Police Take Nearby Neighbors In For Questioning
8-26-2005 Maryland:
FORT WASHINGTON, Md. -- A 40-year-old man who is listed on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry was shot and killed Thursday afternoon.
Prince George's County police said Willie Williams Jr. was shot inside his Fort Washington home in the 7500 block of Greer Drive about 3:30 p.m.
Sources told News4 that police are investigating the possibility that Williams may have been killed in retaliation for a sexual assault that allegedly occurred earlier in the day.
A woman who lives in the same neighborhood said her 13-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by Williams in their home Thursday afternoon. The woman said her daughter told her that Williams went to the home and asked for a soda and to use the bathroom and then sexually assaulted the girl.
Not long after the alleged sexual assault, Williams was found dead in his home and the 13-year-old girl's older sister and her friends were spotted near the scene, police said.
Williams' sister spoke with News4 and said her two children were inside the house when the shooting took place.
"My brother was shot twice in the chest and my kids ran out the house and one of the neighbors got them," Lori Giles said.
Williams was pronounced dead at the scene.
Moments after Williams' death, police surrounded the house of a teenage girl a few blocks away, refusing to let anyone go in or out.
Investigators eventually took some occupants of the house in for questioning.
"They brought a lot of people over to headquarters and they're speaking to them now, but that will unravel throughout the rest of the evening," said police spokesperson Cpl. Debbie Carlson.
Relatives described Williams as a person who worked on cars in the neighborhood.
Police said it may take some time to sort the case out. So far, police have made no arrests and identified no suspects. ..more.. by NBC4.com
Friday, March 30, 2007
Turlock murder case goes to jury
Couple on trial in slaying of neighbor they believed had molested their 3-year-old girl
6-18-2005 California:
Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of a Turlock couple accused of killing their neighbor because they suspected he had molested their 3-year-old daughter.
Edward Gutierrez, 39, and Charlotte Gutierrez, 41, face premeditated first-degree murder charges, but could be convicted of manslaughter if jurors believe they were provoked or acted in the heat of passion.
An early-morning telephone call to police, over abuse allegations that never were substantiated, started a chain of events that led to Eduardo Negrete's death.
The main question before the Stanislaus County Superior Court jury is whether the Gutierrezes planned the attack on Negrete or acted on the spur of the moment.
A prosecutor pointed to a baseball bat, knife and knife sharpener Edward Gutierrez purchased at Big Five Sporting Goods less than an hour before Negrete's death, saying they are proof of a plan.
"Ladies and gentlemen, apparently the price tag for the murder of a neighbor is $110.53," Deputy District Attorney Sharon Lizardo said. "Find them guilty as charged."
During a three-week trial, witnesses said Edward Gutierrez stabbed Negrete repeat-edly, while his wife urged him on.
Edward Gutierrez confronted Negrete about noon on June 15, 2006, witnesses said, pulling him out of his truck as Negrete and his wife tried to leave their apartment complex on Twentieth Century Boulevard.
Elizabeth Negrete, who testified through a Spanish translator, said Edward Gutierrez stabbed her husband behind the ear as he fled, then chased him through his sister's nearby apartment into an enclosed patio.
The widow said Charlotte Gutierrez blocked the path of Negrete's family members who tried to intervene, yelling: "Let him kill him! Let him kill him! He deserves it!"
She said her husband died in her arms, after Edward Gutierrez stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and stomach.
A pathologist said Eduardo Negrete had 42 stab wounds ranging from two to six inches deep, including 14 lethal stab wounds.
According to authorities, Edward Gutierrez, who had military training, told police that he purchased the knife because he thought a kitchen knife would break.
Defense attorneys said the Gutierrezes called police and took their daughter to Emanuel Medical Center because they believed she had been molested by Eduardo Negrete.
They said the Gutierrezes were upset when authorities did not find conclusive signs of molestation, leaving them with minds clouded by rage.
They also said testimony by members of the Negrete family was full of inconsistencies and outright fabrications.
Prosecutor Lizardo referred to the Gutierrezes as "Rambo" and "Rambo's helper."
She said the couple could have taken their child to a follow-up appointment with specialists at Children's Hospital near Madera, as advised, but took the law into their own hands instead.
"These two people decided to be gravediggers for Mr. Negrete," Lizardo said. ..more.. by SUSAN HERENDEEN
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TURLOCK — Police say they have a videotape that shows Edward Lorenzo Gutierrez buying a military knife and a baseball bat at a local store Wednesday morning.
An hour later, he allegedly used the items to club and stab to death his neighbor, Eduardo Negrete, 36, police said.
Gutierrez believed that Negrete had molested his young daughter, but there is no evidence to back up the claim, said Lt. Fin Johnson.
"He decided he wasn't going to wait for us to do an investigation, and decided to do it himself," said Johnson.
The autopsy performed Thursday morning showed that several of the wounds could have killed Negrete.
"The coroner said he suffered multiple wounds that individually would have been fatal," Johnson said. "He had massive damage to his internal organs from the knife trauma, including one knife wound to the skull that penetrated and caused substantial brain damage."
After Gutierrez was arrested, officers found a bloody weapon in his car.
"It was a seven-inch, fixed blade, Marine Corps fighting knife," Johnson said. "It was a World War II K-bar. It was meant for only one thing and that was to kill."
Gutierrez, 37, and his wife, Charlote, 39, are in jail on murder charges, Johnson said. Edward Gutierrez also faces a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.
According to police, Gutierrez came out of his apartment on Twentieth Century Boulevard armed with the bat and the knife, with his wife following him around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Witnesses said he smashed the window of the truck where Negrete was sitting with his wife, Elizabeth.
The couple chased Negrete across the street and then back to the complex, where Negrete fled into his brother-in-law's apartment, police said. The couple followed Negrete inside and attacked the brother-in-law when he tried to intervene. Negrete died in the tiny back yard of the apartment.
"We're trying to firm up the actual sequence of events," Johnson said. "At some point (Gutierrez) abandoned the bat and his wife picked it up and joined in."
The Gutierrezes moved from San Jose about six months ago. Police haven't found any arrest record for him, but Johnson said Charlote Gutierrez has an extensive criminal history.
"It goes back to the mid-1980s, mostly violent crime and drugs, including a residential burglary," Johnson said. "There also were some child abuse allegations."
The Gutierrezes had called Turlock police Wednesday morning to report the alleged incident with their daughter. Charlote Gutierrez took her daughter to a local physician, who could not find any signs of abuse or trauma, Johnson said.
Police plan to have the girl examined by a forensic nurse who specializes in abuse cases to determine if there is any basis for the allegation.
Negrete's family members said there was bad blood between the two men after Negrete accused Gutierrez of breaking into several vehicles and stealing property from them.
Negrete is survived by his wife and two daughters, Leslie, 4, and Natalie, 2. Family members said he worked two jobs to support his family here and his elderly parents in Mexico.
Negrete was a popular employee at La Racherita Restaurant on West Main Street.
"He was well-known and well-liked here," said Hugo Sanchez, Negrete's boss. "He was always making everybody laugh."
After word of his death spread, a somber atmosphere hung over the restaurant.
"Two of the other cooks came in crying when they heard what had happened," Sanchez said. "He was one of the main guys here.…He was a really good guy and a hard worker."
The homicide was the first of 2005 in the city. The last homicide took place June 18, when a woman allegedly torched a house and killed a woman inside because of an alleged love triangle.
" This guy took matters into his own hands...but it doesn't look like he has a case to support it...nothing was found by the doctor who examined the girl........I plead the 5th on what I would do if someone touched my son or my g/f kids.... ..Source..
6-18-2005 California:
Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of a Turlock couple accused of killing their neighbor because they suspected he had molested their 3-year-old daughter.
Edward Gutierrez, 39, and Charlotte Gutierrez, 41, face premeditated first-degree murder charges, but could be convicted of manslaughter if jurors believe they were provoked or acted in the heat of passion.
An early-morning telephone call to police, over abuse allegations that never were substantiated, started a chain of events that led to Eduardo Negrete's death.
The main question before the Stanislaus County Superior Court jury is whether the Gutierrezes planned the attack on Negrete or acted on the spur of the moment.
A prosecutor pointed to a baseball bat, knife and knife sharpener Edward Gutierrez purchased at Big Five Sporting Goods less than an hour before Negrete's death, saying they are proof of a plan.
"Ladies and gentlemen, apparently the price tag for the murder of a neighbor is $110.53," Deputy District Attorney Sharon Lizardo said. "Find them guilty as charged."
During a three-week trial, witnesses said Edward Gutierrez stabbed Negrete repeat-edly, while his wife urged him on.
Edward Gutierrez confronted Negrete about noon on June 15, 2006, witnesses said, pulling him out of his truck as Negrete and his wife tried to leave their apartment complex on Twentieth Century Boulevard.
Elizabeth Negrete, who testified through a Spanish translator, said Edward Gutierrez stabbed her husband behind the ear as he fled, then chased him through his sister's nearby apartment into an enclosed patio.
The widow said Charlotte Gutierrez blocked the path of Negrete's family members who tried to intervene, yelling: "Let him kill him! Let him kill him! He deserves it!"
She said her husband died in her arms, after Edward Gutierrez stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and stomach.
A pathologist said Eduardo Negrete had 42 stab wounds ranging from two to six inches deep, including 14 lethal stab wounds.
According to authorities, Edward Gutierrez, who had military training, told police that he purchased the knife because he thought a kitchen knife would break.
Defense attorneys said the Gutierrezes called police and took their daughter to Emanuel Medical Center because they believed she had been molested by Eduardo Negrete.
They said the Gutierrezes were upset when authorities did not find conclusive signs of molestation, leaving them with minds clouded by rage.
They also said testimony by members of the Negrete family was full of inconsistencies and outright fabrications.
Prosecutor Lizardo referred to the Gutierrezes as "Rambo" and "Rambo's helper."
She said the couple could have taken their child to a follow-up appointment with specialists at Children's Hospital near Madera, as advised, but took the law into their own hands instead.
"These two people decided to be gravediggers for Mr. Negrete," Lizardo said. ..more.. by SUSAN HERENDEEN
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TURLOCK — Police say they have a videotape that shows Edward Lorenzo Gutierrez buying a military knife and a baseball bat at a local store Wednesday morning.
An hour later, he allegedly used the items to club and stab to death his neighbor, Eduardo Negrete, 36, police said.
Gutierrez believed that Negrete had molested his young daughter, but there is no evidence to back up the claim, said Lt. Fin Johnson.
"He decided he wasn't going to wait for us to do an investigation, and decided to do it himself," said Johnson.
The autopsy performed Thursday morning showed that several of the wounds could have killed Negrete.
"The coroner said he suffered multiple wounds that individually would have been fatal," Johnson said. "He had massive damage to his internal organs from the knife trauma, including one knife wound to the skull that penetrated and caused substantial brain damage."
After Gutierrez was arrested, officers found a bloody weapon in his car.
"It was a seven-inch, fixed blade, Marine Corps fighting knife," Johnson said. "It was a World War II K-bar. It was meant for only one thing and that was to kill."
Gutierrez, 37, and his wife, Charlote, 39, are in jail on murder charges, Johnson said. Edward Gutierrez also faces a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.
According to police, Gutierrez came out of his apartment on Twentieth Century Boulevard armed with the bat and the knife, with his wife following him around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Witnesses said he smashed the window of the truck where Negrete was sitting with his wife, Elizabeth.
The couple chased Negrete across the street and then back to the complex, where Negrete fled into his brother-in-law's apartment, police said. The couple followed Negrete inside and attacked the brother-in-law when he tried to intervene. Negrete died in the tiny back yard of the apartment.
"We're trying to firm up the actual sequence of events," Johnson said. "At some point (Gutierrez) abandoned the bat and his wife picked it up and joined in."
The Gutierrezes moved from San Jose about six months ago. Police haven't found any arrest record for him, but Johnson said Charlote Gutierrez has an extensive criminal history.
"It goes back to the mid-1980s, mostly violent crime and drugs, including a residential burglary," Johnson said. "There also were some child abuse allegations."
