It is often said that murderers are the
criminals least likely to repeat their crimes.
Does that statistic matter if you become the victim of one who bucks the
trend?
5/5/2008 - Maryland
A two-time convicted murderer is on trial for strangling another inmate
aboard a prison bus
In her opening statement, assistant Baltimore County State's Attorney
Ann Brobst said 25-year-old Kevin Johns strangled 20-year-old Phillip
Parker because killing people causes him to become sexually aroused.
Defense attorney Harry Trainor countered that Johns has suffered from a
lifetime of mental illness and could not control his actions. Earlier
Monday, Johns waived his right to a jury trial. Harford County Circuit Court
Judge Emory Plitt is hearing the case. Johns allegedly killed Parker aboard
a bus that was taking inmates from Hagerstown to Baltimore in February 2005.
The day before Parker died, he had testified at Johns' sentencing for the
2004 murder of a prisoner at the Maryland Correctional Training Center
near Hagerstown.
7/24/2004 - Alabama
Man murdered woman who befriended him after prior murder conviction
James Hubbard was sentenced to death in 1977
for the murder of a Tuscaloosa woman who befriended him
after he was
released from prison. Hubbard had served a 20 year sentence for a murder
conviction, and called police to report a shooting on January 10, 1977. He
said Lillian Montgomery, whom he was living with, had shot herself at her home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She
died as the result of three gunshot wounds, one to the face, one to the
head, and one to the shoulder, a difficult accomplishment as a suicide. Hubbard first went to prison in 1957 for a second-degree murder conviction in
the death of David Dockery in Tuscaloosa County. He was released in 1976 and
killed again the next year. His second victim, 62-year-old store owner Lillian
Montgomery, was shot three times and robbed of her gold and diamond wristwatch
and about $500 in cash and checks. She had befriended Hubbard and "sponsored"
him to gain his release in 1976. Hubbard had moved into her home
next door to the store she ran on U.S. Highway 82, according to court records.
In a police statement, Hubbard said he had been drinking whiskey with Montgomery
and claimed she committed suicide. Prosecutors introduced evidence that she
couldn't have fired the fatal shots on Jan. 10, 1977. Hubbard was twice
convicted in her death. An appeals court overturned the first conviction. But he
was again sentenced to death at retrial and in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court
refused to review it. The victim's son, Jimmy Montgomery, 66, a Tuscaloosa
businessman, said he and his sister plan to attend the execution. "I hope it
will be over," Montgomery said. "He shot her with a pistol I'd given her."
Another son, 58-year-old Johnny Montgomery, a Birmingham-area real estate agent,
doesn't plan to witness the execution, saying he feels "powerless" over what
goes on with Hubbard and has never communicated with him. "One time I could have
taken care of this guy with my own hands if they let me," the younger brother
said in a telephone interview. "God has given me peace with this. I have
forgiven him."
10/2003 - Ohio
Prison Inmate Gets Death Sentence In Strangling
An Ohio prisoner convicted of strangling his cellmate will be executed. The
prisoner, Timothy Hancock, 33, initially got a life sentence for the
November 2000 slaying. However, Warren County prosecutors appealed to demand
stiffer punishment, and a new sentencing was ordered. Hancock's death
sentence will be automatically appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which is
required in capital cases. Hancock was convicted
two years ago of killing Jason Wagner, 25,of Lancaster. They shared a cell
at Warren Correctional Institution near Lebanon.
Hancock was serving a life term for a 1990 murder.
10/3/03 - California
Former death row inmate may again face death penalty
Charge filed after 25 years
Armida Wiltsey went for a jog around the Lafayette Reservoir
in California on Nov. 14, 1978. She never came home.
The 40-year-old mother was found, raped and strangled to death,after
worried neighbors called police to report her missing.
There were a few witness descriptions, but no real leads to
assuage the fears of a stunned community and a heartbroken family.
The incident came amid a string of brutal rapes
throughout the East Bay that police later found were unrelated.
Only this summer did DNA technology link
evidence saved from under Wiltsey's fingernails with a serial rapist who had
been paroled just before her killing. He had been on death row.
Prosecutors filed murder charges this week against Darryl Kemp, a
67-year-old Texas prison inmate, who is about to come up for parole once
again. "I'm really relieved," Wiltsey's husband,
Boyd Wiltsey, said Thursday. "This recent
happening sort of gives me a feeling of relief and a sense of
closure." Kemp has been out of custody for
only eight of the 49 years since he turned 18. The
District Attorney's Office will begin extradition
proceedings to bring Kemp to Contra Costa County for trial, said deputy
district attorney Harold Jewett.
Kemp could face the death penalty for Wiltsey's killing; if convicted
and sentenced to die, it would be his second stint on California's death
row. Kemp was convicted of murder by strangulation
and several rapes in 1960 and sent to death row.
His sentence was commuted to life when the death penalty was declared
unconstitutional in the mid-1970s. He was paroled
less than four months before Wiltsey was killed.
Wiltsey had gone jogging on the popular reservoir
trail that Tuesday morning. When she failed to pick up her 10-year-old son
at school, neighbors called police. Boyd Wiltsey
rushed back from a business trip. When he arrived, he said, a deputy and his
boss met him with the news that his wife was dead.
A tracking dog had found her body about 50 feet off the trail.
Witnesses gave the authorities descriptions
and circulated sketches. But there were no arrests.
Eventually, authorities began to believe a man named
Phillip Hughes had killed Wiltsey. Hughes was convicted in the early
1980s of killing three other women. The last time
sheriff's officials contacted Boyd Wiltsey, 15 years ago, they told
him they were "99 percent" sure Hughes was his wife's
killer but did not have enough evidence to convict him, Wiltsey said.
"I kind of lived these many years thinking that was
it," he said. "I was really shocked when I got the call (about Kemp
in May)." Two weeks after the killing, Kemp was
arrested in Walnut Creek for peeping into windows, court records
show. He was interviewed regarding Wiltsey's death,
but his girlfriend gave him an alibi, and he went free because the
state did not revoke his parole. Sheriff's
deputies did take hair samples, however.
Those strands sat in storage for more than 20 years, along with
evidence collected from Armida Wiltsey's body.
In 2000, the sheriff's crime lab notified homicide detectives that
they now had the equipment to test evidence from
the Wiltsey case. The next year, the lab ruled out Hughes as a source of the
male DNA found underneath Armida Wiltsey's
fingernails, court records show. So sheriff's
detective Roxane Gruenheid sat down with the case file. She came upon the
1978 interview with Kemp and did a little research.
He was convicted in Los Angeles County in
1960 for the rape and murder of Marjorie Hipperson, who was strangled with a
silk stocking June 10, 1957, court documents show.
Kemp was arrested two years later for another rape. Police then
matched his hand print to a partial palm print
found at the scene of Hipperson's killing, according to L.A. Police
Department reports. Those were the cases that put
him on death row. "Based (on) excerpts from the
1950s criminal cases, I felt there was a consistent
pattern or modus operandi," Gruenheid wrote in a recent police
report. In between active cases, the crime lab
ordered a comparison of Kemp's 1978 hair sample
with the Wiltsey evidence, according to court records.
It matched, but the hair had degraded over
the years. So lab officials asked for a new blood sample.
A judge issued a warrant and blood was
taken from Kemp at the Texas prison where he is serving a life sentence for
an aggravated rape committed in 1983. Kemp also is
suspected in several other sexual assaults in Texas, court documents show.
He becomes eligible for parole Nov. 7,
prison spokesman Mike Viesca said. He will remain
in custody even if paroled, however, because a Contra
Costa judge issued a new no-bail warrant for him, court records show.
In a statement released Thursday evening, sheriff's
officials said the evidence from Wiltsey's fingernails was compared
with the state's DNA database, which linked it to Kemp.
The statement does not mention the hair sample.
Sheriff's officials refused to comment for this story.
Included with the charges filed Wednesday
are the "special circumstances" of killing during the commission of a rape
and Kemp's previous California conviction for
murder. These allegations make him eligible for the death penalty.
Wiltsey was killed a week after voters
approved a ballot initiative reinstating the death
penalty. That makes Kemp eligible for the death
penalty, Jewett said. He said his office will decide later whether to seek
the death penalty. Boyd Wiltsey hopes
prosecutors do. "He's nothing but an
animal," he said of Kemp. "Society would be much better off without him
around." Detectives came to see him and his son,
Jeff, in May, to see if they recognized a photo of Kemp. They did not.
But the visit opened old wounds, he said.
"She was a very quiet, wonderful woman," he said of his wife. "She
was the living image of what you would consider a
good person." Two years after her death, Boyd and
Jeff Wiltsey moved to Oregon. Boyd Wiltsey has remarried, and Jeff is
married with three children. "To tell you the
truth, if I hadn't had Jeff, I don't really think
I'd be around today," Wiltsey said. "I think I
would have taken some drastic steps at that time."
12/4/01 - Alabama
Triple killer serving life without parole kills another inmate; finally
gets death sentence
A Holman Prison inmate found guilty in September of murdering a fellow
inmate was sentenced to the electric chair in an Escambia County courtroom.
Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Peraita, 25, of Rainbow City, Ala., who was serving life
without parole for 3 murders in Gadsden, was found guilty of capital murder
and of having committed a murder after being convicted of other murders within
the past 20 years. Prosecutor Reo Kirkland convinced a jury that Peraita held
fellow inmate Quincy Lewis down while another inmate, Michael Castillo,
stabbed him with a prison-made knife. Kirkland said during the trial that
Peraita played an important role in the death of Lewis by grabbing him around
the neck, forcing him onto a bunk and holding him while Castillo stabbed him
with a knife. According to Kirkland, testimony from a medical examiner showed
that 2 different stab wounds would each have resulted in the death of Lewis.
One of those wounds was to the chest, the other to the neck. Peraita's defense
team argued self defense and that Peraita and Castillo had paid Lewis money to
leave them alone. They said despite paying Lewis, he continued to threaten
them and that Peraita had been slapped by Lewis not long before the murder.
Peraita gets an automatic appeal due to the death sentence. Judge Brad Byrne
handed down the death sentence. His alleged accomplice, Castillo, pled guilty
to the lesser charge of manslaughter recently in exchange for a 20-year
sentence. Judge Joe Brogden accepted the plea on Nov. 6.
11/27/01 - Oklahoma
Man found guilty in 12-year-old murder of teen boy - also killed two
children as a teenager
In Tulsa, jurors returned a guilty verdict Tuesday night against a man
charged with killing and dismembering a teen-ager 12 years ago. Wayne Henry
Garrison, 42, has maintained his innocence. His trial began earlier this
month. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Jurors will consider
Garrison's punishment in a separate hearing. Garrison was charged with
1st-degree murder in the death of Justin Wiles 13, of Tulsa. The boy
disappeared June 20, 1989, after he was seen getting into Garrison's car at
Garrison's body shop. Parts of Justin's body were found 4 days later at a lake
in Wagoner County, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing.
