroner says.
The call came in around 7 a.m. for a shooting at a residence located at 514 Pleasant View Rd. Police got the call from a nearby family member who found a note on her porch from one of the Landis', describing some sort of incident at the home. When the relative got to the house, she found Helen dead inside and called 9-11.
When first responders got on scene, they found the body of Helen Landis in a chair inside the home and the body of Bruce Landis, outside. Both had apparently been shot. A double-barreled shotgun was found with the male.
The coroner believes mental illness played a role in the incident. Family members say Bruce did not have a diagnosed mental illness, but he did have some mental issues.
A neighbor reported hearing gunshots around 5:45 or 6 this morning.
The property is adjacent to Red Land High School. Police say they contacted West Shore School District immediately and informed them there was no threat to students or faculty.
Copyright © 2009, WPMT-TV
Michael Gorsegner
Morning Reporter
9:42 AM EST, December 15, 2009
FAIRVIEW TOWNSHIP, YORK COUNTY
Police are on the scene of what the coroner has called a murder-suicide along the 500 block of Pleasant View Road, Fairview Township.
The victims have been identified as Bruce and Helen Landis, both 80. It appears Bruce shot Helen in a chair and then went into the backyard and shot himself, the coroner says.
The call came in around 7 a.m. for a shooting at a residence located at 514 Pleasant View Rd. Police got the call from a nearby family member who found a note on her porch from one of the Landis', describing some sort of incident at the home. When the relative got to the house, she found Helen dead inside and called 9-11.
When first responders got on scene, they found the body of Helen Landis in a chair inside the home and the body of Bruce Landis, outside. Both had apparently been shot. A double-barreled shotgun was found with the male.
The coroner believes mental illness played a role in the incident. Family members say Bruce did not have a diagnosed mental illness, but he did have some mental issues.
A neighbor reported hearing gunshots around 5:45 or 6 this morning.
The property is adjacent to Red Land High School. Police say they contacted West Shore School District immediately and informed them there was no threat to students or faculty.
Copyright © 2009, WPMT-TV
Article: HBO's 'Every ... Day of My Life' tells story of Oregon mother's final days of freedom after killing her husband
By Jake Ten Pas, Special to The Oregonian
December 14, 2009, 6:04AM
Tommy Davis, HBO
When: 10 p.m. Monday
Channel: HBO
Online: hbo.comMaking a documentary about a homicide is a challenging proposition. One person will never tell his or her side of the story.
Making a documentary about domestic violence and a family for whom it led to a deadly conclusion is just as challenging. There's a horrifying story to be told, but the telling could easily be manipulated to evoke a stronger, more simplistic response. The available images and sounds that must serve as the bones of the narrative are incomplete. They can be assembled in such a way that either faithfully re-creates the tragedy or renders it unrecognizable to those who lived it.
Whether "Every ... Day of My Life" tells the story as it was or subtly shapes it to make it a more devastating portrait of domestic violence is something only the Maldonado family of Grants Pass, and those who lived through it with them, will ever know. As a judge says while pronouncing the sentence in the final moments of the film, it's hard to imagine that it didn't happen exactly as they said.
On May 1, 2005, Wendy Maldonado called 9-1-1. "I just killed my husband," she confessed to the southern Oregon operator. She was aided by her oldest son, Randy, then 16. They bludgeoned and hacked Aaron Maldonado to death with a hammer and a hatchet. She was sentenced to 10 years in jail, and her son received five.
The film documents her last four days of freedom, in spring 2006, interspersing the footage with home movies, interviews with Randy in jail (because he was deemed a flight risk, he wasn't released on bail), and interviews with the rest of their family, neighbors and friends.
Those interviewed recount domestic violence so extreme that it's hard to imagine living through it. There are remembrances of burnings with bent coat hangers, brooms broken over heads and threats of mutilation and death by machete.
There are details so horrific they couldn't be made up, like the children's drawings covering the holes Wendy's head left in the walls.
Southern Oregon Public Defender's Office
A photo taken at the Maldonados home is included in the HBO documentary "Every ... Day of My Life."
At one heartbreaking moment in the film, the family sits around the dining room table -- the children, who will soon see their mother incarcerated, reading the statements they've prepared for her sentencing.