The Gutierrezes had called Turlock police Wednesday morning to report the alleged incident with their daughter. Charlote Gutierrez took her daughter to a local physician, who could not find any signs of abuse or trauma, Johnson said.
Police plan to have the girl examined by a forensic nurse who specializes in abuse cases to determine if there is any basis for the allegation.
Negrete's family members said there was bad blood between the two men after Negrete accused Gutierrez of breaking into several vehicles and stealing property from them.
Negrete is survived by his wife and two daughters, Leslie, 4, and Natalie, 2. Family members said he worked two jobs to support his family here and his elderly parents in Mexico.
Negrete was a popular employee at La Racherita Restaurant on West Main Street.
"He was well-known and well-liked here," said Hugo Sanchez, Negrete's boss. "He was always making everybody laugh."
After word of his death spread, a somber atmosphere hung over the restaurant.
"Two of the other cooks came in crying when they heard what had happened," Sanchez said. "He was one of the main guys here.…He was a really good guy and a hard worker."
The homicide was the first of 2005 in the city. The last homicide took place June 18, when a woman allegedly torched a house and killed a woman inside because of an alleged love triangle.
" This guy took matters into his own hands...but it doesn't look like he has a case to support it...nothing was found by the doctor who examined the girl........I plead the 5th on what I would do if someone touched my son or my g/f kids.... ..Source..
Calif. sex offender shot, killed by alleged victim in Idaho
9-23-2005 Idaho:
CLARK FORK, Idaho Authorities say registered California sex offender was shot and killed this week by a woman he was attacking in Clark Fork, Idaho.
A 34-year-old Clark Fork woman shot Christopher Michael Schmidt, 42, Tuesday night during a struggle after she gave him a ride home.
Authorities say Schmidt stopped at her home Tuesday to ask her about some job prospects. Later in the evening, she and her roommate heard a noise outside their house and found Schmidt hiding in the bushes.
He told her his pickup truck had broken down and he needed a ride home.
Valdez said the woman reluctantly agreed to give Schmidt a lift, but took a handgun with her. Later, she had to use it when he began attacking her in the driveway of his home.
Schmidt was listing on Idaho's sex offender registry for a 1989 conviction in Sonoma County of assault to commit rape and sodomy. ..more.. by KESQ TV
CLARK FORK, Idaho Authorities say registered California sex offender was shot and killed this week by a woman he was attacking in Clark Fork, Idaho.
A 34-year-old Clark Fork woman shot Christopher Michael Schmidt, 42, Tuesday night during a struggle after she gave him a ride home.
Authorities say Schmidt stopped at her home Tuesday to ask her about some job prospects. Later in the evening, she and her roommate heard a noise outside their house and found Schmidt hiding in the bushes.
He told her his pickup truck had broken down and he needed a ride home.
Valdez said the woman reluctantly agreed to give Schmidt a lift, but took a handgun with her. Later, she had to use it when he began attacking her in the driveway of his home.
Schmidt was listing on Idaho's sex offender registry for a 1989 conviction in Sonoma County of assault to commit rape and sodomy. ..more.. by KESQ TV
Man accused of sexually molesting 5-y-o girl beaten to death
9-30-2005 Jamaica:
ROEHAMPTON, St James - A man who allegedly sexually molested a five-year-old girl was chased and beaten to death by an angry mob in the Roehampton community yesterday.
Up to late last night, the man's identity could not be ascertained, but residents said he was not from the community.
According to the police, at about 4:30 pm, residents observed a man driving a blue and white Toyota Corona in the district, with the girl aboard.
The residents told the Observer that they became suspicious after the car drove off the main road into a secluded area.
"When we se the car go in a the bushes we went in search of the driver, but by that time he had locked up the car and gone with the girl," one resident said.
An alarm was raised and other residents joined the search for the man and the girl.
Screams from the little girl, the residents said, led them into a woody area where the man was seen hiding behind a tree. On seeing the angry mob, the man reportedly fled. He was cornered by the residents who used stones to inflict wounds to his head.
The man who appeared to be in his early 40s reportedly died on the spot while the toddler was taken to hospital for medical examination.
The man's car was later torched by the angry mob. Last night, residents celebrated the killing of the man and warned would-be rapists that they would meet a similar fate for committing such an act.
"We don't tolerate rapist here, anybody who rapes will be murdered," the residents warned. ..more.. by MARK CUMMINGS
ROEHAMPTON, St James - A man who allegedly sexually molested a five-year-old girl was chased and beaten to death by an angry mob in the Roehampton community yesterday.
Up to late last night, the man's identity could not be ascertained, but residents said he was not from the community.
According to the police, at about 4:30 pm, residents observed a man driving a blue and white Toyota Corona in the district, with the girl aboard.
The residents told the Observer that they became suspicious after the car drove off the main road into a secluded area.
"When we se the car go in a the bushes we went in search of the driver, but by that time he had locked up the car and gone with the girl," one resident said.
An alarm was raised and other residents joined the search for the man and the girl.
Screams from the little girl, the residents said, led them into a woody area where the man was seen hiding behind a tree. On seeing the angry mob, the man reportedly fled. He was cornered by the residents who used stones to inflict wounds to his head.
The man who appeared to be in his early 40s reportedly died on the spot while the toddler was taken to hospital for medical examination.
The man's car was later torched by the angry mob. Last night, residents celebrated the killing of the man and warned would-be rapists that they would meet a similar fate for committing such an act.
"We don't tolerate rapist here, anybody who rapes will be murdered," the residents warned. ..more.. by MARK CUMMINGS
Dismembered Body Near Utah-Wyoming Line Was Sex Offender
5-9-2005 Utah:The Summit County Sheriff's Office on Monday identified severed human remains found last month near the Wyoming state line as those of a 50-year-old convicted sex offender.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth said investigators believe John Mayo, of Salt Lake City, had been missing since mid-May or the first part of June.
The department launched a search after a Union Pacific railroad employee found the first body part April 18 on a frontage road while checking track near Interstate 80. Deputies scouring the area over the next five days produced a human torso, two hands, a foot and several bones–but still no head.
Booth said the body was identified after the state crime lab rehydrated Mayo's hands so they could take fingerprints, and verified by medical records checked against a skeleton reassembled from the parts deputies could recover.
Booth said investigators are following up on several leads, but still don't have a motive in the death.
Mayo was convicted of second-degree felony forcible sex abuse in 1991 and listed in the state sex offender registry. ..more.. by KUTV
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Man Tells Police Why Sex Offender's Body Was Cut Up
Mark Carlson Gives Utah Authorities Info On Grisly Crime
8-18-2005 Utah:
SALT LAKE CITY -- Mark Allen Carlson, arrested this week for questioning in the slaying and dismemberment of a convicted sex offender, said John Mayo was killed by another man because Mayo sexually abused children.
"He (Carlson) was very cooperative," said Dave Booth, Summit County chief deputy sheriff. "He offered a lot of insight, as we knew he would be able to."
Carlson told a sheriff's detective on Tuesday that Mayo, 49, was killed and dismembered in early June 2004 in Salt Lake City, Booth said. Carlson claims he witnessed the crimes but did not participate.
A Union Pacific railroad employee found the first body part April 18 on a frontage road while checking track near Interstate 80 and the Wyoming border. A search of the area resulted in other body parts being found along a seven-mile stretch of the Interstate. Mayo's head was never found.
Booth said Carlson claimed the perpetrator was a man currently in federal custody in Utah. Booth declined to name the suspect or say whether charges were imminent.
Booth said Carlson claimed the other man killed Mayo because he sexually abused children. Mayo pleaded guilty in November 1991 to forcible sexual abuse. The victim was a child.
Booth said the murderer wasn't driven by vigilantism.
"It was more, 'I just don't like your lifestyle. I don't like what you've done in the past,'" Booth said.
Carlson told the detective that he and the other man were under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of Mayo's death, Booth said.
Booth declined to say how Mayo died, but said he believes Mayo was dead before he was sawed up.
While Carlson said he didn't participate in the killing or dismemberment, he has admitted to disposing of the body parts, Booth said.
He also has told investigators where he and others disposed of Mayo's head, which searchers have not yet found and Booth said "I doubt we ever will." He said the head was discarded in a different location than the other body parts.
Investigators believed Carlson, who also goes by the name "Neptune," had information about the case. The Utah Division of Adult Probation and Parole issued a warrant for him on March 21 for walking away from a halfway house in Salt Lake City. He had been on parole after serving prison time for receiving and transporting a stolen vehicle. Officers with the U.S. Marshals Service apprehended him Tuesday at a West Valley City convenience store.
Carlson has been returned to the prison. ..more.. by The Denver Channel
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Details Emerge in Murder, Dismemberment Case
8-17-2005 Utah:
Chief Deputy Dave Booth, Summit County Sheriff's Office: "He's claiming he's not the killer, he did give us the name of the killer."
The Public Enemy Number One busted yesterday shares his story with detectives. When a fugitive team snatched up Mark Allen Carlson 24 hours ago, they turned the key to a year-old murder mystery.
Summit County believed Carlson knew about the murder of John Mayo, whose dismembered body was found along I-80 in Summit County. Until last night investigators did not have a lot to go on in the murder of John Mayo, but Carlson told police where it happened, how it happened and how they disposed of the body.
When agents caught up with Mark Allen Carlson, Summit County was eager to talk to the man who goes by the name "Neptune." Detectives say he gave them what they needed in the murder of John Mayo.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth: "They gleaned just a tremendous amount of information from him; he was very cooperative."
Mayo's dismembered body was found along a frontage road for I-80 not far from the Wyoming border. Carlson's story provided new information and confirmed detectives' theories.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth: "He saw what happened and saw what occurred, and to some extent participated, but he's claiming he's not the killer."
Carlson told investigators the killer and his friends used to hang out with Mayo at his house on Lake Street here in Salt Lake City. Carlson also told investigators that's where the murder happened in May 2004. But Carlson says he did not kill Mayo, even though he did help dispose of the body.
Carlson also told investigators why the man killed Mayo, who was a convicted child molester.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth, Summit County Sheriff's Office: "It was just a simple matter of he didn't didn't appreciate his criminal history, the things he had done, the lifestyle he was living, and decided to put an end to mister mayo."
Police say Carlson is a white supremacist gang member, but they do not think the accused killer has gang ties. Investigators will not name the accused killer but say he was a suspect early in the investigation. Carlson confirmed it.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth: "The information he gave us, matched up with what we found."
The accused killer is in prison on a federal parole violation and is not going anywhere. Summit County Detective will work with Salt Lake City detectives to put together the case. ..Source.. by Jed Boal Reporting
Karns woman on trial for murdering long-time friend
4-14-2005 Tennessee:
Kimberly Cunningham of Karns says she knew Coy Hundley for 18 years and thought she knew him well until her daughter told her Hundley (her uncle) and his son (her cousin) molested her.
"I wanted to know why he betrayed us," said Cunningham on the stand.
Cunningham's 16-year old daughter testified her uncle and cousin started molesting her when she was 9-years old. In open court, she recounted the first time Coy Hundley touched her.
"I was in his trailer when he asked me to take off my clothes," says the now 16-year old. He took my pants off but left my shirt on. I was wearing a Little Mermaid t-shirt."
Afraid to tell anyone what happened, the teen kept it to herself until her mother pressed her as to why she seemed upset all the time. On October 7, 2003, Cunningham went to where Hundley worked to tell her what her daughter told her. Her attorney Bruce Poston says Hundley's reaction led to his death.
"I told him, 'You raped my daughter,' and he laughed and stepped back and said, 'What are you going to do about it,'" said Cunningham.
Cunningham shot him 8 times.
The case will go to the jury Friday. ..more.. by WBIR.com
Jury finds Cunningham guilty of lesser murder charge
10-28-2005 Tennessee:
MARYVILLE (WATE) -- A Blount County mother charged in the shooting death of a man she said raped her young daughter was found guilty of a lesser charge Friday.
The jury deliberated for seven hours Thursday and Friday before finding Kimberly Cunningham guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Coy Hundley.