Investigators said Justin's head, attached to a rock with wire, was found in
Lake Bixhoma. Garrison was charged and arrested in the case on Oct. 22, 1999
-- more than a decade after 1st being identified as a suspect. As a teen-ager,
Garrison killed two children in Tulsa. Police earlier said the circumstances
of those killings were similar to Justin's death. Justin was reported missing
in June 1989 when he didn't come home from mowing lawns. Police said a friend
of Garrison's reported seeing Justin get into a car with Garrison on June 20,
1989. Police said that was the last time the teen was seen alive.
9/21/01 - Alabama
Holman inmate convicted of capital murder
A Holman Correctional Facility inmate was found guilty of capital murder
Friday in the stabbing death of another
inmate. An Escambia County jury deliberated for less
than an hour before finding Cuhuatemoc Little
Warrior Peraita, 25, guilty in the 1999 prison
stabbing death of inmate Quincy Lewis. Peraita
waived his right to have jurors recommend to the
judge if he should be sentenced to life in prison
without parole or to death. Peraita instructed his
attorneys not to fight prosecution efforts to seek
the death penalty. Circuit Judge Bradley Byrne said he would
schedule sentencing at a later date.
It was not the 1st capital murder trial for Peraita. When Lewis was
stabbed, Peraita was serving a life without
parole sentence for killing three of his former
co-workers during a 1994 robbery at a fast food
restaurant in Gadsden.
3/23/01 - Alabama
Killer who "knows how to work the system" lets appeal deadlines
expire
The Alabama Supreme Court set an
April 27, 2001 execution date for a man who asked to be sentenced to death
knowing he would get an automatic appeal and better accommodations in prison.
Convicted murderer Tommy Arthur was sentenced to die in Alabama's electric
chair for killing Troy Wicker in a 1982 murder for-hire scheme in Muscle
Shoals. The decision to set the execution date was unusual because
Arthur's appeal has yet to be heard in federal court, as is routine in capital
murder cases. Arthur recently filed papers in state court that include a claim
that new evidence will prove him innocent. Clay Crenshaw, an assistant
attorney general who asked the Supreme Court to set the execution date, said
Arthur has not filed appeals when he was supposed to. "It is our position
that he has waived his appeals," Crenshaw said. Crenshaw, who heads the
capital litigation section in the attorney general's office, said his office,
and apparently the Supreme Court, agree that Arthur has run out of legal
appeals. "This is an oddball case because he technically does have
appeals left, but it's our position he does not because he has not timely
filed petitions," Crenshaw said. "Anything he has left is beyond the
statute of limitations." A defense lawyer who
specializes in death penalty appeals said Arthur didn't appeal because he
couldn't find a lawyer. Alabama does not provide attorneys for condemned
inmates. "It's somewhat unprecedented to schedule an execution without
federal review," said Bryan Stevenson, who heads the Equal Justice
Initiative in Montgomery. Arthur has been convicted and sentenced to death
three
times for shooting Wicker, a riverboat engineer, to death on Feb. 1, 1982. Wicker's wife, Judy
Wicker, testified she had sex with Arthur before the killing and paid him
$10,000 from her husband's life insurance policy for the slaying. Mrs. Wicker
was convicted as an accomplice and was sentenced to life in prison. During
sentencing, Arthur asked jurors to recommend death. He told them a capital
sentence would mean automatic appeals, better accommodations in prison and
liberal access to the prison law library. Crenshaw said Arthur "knows how
to work the system." Arthur's appellate court record shows why it's
taken nearly 19 years to send him to the electric chair: "After 3 trials,
4 appellate reviews, approximately 10 different attorneys and numerous delays
and continuances, Arthur raises over 40 issues before this court," the
Supreme Court said Nov. 21, 1997, when it last upheld his conviction. Arthur
has not exhausted all of his federal appeals, but officials in the Alabama
attorney general's office say he failed to meet filing deadlines on the
appeals. Tuscumbia attorney William Hovater, who represented Arthur during his
2nd trial and later had the conviction successfully appealed, said Arthur
called him Friday after learning that an execution date had been scheduled.
"He said he called me because I was the only one he could trust,"
Hovater said. "He wanted me to check to make sure if he had any appeals
available. I told him I would. "He was pretty upbeat and didn't sound
like someone who had just been told the day he was going to be executed. He
was confident there will be some appellate measure to help him avoid
this." Hovater said Arthur told him that he hopes to draw attention to
the fact that people who have exhausted their appeals on the state level no
longer have an attorney appointed to represent them. He said Arthur continues
to maintain his innocence. Arthur recently filed documents in state court
claiming that he has new evidence proving he is innocent. The papers do not
elaborate on the new evidence. Crenshaw said this is further evidence of
Arthur "working the system." His request to the jury that he
receive the death penalty is an example of the way he used the system. He told
jurors that a death sentence would mean an automatic appeal and access to the
prison law library among other accommodations. Arthur was eligible for the
death penalty because he already had been convicted of killing someone before
the Wicker slaying. He was convicted in 1977 of killing the sister of his
common-law wife. Arthur was sentenced to life in prison in that case. The
victim in that case was shot in the right eye, just as Wicker was killed.
A person convicted of 2 murders within five years can be tried for capital
murder. Arthur was convicted 1st in 1985, but that conviction was overturned
by the Alabama Supreme Court because details of the 1977 murder conviction
were improperly admitted at the trial. Arthur was serving time in a Decatur
work-release center for that killing when Wicker was murdered. Arthur
escaped from the Colbert County jail in 1986 while awaiting the start of his
second trial. Jailer James Conley was shot during the escape. Arthur was
captured less than 2 months later in Knoxville, where he was accused of bank
robbbery. His 2nd conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeals
because of improper evidence, Hovater said. Judy Wicker testified in the 2nd
trial after declining to do so in the 1st trial.
1/8/01 - California
Inmate wants to die rather than ``lingering'' on death row
A California death row inmate imprisoned for 21
years dropped his appeals Monday, setting the stage for a rare execution in
the state with the largest number of condemned inmates. Robert
Massie, 59, could be executed within months for the 1979 murder of a San
Francisco liquor store owner. Of nearly 600 condemned men and women in
California, eight inmates have been executed since 1978, the year state voters
reinstituted capital punishment. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Legge
dismissed Massie's federal appeals late Monday. The judge has already ruled
Massie competent to quit fighting his conviction, and gave Massie until Monday
to change his mind. In his petition to end his appeals, Massie told Legge that
he would rather die than continue living on death row in San Quentin, which is
located a few miles north of San Francisco in Marin County. He said life on
death row is a ``lingering death.'' So even if his death sentence was somehow
reversed or commuted by an appeal, he would remain in prison for the rest of
his life for shooting Boris Naumoff to death at a San Francisco liquor store.
That is why he wants a ``swift execution.'' Massie has spent most of his life
in prison. In 1965, he was convicted of murdering a San Gabriel woman and
sentenced to death. But his death sentence was commuted after the
U.S. Supreme Court struck down California's death penalty laws. Because of
lenient parole laws at the time, he was paroled in 1978, a year before he
killed Naumoff.
12/6/00 - Texas
Gonzales deputy slain; paroled killer charged
San Antonio Express-News
A man twice convicted in slayings is in
Caldwell County Jail, facing a murder charge in the death of a Gonzales County
sheriff's deputy. Sgt. David M. Furrh, 40, was shot once in the chest shortly
before midnight Tuesday during a drug raid on a Luling trailer home. He died
about an hour later at Luling Hospital. Furrh was among a group of officers
from area departments who commonly work together on drug investigations.
Luling is in neighboring Caldwell County. "He was a good guy and a heck
of an officer," Gonzales County Sheriff Glen Sachtleben said. "He
was very interested in the community." Furrh is the first Gonzales County
law officer to die in the line of duty since Sheriff Robert M. Glover was
killed by Gregorio Cortéz in 1901, Sachtleben said. Furrh,
a 17-year veteran, had been with the department for about four years and
previously worked for the Moulton Police Department and sheriff's departments
in Lavaca and Colorado counties, said Marvin Miles, administrative assistant
to Sachtleben. Furrh, who lived in Moulton, is survived by his wife, Tollie;
three children; his parents; and siblings, Miles said. Miguel Salas Rodriguez,
50, is charged in Furrh's death, as well as delivery of a controlled
substance. Rodriguez lived in the Luling trailer home that was raided by
police. Officials released few details of the raid, including whether any
drugs were seized at the home. The DPS Web site lists a December 1973
conviction of homicide without malice, for which Rodriguez was sentenced to
five years in prison. It also shows an April 1979 conviction for murder, for
which he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Texas Department of Criminal
Justice spokesman Glen Castlebury said the 1979 conviction was in Caldwell
County and Rodriguez was paroled in October 1989. He is still on parole.
11/10/00 Michigan
Suspect charged in attack on 2 girls
In 1987 he was charged with his father in the murder of a 15-year-old boy
A man who had been charged with helping his father kill a Clare County
teen-ager 13 years ago has been charged with molesting two young girls in
Nevada. Martin McRae, 26, was arraigned Tuesday in Washoe County, Nev.,
on three counts of felony lewdness with a child younger than 14. He
faces up to life in prison if convicted. McRae is accused of molesting
an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl in the back of his pickup truck in
the desert near Reno, Nev. "At the time, both he and the two
victims were naked," Jim Shewan, the attorney prosecuting the case, told
the Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant. McRae took a group of six children, ages 2
to 10, on a four-wheeling trip Aug. 7, Shewan said. McRae's pickup truck broke
down, stranding the group in the desert overnight. Authorities
allege McRae molested the two girls in the truck's bed while the other
children remained in the cab. The 8-year-old's mother contacted
police after the girl said McRae had molested her. In October 1997,
McRae was charged at the same time as his father, John Rodney McRae, with
the 1987 murder of 15-year-old Randy Ray Laufer in rural Clare County,
about 100 miles north of Lansing. The McRaes moved to Arizona after
Laufer was reported missing, and they were extradited from their home in
Apache Junction, Ariz. Prosecutors alleged Martin McRae helped his father bury
Laufer, but the charges against the son were dismissed because he was 13 at
the time of Laufer's death and could not face adult charges. The
elder McRae was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison without
parole. It was the second time John McRae, now 65, was convicted
of murdering a young boy. The first time was in 1951, when he killed
8-year-old Joey Housey in the Detroit suburb of St. Clair Shores. In
both cases, McRae was the last person seen with the victim. Both
victims' bodies bore numerous slash marks, both were buried near McRae's
homes, and McRae took part in searches for each boy. McRae was 15 at the
time and was 16 when he was sentenced to life in prison for Housey's
slaying. But in 1970, his sentence was commuted by then-Gov.
William Milliken, and he was paroled in 1971.
10/24/00
- Michigan
On Trial For Killing
Second Family - Ex-Cop
Killed First Family in '75, On Trial Again
A former Detroit police
officer found innocent by reason of insanity for killing his first family 25
years ago is on trial again, charged with killing his second wife and
3-year-old son. Paul Harrington allegedly borrowed a gun from a neighbor
Oct. 14, 1999, the night before the killings, then shot his wife, Wanda, and
son Brian in the head at point-blank range after sending his older son off to
school. Prosecutors argued in opening statements of the first-degree murder
trial Monday that Harrington, 54, made a deliberate decision to kill his
family and calmly confessed the crime to a 911 operator. Wayne County
Assistant Prosecutor Ralph Elizondo said Harrington’s decision to
borrow the weapon the night before proved premeditation. Elizondo said
Harrington even told the 911 operator that he sent his teenage son, Paul Jr.,
to school because “he’s too big ... I didn’t want to wrestle him.”
Harrington, who has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, talked to
the operator for about 10 minutes. The recorded call was played back to the
Circuit Court jury Monday. “He thought about this, he had some time to weigh
it,” Elizondo said. Defense attorney W.
Frederick Moore argued that the details of the crime “will disturb you to
your soul,” but said nevertheless Harrington is legally insane. The
ex-officer committed an almost identical crime in 1975, when he shot his wife
and two daughters with his service revolver then turned himself in to police.