Joshua, 15, reads his. "I think it's wrong that my mom and Randy have to go away because I haven't had a normal life with them. I think it's wrong that my family will not be whole again for another 10 years. Then I will be an adult."
Even worse is the scene in which Randy describes his decision to accompany his mom to kill his father because he can't stand the thought of her being forced to do it alone.
Unlike fictional films, which critics might hyperbolically describe as "gut-wrenching" or "tear-jerking," "Every ... Day of My Life" is actually both of those things. It's real, and it never flinches. The title comes from Wendy's description to the 9-1-1 operator -- when she called after killing her husband -- of how often he beat her.
He didn't just beat her, though. According to Wendy and her children, he threatened to kill her again and again. In home movies, we see him kicking deer carcasses and licking blood from them. We see him forcing his infant child to fire a shotgun. We see Wendy robotically blowing kisses to the camera, as if she knows that's what's expected of her. We never actually see Aaron delivering the beatings described, but the evidence is everywhere, from the holes in the wall to the holes in Wendy's mouth where her teeth used to be.
HBO
Tyler Maldonado, whose mother Wendy Maldonado, killed his father, testifies at her sentencing. Her last days of freedom are documented in HBO documentary "Every ... Day of My Life."
There's also the moment at the sentencing, where Paul, Aaron's brother, rants at Wendy, "Your day will come." There is probably another story -- of Aaron's family and what they've gone through in the wake of his death. That isn't what the film is about.
It's about a family finally on the verge of living right at the exact moment two of its five members are sent to jail. It might also be about a failed justice system, the consequences of not dealing with violence sooner, the unreported nature of domestic violence. That's for viewers to decide.
As Wendy is taken into custody, the camera pauses for a moment on the word "Intake" stenciled on the jail door. The filmmakers could have gone in for one final look at her children's faces, but it doesn't take that easy, emotionally manipulative way out. There's nothing more to say.
-- Jake Ten Pas
December 14, 2009, 6:04AM
Tommy Davis, HBO
When: 10 p.m. Monday
Channel: HBO
Online: hbo.comMaking a documentary about a homicide is a challenging proposition. One person will never tell his or her side of the story.
Making a documentary about domestic violence and a family for whom it led to a deadly conclusion is just as challenging. There's a horrifying story to be told, but the telling could easily be manipulated to evoke a stronger, more simplistic response. The available images and sounds that must serve as the bones of the narrative are incomplete. They can be assembled in such a way that either faithfully re-creates the tragedy or renders it unrecognizable to those who lived it.
Whether "Every ... Day of My Life" tells the story as it was or subtly shapes it to make it a more devastating portrait of domestic violence is something only the Maldonado family of Grants Pass, and those who lived through it with them, will ever know. As a judge says while pronouncing the sentence in the final moments of the film, it's hard to imagine that it didn't happen exactly as they said.
On May 1, 2005, Wendy Maldonado called 9-1-1. "I just killed my husband," she confessed to the southern Oregon operator. She was aided by her oldest son, Randy, then 16. They bludgeoned and hacked Aaron Maldonado to death with a hammer and a hatchet. She was sentenced to 10 years in jail, and her son received five.
The film documents her last four days of freedom, in spring 2006, interspersing the footage with home movies, interviews with Randy in jail (because he was deemed a flight risk, he wasn't released on bail), and interviews with the rest of their family, neighbors and friends.
Those interviewed recount domestic violence so extreme that it's hard to imagine living through it. There are remembrances of burnings with bent coat hangers, brooms broken over heads and threats of mutilation and death by machete.
There are details so horrific they couldn't be made up, like the children's drawings covering the holes Wendy's head left in the walls.
Southern Oregon Public Defender's Office
A photo taken at the Maldonados home is included in the HBO documentary "Every ... Day of My Life."
At one heartbreaking moment in the film, the family sits around the dining room table -- the children, who will soon see their mother incarcerated, reading the statements they've prepared for her sentencing.
Joshua, 15, reads his. "I think it's wrong that my mom and Randy have to go away because I haven't had a normal life with them. I think it's wrong that my family will not be whole again for another 10 years. Then I will be an adult."