The jury said she was not guilty of second-degree murder.
Voluntary manslaughter carries a sentence of three to six years in prison or probation. Sentencing is scheduled for December 19.
The jury was handed the case Thursday morning in the trial that began Wednesday. It was the second time she had been on trial on murder charges in Hundley's death.
In April, she was acquitted on a charge of first degree murder. The jury couldn't decide on the lesser charge of second degree murder, prompting a retrial.
Cunningham admitted in both trials she shot Hundley, but said it was in a moment of rage after she had just learned her youngest daughter had been raped twice by her uncle, Coy Hundley, when she was just nine years old.
Wednesday, Cunningham told the jury when she confronted Hundley, 39, he just laughed at her and asked what she was going to do about it.
"I lost myself," she said, but also said she doesn't remember pulling the trigger.
Cunningham's lawyer, Bruce Poston, said he believed the most severe verdict the jury would reach was involuntary manslaughter.
..more.. by CATHARYN CAMPBELL
Murder or Vigilante Justice?
10-5-2007 Tennessee:
Kim Cunningham Killed Her Daughter's Alleged Rapist; Two Juries Acquitted Her of Murder
Amanda Cunningham said she vividly recalls the day her Uncle Coy raped her.
"I remember I had my purple Little Mermaid shirt on," she told ABC News. "He told me to take my clothes off, and I said no, so he took them off me."
She was 9 years old. Coy Hundley was drunk, Amanda said, but that wasn't unusual. He would rape her again a few months later, she testified in court.
Nearly five years later, in the fall of 2003, Amanda's mother, Kimberly Cunningham, finally learned of the alleged attacks. What happened next was the talk of Knoxville, Tenn., for years.
Kimberly got into her car and drove to the tool company where Hundley worked. She called him out into the parking lot. Cunningham said that she was praying he would deny the rape. Instead, she said Hundley, 39, laughed at her.
"What are you going to do about it?" he allegedly said.
Kimberly shot him five times, reloaded the weapon and fired five more rounds, killing him.
Watch the story this November on "20/20"
"I'll never forget him laughing at me," she testified at trial, according to court transcripts.
Witnesses said that after Kimberly shot Hundley, she got back into her car, pulled out of the parking lot and up to the road, put her blinker on and calmly drove away. Forty-five minutes later, she was in the Alcoa, Tenn., Police Department, turning in her nickel-plated revolver and telling police there had been a shooting.
"The person who is a good mother and in control — and I'm a compassionate person — was completely gone," Kimberly told ABC News. "You wouldn't believe how tiny she was," Kimberly said, her voice cracking. "This little thing, she wasn't more than 42 pounds, and for someone to do such vulgar things to her … there [sic] is simply no words to describe what happened … I just totally lost control."
On an audiotape of the police interrogation obtained by ABC News, Kimberly can be heard sobbing. "He raped my baby!" she told police.
In her first trial in April 2005, a Knoxville jury acquitted her of first degree murder, but deadlocked on second degree murder. In a second trial in October 2005, the jury acquitted Kimberly of second degree murder, but found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced to four years in prison, a sentence that was recently reduced on appeal to six months in prison.
"If she hadn't reloaded that gun," said Carl Eppolito, a juror from the second trial, "I would have let her walk."
For the tight-knit town of Knoxville, nestled in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, the case posed the thorniest of questions: What would you do if you believed your child had been raped?
He Said They'd 'Never Find My Body'
Kimberly had obtained a gun permit, taken lessons at a firing range and carried a loaded gun in a black purse in her car since August 2003, when she learned that Hundley's eldest son had allegedly molested her son Shane, now 15, as well as Amanda.
After Kimberly reported this to police, the Hundleys threatened her, Kimberly testified. Hundley was the common-law husband of Kimberly's sister Rhonda.
"I was scared of their family," Kimberly said. "They wanted me to drop it, kept telling me that 'it's gonna come out of my a--' if I didn't drop it." She said that Hundley and his friends repeatedly told her that they'd "never find my body."
Feeling helpless and angry, she said, she smashed the windows in Hundley's son's car. When she called Hundley at work, she testified, he told her the vandalism made the two families "even."
Repeated attempts by ABC News to interview Hundley's son were unsuccessful. Evelyn Hundley, Hundley's mother, denied that any molestation or rapes had occurred.
"I just think it's unjust," she said. "I don't believe in the justice system no more. Because she got away with cold-blooded murder."
Though Kimberly contacted police after her children told her they'd been molested, no charges were filed against Hundley's eldest son, according to Evelyn.
Listless and Withdrawn
For nearly five years, Amanda had harbored her secret, and it was beginning to wear on her. Her mother said that the A student had become listless and withdrawn. She remembers Amanda lying on the floor outside her bedroom door, "screaming and crying" until her mother would let her come in and sleep in her bed with her.
"I knew there was something wrong with her, but I didn't know what it was," Kimberly said. Mother and daughter began to fight bitterly, until one day in the early fall of 2003, in utter frustration, Kimberly put her daughter in the backseat of the car and told her she was taking her to the juvenile detention center.
"Why are you acting like this?" her mother pleaded with her. Then she had a thought. "Who is bothering you?" she asked her daughter.
The mother began ticking off the names of the people in town.
"When she got to [Coy's son's] name, I shook my head, yes," Amanda said. Her mother went to the police and then took her young son Shane to McDonald's. He, too, said that Coy's eldest son had been "touching" him.
Kimberly continued to press Amanda, but Amanda couldn't bring herself to tell her mother everything. "I didn't want to tell her because that was more embarrassing to me because he was an adult," Amanda told ABC News. But the secret distressed her, she said.
On Oct. 6, 2003, while her mother was putting Shane to bed, Amanda asked her to come into her bedroom. She said that she had something she wanted to talk about.
'Every Parent's Nightmare'
"I told her I had been having dreams about Coy," Amanda said. "She told me she knew there was more to what I was trying to say."
Amanda finally broke down and told her mother that Hundley had forced her to perform oral sex on him when she was 9 and then raped her. She said he had raped her again after that and threatened her not to tell anybody.
Finally, it all made sense to Kimberly. As Amanda got dressed for school, her mother slowly absorbed the enormity of what her daughter had told her.
"She wasn't like, psychotically out of it or anything," Amanda said. "She just seemed zoned out, like she was thinking about a lot of things."
By the time Amanda got to school, the man she said raped her lay dead in a parking lot, with four bullets in his head and four more scattered throughout his body.
"It's every parent's nightmare," Kimberly's attorney, Bruce Poston, told ABC News. "This case came down to the defense saying, 'What would you do if you were in her shoes?'"
'It Got … Meaner and Meaner'
Linda King, 58, a retired secretary from a General Motors purchasing department in Tennessee, was the final holdout against a first degree murder conviction for Kimberly in the first trial. She told ABC News that she was pressured by the 11-mother, one-father jury to convict Kimberly of first degree murder.
She said that she was called stupid "and worse things," and that at one point the male foreman pounded his fists on the table in front of her and threatened to write a note to the judge saying that she was "illogical, uncooperative and couldn't see the light of day."
"And that's exactly what he ended up doing," King said.
What began as a cordial deliberation in which several of the women felt Kimberly had acted in a moment of extreme passion and should not be charged with murder, devolved into a tense, 11-versus-1 contest of wills.
"It kind of got meaner and meaner," King said, adding that as time passed several of the other jurors became "nasty."
Two other jurors had held out with her into the second day of deliberations, but eventually sided with the others, she said. King said the other jurors told her they "would come down from first degree murder, and so now I had to come up from voluntary manslaughter."
"I told them, 'That's not how this works. It's not a compromise. This is someone's life we're talking about,'" said King. "I said I felt this family had been victimized enough and they needed a chance to recover themselves, and that mother needed to be with those kids."
The rest of the jury appeared to be deeply skeptical of Kimberly's family.
"The jury kept saying to me, 'That man is not here to defend himself,' but I believed what those kids went through," King said. "I really felt that when this had happened the first time, with [Kimberly's] nephew, that she had followed the law. She had tried to go through the system the first time, and I think she would have gone through the system again the second time unless Coy Hundley had reacted the way he did, laughing at her."
Eventually, King said, the tide began to turn. The jury finally voted to acquit Cunningham of first degree murder, but became hopelessly deadlocked on second degree murder. A second trial was ordered.
'It's Wrong to Kill Somebody, but You Want to Protect Your Family'
The first vote during deliberations in the second jury trial was relatively evenly split between convicting on second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
"About the only thing we did have an issue with was whether it was premeditated or a spur-of-the-moment thing," said juror David Miles, an electrical engineer.
He said the jury generally agreed from the start that vigilante justice had to be punished, but it was vexed when it came to deciding exactly how to punish a woman who had apparently been through what Kimberly had.
"I think the main feeling was that you shouldn't take justice into your own hands," Miles said of the jury deliberations, before adding, "but on the other side of the coin, if you were thrust into that situation, how would you react? You are brought up that you're supposed to protect your family at all costs, so it's really kind of a mixed thing."
He said he felt that what swayed the second jury toward a voluntary manslaughter charge was the mitigating factor that Kimberly feared Hundley, who had allegedly threatened Kimberly after she went to police to complain that Hundley's son had molested her children.
"Being a father myself, it was very difficult because I wasn't sure I wouldn't have done the same thing," said Miles. "You know, it's wrong to kill somebody, but you want to protect your family and I felt that's where she was at. She felt she was at the end of her rope. She had been dealing with [threats and intimidation] for several months, and when she got that latest piece of news it just broke her spirit. And she felt she had to take care of it."
The Letter of the Law
Another juror from the second trial, Brenda Newman, who retired three years ago from her job in a bank, said she knew from the start that she would have to force herself to put her personal feelings aside and follow the letter of the law.
"I knew the law would be the first priority," she told ABC News. "And that I could not act on my own feelings. I knew that I had to separate the way I felt as to what I might have done from what the law is, so I focused in on that the entire time."
"And it was very difficult,'' she said. "I could relate to her, especially as a mother. But like I said I wanted everything to be completely fair because I knew I had to live with it afterwards. I thought she felt helpless and that she was trying to protect her children. I did not feel like it was planned out. I felt like it was just a moment of passion."
Like Miles and other jurors from the second trial who spoke to ABC News, Newman said the jurors were adamant that they reach a conclusion on the charges in order to spare Kimberly's obviously damaged children from having to take the stand a third time in a third trial.
"Everyone in there agreed that we needed to come to a decision, but we agreed that it had to be one everyone could live with," said Newman.
Kimberly is expected to begin serving her sentence next month. With good behavior, she hopes to be home with her family by January. ..more.. by CHRIS FRANCESCANI, ABC News Law & Justice Unit
Kimberly Cunningham of Karns says she knew Coy Hundley for 18 years and thought she knew him well until her daughter told her Hundley (her uncle) and his son (her cousin) molested her.
"I wanted to know why he betrayed us," said Cunningham on the stand.
Cunningham's 16-year old daughter testified her uncle and cousin started molesting her when she was 9-years old. In open court, she recounted the first time Coy Hundley touched her.
"I was in his trailer when he asked me to take off my clothes," says the now 16-year old. He took my pants off but left my shirt on. I was wearing a Little Mermaid t-shirt."
Afraid to tell anyone what happened, the teen kept it to herself until her mother pressed her as to why she seemed upset all the time. On October 7, 2003, Cunningham went to where Hundley worked to tell her what her daughter told her. Her attorney Bruce Poston says Hundley's reaction led to his death.
"I told him, 'You raped my daughter,' and he laughed and stepped back and said, 'What are you going to do about it,'" said Cunningham.
Cunningham shot him 8 times.
The case will go to the jury Friday. ..more.. by WBIR.com
Jury finds Cunningham guilty of lesser murder charge
10-28-2005 Tennessee:
MARYVILLE (WATE) -- A Blount County mother charged in the shooting death of a man she said raped her young daughter was found guilty of a lesser charge Friday.
The jury deliberated for seven hours Thursday and Friday before finding Kimberly Cunningham guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Coy Hundley.
The jury said she was not guilty of second-degree murder.