He was found innocent by reason of insanity and spent two months in a
psychiatric institution. Moore blamed his client’s psychiatric instability
in part from his traumatic Vietnam War experiences. Harrington told a
psychiatrist years ago that he killed a Vietnamese mother and four children by
mistake. “The demons were torturing him,” Moore said. Harrington sounded
subdued on the 911 tape made shortly after the shootings. “Things just
wasn’t working out,” Harrington said. “Everything’s just gone to hell.
I just don’t know what to do anymore ... I loved my kids. I loved them. I
just couldn’t take care of them anymore.” Harrington sat almost immobile
during the testimony, as a television displayed several photographs of the
crime scene. One photo showed his wife and son, both shot in the head, on
opposite ends of the couch. Another showed blood stains in the dining room
near a Hot Wheels toy garage and cars. Harrington said he shot Brian as he
played with the toys, then carried him to the couch and shot him again. In a
hearing on the case last January, police testified that Harrington confessed
to the killing and said he should have been “put away” in 1975 for killing
his first wife, Becky, 28, and his daughters Pamela, 9, and Cassandra, 4.
Police said the couple had recently separated when he killed the three with
his police service revolver. He was committed for psychiatric evaluation at a
state facility but was released after just two months of treatment, according
to records. UPDATE - 11/1/00 - A former police officer who was
charged with killing his wife and children in 1975 has been convicted of
murdering his second wife and 3-year-old son. Paul Harrington, who was
found innocent by reason of insanity 25 years ago and served two months in a
psychiatric hospital, now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without
parole. "We're glad this man will not hurt anyone else again,"
Chester Trail, a relative of Harrington's second wife, told the Detroit Free
Press in Wednesday's editions. Harrington killed his wife Wanda Harrington,
47, in October 1999, then shot their son, Brian, 3. Harrington, 53, called 911
and waited on his porch for officers. Sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 1.
Harrington's attorneys mounted an insanity defense, arguing that he had been
diagnosed with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 1975,
Harrington - recently separated from his 28-year-old wife, Becky - killed her
and their two daughters, Pamela, 9, and Cassandra, 4, with his service
revolver.
10/13/00 - Maine
Killer Confesses in Bid to Return Home, Cops Say -
Texas
Convict Wants to Serve Sentence in Maine
ETNA, Maine -- James Rodney Hicks, convicted last year of trying to kill a
68-year-old woman in her Texas home, didn't much care for the idea of spending
the next half-century locked up in a Lone Star state prison, authorities said.
If he had to spend the rest of his life behind bars, Hicks told
authorities, he preferred to do it in his home state of Maine.
Even if that meant
confessing to two unsolved murders, authorities said.
Hicks'
relationship with state police in Maine began in 1977 when he was charged and
convicted of killing his first wife, Jennie, who was then 23, McCausland said.
Her body was never found. Hicks
served nearly six years in prison for the slaying, McCausland said.
After
his release in 1982, authorities say, Hicks met a woman, Jerilyn Towers, then
34, at a Newport bar. The last time anyone saw Towers alive, she was walking
out of the bar with Hicks, McCausland said. Although
investigators suspected that Hicks might have had something to do with her
disappearance, they had no evidence and he was never arrested, authorities
said. Hicks
again turned up on police radar screens in 1996, when his longtime, live-in
girlfriend, Lynne Willette, 40, vanished. Police
suspected that she, too, might have been the victim of foul play, but they had
no proof. When Hicks decided some three years ago to move to Texas, there was
nothing police and prosecutors in Maine could do to stop him, authorities
said. The
cases remained stalled until last year, when Hicks was convicted in Texas of
attempted murder after he broke into a home.
On
Tuesday, authorities recovered the first set of remains, buried in a shallow
grave at a house Hicks once rented in Etna, McCausland said.
7/26/00 - Connecticut
America's Most Wanted profile results in arrest of killer
On April 22, 2000, "America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back,"
profiled a murder case from New Haven, Connecticut. Police say that on
December 12, 1999, Kevin Moore stabbed his girlfriend, Margaret Woods, to
death. According to authorities, Moore was charged with Murder, Robbery,
Carrying a Dangerous Weapon, and Failure to Appear. Recently, Moore was
arrested, and even better, the arrest was a direct result of "America's
Most Wanted: America Fights Back." Kevin Moore was out on bail for a
previous murder when he stabbed his girlfriend to death in December of 1999.
He had killed a man in 1997 during a robbery attempt. Capt. Brian Sullivan
of the New Haven police department said that Moore stabbed Woods once in the
chest while her two children, sister and mother were in the house. After the
stabbing, cops say he stayed in the New Haven area for approximately one day,
then fled. Moore was captured on July 25, 2000, in Miami by FBI Fugitive Task
Force. An "AMW" tipster gave cops Moore's real name. Moore had been
working odd jobs and living in boarding houses since the murder. He had been
using the alias Kevin Robinson. At the time of his arrest, Moore was renting a
room from a woman and when the police arrived on his door step. Moore admitted
his identity, and he said that "he was glad that it was over." Moore
will be extradited back to Connecticut, after a hearing today.
6/28/00 - Missouri
Missouri executes convicted repeat murderer
POTOSI, Missouri (AP) -- A man was executed in Missouri by
injection early Wednesday for suffocating a woman and her son during a 1988
robbery because he feared the pair would identify him. Bert Hunter, 53,
was apparently the first inmate in Missouri history put to death without a
jury trial. When his case came to trial in 1989, Hunter was clinically
depressed and suicidal. He pleaded guilty and asked the judge for the death
sentence. His later attempts to seek a new trial were denied. Hours
before his death, he said he didn't expect a last-minute reprieve. "There is no justice," Hunter said. "It's time for this
nightmare to be over, as far as I'm concerned." Hunter was
convicted of killing Mildred Hodges, 75, and her son, Richard, 49, at their
home in Jefferson City. Tomas Ervin was also convicted in the crime and
sentenced to die. Hunter denied that Ervin was involved in the murders, saying
an unnamed accomplice killed Richard Hodges after the victim's mother died
during a scuffle. Hunter was earlier convicted of killing a
blind bar owner in 1968, but was released on parole in 1980. Prosecutor
Richard Callahan said Hunter was an intelligent man whose cocaine habit cost
him work. In need of money, Hunter and Ervin planned to rob the Hodges
home, Callahan said. In his confession, Hunter said the Hodges were killed
because the assailants feared they had been recognized.
6/16/00 - Missouri
Ex-con murders 15-year-old girl in road-rage incident
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) A former convict was charged with murder for allegedly
killing a 15-year-old girl during an argument after a minor traffic
accident. Zeno E. Sims, 37, surrendered Thursday in the slaying of DeAntreia L. Ashley. Ashley was a passenger in a car driven by her
17-year-old boyfriend when it struck Sims' sports utility vehicle Saturday
night, police said. Witnesses reported seeing the SUV pull to the right
side of the car. After a brief argument, the SUV driver began firing a gun
into the car and then sped off, witnesses said. The boyfriend, who
suffered gunshot wounds, was released from the hospital Wednesday. Sims is
charged with assaulting him as well as a third passenger, a 13-year-old boy.
The boy, who police say identified Sims, lay on the back floorboard until the
gunman drove off and then ran to safety, authorities said. The shooting
sparked days of rallies in the community. One group had vowed to continue
daily vigils at the site of the shooting until a suspect was caught. Sims also
faces three counts of armed criminal action and two counts of first-degree
assault, prosecutors said. It is the second time Sims
has faced a murder charge. In 1983, he and two other men were accused in
the killing of a 24-year-old man. Sims eventually pleaded guilty to
manslaughter, was sentenced to eight years but was released early on parole.
5/22/00 - Florida
Triple murderer has execution date
A convicted killer scheduled to be executed next week lost an appeal
Monday before a Gainesville judge, and then turned to the Florida Supreme
Court. After Circuit Judge Robert Cates rejected the appeal by Bennie Demps,
Florida's high court scheduled an oral argument for Tuesday morning. Demps,
49, was first sent to death row for two 1971 murders. He has avoided three
scheduled electrocutions in his years on death row. Demps, a Vietnam
veteran, now is condemned for the 1976 murder of a prison snitch. He's
scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. May 31. Originally,
Demps was sent to death row for the murders of R.N. Brinkworth and Celia
Puhlick, who were fatally shot in a Lake County citrus grove. The
victims were inspecting some land for sale when they happened upon Demps, who
had fled to the grove with a stolen safe. Mrs. Puhlick's husband, Nicholas,
was wounded. A year after Demps was sent to death row, the U.S. Supreme Court
threw out capital punishment across the country, ruling death sentences had
been imposed in an arbitrary way. Demps and 96 other death row
inmates were taken off Florida's death row and returned to the general prison
population. In July 1976, the nation's high court upheld Florida's new
capital punishment law. And two months later, Alfred Sturgis was fatally
stabbed in his prison cell. Before he died, Sturgis told a guard that Demps
and another inmate had held him down while a third stabbed him. Demps was
sentenced to death in 1978. Since his second death sentence, Demps has
survived three death warrants - in 1982, 1987 and 1990 - by winning
last-minute appeals.
5/17/00 - Montana
Bay State killer murders in Montana
KALISPELL, Mont. - A man who served 11 years in prison for strangling his
girlfriend in Massachusetts in 1986 has pleaded guilty to murder in the death
of his wife. Leroy Schmitz testified Monday that he was fighting with
Mary Ann Schmitz, 41, last June 18 in Whitefish. When they fell to the ground,
he said, he put his knee on her throat and killed her. Schmitz, 42,
remained in custody on bail of $1 million and is to be sentenced June 15.
Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend 100 years in prison with 20
suspended and no possibility of parole for 20 years. Fourteen years ago,
Schmitz gave similar testimony to a court in New Bedford, Mass., to explain
the killing of his live-in girlfriend, Barbara Seed. He said he
strangled her accidentally Oct. 5, 1986, during an argument. After the
killing he went to a New Bedford mental health crisis center, where he was
known to counselors, and confessed the crime. He was sentenced to 18 to 20
years at Cedar Junction state prison in Walpole, Mass.
4/27/00 - Ohio
Killer's own family hopes for another death sentence
9 years ago, their brother was sentenced to die. And they applauded. Years
and a pile of appeals later, Michael Jeffrey Johnson is off death row and back
in Summit County Common Pleas Court where he will stand trial once again for
the murder of his sister, Susan Brunst. His family will be there, hoping
for his death, just as they did in 1991 when they held up lighted cigarette
lighters from the back of a courtroom to symbolize that desire. Johnson,
41, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing this afternoon before Judge James R.
Williams. No trial date has been set. "He's being given this 2nd chance
and he doesn't deserve it," said Johnson's sister, June Jones of Florida.
"He knows I have a .357 and I'll blow his head off. I don't care who he
is. He's not my brother. He murdered my sister in cold blood." Johnson, who has been transferred from the Mansfield Correctional Institution
to Summit County Jail, declined a request to be interviewed. His
court-appointed attorney, Patricia Millhoff, could not be reached for
comment. Summit County Prosecutor Michael Callahan said his office
intends to seek the death penalty against Johnson. "That's what he
got the 1st time; that's what he should get this time," said Callahan,
who tried Johnson's 1991 case as an assistant prosecutor. 'I don't think
there's any doubt he did it." During his trial, Johnson maintained his
innocence. Even when condemned to death, he remained calm, giggling while
predicting an appeals court would take his side and spare his life. His
prediction came true in 1994 -- 2 days before Christmas -- when the Ohio
Supreme Court ruled that Judge Williams allowed prosecutors to use
inadmissible evidence and statements against Johnson. They also ruled it was
improper to sentence Johnson to death because local authorities used a 1984
Florida slaying as the basis of obtaining the capital indictment and
verdict. "Our hope is that he gets the same thing he did nine years
ago," said Johnson's brother, Thomas, 33, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls.