Even worse is the scene in which Randy describes his decision to accompany his mom to kill his father because he can't stand the thought of her being forced to do it alone.
Unlike fictional films, which critics might hyperbolically describe as "gut-wrenching" or "tear-jerking," "Every ... Day of My Life" is actually both of those things. It's real, and it never flinches. The title comes from Wendy's description to the 9-1-1 operator -- when she called after killing her husband -- of how often he beat her.
He didn't just beat her, though. According to Wendy and her children, he threatened to kill her again and again. In home movies, we see him kicking deer carcasses and licking blood from them. We see him forcing his infant child to fire a shotgun. We see Wendy robotically blowing kisses to the camera, as if she knows that's what's expected of her. We never actually see Aaron delivering the beatings described, but the evidence is everywhere, from the holes in the wall to the holes in Wendy's mouth where her teeth used to be.
HBO
Tyler Maldonado, whose mother Wendy Maldonado, killed his father, testifies at her sentencing. Her last days of freedom are documented in HBO documentary "Every ... Day of My Life."
There's also the moment at the sentencing, where Paul, Aaron's brother, rants at Wendy, "Your day will come." There is probably another story -- of Aaron's family and what they've gone through in the wake of his death. That isn't what the film is about.
It's about a family finally on the verge of living right at the exact moment two of its five members are sent to jail. It might also be about a failed justice system, the consequences of not dealing with violence sooner, the unreported nature of domestic violence. That's for viewers to decide.
As Wendy is taken into custody, the camera pauses for a moment on the word "Intake" stenciled on the jail door. The filmmakers could have gone in for one final look at her children's faces, but it doesn't take that easy, emotionally manipulative way out. There's nothing more to say.
-- Jake Ten Pas
Louisa County, VA: Christmas Light Murderer Sentenced Man sentenced to life for killing wife over Christmas lights.
WTVR staffStaff reporter
December 14, 2009
LOUISA COUNTY - A local man who killed his wife over an argument about Christmas lights will spend the rest of his life in prison.
A Louisa County judge handed down that sentence to 54-year-old Forrest Smythers Junior today.
Back in January Smythers shot and killed his wife following an argument over whether to take down their Christmas lights.
Smythers' lawyers said it was an accident.
Saying the gun went off when his wife grabbed it as he walked out the door.
The jury did not believe that story.
December 14, 2009
LOUISA COUNTY - A local man who killed his wife over an argument about Christmas lights will spend the rest of his life in prison.
A Louisa County judge handed down that sentence to 54-year-old Forrest Smythers Junior today.
Back in January Smythers shot and killed his wife following an argument over whether to take down their Christmas lights.
Smythers' lawyers said it was an accident.
Saying the gun went off when his wife grabbed it as he walked out the door.
The jury did not believe that story.
Sarasota County, FL: Officer cleared in shooting of man who shot estranged wife
Posted: Dec 14, 2009 11:04 PM
Updated: Dec 14, 2009 11:29 PM
SARASOTA COUNTY - A North Port police officer has been cleared in a shooting which left one man dead.
Alan Provencal was shot and killed November 23rd by Officer William Carter. Earlier that day, police learned he had gunned down his estranged wife, Carolyn in the parking lot of the Robert L. Anderson administration center in south Venice. He then fled to his home on South Salford Boulevard in North Port.
Police rushed to the house and ordered Provencal, who was standing outside with a gun, to drop the weapon. He refused.
As two officers charged the man, Officer Carter shot him twice in the back.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office and state prosecutors reviewed the case.
Updated: Dec 14, 2009 11:29 PM
SARASOTA COUNTY - A North Port police officer has been cleared in a shooting which left one man dead.
Alan Provencal was shot and killed November 23rd by Officer William Carter. Earlier that day, police learned he had gunned down his estranged wife, Carolyn in the parking lot of the Robert L. Anderson administration center in south Venice. He then fled to his home on South Salford Boulevard in North Port.
Police rushed to the house and ordered Provencal, who was standing outside with a gun, to drop the weapon. He refused.
As two officers charged the man, Officer Carter shot him twice in the back.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office and state prosecutors reviewed the case.
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