Voluntary manslaughter carries a sentence of three to six years in prison or probation. Sentencing is scheduled for December 19.
The jury was handed the case Thursday morning in the trial that began Wednesday. It was the second time she had been on trial on murder charges in Hundley's death.
In April, she was acquitted on a charge of first degree murder. The jury couldn't decide on the lesser charge of second degree murder, prompting a retrial.
Cunningham admitted in both trials she shot Hundley, but said it was in a moment of rage after she had just learned her youngest daughter had been raped twice by her uncle, Coy Hundley, when she was just nine years old.
Wednesday, Cunningham told the jury when she confronted Hundley, 39, he just laughed at her and asked what she was going to do about it.
"I lost myself," she said, but also said she doesn't remember pulling the trigger.
Cunningham's lawyer, Bruce Poston, said he believed the most severe verdict the jury would reach was involuntary manslaughter.
..more.. by CATHARYN CAMPBELL
Murder or Vigilante Justice?
10-5-2007 Tennessee:
Kim Cunningham Killed Her Daughter's Alleged Rapist; Two Juries Acquitted Her of Murder
Amanda Cunningham said she vividly recalls the day her Uncle Coy raped her.
"I remember I had my purple Little Mermaid shirt on," she told ABC News. "He told me to take my clothes off, and I said no, so he took them off me."
She was 9 years old. Coy Hundley was drunk, Amanda said, but that wasn't unusual. He would rape her again a few months later, she testified in court.
Nearly five years later, in the fall of 2003, Amanda's mother, Kimberly Cunningham, finally learned of the alleged attacks. What happened next was the talk of Knoxville, Tenn., for years.
Kimberly got into her car and drove to the tool company where Hundley worked. She called him out into the parking lot. Cunningham said that she was praying he would deny the rape. Instead, she said Hundley, 39, laughed at her.
"What are you going to do about it?" he allegedly said.
Kimberly shot him five times, reloaded the weapon and fired five more rounds, killing him.
Watch the story this November on "20/20"
"I'll never forget him laughing at me," she testified at trial, according to court transcripts.
Witnesses said that after Kimberly shot Hundley, she got back into her car, pulled out of the parking lot and up to the road, put her blinker on and calmly drove away. Forty-five minutes later, she was in the Alcoa, Tenn., Police Department, turning in her nickel-plated revolver and telling police there had been a shooting.
"The person who is a good mother and in control — and I'm a compassionate person — was completely gone," Kimberly told ABC News. "You wouldn't believe how tiny she was," Kimberly said, her voice cracking. "This little thing, she wasn't more than 42 pounds, and for someone to do such vulgar things to her … there [sic] is simply no words to describe what happened … I just totally lost control."
On an audiotape of the police interrogation obtained by ABC News, Kimberly can be heard sobbing. "He raped my baby!" she told police.
In her first trial in April 2005, a Knoxville jury acquitted her of first degree murder, but deadlocked on second degree murder. In a second trial in October 2005, the jury acquitted Kimberly of second degree murder, but found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced to four years in prison, a sentence that was recently reduced on appeal to six months in prison.
"If she hadn't reloaded that gun," said Carl Eppolito, a juror from the second trial, "I would have let her walk."
For the tight-knit town of Knoxville, nestled in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, the case posed the thorniest of questions: What would you do if you believed your child had been raped?
He Said They'd 'Never Find My Body'
Kimberly had obtained a gun permit, taken lessons at a firing range and carried a loaded gun in a black purse in her car since August 2003, when she learned that Hundley's eldest son had allegedly molested her son Shane, now 15, as well as Amanda.
After Kimberly reported this to police, the Hundleys threatened her, Kimberly testified. Hundley was the common-law husband of Kimberly's sister Rhonda.
"I was scared of their family," Kimberly said. "They wanted me to drop it, kept telling me that 'it's gonna come out of my a--' if I didn't drop it." She said that Hundley and his friends repeatedly told her that they'd "never find my body."
Feeling helpless and angry, she said, she smashed the windows in Hundley's son's car. When she called Hundley at work, she testified, he told her the vandalism made the two families "even."
Repeated attempts by ABC News to interview Hundley's son were unsuccessful. Evelyn Hundley, Hundley's mother, denied that any molestation or rapes had occurred.
"I just think it's unjust," she said. "I don't believe in the justice system no more. Because she got away with cold-blooded murder."
Though Kimberly contacted police after her children told her they'd been molested, no charges were filed against Hundley's eldest son, according to Evelyn.
Listless and Withdrawn
For nearly five years, Amanda had harbored her secret, and it was beginning to wear on her. Her mother said that the A student had become listless and withdrawn. She remembers Amanda lying on the floor outside her bedroom door, "screaming and crying" until her mother would let her come in and sleep in her bed with her.
"I knew there was something wrong with her, but I didn't know what it was," Kimberly said. Mother and daughter began to fight bitterly, until one day in the early fall of 2003, in utter frustration, Kimberly put her daughter in the backseat of the car and told her she was taking her to the juvenile detention center.
"Why are you acting like this?" her mother pleaded with her. Then she had a thought. "Who is bothering you?" she asked her daughter.
The mother began ticking off the names of the people in town.
"When she got to [Coy's son's] name, I shook my head, yes," Amanda said. Her mother went to the police and then took her young son Shane to McDonald's. He, too, said that Coy's eldest son had been "touching" him.
Kimberly continued to press Amanda, but Amanda couldn't bring herself to tell her mother everything. "I didn't want to tell her because that was more embarrassing to me because he was an adult," Amanda told ABC News. But the secret distressed her, she said.
On Oct. 6, 2003, while her mother was putting Shane to bed, Amanda asked her to come into her bedroom. She said that she had something she wanted to talk about.
'Every Parent's Nightmare'
"I told her I had been having dreams about Coy," Amanda said. "She told me she knew there was more to what I was trying to say."
Amanda finally broke down and told her mother that Hundley had forced her to perform oral sex on him when she was 9 and then raped her. She said he had raped her again after that and threatened her not to tell anybody.
Finally, it all made sense to Kimberly. As Amanda got dressed for school, her mother slowly absorbed the enormity of what her daughter had told her.
"She wasn't like, psychotically out of it or anything," Amanda said. "She just seemed zoned out, like she was thinking about a lot of things."
By the time Amanda got to school, the man she said raped her lay dead in a parking lot, with four bullets in his head and four more scattered throughout his body.
"It's every parent's nightmare," Kimberly's attorney, Bruce Poston, told ABC News. "This case came down to the defense saying, 'What would you do if you were in her shoes?'"
'It Got … Meaner and Meaner'
Linda King, 58, a retired secretary from a General Motors purchasing department in Tennessee, was the final holdout against a first degree murder conviction for Kimberly in the first trial. She told ABC News that she was pressured by the 11-mother, one-father jury to convict Kimberly of first degree murder.
She said that she was called stupid "and worse things," and that at one point the male foreman pounded his fists on the table in front of her and threatened to write a note to the judge saying that she was "illogical, uncooperative and couldn't see the light of day."
"And that's exactly what he ended up doing," King said.
What began as a cordial deliberation in which several of the women felt Kimberly had acted in a moment of extreme passion and should not be charged with murder, devolved into a tense, 11-versus-1 contest of wills.
"It kind of got meaner and meaner," King said, adding that as time passed several of the other jurors became "nasty."
Two other jurors had held out with her into the second day of deliberations, but eventually sided with the others, she said. King said the other jurors told her they "would come down from first degree murder, and so now I had to come up from voluntary manslaughter."
"I told them, 'That's not how this works. It's not a compromise. This is someone's life we're talking about,'" said King. "I said I felt this family had been victimized enough and they needed a chance to recover themselves, and that mother needed to be with those kids."
The rest of the jury appeared to be deeply skeptical of Kimberly's family.
"The jury kept saying to me, 'That man is not here to defend himself,' but I believed what those kids went through," King said. "I really felt that when this had happened the first time, with [Kimberly's] nephew, that she had followed the law. She had tried to go through the system the first time, and I think she would have gone through the system again the second time unless Coy Hundley had reacted the way he did, laughing at her."
Eventually, King said, the tide began to turn. The jury finally voted to acquit Cunningham of first degree murder, but became hopelessly deadlocked on second degree murder. A second trial was ordered.
'It's Wrong to Kill Somebody, but You Want to Protect Your Family'
The first vote during deliberations in the second jury trial was relatively evenly split between convicting on second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
"About the only thing we did have an issue with was whether it was premeditated or a spur-of-the-moment thing," said juror David Miles, an electrical engineer.
He said the jury generally agreed from the start that vigilante justice had to be punished, but it was vexed when it came to deciding exactly how to punish a woman who had apparently been through what Kimberly had.
"I think the main feeling was that you shouldn't take justice into your own hands," Miles said of the jury deliberations, before adding, "but on the other side of the coin, if you were thrust into that situation, how would you react? You are brought up that you're supposed to protect your family at all costs, so it's really kind of a mixed thing."
He said he felt that what swayed the second jury toward a voluntary manslaughter charge was the mitigating factor that Kimberly feared Hundley, who had allegedly threatened Kimberly after she went to police to complain that Hundley's son had molested her children.
"Being a father myself, it was very difficult because I wasn't sure I wouldn't have done the same thing," said Miles. "You know, it's wrong to kill somebody, but you want to protect your family and I felt that's where she was at. She felt she was at the end of her rope. She had been dealing with [threats and intimidation] for several months, and when she got that latest piece of news it just broke her spirit. And she felt she had to take care of it."
The Letter of the Law
Another juror from the second trial, Brenda Newman, who retired three years ago from her job in a bank, said she knew from the start that she would have to force herself to put her personal feelings aside and follow the letter of the law.
"I knew the law would be the first priority," she told ABC News. "And that I could not act on my own feelings. I knew that I had to separate the way I felt as to what I might have done from what the law is, so I focused in on that the entire time."
"And it was very difficult,'' she said. "I could relate to her, especially as a mother. But like I said I wanted everything to be completely fair because I knew I had to live with it afterwards. I thought she felt helpless and that she was trying to protect her children. I did not feel like it was planned out. I felt like it was just a moment of passion."
Like Miles and other jurors from the second trial who spoke to ABC News, Newman said the jurors were adamant that they reach a conclusion on the charges in order to spare Kimberly's obviously damaged children from having to take the stand a third time in a third trial.
"Everyone in there agreed that we needed to come to a decision, but we agreed that it had to be one everyone could live with," said Newman.
Kimberly is expected to begin serving her sentence next month. With good behavior, she hopes to be home with her family by January. ..more.. by CHRIS FRANCESCANI, ABC News Law & Justice Unit
Maine killings raise questions about sex offender registries
This documents one (William Elliott) of the two deaths that occurred.4-17-2006 Maine:
CORINTH, Maine --A man who shot two sex offenders to death in Maine got their names from the state's online sex offender registry, authorities said Monday. The killings renewed fears that such lists expose ex-convicts to vigilante violence.
The gunman, Stephen A. Marshall, a 20-year-old from Canada, committed suicide Sunday night in Boston after being cornered aboard a bus by police.
Investigators were uncertain what relationship, if any, Marshall had with the two victims, who were killed Easter Sunday morning at their homes 25 miles apart.
But the two men were among 34 names in five towns that Marshall had looked up on the state Web site, said Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety. Investigators said they discovered that he visited the Web site because he typed in his name to receive extra information online, including street addresses.
The Web site, which gets 200,000 hits a month, was disabled while police searched for Marshall but was restored Monday afternoon.
"The events of the weekend will obviously reviewed, but there are no plans to change the Web site at this point," McCausland said.
All states have sex offender registries designed to let people know of child molesters and other sex offenders in their midst.
Almost all of them, like Maine, post the information online.
But the killings added to a growing unease with such Web sites. Jack King from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington said making public sex offenders' addresses can be an invitation to violence.
Harassment, vandalism, assaults and even killings of sex offenders have been reported from coast to coast.
"There are going to be crazy people out there," King said. "And there's going to be vigilantism."