"He shouldn't even have a 2nd chance. He didn't give our sister a 2nd
chance. Burn him now." The state's highest court called the evidence
against Johnson "weak" and "not overwhelming." The
justices ordered a new trial. Johnson then asked the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court
of Appeals to drop the murder charge on a claim of double jeopardy. In
January, the federal appellate judges denied his claim and ruled prosecutors
could retry Johnson. The judges said there was sufficient evidence that
Johnson committed the murder. They also ruled prosecutors could seek the death
penalty, so long as they use rape or kidnapping as a reason to support the
capital offense. But they said the basis used for the 1991 death penalty -- a
Florida homicide conviction -- wasn't proper. Johnson spent 19 months in
prison after his guilty plea for beating a female friend with an iron skillet.
Prosecutors and Johnson's own family contend he killed Brunst, a mother of 2,
on June 2, 1990, and dumped her nude body in a patch of woods in Palmyra
Township in Portage County. When Brunst's remains were uncovered almost a
month later, they were too decomposed for investigators to determine a cause
of death. Her death was ruled a "violent homicide" and prosecutors
believe the 36-year-old woman was strangled. Suspicion immediately rested on
Johnson. Brunst had told family members Johnson tried to rape her 6 months
earlier, a move that angered Johnson. They said he also was angry that she
told his new female love interest about his Florida murder conviction and the
family's attempt to have him committed to a psychiatric hospital. Johnson was
the last person to see Brunst alive when he visited her apartment in Akron the
night she disappeared. Carpet fibers from his Jeep were found by her body. And
a neighbor saw Johnson leaving his home at 4:30 a.m., just hours before Brunst
was discovered missing. Johnson told Akron police detectives his family
believed he killed her, so he might as well confess. His same feelings of
betrayal by his family led him to request a guilty plea at his initial court
appearance. If Johnson did kill his sister, he has not said how he did it. In
his statements to police, he said he bludgeoned her, stabbed her and then shot
her. However, the were no signs of such trauma. "I could probably
strangle him if he were in front of me now," said Brunst's daughter,
Cindy Veemara, 28, of Orrville. "It's really tough having to go through
all this again and not knowing how it's going to end up. I definitely hope he
gets the electric chair."
4/11/00 - Arkansas
7 months after parole, another murder
A man who was wanted for shooting a pregnant woman and killing her
boyfriend was captured April 10, 2000 in Dallas, Texas. Algernon Doby,
who was wanted in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on murder and attempted murder charges
was arrested after he tried to flee Dallas Police in a stolen Ford Escort.
Police say when they searched the vehicle they also found ten rocks of crack
cocaine. Doby's arrest is a direct result of his profile on the television
show America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back. Doby is the show's 605
capture to date. FBI agents in Arkansas had been looking for Doby since the 1999 murder of a
Pine Bluff man and the attempted murder of his pregnant girlfriend. According
to agents, on July 7, 1999, Doby and an accomplice drove up to the residence
of Raymond Johnson. Doby's accomplice says the motive was robbery. When they
arrived at Johnson's house, they were met by Raymond's 19-year old girlfriend
Tamica Tyler, who was nine months pregnant. Doby pulled a gun and began firing
at Raymond and Tamica. She was shot in the stomach and Raymond was hit as
well. Doby stole $400 from the house and fled. Raymond later died of the
gunshot wounds but amazingly, both Tamica and her child survived. This
incident came just seven months after Doby was paroled for a previous murder
conviction and just five months after Doby was released on bond after
being arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. America's Most Wanted aired a segment about Doby on March 3, 2000. A viewer
who was watching the show recognized Doby as a man who may have been residing
in an apartment in Dallas. The viewer informed the FBI, who then informed the
Dallas Police Department's Fugitive Task Force. Detectives set up surveillance
for a week but they did not see Doby near the residence. Yesterday, an undercover police office was patrolling the neighborhood when
she noticed a vehicle parked outside the residence. A license place check
showed the vehicle was stolen. Moments later Doby exited the residence
and drove away in the vehicle. The officer pursued Doby and called for backup.
When backup arrived Doby was pulled over and apprehended. In addition to
the charges of murder and attempted murder in Pine Bluff, Doby now faces
charges of grand theft auto and drug possession in Dallas.
4/7/00 - Minnesota
Suspect arrested in Minneapolis homicide
A 32-year-old man has been arrested in the killing of a woman who was found
in her south Minneapolis apartment about 4 a.m. Thursday. Police said the
suspect, who was convicted of third-degree murder in 1987, appears to have
known the victim, who was in her late 30s. The victim was a quiet woman
who lived alone in an apartment building and occasionally had friends over,
said Beverly Williams, who lives next door. She said she didn't hear any shots
or loud noises coming from the victim's apartment Wednesday or early Thursday. The victim suffered traumatic injuries consistent with homicide, said a
spokesman for the Hennepin County medical examiner's office. An autopsy is
scheduled for today and relatives are being sought to positively identify the
woman, he said. Police released no information about a possible motive,
how the woman was killed or who found her. The suspect is being held in the Hennepin County jail. He was convicted of
third-degree murder and aggravated assault in 1987 and of domestic assault in
Bloomington in 1997. The domestic case involved his wife, who had a protection
order against him and is not the homicide victim, records show. The man
lives in New Brighton, a police spokeswoman said. The Star Tribune
generally doesn't name suspects before they are charged. The victim's neighbor said she was shocked to hear of the death because the
building, which has locked security doors, is usually quiet. "The
managers try to keep it pretty safe," Williams said. She has lived in the
building, in the Howe neighborhood, for almost two years.
4/5/00 - Texas
Freed killer repeatedly broke parole, official says
He says man - now charged in 2nd slaying - belonged back in prison
Texas officials took no action about repeated parole violations by a freed
Dallas murderer, who went on to be charged with stabbing a second estranged
lover to death, state records show. The officials acknowledge that
William Earl Rayford, a 46-year-old glass cutter, should have been supervised
more closely and not allowed to commit further crimes. "I think that's intolerable," said Victor Rodriguez, head of the
state parole division and former head of the parole board. "We shouldn't
let it rise to the level of a crime" before revoking an offender's
parole. Relatives of Carol Lynn Thomas Hall, whom Rayford is charged
with killing late last year, said that if he had been in prison that day, as
he should have been, she would still be alive. "Why didn't they
take him back?" said Dortha J. Thomas, Ms. Hall's mother. "He has taken
the very soul from two families." Stennett Posey, the parole division's
spokesman, said he didn't know how to respond to her grief. "I don't think
there's anything I can say that would make up for the loss of a loved one,"
he said. But "let's focus the blame on the offender." Rayford ran afoul of the law several times after his 1994 release in the
first slaying, beginning with a 1997 drunken-driving conviction in Denton
County. That was enough to return him to prison, but the parole board decided
to let him remain free "pending the successful completion of
probation," according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice report.
Rayford violated his probation in several ways, Denton County records show: He
tested positive for cocaine twice, failed to complete court-ordered community
service and didn't pay fees and fines. A judge ordered him to serve 50 days in
jail last year, but his parole still wasn't revoked. For reasons that remain unclear, Mr. Posey said, the matter was not
returned to the parole board for consideration. He declined to identify the
parole officer who was supervising Rayford, saying that her handling of the
case is under internal investigation. Flowers mark the area where the body of
Carol Hall (above) was found after her slaying in November. The man accused in
her death was convicted of killing his former wife in 1986 but was free on
parole when Ms. Hall - his estranged girlfriend - was killed and her son was
wounded. After Rayford's short jail term in Denton came an arrest on a trespassing
charge; he was accused of scaling a fence to reach a private fishing pond in
southeast Dallas County. He admitted to his parole officer that he was using
cocaine again. Police were called to his girlfriend's southeast Oak
Cliff home three times for disturbances; Ms. Hall didn't press charges over
the incidents, including one in which officers were told that Rayford had
smashed one of her car windows and fled. At the time of the
property-damage call, in October, Ms. Hall had broken up with Rayford. Before
dawn one November morning, according to a Dallas police report, he got into
Ms. Hall's home, argued with her, wounded her 11-year-old son and chased her
outside. Officers found Ms. Hall's body in a drainage tunnel under the
street, stabbed and strangled. They caught Rayford in her back yard - "all wet
and dirty," according to the police report - and said he told them where the
body was. Rayford, whose bail is set at $250,000, faces a murder trial in June. He
declined to be interviewed in jail, and his attorney did not respond to
messages. Benjamin Thomas was injured in Carol Hall's slaying. Dortha
Thomas, Ms. Hall's mother, wants justice. The current charges against Rayford closely resemble those of 1986, when he
was sentenced to 23 years in prison for killing his former wife. He
stabbed Gail Rayford 16 times as their four children watched, then slashed
himself and jumped through a second-story window at her Far East Dallas
apartment. The couple's marriage was dissolved in 1984. A judge ordered Rayford to stay away from Ms. Rayford during the divorce case, finding that he
would harass and hurt her unless restrained. Ms. Rayford won another
temporary restraining order in June 1986, with the same judge declaring that
she was in danger of "immediate irreparable injury." Four days later, Rayford killed her. Before pleading no contest, he
wrote the court a letter asserting that he "did not knowingly and
intentionally cause" her death. "I have been a role model
citizen," he said. Ms. Rayford's mother declined to comment, as did
some of her children, who are now grown. Others could not be located. Out in 8
years Rayford had to be released from prison after eight years because of
"good time" rules that have since been toughened. "He
should have been put on death row," reads a letter dictated by Benjamin
Thomas, the 11-year-old Mr. Rayford is accused of stabbing in November. But
"he was let out of jail to kill again." Benjamin now lives with his grandmother, Ms. Thomas, a block from where his
mother was killed. He dictated the letter to a relative while recovering from
his wounds and addressed it to President Clinton, although the family has
never mailed it. Relatives say Benjamin's mother, Ms. Hall, knew of Rayford's
murder conviction when she started dating him in the mid-1990s. She was Sunday
school superintendent at Burning Bush Missionary Baptist Church and said it
was the family's Christian duty to give him another chance, they say. But her four children worried, saying they saw evidence of all sorts of
lawbreaking. Benjamin said Rayford sometimes visited a crack house in
their neighborhood near Interstate 20 and Bonnie View Road. "He locked me
out of the house," the boy said, and "one time he beat on
me." "He stayed high all the time," said his grandmother, Ms. Thomas.
His parole officer, she said, rarely visited. Short-staffed Mr. Posey,
the parole division spokesman, declined to dispute that characterization. Mr.
Rodriguez, his boss, said more parole officers are needed. But
"we're going to get the job done with what we have," he
vowed. Despite the public's fascination with serial killers, paroled murderers are
statistically much less likely to repeat their offense than, say, child
molesters. Thus, they often are supervised less closely after release from
prison, criminal justice experts say. Mr. Posey noted that Rayford went
years without getting in trouble again after being freed from prison. And at
first, the problems were far less serious than his murder conviction. But the
fact that they continued, he acknowledged, "should have been a red flag."
3/22/00
Indicted in guard killing
BEEVILLE -- A convicted killer already serving a life sentence
was indicted Tuesday for capital murder in the death of prison guard Daniel
Nagle. Robert Lynn Pruett, 20, could face the death penalty if found
guilty of the Dec. 17 attack on Nagle, who was fatally stabbed with a
sharpened rod while patrolling the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
McConnell Unit near Beeville in South Texas. It was the first fatal
attack on a Texas corrections officer since guard Minnie Houston was stabbed
to death in 1984 by an inmate at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville, a prison
official said. Pruett, from Channelview, was serving a life term for a murder
committed when he was 15, according to prison records. Nagle had been
president of the Beeville chapter of the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees, which represents corrections officers. Nagle is
survived by his wife, a former corrections officer at McConnell, and three
young children.
3/1/00
Police Arrest Boyfriend After 'Psychic' Dies of Burns
HIALEAH, Fla. - A self-proclaimed psychic has died of burns suffered
when her herbal-remedy store was set on fire with a bucket of gasoline. A
former boyfriend was arrested. Addy Tejeiro, 56, known as "Madame
Francisca," suffered burns over 90 percent of her body Saturday. She died
Monday at a hospital in Miami. Police arrested Roberto L. Suarez, 62, and
charged him with first-degree murder. He served seven years in prison on a 1974
murder conviction for killing a man who took a french fry off his plate at a
restaurant. Police said Suarez, who had been Tejeiro's on-and-off
boyfriend for several years, was upset because she refused to get back
together with him after a recent breakup.
12/8/99
Killer charged with murdering while on the loose
STAR CITY, Ark. - A convicted killer who escaped and was recaptured in
Missouri after crashing into another vehicle was charged in the death of the
man whose truck he was driving. Kenneth Williams,
20, of Pine Bluff, will be arraigned Wednesday on a capital murder charge in
the shooting death of Cecil Boren which happened after he escaped in
October. Williams was charged Tuesday in Lincoln
County Circuit Court with murdering Boren at his home near Grady on Oct. 3.
Williams left the Cummins Unit of the state prison system in a
500-gallon vat of table scraps from the prison kitchen, which was headed for
a barn. Police say after he got off prison grounds, he made his way to
Boren's house, killed him and stole his truck.
Missouri police spotted the truck at Lebanon, Mo., and gave chase. Officers
arrested Williams at Urbana, Mo., after he slammed into a Culligan delivery
vehicle, killing the driver. Police found guns and
jewelry from the Boren home in Boren's truck after the crash.
Williams was returned to Arkansas after waiving extradition. He's
also being charged with aggravated robbery, theft of property and escape. He
is being held in the more-secure Tucker Unit in an isolation cell.
Prison officials say Williams is allowed out of his cell only three
hours a week, except for court appearances and medical visits. At Cummins,
Williams was in a 34-man barracks, officials said, which gave him some
freedom. Williams was sentenced to life in
prison for the December 1998 murder of Dominique Hurd of Fort Worth.
The girl was a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine
Bluff and was on her first date with Peter Robertson of Vineland, N.J., when
she was shot. Robertson also was wounded. Jurors
were split over imposing a death sentence for the Hurd slaying. Tuesday's
announcement by Prosecutor Steve Dalrymple that Williams had been charged in
Boren's death did not say if Dalrymple would seek the death penalty in the
Boren case.
9/12/99
A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD / Cup may have closed book on 4 North Texas killings
WICHITA FALLS - It was a brisk day in February as
Faryion Edward Wardrip stood outside the Olney Screen and Door Co., holding
the secrets to his past in a paper cup. Wardrip was nearing the end of
his break. He drained the last of his drink and turned his lanky frame back
toward the door. He was about to toss the cup in a trash receptacle when a
stranger approached, a wad of tobacco bulging in his lower jaw. "Say, could I have that?" the man asked. "I sure could use a
spit cup." And Wardrip handed over his paper cup, his past - and
his future - to John Little. It was the end of a quest for Little. The
Archer County District Attorney's investigator had been shadowing Wardrip for
most of a week, waiting for the chance the cup had afforded. It also was the
beginning of a classic investigation involving the science of DNA. Within
weeks police would close the books on four previously unsolved North Texas
killings and Wardrip, a middle-aged Church of Christ Sunday school teacher,
would be charged as a serial murderer. Little rushed the cup to the GeneScreen laboratory in Dallas. There, minute
cells from Wardrip's mouth were scraped from its surface and matched to
evidence from the 14-year-old murder of Toni Gibbs near Wichita Falls. That
was no surprise to Little. For the better part of two years he had been
following a trail that led directly to Wardrip. It was a trail that began and
ended with DNA. "Without DNA there would have been no case,"
said Little. Originally, the Gibbs case seemed clear. A nurse at Wichita General
Hospital, Gibbs, 23, was reported missing on Jan. 19, 1985. Her abandoned car
was found three days later in Wichita Falls, and her body was discovered Feb.
15 in a field just south of town. She was one of three young women
killed in a similar manner in Wichita Falls within a year. Others were Terry
Sims, 20, killed in December 1984, and Ellen Blau, 21, killed in September
1985. All had been sexually assaulted, and theories of a serial killer were
circulating. The Gibbs case, however, appeared solved. Danny Wayne
Laughlin had hovered around investigators at the Gibbs crime scene, offering
theories about the killing. Later, during questioning, Laughlin appeared to
know facts about the case that were not public knowledge. He was
eventually charged with the killing, despite a lack of physical evidence and
his assertions that his knowledge came from reading the case file when left
alone in an interrogation room during questioning. There was an attempt in 1986 to match Laughlin's DNA with evidence from the
crime scene, but that proved impossible with procedures that existed at the
time. He was subsequently tried and, although his case ended in a mistrial,
many were convinced that he was the killer. Laughlin died in a car
accident in 1993, and the cloud of suspicion followed him to his grave. Little, however, had doubts. After joining the district attorney's office in
1996, he began examining the old slayings. The killings appeared to him to be
the work of one man and had ended with Blau. Little wondered why, if Laughlin
had been a serial killer, had he seemingly stopped? DNA comparison methods had improved greatly by 1996, and Laughlin's DNA was
tested again. It did not match evidence from the Gibbs case. If Laughlin
could not have killed Toni Gibbs, Little reasoned, then he couldn't have
killed the others. The investigator then began comparing facts about the
killings. One man, Wardrip, appeared to have some connection to each case. In fact, he was a known killer. He had smothered his 21-year-old neighbor,
Tina Kimbrew, on May 6, 1986. She had not been sexually assaulted, and
investigators had not compared her death to the other three. Three days
after the slaying, Wardrip showed up in Galveston and told police he was
suicidal and admitted killing Kimbrew during an argument. He pleaded guilty
to murder and was sentenced to 35 years. He was paroled
in December 1997 and moved to Olney, where he found a job with
Olney Screen and Door, married and joined the Hamilton Street Church of
Christ. He was known as an affable, dependable worker who, at 6-feet-6, had
garnered the nickname "Gonzo." Wardrip was active in the
church as well. There, he told the congregation he had been in jail for
causing his girlfriend's death while driving while intoxicated, but that he
had since become a changed man. He attended regularly, sang hymns and taught
Sunday school. All the while, Little was poring over case files. He learned that Wardrip
had lived less than a quarter-mile from where Sims was killed and less than a
half-mile from where Gibbs' car was found. Wardrip also had worked as an
orderly in a hospital with Gibbs shortly before her death. Little then
determined that Blau had been a frequent guest at a couple's apartment across
the hall from Wardrip's and that Wardrip had worked at a pizza restaurant near
Blau's place of employment. Moreover, Little learned that when Wardrip
confessed the Sims killing to Galveston police, he had mentioned that he knew
Ellen Blau, who also had been slain. Still, Little was without any tangible
physical evidence to link Wardrip to the crimes. His only hope was DNA and,
since DNA samples were available from all the cases, Little decided to obtain
a sample of Wardrip's. That proved easier in theory than in practice, however.
Wardrip had pleaded guilty to the Sims killing and, because DNA played no part
in that case, no sample had been taken from the defendant. Little was forced
to obtain his own sample. During the first week in February, the investigator spent five days
following Wardrip. They were days in which he fought boredom in a
coin-operated laundry across Texas 114 from Olney Screen and Door. He watched
as Wardrip came and went from the business, never leaving anything that might
contain his DNA. Finally, on Feb. 5, he spotted Wardrip with the paper
cup. Results showed that the chances of anyone other than Wardrip having
killed Toni Gibbs were 1 in 16,310,932. Little arrested Wardrip on Feb.
13 and, within days, Wardrip had confessed to the killings of Sims, Gibbs,
Blau and to the 1985 killing of Debra Taylor in Fort Worth. He has since been
charged in all those killings. "This case is the best example of
the use of DNA that I've seen," said District Attorney Tim Cole.
"Without it, we'd have no case at all, and with it, it's tied up. I only
wish they'd had the present procedures perfected back in 1986." Wardrip marked his 40th birthday, March 6, the day he was indicted on a
charge of capital murder in Gibbs' death, in the Archer County Jail. His
case is set for trial in October in Denton, moved there on a change of venue
motion by public defender John Curry. Curry, appearing somewhat resigned
at a pretrial hearing for Wardrip in August, said he plans to question the
manner in which Wardrip's DNA sample was obtained. "Frankly, because I have to
try something," he said.
10/18/98
Mass killer counts down to freedom /Survivor
painfully recalls '73 rampage
Houston - Karen Kurtz's scarred right leg begins to ache
every afternoon, and she has to use a cane to get around, every painful step a
reminder of her brush with Houston's first mass murderer. She was walking home
from Red Elementary School on a spring morning 25 years ago when Larry Delon
Casey, angry following an argument with his girlfriend, drove intersection to
intersection gunning down little girls with a .22-caliber rifle. After fatally
shooting an elderly woman on that day in April 1973, he killed two schoolgirls
and injured Kurtz and another girl. Two months earlier, he'd killed a
convenience store clerk. Despite Casey's notoriety - Harris County prosecutor Bert Graham calls him
Houston's "original" mass murderer - few Houstonians nowadays are
familiar with his name. That probably is because the horror of his 1973
shooting rampage in southwest Houston was eclipsed just four months after it
happened, when the entire nation learned how Dean Corll and two young
accomplices had killed dozens of teen-age runaways here. But Kurtz, now 35 and living far from Houston, remembers Casey. In a recent
interview - after insisting that her new address or married name not be
published for fear the killer might find her someday - she recalled how the
slug that shattered her right leg also shattered her life. "I've dealt with 25 years of leg problems because of him," she
said. For Kurtz, the Casey shootings didn't fade away with the next Page 1 crime.