After New Jersey passed a public disclosure law on sex offenders in the 1990s, the brother of an offender was nearly beaten to death with a baseball bat when he was mistaken for his brother, King said.
In New Hampshire, Lawrence Trant went to prison after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state.
A sex offender Web site in Washington state was cited in the slayings of two convicted child rapists last summer. Michael Anthony Mullen, 35, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to more than 44 years in prison.
In Maine, the registered sex offenders who were shot to death were Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth.
Gray's wife, Janice, said that her and her husband's dogs started barking wildly at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday. When she looked out the window, she saw a figure dressed in a black jacket at the front door. A second later, she heard two shots and saw two flashes as bullets were fired through the front window.
She called her husband's name, but she got no response. "All I know is someone came to my house and took my husband from me," she said. "He was a very loving, good man."
Gray's name was posted on a state Web site because he had moved to Maine after a Massachusetts conviction for sexual assault on a child under 14, McCausland said. Elliott was convicted of having sex with an underage girl, he said.
When he shot himself, Marshall had with him a laptop computer along with two handguns, said Dave Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County, Mass., District Attorney's Office.
Marshall, a 20-year-old restaurant dishwasher from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, had come to Houlton, Maine, to visit his father, authorities said.
Investigators believe he used his father's pickup during the killings. The father had not realized his son and truck were missing, McCausland said. Marshall also took two handguns and a rifle from his father, the spokesman said.
Police tracked Marshall to Boston after finding his pickup abandoned along with the rifle in Bangor and then discovering bullets hidden in the tank of a toilet in a bus stop restroom were of the same caliber as one of his father's handguns.
Investigators believe a .45-caliber handgun Marshall turned on himself was the same one used in the Maine killings, McCausland said. The rifle, along with a .22-caliber handgun, were not fired, he said.
Marshall's father, Ralph Marshall, told reporters that his son didn't appear troubled and never said he had been sexually abused. He was confident investigators would get to the bottom of the case.
"Right now, everything seems to be about speculation," he said.
Maine's sex offender registry, which went online in December 2003, has the names of more than 2,200 sex offenders. It contains such information as the offender's name, address, date of birth, identifying characteristics and place of employment, as well as a photograph. Depending on the crime, the offender is required to register either for 10 years or for life.
In Washington state, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office posts a warning on its registry under the heading "Vigilantism -- Zero Tolerance," urging people not to use the information to harass offenders.
Carlos Cuevas from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire said more research is needed into the effectiveness of sex offender registries. "Is it effective in lowering the rates of child victimization?" he asked.
In Maine, Gray and Elliott were shot about five hours apart. Neither man appeared to have caused a stir recently.
Gray and his wife moved a couple of years ago from Massachusetts to Milo, a town of about 2,400, said Kenny Hudak, a local police sergeant. Hudak said Gray had been reclusive.
In Corinth, residents were alerted when Elliott moved into a vinyl-sided trailer in the woods. The property was covered with trash, tires and at least a dozen junked vehicles.
"I think more people were concerned about the mess than him being a sex offender," said Mary Hadley, who lives across the road. ..more.. by Glenn Adams
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Blog Overview
What is documented in this blog comes from news reports, credible sources. However with that said, we are sure this is not all there is, only what folks have advised us of.
Yes, it is true some folks documented here actually committed sex offenses and there are victim/s of their crimes that may read this blog. Our heart goes out to those victims. Everyone should be angered by those crimes, and we are too.
However, society is not made safer by the subsequent acts that caused the deaths of the folks documented here, in essence vigilante justice or revenge, which society does not condone. Whatever provoked people to these acts has now LIKELY made them a criminal as well, and that does not make society safer!
Note: If someone commits a sex crime, and is prosecuted and receives a death sentence, those folks ARE NOT recorded. Only acts that, result in deaths, that are not permitted by laws, will be documented.
Preface: This blog records deaths of persons (killed or murdered) who were
A) Registered sex offenders; or,these distinctions are statistically important.
B) Former sex offenders [no longer required to registered]; or,
C) Persons accused of a new sex offense; or,
D) Persons accused of a new sex offense, but innocent; or,
E) Persons -mistakenly- thought to have committed a sex offense, or,
F) Other people killed during the incident sparking documentation.
The purpose of this blog is to document deaths i.e., murders, suspicious or unexplainable deaths, or killings when that term is more appropriate than murder based on the circumstances of a specific death/s.All of the deaths recorded here fall into one of the groups mentioned in the Preface. With the advent of sex offender registries being made public, and community notification, registrants are automatically made targets, easy to find by registry information. Accordingly, our purpose is to document acts which lawmakers choose to ignore, or claim have not happened. The reality is, people are dieing because of these sex offender laws which prove the laws are not protecting everyone, nor are they making society safer. When laws promote further criminal acts, they do not make society safer!
===============================
Article Tags, Topics, Issues Index:
"+" TAGS: Notice that some of the entries have a "+" before them, these are the entries that are educational in nature, or, we are bringing attention to special cases to help Advocates to find these when they speak with Lawmakers. We will post relevant educational material as we find them or are made aware of them. The remaining entries are factual, actual events. All stories are supported by news articles or other reasonable verifiable sources.
So, if you want further information on the "Topic of Murder" seek the "+" entries. Remember though, the strict judicial system meaning of "Murder (i.e., murder)" is not likely what you'll find here, as it is our intent to explore the gray areas, left and right, of the word murder (homicide and attempts thereof); educational in nature but somehow related to sex offenses.
Bad / Dead Article Links:
Unfortunately as time goes on some of the Internet links (sources of news articles) will no longer work. This is due to various reasons such as the news site has been rearranged, older articles are removed or archived, etc. There is nothing we can do about this, which is why we try to capture the essence of a story initially, the relevant facts, so folks can still see what happened later on.
YEAR followed by blank, CC or FRN: The year follow by no designation means this is a US case. CC means it is a civil commitment case. FRN means a foreign case.
Death/s US/FRN - of RSOs/SOs: We are trying to keep track of Foreign deaths and those in the United States, no matter whether the person was registered (RSO) or not (SO). Many foreign countries do not have public registries that could cause offenders to be targeted by the public. Accordingly, there is no foreign equivalent to RSO, so all foreign is tagged SO. If someone in the U.S. -has no prior sex offense- and is accused of a sex offense, or believed to have committed a sex offense, their suicide will be flagged "SO."
Accused / Not Accused: By "accused" we mean was the person was accused of a sex crime at the point of death (if a RSO it would mean recidivism, if a SO it would be their first sex crime). The absence of the word "Accused" would put the case in one of the other designations. Accused includes "thought to have committed a sex crime," whether the thinking is the police or others involved in the case. Now, sometimes it is claimed a person committed a sex crime but authorities cannot find any evidence of it, or, the facts of the article does not show real evidence to support the claim, hence, we tag these "... Accused, but innocent." Selecting appropriate tags is difficult and can change when a newer article reveals more or incorrect evidence; we do our best.
Death/s of Innocent Others: Occasionally, someone is killed who IS NOT the RSO or the SO accused, we call those deaths "Innocent Others" and we keep track of them as well. Generally it is the RSO or SO accused who kills the Innocent Other, but there are times when someone else (Public Servants, Police) who accidentally cause the death. Those cases, "Innocent Other" deaths, are also recorded in our "Deaths Related to Sex Offenders or Offenses" blog, where we count the deaths individually, here in the murder blog we just flag the case "Innocent Other".
Just recently we found a couple of cases where ONLY an "Innocent Other" was killed, hence we have tagged these "Innocent Other - ONLY" and these will also be recorded in the other blog mentioned above.
Article Tags, Topics, Issues Index & Their Meanings:
The most important question we are asked is, how many have died. If you look at the "Article Tags / Topics / Issues" Index (right side of page) you will see "Death/s -" and "Death/s US -" or "Death/s FRN -". NOTE: "Death/s -" are facts about the cases documented, while the other two are the actual number of deaths shown in the (##). Individual groupings are (Mathematically important):** Is a very special tag, it identifies incidents where MULTIPLE RSOs were killed. The number (##) is to be ignored for counting purposes (in order to have ## for other entries this one had to have it also, a function of blogs)
- **Death/s US - of RSOs - (Mult RSOs Killed)(##)
- Death/s US - of RSOs (##)
- Death/s US - of RSOs Accused (##)
- Death/s US - of RSOs Accused, but innocent (##)
- Death/s US - of SOs Accused (##)
- Death/s US - of SOs Accused, but innocent (##)
- Death/s US - of Innocent Others(##)
- Death/s US - of Innocent Others - ONLY(##)
- -----------------------------------------
- -- We do not track Foreign Registries --
- -- Hence no RSO for FRN cases --
- -----------------------------------------
- Deaths FRN - of SOs (##)
- Deaths FRN - of SOs Accused (##)
- Deaths FRN - of SOs Accused, but innocent (##)
- Deaths FRN - of Innocent Others(##)
- Deaths FRN - of Innocent Others - ONLY(##)
Multiple RSOs Killed / Multiple SOs Killed: These are incidents were more than one RSO or SO was murdered or killed, in a single crime. The purpose here is to show when multiple offenders were targeted and died at the same time. The individual person/s actually killed is also recorded under "Death/s of RSO/SO" groups.
Deaths by natural causes or other similar cause and are not included: (these are placed in our "Suicides & Other Deaths" blog and Tagged "Death - Not Qualified..."), however, if a person dies and it cannot be determined why or what they died of, then we include the death, and tag them "Review - ..." Later on we go back to see if we can find more about the case, and tag appropriately.
Designating a case a Status Based murder: For a complete explanation of how we make that determination see HERE
Deaths by Public Servants:
Because we noticed a substantial number of deaths involving Law Enforcement, we developed special codes to determine whether the registrant or accused person was somehow armed during these incidents:
Deceased-G means they had a gun;In our report we provide percentages of each.
Deceased-N means no gun;
Deceased-W means they had something else to use as a weapon;
Deceased-U means none of the above can be determined.
KNIFE MURDER SUSPECT FLEES
1-26-2007 United Kingdom:
A KEY suspect in the brutal murder of a pensioner has fled to England, police said yesterday. Detectives believe the man will help them capture the killer of 73- year-old Norman Moffatt.
He was stabbed near his home in Coleraine, Co Derry, on January 26, 2001 while out buying a morning paper as his wife and daughter were asleep. Police believe the murder- er planned to attack a paedophile but got the wrong man.
The detective heading the inquiry said they have received new information that could crack the case. On the sixth anniversary of the atrocity, Inspector Nigel Kyle urged any relatives who may be shielding the killer to break their silence.
He added: "While the murderer may not have a conscience I am sure that his family and his friends do.
"Quite how they can remain silent when they know the person who killed a 73-year-old man in cold blood is beyond me."
Insp Kyle appealed to two people standing at a phone box near the scene of the attack to contact police or else face becoming suspects.
He said: "I can't understand why they wouldn't come forward unless they are trying to shield the person involved." ..more.. by Alan Erwin
A KEY suspect in the brutal murder of a pensioner has fled to England, police said yesterday. Detectives believe the man will help them capture the killer of 73- year-old Norman Moffatt.
He was stabbed near his home in Coleraine, Co Derry, on January 26, 2001 while out buying a morning paper as his wife and daughter were asleep. Police believe the murder- er planned to attack a paedophile but got the wrong man.
The detective heading the inquiry said they have received new information that could crack the case. On the sixth anniversary of the atrocity, Inspector Nigel Kyle urged any relatives who may be shielding the killer to break their silence.
He added: "While the murderer may not have a conscience I am sure that his family and his friends do.
"Quite how they can remain silent when they know the person who killed a 73-year-old man in cold blood is beyond me."
Insp Kyle appealed to two people standing at a phone box near the scene of the attack to contact police or else face becoming suspects.
He said: "I can't understand why they wouldn't come forward unless they are trying to shield the person involved." ..more.. by Alan Erwin
'KILLED BY HIS PALS'
3-22-2007 United Kingdom:
FOUR neighbours tortured a disabled man then drowned him because they thought he was a paedophile, a court heard.