Every few years, she gets a postal reminder that the stranger who shot her is
alive, standard notices from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that he is
being considered for parole. The last letter she got on the subject arrived in mid-July, and sometime
this month the board likely will make a decision about freeing Casey. Kurtz
and Graham, who convinced a jury to sentence him to 99 years in prison, both
expect the board to reject him for the fourth time in a decade. That is not what concerns them. Thanks to a pristine prison record and a lot of 3
-for-1 "good-time credit," Casey, 48, knows he must
be freed on a mandatory release on Feb. 19, 2006. He will have no parole officer watching him, no letters warning his new
neighbors about him, no legal limitations on him whatsoever beyond the rules
all Texans face daily. Larry Casey does not look like a murderer. Gone is the cocky, smirking
expression he displayed when Houston homicide detectives brought him downtown. "I guess I went out of my head for 15 to 20 minutes," he told a
Chronicle reporter at the police station that day. "I just flew off the
handle." Today, watching Casey interact with other prisoners and guards at the
prison system's Wynne Unit outside Huntsville, he comes across as a pleasant,
schoolteacher-ish sort of guy. He received a bachelor's degree from Sam Houston
State University in 1988, and it shows in the way he talks. He is fully aware he would have been sent to death row but for a fortuitous
twist of legal timing. At the time of the shootings, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the Texas
capital murder law invalid. A
revision of the law went into effect two months after the girls were shot. If he committed his crimes today, prosecutors could seek the death penalty
under several statutes - killing children under age 6, committing multiple
murders and, in an unrelated offense, executing a 7-Eleven clerk during an $80
robbery. As Casey describes it, he was fresh out of the Army after two years in
Germany as a radar operator, and he had "quite a chip on my
shoulder" when he returned to Houston. By then, he had been accused of
numerous minor crimes - theft, burglary, possession of marijuana, pretending
to be a policeman, drunken driving, shooting up a mobile home and more. But the potential to hurt somebody was always present, he said, because he
usually was armed. He said this was because his father, Theron Casey, 53, had been murdered by
two junkies in New York City, a crime Larry Casey blames on his father's
giving a Brazoria County man nine hot checks to cover gambling losses. Whatever the reason, Larry Casey had a pistol on Feb. 21, 1973, when he and
his girlfriend, Yvonne Ellis, were at a 7-Eleven on Burdine Street. Casey said they got into a dispute with the clerk, Dorothy Jones Young, 48,
about selling beer after hours, a fuss that Casey ended by shooting her three
times. In an interview, he described it as a simple method of ending a
problem. "If there would have been the death penalty when I was in the 7-Eleven
arguing with the manager, I never would've pulled the gun," Casey said.
"But I knew there wasn't any death penalty, and I figured I could get
away with it because there weren't any witnesses around." In his confession, Casey did not mention that his girlfriend was there. He
said he shot Young "because I thought she was reaching for a gun." That killing became just another unsolved Houston crime until the Red
Elementary shootings two months later. According to Casey, he and Ellis - who he says visited him in prison just
once, several years ago - were both hard-drinking pot smokers who supported
themselves with a Houston Post delivery route. Both were on probation on April 18, 1973, and Ellis was increasingly unhappy that
Casey was drinking while driving, fearing he would get her in trouble for
violating probation. "Yvonne was mad at me about drinking and driving and wanted out of the
car," his confession says. "She got out at the intersection of Bissonnet and Chimney Rock." His confession says he was mad and went to fetch his mother's .22-caliber
rifle. "I left the house and drove across Willowbend and into the
neighborhood," it reads. "I was near where my little brother (went)
to school." The confession says he shot a woman standing in front of her house. But in
the interview, he described how Beulah Davis saw him stop near her home and
came over and saw weapons in the vehicle. She may have gotten a good look at
Casey's license plate. "I felt threatened by her," he explained. "I'd just been put
on probation, and I figured she'd
call the law." So he shot her in the back. The confession jumps from that to his spotting a child riding a bicycle in
a driveway 75 yards away. One shot and the child fell down. "I do not remember shooting at anyone else," the confession says. Prosecutor Graham has not forgotten the rest. After shooting Claire Jakubowski, 5, off her bicycle in the driveway at 10423 Green Willow, Casey
drove two blocks and wounded Lynn Jean Tucker, 10, with a shot to the back as
she walked home in the 10600 block of Willowilde. Next was Jana Whatley, 10, fatally shot through both lungs as she walked
home in the 4700 block of Kinglet. Last was Karen Kurtz, 10, walking with her younger sister near Cliffwood
and Stillbrooke. "I was on the street corner waiting for (Casey's) car to go by,"
Kurtz said. "I looked straight at him." Casey was arrested almost immediately, after he returned to the shooting
scenes with Ellis and his little brother. Police had scant trouble getting a
confession since Casey freely admitted to killing the 86-year-old and the
5-year-old girl, contending that he did not remember the others. Nowadays, he said, he does remember them. But he said the actual shooter
was a man called "Rooster." Casey insisted he did not tell the
police about Rooster to avoid being "a snitch." Kurtz, however, said no one else was in Casey's car when she was shot, and
a man from the neighborhood positively identified Casey as the car's sole
occupant. Graham argued that Casey alone did it, and that is what the jury
believed. Casey's version of the events, it seems, has evolved over the years,
polished perhaps to make it more palatable to his cellmates and others in a
penal environment where tattletales are not popular. Though he somehow still blames Graham's "twisted lies" for the
conviction that he set up himself with his confession, Casey now calls his
prosecution reasonable. "I don't have a problem with them prosecuting me for the
murders," Casey said. "If one of my family members had been shot,
I'd want them to do what they did and what they're still doing. I just don't agree with why they're doing it. They're just getting
revenge." Graham said Casey should be jailed forever simply because anyone who could
get mad at his girlfriend and then go shoot up schoolgirls he did not even
know remains too dangerous to be released.
8/30/98
Man who murdered at age 13 held again
Gregory
Devon Gibson is now 20 and charged in another brutal slaying.
A Durham man who beat a 90-year-old woman to
death when he was 13 was arrested early Saturday and charged in the murder of
a convenience store clerk in Durham last week. He is also a suspect in at
least two recent bank robberies. Gregory Devon Gibson, now 20, was
convicted of murder in 1992. But he was released and his record wiped clean
when he reached age 18 because at the time of his previous arrest, the state
did not allow 13-year-olds to be tried as adults. His arrest prompted a
change in the law, but Judge Kenneth Titus, who sentenced Gibson in 1992, said
that everyone connected with the case feared they had not heard the last of
him. "He has had other brushes with the law since his release,"
Titus said Saturday. "I'm sad to say there's not the kind of effective
intervention available to change juveniles around." Shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday, police said, a man entered the Boulevard BP
in Durham. There, they said, the man showed clerk Sylvester Thompson Jr., 36,
his gun and demanded money. Thompson handed over the cash, police said, then
the robber reached over the counter and shot Thompson twice from less than 2
feet away. "It was brutal. The clerk surrendered the money. The suspect
had the money," said Cpl. Fran Borden, a Durham police spokesman.
"We don't understand why he shot the clerk." According to Borden,
store surveillance cameras captured the incident and showed a man police
identified as Gibson walking out of the store "cool, calm and
collected." Gibson has been charged with first-degree murder, robbery
with a dangerous weapon and possession of a stolen vehicle. Borden said police
worked through the week to find Gibson. "We were afraid of this
kid," Borden said. "The possibility of someone else getting killed
was high. We wanted to apprehend him and put him in jail." As police searched for clues, they zeroed in on several out-of-town bank
robberies. About 11 a.m. Thursday, a man matching Gibson's description robbed
the Centura Bank at 509 S. Lexington St. in Burlington, "brazenly waving
a gun around," Borden said. The suspect's picture taken from a
surveillance camera appeared on the front page of a local newspaper, and
Durham police said it matched Gibson's mug shot. Shortly before noon the next
day, the First Citizens Bank near Interstate 40 and N.C. 42 at the
Wake-Johnston border was robbed. Surveillance video also indicates the robber
was Gibson. The FBI is investigating that robbery. No charges have been filed. Police also charged 16-year-old Donathan Webb, of Walker Street in Durham,
whom they said confessed, as an accomplice in the robberies. Gibson was found
early Saturday with Webb at the Extended Stay America, where he used his real
name to register, Borden said. An officer noticed that a stolen Toyota Previa
parked outside bore a license plate that matched the vehicle used in the
Burlington robbery. After evacuating the hotel, police arrested Gibson and
seized a handgun, which they believe to be the murder weapon, Borden said,
adding that they found Gibson's fingerprints on the gun. The vehicle was
returned to its owner Sunday. The man, who requested not to be identified for
safety reasons, said that he found a receipt inside the car from Circuit City.
It was dated Friday and showed that someone paid cash for thousands of
dollars' worth of electronic equipment for the vehicle. This is not the first time Gibson has been arrested since his 1996 release
from C.A. Dillon Training School in Butner in 1996 and his return to the home
of his grandmother at 902 Dale St. in Durham. Nine months after he was
released, Gibson was arrested and charged with felony possession of stolen
goods and failure to appear on several other minor charges. Gibson's previous
murder charges launched a statewide effort to tighten laws for young
offenders. At the age of 13, and not yet a high school student, Gibson was
charged with the June 10, 1992, bludgeoning death of 90-year-old Mary Haddon.
The night of the murder, police said, Gibson used Haddon's 1970 Oldsmobile
Cutlass to take several friends out on an all-night joy ride. Haddon was found
three days later by a newspaper carrier. The autopsy showed she received more
than 45 blows to her head, chest and back from a hammer and garden mattock.
The reports described splintered vertebrae, shattered ribs and torn internal
organs. At the time of the murder, state laws said that Gibson, a few weeks
shy of his 14th birthday, could not be tried as an adult. He was sentenced to
no more than four years in a juvenile detention center, the toughest penalty
the law allowed at that time. The sheer brutality of the crime and
comparatively lightweight punishment sent shock waves through the Triangle. In the spring of 1994, the General Assembly pushed through Gov. Jim Hunt's
juvenile crime reform package, which provided automatic adult trials for 14-
and 15-year-olds accused of certain felonies. It also allowed judges the
discretion in charging 13-year-olds as adults. Titus, who sentenced Gibson six
years ago, wasn't surprised by the latest round of charges. "Anyone that
participated would say it's predictable," he said Saturday. Durham Mayor
Nick Tennyson said: "A big, bold line under all of this is that if, in
fact, [Gibson] has committed these crimes, thank God he's caught at this
point." Both Titus and Borden said they were struck by a lack of emotion
from Gibson. Titus recalled that, when convicted, Gibson showed no emotion.
"He clearly showed no remorse. He had no reaction at all. He appears to
be devoid of any feelings."
4/22/98
Church hires as handyman a convicted murderer who showed "signs of
progress" after parole
Kills and rapes in church basement
James Homer Elledge was sent to prison for life in 1975 after beating a
Seattle motel owner to death with a ball-peen hammer. In the years that
followed, he won parole 3 times, most recently in August 1995.
Snohomish County prosecutors on Tuesday made it clear they are now mulling
charges that could put Elledge away permanently, perhaps even earning him a
death sentence. The 55-year-old Everett man surrendered to police in Tacoma
early Tuesday. Just hours later, prosecutors charged Elledge with
1st-degree murder for allegedly stabbing and strangling Eloise Jane Fitzner,
47, in a church basement on Saturday. Elledge is scheduled to make a 1st
court appearance today. Jim Townsend, the county's chief criminal deputy
prosecutor, said the Everett District Court charge is "just preliminary
at this point." Prosecutors have not ruled out upgrading the charge to
aggravated 1st-degree murder, he said. That's because the killing allegedly
occurred during the kidnapping and rape of another woman, 39, from
Seattle, according to court papers. If charged and convicted of aggravated
murder, Elledge could face a death sentence and, barring that, a mandatory
term of life in prison without possibility of release. Elledge allegedly
promised gifts and dinner to lure his victims to the basement of The
Lighthouse church in Lynnwood, where he worked as a custodian, according to an
affidavit filed by deputy prosecutor Ron Doersch. Once there, Elledge pulled a
large knife and ordered the women not to scream or he would slit their
throats, the prosecutor alleged. Both women were bound with rope, blindfolded
and their mouths taped shut. The 39-year-old woman said she could hear Fitzner
struggling and Elledge dragging something from the room, Doersch said. The
woman said Elledge told her he had "taken care of" Fitzner, because
Fitzner interfered with his attempts to get close to her, Doersch alleged.