Sean Miles, 37, who had an IQ of just 50, was stripped, slashed with a knife and battered with a golf club last May.
He was then marched to the river where he was drowned by the gang he thought were his friends.
Edward Doyle, 34, Terry McMasters, 24, and sisters Tracey, 36, and Karen Fathers, 35, of Littlemoor, Oxford, all deny murder.
Sean's carers said: "He was a sweet man who never did any harm."
The trial at Oxford crown court continues. ..more.. by Mirror.uk.co
FOUR neighbours tortured a disabled man then drowned him because they thought he was a paedophile, a court heard.
Sean Miles, 37, who had an IQ of just 50, was stripped, slashed with a knife and battered with a golf club last May.
He was then marched to the river where he was drowned by the gang he thought were his friends.
Edward Doyle, 34, Terry McMasters, 24, and sisters Tracey, 36, and Karen Fathers, 35, of Littlemoor, Oxford, all deny murder.
Sean's carers said: "He was a sweet man who never did any harm."
The trial at Oxford crown court continues. ..more.. by Mirror.uk.co
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Ex-wife is jailed for sex killing
12-17-2003 United Kingdom:
A WOMAN was jailed for life yesterday after she lured her ex-husband into a kinky sex session and stabbed him to death.
Mum-of-two Denise Lawrence, 47, handcuffed Adrian Anson to his bed then plunged a kitchen knife through his heart.
Prosecutor Greg Taylor QC said: "This was not a crime of passion - it was an execution.
"She handcuffed him to special hoops in the bedroom wall and tied his feet. "Lawrence put a black mask on his head that he couldn't see through. Then they had sex."
Cardiff crown court heard Lawrence left him to die tied up and with the front door to his home in Roath, Cardiff, locked to prevent him getting out.
Mr Taylor said: "Anson was bleeding and tied up. She turns up the music so she can't hear him."
Lawrence from Cardiff, who denied murder, said she believed Anson, 37, was wrongly cleared of sex offences against two girls.
Mr Justice Richards told her: "This was an act of great wickedness." ..more.. by Richard Smith. See also trial transcript
A WOMAN was jailed for life yesterday after she lured her ex-husband into a kinky sex session and stabbed him to death.
Mum-of-two Denise Lawrence, 47, handcuffed Adrian Anson to his bed then plunged a kitchen knife through his heart.
Prosecutor Greg Taylor QC said: "This was not a crime of passion - it was an execution.
"She handcuffed him to special hoops in the bedroom wall and tied his feet. "Lawrence put a black mask on his head that he couldn't see through. Then they had sex."
Cardiff crown court heard Lawrence left him to die tied up and with the front door to his home in Roath, Cardiff, locked to prevent him getting out.
Mr Taylor said: "Anson was bleeding and tied up. She turns up the music so she can't hear him."
Lawrence from Cardiff, who denied murder, said she believed Anson, 37, was wrongly cleared of sex offences against two girls.
Mr Justice Richards told her: "This was an act of great wickedness." ..more.. by Richard Smith. See also trial transcript
Child molester was strangled
1-16-2004 Virginia:
Blunt-force trauma to the torso contributed to Ausley's death in a state prison cell
Child molester Richard Alvin Ausley was killed by strangulation and blunt-force trauma to the torso, the state medical examiner's office said yesterday in classifying his death in prison as a homicide.
Ausley, 64, was found dead on the floor of his cell at the high-security Sussex I State Prison near Wakefield on Tuesday night. Prison officials said Ausley was locked in the cell with another inmate, whom they would not identify, when his body was discovered between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Prison officials are investigating the circumstances of the killing but said they would release no further details until at least Tuesday, when state employees return from a long holiday weekend.
Kara Gotsch of the Washington-based American Civil Liberties Union's national prison project, a prisoner advocacy organization, said she could draw no conclusions about the slaying from the meager facts at hand so far. She said details such as the background of Ausley's cellmate and the time when the guards last checked the cell would show whether prison officials had taken reasonable steps to protect Ausley's life.
It's no secret that imprisoned child molesters are frequent targets of other inmates and need special vigilance, Gotsch said.
Evelyn Henson, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner's office, said an autopsy determined Ausley was strangled with some type of ligature - a cordlike object probably narrower than a twisted-up shirt or bed sheet - and that a heavy blow or blows to his torso contributed to his death.
Ausley in the 1970s had violently sexually assaulted young boys, imprisoning one in a box in the woods of what was then Nansemond County.
The victim of that crime, Paul Martin Andrews of Miami, said Wednesday that he had never wanted to see Ausley dead or injured, merely to keep him off the streets forever, and that he felt some responsibility for Ausley's death.
Two years ago, Andrews, determined to prevent Ausley from being freed as his prison sentence neared its end, led a campaign to provide funding for a state program to keep certain violent sexual offenders confined after their prison terms ended. Andrews also persuaded another of Ausley's victims, Gary E. Founds, to come forward after three decades of silence and report that Ausley had sexually assaulted him.
Founds' statements prompted prosecutors in Portsmouth to file new charges against Ausley in 2002, securing a conviction that added five years to Ausley's time in prison. The new conviction also changed Ausley's status in the prison system and caused him to be transferred from Brunswick Correctional Center to the tougher Sussex I prison.
Had he survived his prison term, the state attorney general's office planned to file a petition seeking his continued confinement under the law his case inspired.
Ausley had told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he regretted his crimes, would pose no danger anymore, and had found a family in Southwest Virginia willing to take him in if he was released.
But less than two months after arriving inside the walls of Sussex I, Ausley was dead.
Founds told WVEC-TV in Norfolk he felt no sympathy for Ausley. "If there was an award, I'd give it to the guy that got him," Founds said. "That sounds cold, but he didn't care about how we felt when he was raping us and attacking us the way he did." ..more.. by
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inmate Says He Warned Corrections Officials Not To Put Him With Child Molester From Hampton Roads
7-14-2004:
The inmate accused of killing one of Virginia's most notorious child molesters when they were forced to share a cell said he warned a corrections official not to put them together, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Friday.
Dewey Keith Venable, 24, told the newspaper in a letter this week that the officer he warned responded by telling him he would be put into isolation unless he agreed to share a cell with Richard Alvin Ausley at Sussex I State Prison in Waverly.
Venable, indicted in May for capital murder in the Jan. 13 strangulation and beating of the 64-year-old Ausley, was the victim of a molester when he was a child.
The slaying came before Ausley was about to make parole, a development that prompted state legislators to pass a law allowing dangerous sexual predators to be locked up indefinitely in treatment centers once they complete their prison sentence.
Venable also claimed in the letter that he has attempted to take his own life and has been on suicide watch several times since the slaying.
Prison officials declined to comment on why the men were put together in a two-man cell, what they knew about Venable's history or other details of their investigation.
Venable is serving an 18-year, nine-month sentence for felony convictions that include carjacking, abduction, robbery and illegal use of a firearm in Virginia Beach.
Norfolk Circuit Court records list Venable among the victims of Dennis L. Sewell, who pleaded guilty on May 31, 1988, to two counts of aggravated sexual battery.
Ausley abducted a 13-year-old Portsmouth boy, buried him in a box in Suffolk and sexually assaulted him repeatedly in 1973. The case received national news coverage and the victim, Paul Martin Andrews, led the fight for the state's new Sexually Violent Predators Act.
Venable is to be arraigned on the murder charge Aug. 18 in Sussex Circuit Court. ..Source..
Blunt-force trauma to the torso contributed to Ausley's death in a state prison cell
Child molester Richard Alvin Ausley was killed by strangulation and blunt-force trauma to the torso, the state medical examiner's office said yesterday in classifying his death in prison as a homicide.
Ausley, 64, was found dead on the floor of his cell at the high-security Sussex I State Prison near Wakefield on Tuesday night. Prison officials said Ausley was locked in the cell with another inmate, whom they would not identify, when his body was discovered between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Prison officials are investigating the circumstances of the killing but said they would release no further details until at least Tuesday, when state employees return from a long holiday weekend.
Kara Gotsch of the Washington-based American Civil Liberties Union's national prison project, a prisoner advocacy organization, said she could draw no conclusions about the slaying from the meager facts at hand so far. She said details such as the background of Ausley's cellmate and the time when the guards last checked the cell would show whether prison officials had taken reasonable steps to protect Ausley's life.
It's no secret that imprisoned child molesters are frequent targets of other inmates and need special vigilance, Gotsch said.
Evelyn Henson, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner's office, said an autopsy determined Ausley was strangled with some type of ligature - a cordlike object probably narrower than a twisted-up shirt or bed sheet - and that a heavy blow or blows to his torso contributed to his death.
Ausley in the 1970s had violently sexually assaulted young boys, imprisoning one in a box in the woods of what was then Nansemond County.
The victim of that crime, Paul Martin Andrews of Miami, said Wednesday that he had never wanted to see Ausley dead or injured, merely to keep him off the streets forever, and that he felt some responsibility for Ausley's death.
Two years ago, Andrews, determined to prevent Ausley from being freed as his prison sentence neared its end, led a campaign to provide funding for a state program to keep certain violent sexual offenders confined after their prison terms ended. Andrews also persuaded another of Ausley's victims, Gary E. Founds, to come forward after three decades of silence and report that Ausley had sexually assaulted him.
Founds' statements prompted prosecutors in Portsmouth to file new charges against Ausley in 2002, securing a conviction that added five years to Ausley's time in prison. The new conviction also changed Ausley's status in the prison system and caused him to be transferred from Brunswick Correctional Center to the tougher Sussex I prison.
Had he survived his prison term, the state attorney general's office planned to file a petition seeking his continued confinement under the law his case inspired.
Ausley had told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he regretted his crimes, would pose no danger anymore, and had found a family in Southwest Virginia willing to take him in if he was released.
But less than two months after arriving inside the walls of Sussex I, Ausley was dead.
Founds told WVEC-TV in Norfolk he felt no sympathy for Ausley. "If there was an award, I'd give it to the guy that got him," Founds said. "That sounds cold, but he didn't care about how we felt when he was raping us and attacking us the way he did." ..more.. by
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inmate Says He Warned Corrections Officials Not To Put Him With Child Molester From Hampton Roads
7-14-2004:
The inmate accused of killing one of Virginia's most notorious child molesters when they were forced to share a cell said he warned a corrections official not to put them together, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Friday.
Dewey Keith Venable, 24, told the newspaper in a letter this week that the officer he warned responded by telling him he would be put into isolation unless he agreed to share a cell with Richard Alvin Ausley at Sussex I State Prison in Waverly.
Venable, indicted in May for capital murder in the Jan. 13 strangulation and beating of the 64-year-old Ausley, was the victim of a molester when he was a child.
The slaying came before Ausley was about to make parole, a development that prompted state legislators to pass a law allowing dangerous sexual predators to be locked up indefinitely in treatment centers once they complete their prison sentence.
Venable also claimed in the letter that he has attempted to take his own life and has been on suicide watch several times since the slaying.
Prison officials declined to comment on why the men were put together in a two-man cell, what they knew about Venable's history or other details of their investigation.
Venable is serving an 18-year, nine-month sentence for felony convictions that include carjacking, abduction, robbery and illegal use of a firearm in Virginia Beach.
Norfolk Circuit Court records list Venable among the victims of Dennis L. Sewell, who pleaded guilty on May 31, 1988, to two counts of aggravated sexual battery.
Ausley abducted a 13-year-old Portsmouth boy, buried him in a box in Suffolk and sexually assaulted him repeatedly in 1973. The case received national news coverage and the victim, Paul Martin Andrews, led the fight for the state's new Sexually Violent Predators Act.
Venable is to be arraigned on the murder charge Aug. 18 in Sussex Circuit Court. ..Source..
Police say cabdriver killed sex offender
Article Tags:
.New York,
(. Review - To Be Checked),
2004,
Age 49-59,
by Victim or Family - Friend,
Death/s US - of RSOs,
Gunshot
1-28-2004 New York:
YONKERS — Police yesterday identified 24-year-old Joshua Torres of Yonkers as the man who fatally shot a paroled sex offender as he walked along a street in the southwest section of the city Monday, and said Torres believed the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter.
"We consider Mr. Torres to be armed and dangerous," Police Commissioner Robert Taggart said yesterday during a news conference where he called on Torres to surrender. "This man has a violent criminal history."
Torres is accused of shooting at 50-year-old Richard L. Tunley nine times, striking him with six bullets outside 290 Riverdale Ave. shortly after 4 a.m.
Detectives obtained an arrest warrant charging Torres with second-degree murder, a felony, Taggart said. Torres contacted police twice since the shooting to arrange a surrender but reneged. Police said they will contact the FBI's violent fugitive task force to help them find Torres.
The Tunley homicide — the city's first of the year — was the violent end to a series of events that unfolded in a Nodine Hill apartment Sunday.
Tunley's sister, Leandra DeGree, 54, yesterday said Tunley had been living with another sister, Denise, at 26 Loudoun St. in Yonkers, but he sometimes stayed with his niece on Elm Street at Van Cortlandt Park Avenue. There — despite his classification as a Level 3 sex offender — he baby-sat for the niece's 2-year-old child and two other children.
According to Tunley's family, the baby began to cry around 2 p.m., and Tunley went to change her diaper. He was about to put on a fresh diaper when an unidentified nephew, who is in his 20s, walked into the room. At this point, accounts by police and family differ. DeGree said Tunley was simply caring for the child. But police said the nephew told them he caught Tunley in the act of molestation.
Another nephew, James DeGree, 35, also said yesterday he didn't believe Tunley had done anything to the child.
Police and Tunley's family agree, however, on what happened next: The nephew who walked in on the diaper change viciously beat Tunley, breaking his jaw, teeth and ribs, and then the baby's mother threw Tunley out of the apartment. After Tunley left the apartment, his niece called her boyfriend, Torres, a cabdriver. Torres arrived, and he, Tunley's nephew and another unidentified man jumped into a car to look for him and beat him again.
"If they beat him, why beat him again and shoot him like an animal in the street?" asked Haygood Tunley, a brother of the victim.
Tunley, fearing that he would be pursued, called his girlfriend and told her he was afraid for his life. For safety, he took a different route home to avoid the pursuers, his family said.
Torres and the others checked his girlfriend's house, another sister's home and just after 4 a.m., spotted Tunley walking on Riverdale Avenue and shot him, Leandra DeGree said. After the shooting, Tunley's nephew returned home and went to sleep, his family said.
Taggart said a doctor examined the toddler and the two other children and determined that they were not sexually abused.
Some of Tunley's relatives yesterday said they are furious that the slain man was portrayed as a worthless sex offender. "He did not give him a chance to explain," said Leandra DeGree, referring to the nephew. They were upset that police found the nephew and did not arrest him.
"They let him go," said James DeGree. "He is an accessory to murder, and they let him go."
Meanwhile, Taggart yesterday said Tunley had registered with police last fall after moving to Loudoun Street. The commissioner said Monday that Tunley had not registered. Police, however, had not yet notified residents in the Loudoun Street area that the sex offender was living there. In the past, police notified residents in two other neighborhoods that Tunley lived in their area.
Tunley had 15 arrests, including six felonies and nine misdemeanors, and a third-degree rape conviction.
Torres was convicted of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a felony, on Oct. 25, 1999. In July 1999, he was convicted of second-degree assault. He was convicted of criminal sale of a controlled substance in October 1997. He also has a conviction for fifth-degree criminal possession of a marijuana. ..more.. by
YONKERS — Police yesterday identified 24-year-old Joshua Torres of Yonkers as the man who fatally shot a paroled sex offender as he walked along a street in the southwest section of the city Monday, and said Torres believed the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter.
"We consider Mr. Torres to be armed and dangerous," Police Commissioner Robert Taggart said yesterday during a news conference where he called on Torres to surrender. "This man has a violent criminal history."
Torres is accused of shooting at 50-year-old Richard L. Tunley nine times, striking him with six bullets outside 290 Riverdale Ave. shortly after 4 a.m.
Detectives obtained an arrest warrant charging Torres with second-degree murder, a felony, Taggart said. Torres contacted police twice since the shooting to arrange a surrender but reneged. Police said they will contact the FBI's violent fugitive task force to help them find Torres.
The Tunley homicide — the city's first of the year — was the violent end to a series of events that unfolded in a Nodine Hill apartment Sunday.
Tunley's sister, Leandra DeGree, 54, yesterday said Tunley had been living with another sister, Denise, at 26 Loudoun St. in Yonkers, but he sometimes stayed with his niece on Elm Street at Van Cortlandt Park Avenue. There — despite his classification as a Level 3 sex offender — he baby-sat for the niece's 2-year-old child and two other children.
According to Tunley's family, the baby began to cry around 2 p.m., and Tunley went to change her diaper. He was about to put on a fresh diaper when an unidentified nephew, who is in his 20s, walked into the room. At this point, accounts by police and family differ. DeGree said Tunley was simply caring for the child. But police said the nephew told them he caught Tunley in the act of molestation.
Another nephew, James DeGree, 35, also said yesterday he didn't believe Tunley had done anything to the child.
Police and Tunley's family agree, however, on what happened next: The nephew who walked in on the diaper change viciously beat Tunley, breaking his jaw, teeth and ribs, and then the baby's mother threw Tunley out of the apartment. After Tunley left the apartment, his niece called her boyfriend, Torres, a cabdriver. Torres arrived, and he, Tunley's nephew and another unidentified man jumped into a car to look for him and beat him again.
"If they beat him, why beat him again and shoot him like an animal in the street?" asked Haygood Tunley, a brother of the victim.
Tunley, fearing that he would be pursued, called his girlfriend and told her he was afraid for his life. For safety, he took a different route home to avoid the pursuers, his family said.
Torres and the others checked his girlfriend's house, another sister's home and just after 4 a.m., spotted Tunley walking on Riverdale Avenue and shot him, Leandra DeGree said. After the shooting, Tunley's nephew returned home and went to sleep, his family said.
Taggart said a doctor examined the toddler and the two other children and determined that they were not sexually abused.
Some of Tunley's relatives yesterday said they are furious that the slain man was portrayed as a worthless sex offender. "He did not give him a chance to explain," said Leandra DeGree, referring to the nephew. They were upset that police found the nephew and did not arrest him.
"They let him go," said James DeGree. "He is an accessory to murder, and they let him go."
Meanwhile, Taggart yesterday said Tunley had registered with police last fall after moving to Loudoun Street. The commissioner said Monday that Tunley had not registered. Police, however, had not yet notified residents in the Loudoun Street area that the sex offender was living there. In the past, police notified residents in two other neighborhoods that Tunley lived in their area.
Tunley had 15 arrests, including six felonies and nine misdemeanors, and a third-degree rape conviction.
Torres was convicted of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a felony, on Oct. 25, 1999. In July 1999, he was convicted of second-degree assault. He was convicted of criminal sale of a controlled substance in October 1997. He also has a conviction for fifth-degree criminal possession of a marijuana. ..more.. by
Dallas officer kills armed child molester
Article Tags:
.Texas,
(FTR-C,
2005,
Age 24-36,
by PubSer,
Cases w-FTR Chgs,
Death/s US - Justifiable,
Death/s US - of RSOs Accused,
Deceased-G,
Gunshot
8-19-2005 Texas:
A convicted child molester who was wanted on a new charge was fatally shot Friday after fleeing from police into a Duncanville park and pointing a gun at a Dallas detective, authorities said.
Douglas H. Blackstone, 24, died about noon Friday at a Dallas hospital from gunshot wounds. He was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl in 2004 and ordered to serve 10 years' probation.
Friday morning, two detectives from the sex offender apprehension unit were trying to arrest Mr. Blackstone on a warrant alleging aggravated sexual assault of a child. They were also seeking him because he had moved without registering his whereabouts as required by state law.
Detectives looked for Mr. Blackstone at an apartment on Wheatland Road and at a relative's house in Duncanville, police said. Mr. Blackstone was at neither, police said.
About 11 a.m. Friday, police returned to the Duncanville address and a relative told them that Mr. Blackstone was armed and had fled. Other witnesses told police that an armed man had gone into Lakeside Park near Center Street and Tanglewood Drive.
Detectives called for backup and began a search of the park. School officials locked down nearby Hastings Elementary as a precaution.
About 11:20 a.m., a detective spotted Mr. Blackstone through a clearing in the park, police said. The officer briefly lost sight of him when he stepped off the trail.
"When he reappeared, the officer confronted him and identified himself as a police officer," said Sgt. Ross Salverino, a Dallas homicide investigator. "The suspect raised his weapon and attempted to fire. Our officer fired multiple times."
Police said the officer was wearing a jacket that clearly identified him as an officer. Authorities have recovered Mr. Blackstone's .45-caliber handgun from the scene.
Police say they believe this is the first time that the four-officer sex offender apprehension unit has been involved in a shooting.
An investigation into the incident is under way. The officer involved in the shooting, Senior Cpl. Samuel Griffin, was placed on one day's routine administrative leave.
"He's a 29-year veteran, and he's pretty well torn up about it," said Lt. Mike Scoggins, commander of the homicide unit.
Mr. Blackstone had a criminal history in Gregg County.
He was accused of theft by check, made restitution and pleaded guilty to a Class C misdemeanor in the 2000 case. He also completed a pretrial diversion program on a 2000 family violence assault charge, which resulted in the case being dismissed. ..more.. by TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
A convicted child molester who was wanted on a new charge was fatally shot Friday after fleeing from police into a Duncanville park and pointing a gun at a Dallas detective, authorities said.
Douglas H. Blackstone, 24, died about noon Friday at a Dallas hospital from gunshot wounds. He was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl in 2004 and ordered to serve 10 years' probation.
Friday morning, two detectives from the sex offender apprehension unit were trying to arrest Mr. Blackstone on a warrant alleging aggravated sexual assault of a child. They were also seeking him because he had moved without registering his whereabouts as required by state law.
Detectives looked for Mr. Blackstone at an apartment on Wheatland Road and at a relative's house in Duncanville, police said. Mr. Blackstone was at neither, police said.
About 11 a.m. Friday, police returned to the Duncanville address and a relative told them that Mr. Blackstone was armed and had fled. Other witnesses told police that an armed man had gone into Lakeside Park near Center Street and Tanglewood Drive.
Detectives called for backup and began a search of the park. School officials locked down nearby Hastings Elementary as a precaution.
About 11:20 a.m., a detective spotted Mr. Blackstone through a clearing in the park, police said. The officer briefly lost sight of him when he stepped off the trail.
"When he reappeared, the officer confronted him and identified himself as a police officer," said Sgt. Ross Salverino, a Dallas homicide investigator. "The suspect raised his weapon and attempted to fire. Our officer fired multiple times."
Police said the officer was wearing a jacket that clearly identified him as an officer. Authorities have recovered Mr. Blackstone's .45-caliber handgun from the scene.
Police say they believe this is the first time that the four-officer sex offender apprehension unit has been involved in a shooting.
An investigation into the incident is under way. The officer involved in the shooting, Senior Cpl. Samuel Griffin, was placed on one day's routine administrative leave.
"He's a 29-year veteran, and he's pretty well torn up about it," said Lt. Mike Scoggins, commander of the homicide unit.
Mr. Blackstone had a criminal history in Gregg County.
He was accused of theft by check, made restitution and pleaded guilty to a Class C misdemeanor in the 2000 case. He also completed a pretrial diversion program on a 2000 family violence assault charge, which resulted in the case being dismissed. ..more.. by TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
Paedophile Murder
A British man is appealing against a 14 year sentence imposed by a Danish court for killing a paedophile who he says molested his nine-year-old daughter.
10-8-2003 Denmark:
Fifty five year-old, Stephen Hoath, who has lived in Denmark for the last thirteen years, insists he and a Danish friend shot the man because local police refused to take action. The case is proving particularly controversial in a country where earlier this summer two young girls were brutally murdered by paedophiles. Many Danes are complaining that out-dated liberal attitudes are preventing the courts from taking action and there are fears that some might follow, Stephen Hoath, by taking the law into their own hands.