Elledge then allegedly took the 39-year-old woman to Everett, where she was
sexually assaulted. He released her Sunday morning, and she reported the
abduction and attack to Seattle police. Fitzner's body later was found in the
church basement. An autopsy showed she could have survived the stab wound to
her neck had she not been strangled, Doersch said in court papers. Elledge
called the Tacoma Police Department's homicide division at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday
to say he wanted to surrender and was staying at a motel, said department
spokesman Jim Mattheis. "When the detectives pulled into the parking lot,
(Elledge) walked out with his hands up," Mattheis said. Earlier the same
day, Tacoma police found Fitzner's car, which Elledge allegedly stole
Saturday, Mattheis said. People who know Elledge said they were stunned by the
events of the past 4 days. Former Lynnwood City Council member Bill Hubbard
roomed with Elledge between January and March 1997, when he lived at the same
Lynnwood apartments as Fitzner. "Eloise lived two floors above us,"
Hubbard said Tuesday. "She was a very sweet person...active in her church
at University Presbyterian Church." Elledge often did repair work at
Fitzner's apartment but never accepted payment, Hubbard said. Hubbard said he
knew of Elledge's murder conviction and talked with a church elder at The
Lighthouse before allowing Elledge to move in. Elledge proved to be a
responsible roommate and confided in Hubbard about his past, Hubbard said.
Hubbard said Elledge told him his sister had died when he was young. He also
told Hubbard that his wife died in the 1960s while trying to help someone in a
car crash and that their 2 girls were raised by relatives. "Jim just
never quite recovered from that whole thing," Hubbard said. In March
1997, Elledge's daughter died, but he wasn't able to attend the funeral
services because he didn't have the money to travel to the South, Hubbard said
Elledge told him. "Considering everything he'd been through, he was
showing signs of progress and mainstreaming back into society," said
Hubbard, adding that he hadn't seen Elledge for several months.
4/25/98
James Homer Elledge walked into the basement of a Lynnwood church April 18
with precut sections of nylon rope and plans to kill a woman he simply didn't
like, Snohomish County prosecutors alleged. Elledge allegedly has admitted he
was carrying a large, folding knife and a long-simmering grudge against Eloise
Fitzner, 47. Prosecutors now have charged the 55-year-old Everett man with
aggravated 1st-degree murder. In a tape-recorded statement to police, Elledge
admitted purchasing rope, and precutting it into sections for binding the
wrists and ankles of Fitzner, and another woman, 39, from Seattle, deputy
prosecutor Mark Roe alleged. The longtime convict, who is on parole for the
1975 beating murder of another woman, allegedly also described in detail how
he used his knife to threaten Fitzner and the Seattle woman into silence, and
then tying them up. "The defendant told police that Fitzner did not
attack him or resist him in any way," Roe said in court papers. "He
said that 'She ... she was trying...she was trying to cooperate. But she
didn't know what she was cooperating for." Elledge, the janitor at the
church, allegedly led the women into the basement with promises of presents,
court papers show. Fitzner was strangled and stabbed. The Seattle woman has
told police she was abducted to Elledge's Everett mobile home, sexually
assaulted and later set free. Prosecuting Attorney Jim Krider vowed Friday to
seek justice. "So far, the criminal justice system has failed the public
in protecting the from Mr. Elledge," Krider said. The task for
prosecutors now is to make sure "that the system does not fail
again," he added. Elledge is to be arraigned Tuesday. If convicted as
charged, there are only 2 possible sentences: life in prison without
possibility of release or the death penalty. Krider said he hasn't decided
whether to seek death for Elledge and doesn't expect to for at least 30 days.
That is in keeping with prosecutor's office policy, which allows time for
defense attorneys to present information that may argue against death, or
convince jurors not to impose the penalty. After that, the case is carefully
reviewed by a dozen of the department's top prosecutors. Krider, who has
sought the death penalty in 3 other cases, said the decision will ultimately
rest with him. "We will proceed with the death penalty, if
appropriate." At this point, no charges have been filed for the alleged
kidnapping and rape of the Seattle woman. Krider said that aspect of the case
remains under investigation. He declined to elaborate. Elledge has prior
convictions for robbery and 1st-degree murder for beating a Seattle motel
owner to death in 1975. The woman he killed roughly 2 decades ago was struck
28 times with a ball-peen hammer, according to court papers. Fitzner's killing
and the other woman's abduction touched of a brief, but intense, manhunt for
Elledge. He surrendered Tuesday to Tacoma police, after trying at least twice
to commit suicide in his hotel room, Roe said in court papers. Krider declined
to provide any details about the reported suicide attempts. He said he's
confident the facts will show that Elledge knew what he was doing when he
spoke with police after his arrest. Elledge allegedly told the police that he
killed Fitzner because he was angry with her for meddling in his relationship
with his wife about a year ago, Roe said. On the taped statement he gave
police Elledge "can be heard admitting that because of something he
describes as 'evil' in his nature, he is sometimes filled with rage he can't
control," Roe wrote.
3/16/97
Warrants issued for man suspected in girlfriend's death
FORT LAUDERDALE -- (Sun Sentinel) - Police on Tuesday said
they have enough evidence to charge Fort Lauderdale librarian William E. Coday
Jr. with the murder of Gloria Gomez. In addition, a newspaper account of
a 1978 murder in which Coday was convicted shows that he was ''put off'' by
sex and killed his former girlfriend with a shoemaker's mallet after she broke
off their engagement. Fort Lauderdale police drew
up warrants charging Coday, 40, with murder and unlawful flight to avoid
prosecution. Coday is accused of the stabbing and beating death of his former
girlfriend, Gomez, 30, in his Victoria Park apartment. The two dated for
a while, but Gomez viewed the relationship as casual and ended it in May when
he wanted to get married, friends said. After the breakup, Coday repeatedly
called a mutual friend of theirs, trying to reach Gomez. Last week, he
found her. Coday told Gomez he had cancer and needed to see her. On Friday
afternoon, Gomez drove to his apartment. Her beaten and stabbed body was
discovered there on Saturday, but Coday and her car were gone. Sources said he
had withdrawn a large amount of money from his bank on Thursday. The car
was found on Monday in a parking lot at Miami International Airport, but
investigators still haven't found Coday, said Detective Clinton Ward, police
spokesman. Coday, who worked in the Foreign Language Department at the main
branch of the Broward County Library in downtown Fort Lauderdale, speaks
several languages, including Spanish, French and German. He has lived
overseas in Germany and India, and has degrees from three universities. In
1979, he was convicted of killing Lisa Hullinger, 19, a Cincinnati
exchange student studying with him in Hamburg, Germany. The two had dated, but
broke up. In September 1978, Hullinger had gone to Coday's Hamburg
apartment. According to an article in the Hamburg Morgen-Post, Hullinger
was ''looking for intimacy, but he was not. He was put off by sex.'' The two
were ''secretly engaged,'' but a frustrated Hullinger decided then to break
off the engagement, the paper reported. Enraged, Coday found the
shoemaker's hammer in the basement of the building and beat in Hullinger's
skull. She died two weeks later. At the trial in June 1979, both the
prosecutor and defense wanted to drop charges against Coday, claiming he had
''diminished capacity.'' He was sentenced to three years in prison, but ended
up serving only 16 months. It is unclear why Coday's sentence was reduced.
8/1995 - California
Serial killer sentenced to death in Riverside murders
When William Suff went to work as a stock clerk for the county
in 1986, he lied about his 1974 conviction for murder in Texas. He and his
wife at the time were convicted of beating their 2-month-old daughter to death
in Fort Worth. Suff was sentenced to 70 years. In March, 1984, he was paroled
to California. His wife served 20 months when her conviction was
overturned by an appellate court. Suff went on to become known as the
Riverside Killer, murdering at least 13 women. After nearly two months of trial
and just under four days of deliberation, the jury returned with guilty
verdicts on 12 of 13 counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted
murder. They deadlocked 11-1 on one murder charge. Jurors also found Suff
guilty of multiple murder, lying in wait and use of a deadly weapon - a knife
- on five victims. On August 17, 1995, after reviewing evidence and testimony
in the high-profile case, the seven-man, five-woman jury recommended the death
penalty for William Suff. The 45-year-old man showed no emotion, but relatives
of his victims cheered the decision.
8/15/95
Murderer Sattiewhite is executed
HUNTSVILLE -- (AP) - Vernon Sattiewhite was executed early today for the 1986
shooting death of his ex-girlfriend. Sattiewhite had dragged Sandra Sorrell at
gunpoint for two blocks near downtown San Antonio before he shot her twice in
the head, killing her instantly. As police closed in, Sattiewhite, 39, put the
gun to his own head and pulled the trigger at least 14 times, but the
.22-caliber pistol failed to discharge. Sattiewhite was pronounced dead
at 12:25 a.m., six minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his
veins. He had a brief statement. "I just hope Miss Fields is happy now," he
said, referring to Lillian Fields, the victim's mother. He thanked his
attorney for being present, gasped three times and showed no further
reaction to the drugs. Fields, mother of the victim, expressed hope earlier
that the execution would be carried out. "I just want an end to this so that
I know he's dead, and he'll never hurt anyone else like my daughter, her
children and myself," Fields said. Sattiewhite had based a final appeal on his claim that he is
"retarded, brain damaged, schizophrenic and floridly insane,"
defense attorney Nancy Barohn said. In previous cases, the U.S. Supreme
Court has allowed inmates considered retarded to be put to death. On Friday,
the high court rejected another petition from his attorneys. Fellow death row inmates described the 10th-grade dropout and
former forklift operator as friendly but rather quiet. Sattiewhite denied
recent requests for an interview. Sorrell, a student at a San Antonio
nursing aide school, was walking toward the school June 19, 1986, with her
boyfriend, Willington Mingo, when they were approached by Sattiewhite, her
ex-boyfriend. Testimony at his trial showed Sattiewhite wrapped his arm around
the woman's neck and pulled a gun, then started dragging her down the street.
Mingo ducked into an office to seek help, then caught up with the pair and
pleaded with Sattiewhite to release the woman. Sattiewhite said if he
couldn't have the woman, "ain't nobody else gonna have her,"
witnesses said. Then he pulled the woman up and shot her twice in the head. He
pointed the gun at his own head, but the weapon wouldn't fire. He
subsequently surrendered to police. Sattiewhite was no stranger to San
Antonio authorities, who described him in court as "a bad dude to mess
with." In
1977, he had been sentenced to five years for a murder but was paroled two
years later and granted clemency. In 1984, he was convicted of robbery and
sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled after less than six months. Records showed Sorrell, who had two children, had been
complaining to authorities about Sattiewhite for at least a month. "He stalked her, but at that time they didn't have a stalking law,"
her mother said. After his arrest, Sattiewhite told a state psychiatrist
he had been suffering from blackouts and hearing voices and had made other
suicide attempts in the previous months.
7/23/92 - The Missourian (and MO DOC)
State court rejects killer's appeal
The Missouri Supreme Court rejected the death-sentence appeal of Tomas G.
Ervin. Ervin, of Jefferson City, was convicted of the December 1988
murders of Mildred L. Hodges, 75, and her son, Richard E. Hodges, in Jefferson
City. The Hodges were smothered. A Callaway County jury had
sentenced Ervin to death in January 1990. The appeal questioned the validity
of the jury-selection process and also the testimony of Bert Hunter, who was
arrested along with Ervin and pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder
charges. Hunter and Ervin met in the Missouri State
Penitentiary, where they were both serving life sentences for murder. On
the afternoon of December 15, 1988, Bert Hunter and an accomplice, Tomas
Ervin, carried out a plan to rob Richard Hodges at his home on Boonville Road
in Jefferson City, Missouri. Hunter and Ervin believed Hodges kept large
amounts of cash in a file cabinet in his home. With a pistol in his pocket,
Hunter knocked on the Hodges’ door. Richard’s mother, Mildred Hodges,
answered. Hunter then pulled a stocking mask down over his face and, entering
the house, grabbed Mrs. Hodges by the hand. He held a gun in the other hand.
Mrs. Hodges became very excited and cried out for her son, Richard. Richard
came into the room where they were standing, telling the two assailants to
leave Mrs. Hodges alone because she had just returned home after heart
surgery. As Richard attempted to calm his mother, Ervin and Hunter began
binding her hands and feet with duct tape. She was made to lie down on a bed
in a back bedroom. Ervin took Richard to the living room and made him lie on
the floor. Ervin began taping Richard’s hands. At same time, Hunter was
searching the house for money and other valuables. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hodges
managed to get free and ran into the living room where Ervin was still taping
Richard’s hands. She pulled the mask off Ervin, causing him to fall back on
the floor. Ervin called out Hunter’s first name. Hunter returned to the
living room and saw what had occurred. Once the mask was pulled off Ervin and
Hunter’s name was called out, Hunter and Ervin made a mutual decision that
both the Hodges were to be killed. Mrs. Hodges attempted to flee. Hunter and
Ervin caught Mrs. Hodges in the hallway, forcing her to the floor. According
to Hunter, she hit the wall, bloodying her nose. A rush of air came out of
her and she became still. The two then returned to finish taping Richard’s
mouth and nose. Plastic bags were placed over the heads of both victims.
Hunter admitted that after the plastic bags were placed on the victims’
heads, he held Richard’s nose to suffocate him. While Hunter was dealing
with Richard, Ervin was "working with Mrs. Hodges," although Hunter surmised
there was "nothing to do, anyway." Ervin returned and told Hunter that he
thought Mrs. Hodges was dead. Hunter checked Mrs. Hodges and determined that
she had no pulse. The two then finished looking through the house and left.
They returned to the house at least once that evening or the next evening.
5/5/92 - Houston Chronicle
Paroled killer arrested in Missouri/To be questioned in killings of 4 in
Austin
Paroled murderer Kenneth McDuff, sought in connection with
the disappearance of five Texas women along Interstate 35, was arrested in
Missouri Monday after a co-worker recognized him from a television show. McDuff,
46, also is wanted for questioning in a Dec. 6 robbery and fire at an Austin
yogurt shop in which four women were killed, The Associated Press reported.
He was arrested without incident at a Kansas City landfill, said William
Dempsey, a U.S. Marshal's Service spokesman. He tried to run but was
immediately apprehended. McDuff received a death sentence for a 1968
triple murder, but it was commuted when the Supreme Court overturned capital
punishment in 1972. He first was granted parole in 1989. Waco authorities Monday named him in a homicide warrant in
connection with the murder of Valencia K. Joshua, 22, found buried March 15
near the technical school campus where McDuff studied. McDuff was
arrested on federal warrants for drug distribution and weapons possession,
although he also is being held on the Texas murder warrant. Tom Hammon
of the U.S. Marshal Service in Waco told the AP that McDuff was going to be
questioned about the murders of four women at an Austin yogurt store. In
the case which drew national attention, firefighters responding to a blaze at
a suburban I Can't Believe It's Yogurt store found the bodies of four
teen-agers -- Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas, both 17; Sarah Harbison, 15;
and Amy Ayers, 13 -- who had been tied together and shot in the back of their
heads. "It's not over, believe me. We've developed a lot of
information. Now that we've got him off the streets it's time to sit down and
put this all together," supervisory inspector Mike Earp with the U.S.
Marshal's Service in Washington said during a news conference held in Waco. McDuff also is sought for questioning in connection with four
other cases: The March 1 abduction of Waco convenience store clerk
Melissa Northrup, 22, whose body was found in a Dallas County gravel pit April
26. The Dec. 29 abduction of Austin secretary Colleen Reed, 28, who
disappeared from a car wash there. Her whereabouts and condition are unknown. The October abduction of Waco prostitute Regina Moore, 21, who was last seen
struggling with McDuff in a speeding vehicle. Her whereabouts and condition
are unknown. The murder of a Temple prostitute whose body was found a
few days after McDuff's Dec. 18, 1990, parole. The intense search for McDuff began March 9. "He's
been up there for about a month," said Truman Simons, a McLennan County
sheriff's deputy. "He was working for an independent garbage collection
agency driving a truck." Simons said McDuff, under the alias
"Richard Fowler," had been arrested there April 10 on a misdemeanor
solicitation of prostitution charge. He was released after posting bail, after
a right index fingerprint was taken in booking. That came in handy
Monday morning when a McDuff co-worker approached police and suggested that
Fowler might be the man sought in the Texas cases. The co-worker saw a McDuff story on the Fox television network show "America's Most
Wanted" Friday. "He taped it and spent the whole weekend
watching it over and over," Simons said. "He was concerned and
wanted to make sure he had the right guy because he didn't want to cause any
trouble if it was a different guy." Police found the fingerprint from the April 10 arrest and
compared it to fingerprints from Waco. Authorities tracked McDuff's garbage
truck to the city dump. The unarmed McDuff didn't put up a fight. Because of
outstanding federal warrants, there's no need for interstate extradition
delays, Simons said.
4/18/92 - Washington Post
A mother, life destroyed, waits for justice to be done
SAN DIEGO -- The last time Sharron Mankins saw her son,
Michael Baker, she was piling her six children into the family car for the
drive to a high school where they watched Fourth of July fireworks in 1978. When they returned home, Michael went to bed. He left the house early the next
morning with John Mayeski, also 16, one of his closest friends, to look for
summer work. After a fruitless search, they drove to a fast-food
restaurant for lunch. There, in the parking lot, they were kidnapped at
gunpoint by two men identified as Robert Alton Harris, then 25, a paroled
murderer, and his brother, Daniel, then 18. They forced Baker and Mayeski
to drive into a nearby canyon. According to court testimony by Daniel Harris,
this happened: Robert Harris promised not to harm the boys, then shot Mayeski
in the head and back, killing him. Baker bolted, trying to find cover in the
bushes, but Robert Harris chased him. Baker pleaded for his life, but
Harris shot him in the back and the abdomen, killing him. Then Robert Harris
ate the boys' hamburgers, laughing at the blood that gushed from Mayeski's
fatal head wound. The brothers then drove back to town in the boys' car and
robbed a bank. Hours later, police arrested them at their house three blocks
from the Mayeski home. Among the arresting officers was Steve Baker, now a detective
with the San Diego Police Department. He was Michael's father and at the time
had been divorced from Sharron Mankins for almost 12 years. Not until an
hour later, when Officer Baker was off-duty, did a police sergeant go to
Baker's home with news that one of the men he had helped to arrest was
suspected of killing two boys, one of them Baker's son Michael. Almost 14
years have passed since the afternoon when murder shattered the lives of two
families. Mankins, 48, remains haunted by a vision of her son's death and
unable, she said, to carry on with her life until "justice is served and
Harris is executed." Robert Harris was sentenced in 1979 to die at San Quentin
Prison, but his case has been bouncing back and forth between the Supreme
Court in Washington and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco. On Thursday, Gov. Pete Wilson denied Harris' petition for clemency.
His date with the gas chamber is just after midnight Monday. In a recent interview at their home, Mankins and her husband
of 17 years, Sam, said the pain of Michael's death has been compounded by the
decade of litigation and appeals that have kept Harris alive. "It's
frustrating," Sharron Mankins said. "We'll be doing fine, and then
there's the footage of Harris on TV with that smirk he always has on his face.
And it just opens up all the wounds, and we hope maybe, just maybe, the
judicial system is going to prevail. And then we take two steps back." Two years ago, Harris came within hours of being executed.
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected another appeal by Harris' attorneys,
declining to review claims that he suffers from mental problems. "This is a political game now," Sharron Mankins said of recent pleas
to spare Harris' life from celebrities including Mother Teresa and Hollywood
television stars. "The politicians are making a name for themselves off
my loss. We've sent letters to Governor Wilson, and I haven't had a call
back," she said. "I haven't had a postcard even acknowledging,
"Yes, Mrs. Mankins, we're taking your feelings into consideration.' I'm
not a saint, and I'm not a politician. But I am very closely involved in this
case, and I feel I should be given the same courtesy. Mother Teresa is
telling the governor to pray for these men (on death row) and make the right
decision by granting clemency," she said. "Well, how about praying
and giving the victims inner strength?" After hearing that Wilson
denied Harris' petition for clemency, Sharron Mankins said: "This is just what
we were waiting to hear." Sharron and Sam Mankins each brought three children from
previous marriages to their own, creating what they call a "Brady
Bunch" household. They admitted that managing a house full of teen-agers
has been a challenge but describe it as a happy experience. Michael's
murder, Sharron Mankins said, destroyed the inner peace the couple had found
with each other. Sharron, a bookkeeper, and Sam, 56, a teacher, work for the
San Diego City School District. "We were just traumatized . . . in
such a helpless, depressed state," Sam Mankins said of Michael's death.
"We just felt like we were totally deserted. It's an awful, terrible
feeling." There still are no pictures of tall, blue-eyed Michael Baker
on the walls of the Mankins' home. The photographs, Sharron Mankins said, are
too painful to display. Michael would have turned 30 this year, and only in
the last year has his mother found the emotional strength to talk with
reporters about him, she said. Five years after Michael's murder,
tragedy struck the family again when Tammy Baker, Steve and Sharron's
daughter, was thrown from the back of a motorcycle and killed the night before
her 18th birthday. "After Tammy's death, I felt afraid I'd lose
Linda too," Sharron said of her sole surviving child by Baker. "It
was a terrible loss. What would I do if I lost another child?" Linda Herring, 26 and married, was convinced that she would be
next to die, Sharron Mankins said. Together, Mankins and Kay Mayeski,
John's mother, had weathered emotional storms. Mankins said the two looked to
each other for strength, waiting on the night of the murders at the Mayeski
house for news of their boys and waiting these years for Harris' execution.
Mankins said they had spent hours on the phone discussing shared pain. Kay Mayeski died a year ago after a long battle with cancer. Mankins sadly
recalled that her friend's primary wish was to stay alive long enough to see
Harris executed. "We're frustrated with the justice system," Mankins said. "The process has been too long and too cumbersome."
Baker said he finds it "totally ridiculous that it would take 14 years to
punish someone like Harris." Sharron Mankins,
Baker and Herring plan to attend the execution as official witnesses and have
expressed a need to know that Harris has been punished. "I'm not
cherishing this," Mankins admitted. "This is going to be a very hard
thing to face and a very emotional thing, but it can't be any worse than what
I think about all the time, Michael running and |