Mr Hoath befriended 63 year-old, Villy Andersen, whilst on a fishing trip. He claims his daughter later told him that Andersen had fondled her legs after she went with him to fetch a torch from their car. He then discovered that the man was a convicted paedophile who’d spent 18 months in jail for abusing a child a few years before. Hoath then reported the incident to the police but they claimed that there was insufficient evidence to take any action.
In response Stephen Hoath and a Danish friend, Ejvind Olesen, sent off with a loaded rifle to look for Andersen. On finally finding him Hoath, who has a previous conviction in Britain for attempted murder, shot him dead. Though his controversial solicitor, Peter Hjorne, who frequently represents Danish Hells Angels, insists Hoath had only meant to scare Andersen into leaving his daughter alone. Though quite how shooting someone in the eye can be a warning is hard to tell. Nonetheless, Hjorne claims the sentence imposed on his client for premeditated murder is outrageous given that he was only trying to defend the honour of his daughter.
I recently travelled to Assens jail, East of Jutland to interview Mr Hoath to get a clearer picture of what happened that day. Yet whilst he was willing the authorities were not and I was told he would not be allowed to talk to this programme. His lawyer has seen filed a complaint to the country’s Director of Public Prosecutions claiming this is a denial of Mr Hoath’s freedom of speech.
Ironically no such restrictions seem to be placed on Danish paedophiles. In fact they are allowed to have their own organisation which boasts his own fully legal web site. The Danish Paedophile Association, which sometimes carries full page ads in some newspapers, frequently has it’s say on the alleged benefits for children of having sex with adults.
It pronounces: “Paedophilia means love for children involving erotic feelings.”
And on another web page: “The claim that some child/adult sexual contacts are benign or even beneficial is supported by such a wealth of scientific studies that it cannot be discounted.”
How can they be allowed to say such things? Well, the Associations rights to freedom of speech…along with everyone else’s, are enshrined in the country’s constitution. They have the right to meet and express views provided they are just talking about sex with children and not actually having it. Save the Children Denmark is campaigning to have the website, along with the Association, closed down. The charity’s spokesman in Copenhagen, is Kumo Sorensen. Does he believe that the Associations members stop at talking? “No, I believe very much that they have sexual relations with children because they are so convinced that they don’t harm children.”
Proving what Denmark’s estimated 30,000 paedophiles are up to is a tricky business. Police point out that under Danish law they can’t convict an organisation they have to find evidence against individuals and then prosecute them. But the Head of Copenhagen’s CID, Detective Commander Per Larsen, says is easier said than done: “They are very clandestine. They almost work like secret agents because they are well aware of how dangerous it is for them to expose themselves to society. So, it is very difficult to investigate them in this environment.”
The other option is to change the law and exclude organisations like the Danish Paedophile Association from the right to Freedom of speech. But that is equally difficult. This right is enshrined in the country’s written constitution and amending that requires a referendum and two conclusive votes in parliament. It’s thought that even then such a move would be challenged by Paedophile Association lawyers.
The current situation horrifies journalist, Kristian Jensen, who was abused by a paedophile for three years from the age of nine. Since telling police he has spent more than 12 years receiving counselling and other help in coming to terms with the experience. “It is really, really outrageous. This is an entire government refusing to act. As we speak children are lying in beds being abused. As we speak there is an organisation in Copenhagen which is actually promoting the sexual abuse of children and no one is doing anything.” Mr Jensen is now campaigning for a change in the law which would outlaw the Danish Paedophile Association and close down their web site.
Meanwhile the police acknowledge that frustration is growing in Denmark about what many see as an ugly loophole in the law which puts children at risk. Anxious to defuse the rising tension, Commander Larsen has this advice for any one thinking of copying Stephen Hoath’s idea of vigilante justice:
“Let us handle the cases, even if you’re very angry. If you want revenge use the state’s authorized revenge system and I am part of that. I will make the revenge on your behalf. Trust us.” ..more.. by Mike Thomson
Campaign to free father jailed for killing child molester
9-27-2003 Denmark:
A Briton jailed in Denmark for murdering a paedophile who had molested his daughter should be released, campaigners said last night.
Stephen Hoath was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Friday in Odense, Denmark, after admitting shooting dead Villy Andersen, a convicted Danish child molester who had abused Hoath's nine-year-old daughter.
The case has gripped Denmark, with many commentators complaining that the police failed to take the original accusations of child molestation sufficiently seriously.
advertisementProtesters outside the court said that Hoath, 55, who has terminal lung disease, was a hero and that they were dismayed by the sentence. One man said: "He should be given a medal."
Hoath, a London-born factory worker who has lived in Denmark for 13 years, was found guilty of premeditated murder. He had admitted shooting dead Andersen, 63, on August 17 last year but denied murder. Ejvind Olesen, Hoath's Danish accomplice, also received 14 years.
Hoath's relatives reacted with fury at the sentences. His son Gerry, in his twenties, was arrested after spitting at the jury and warning them: "You are pigs. If you ever come to England, we'll kill you."
His daughter, Zoe, threw herself into his arms as he was being taken away and shouted: "You're a hero, dad."
Police said Hoath, who lived with his wife and daughter in Jutland, had first reported to them that Andersen had attacked his daughter in July last year.
She had alleged that Andersen, a truck driver who had recently become friendly with Hoath, had touched her over her clothing during a fishing trip. He had also suggested playing strip poker, she said. Andersen had lured the girl away from her father with the pretence of getting a torch from his car.
Detectives at first decided to take no action because there were no witnesses and no physical evidence. They did, however, decide to charge Andersen five days before his murder but had not done so at the time of his death. The police did not tell Mr Hoath of their intentions.
Hoath told the court that he had confronted Andersen about the attack. He said he had meant only to threaten him, but lost his temper when Andersen boasted he was going to molest his daughter again. Andersen allegedly said to Hoath: "I will get her again. You cannot always watch her."
In an interview from his prison cell earlier this year, Mr Hoath said: "I had to do something. The police did nothing. I couldn't believe it. He threatened to get my daughter again and still they did nothing. I tried to do everything by the book but in the end I had to protect her."
He said: "I never intended to kill him but I'm not ashamed of what I did. My wife is close to a breakdown. My daughter will live with what he did for the rest of her life - and now she's lost her dad."
Niels Pinborg, of the Ekstra Bladet newspaper in Copenhagen, said that Andersen was known to have several convictions for paedophile offences.
Hoath's lawyers are considering an appeal because he has been given just five years to live. ..more.. by David Bamber and Julian Isherwood in Copenhagen
10-8-2003 Denmark:
Fifty five year-old, Stephen Hoath, who has lived in Denmark for the last thirteen years, insists he and a Danish friend shot the man because local police refused to take action. The case is proving particularly controversial in a country where earlier this summer two young girls were brutally murdered by paedophiles. Many Danes are complaining that out-dated liberal attitudes are preventing the courts from taking action and there are fears that some might follow, Stephen Hoath, by taking the law into their own hands.
Mr Hoath befriended 63 year-old, Villy Andersen, whilst on a fishing trip. He claims his daughter later told him that Andersen had fondled her legs after she went with him to fetch a torch from their car. He then discovered that the man was a convicted paedophile who’d spent 18 months in jail for abusing a child a few years before. Hoath then reported the incident to the police but they claimed that there was insufficient evidence to take any action.
In response Stephen Hoath and a Danish friend, Ejvind Olesen, sent off with a loaded rifle to look for Andersen. On finally finding him Hoath, who has a previous conviction in Britain for attempted murder, shot him dead. Though his controversial solicitor, Peter Hjorne, who frequently represents Danish Hells Angels, insists Hoath had only meant to scare Andersen into leaving his daughter alone. Though quite how shooting someone in the eye can be a warning is hard to tell. Nonetheless, Hjorne claims the sentence imposed on his client for premeditated murder is outrageous given that he was only trying to defend the honour of his daughter.
I recently travelled to Assens jail, East of Jutland to interview Mr Hoath to get a clearer picture of what happened that day. Yet whilst he was willing the authorities were not and I was told he would not be allowed to talk to this programme. His lawyer has seen filed a complaint to the country’s Director of Public Prosecutions claiming this is a denial of Mr Hoath’s freedom of speech.
Ironically no such restrictions seem to be placed on Danish paedophiles. In fact they are allowed to have their own organisation which boasts his own fully legal web site. The Danish Paedophile Association, which sometimes carries full page ads in some newspapers, frequently has it’s say on the alleged benefits for children of having sex with adults.
It pronounces: “Paedophilia means love for children involving erotic feelings.”
And on another web page: “The claim that some child/adult sexual contacts are benign or even beneficial is supported by such a wealth of scientific studies that it cannot be discounted.”
How can they be allowed to say such things? Well, the Associations rights to freedom of speech…along with everyone else’s, are enshrined in the country’s constitution. They have the right to meet and express views provided they are just talking about sex with children and not actually having it. Save the Children Denmark is campaigning to have the website, along with the Association, closed down. The charity’s spokesman in Copenhagen, is Kumo Sorensen. Does he believe that the Associations members stop at talking? “No, I believe very much that they have sexual relations with children because they are so convinced that they don’t harm children.”
Proving what Denmark’s estimated 30,000 paedophiles are up to is a tricky business. Police point out that under Danish law they can’t convict an organisation they have to find evidence against individuals and then prosecute them. But the Head of Copenhagen’s CID, Detective Commander Per Larsen, says is easier said than done: “They are very clandestine. They almost work like secret agents because they are well aware of how dangerous it is for them to expose themselves to society. So, it is very difficult to investigate them in this environment.”
The other option is to change the law and exclude organisations like the Danish Paedophile Association from the right to Freedom of speech. But that is equally difficult. This right is enshrined in the country’s written constitution and amending that requires a referendum and two conclusive votes in parliament. It’s thought that even then such a move would be challenged by Paedophile Association lawyers.
The current situation horrifies journalist, Kristian Jensen, who was abused by a paedophile for three years from the age of nine. Since telling police he has spent more than 12 years receiving counselling and other help in coming to terms with the experience. “It is really, really outrageous. This is an entire government refusing to act. As we speak children are lying in beds being abused. As we speak there is an organisation in Copenhagen which is actually promoting the sexual abuse of children and no one is doing anything.” Mr Jensen is now campaigning for a change in the law which would outlaw the Danish Paedophile Association and close down their web site.
Meanwhile the police acknowledge that frustration is growing in Denmark about what many see as an ugly loophole in the law which puts children at risk. Anxious to defuse the rising tension, Commander Larsen has this advice for any one thinking of copying Stephen Hoath’s idea of vigilante justice:
“Let us handle the cases, even if you’re very angry. If you want revenge use the state’s authorized revenge system and I am part of that. I will make the revenge on your behalf. Trust us.” ..more.. by Mike Thomson
Campaign to free father jailed for killing child molester
9-27-2003 Denmark:
A Briton jailed in Denmark for murdering a paedophile who had molested his daughter should be released, campaigners said last night.
Stephen Hoath was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Friday in Odense, Denmark, after admitting shooting dead Villy Andersen, a convicted Danish child molester who had abused Hoath's nine-year-old daughter.
The case has gripped Denmark, with many commentators complaining that the police failed to take the original accusations of child molestation sufficiently seriously.
advertisementProtesters outside the court said that Hoath, 55, who has terminal lung disease, was a hero and that they were dismayed by the sentence. One man said: "He should be given a medal."
Hoath, a London-born factory worker who has lived in Denmark for 13 years, was found guilty of premeditated murder. He had admitted shooting dead Andersen, 63, on August 17 last year but denied murder. Ejvind Olesen, Hoath's Danish accomplice, also received 14 years.
Hoath's relatives reacted with fury at the sentences. His son Gerry, in his twenties, was arrested after spitting at the jury and warning them: "You are pigs. If you ever come to England, we'll kill you."
His daughter, Zoe, threw herself into his arms as he was being taken away and shouted: "You're a hero, dad."
Police said Hoath, who lived with his wife and daughter in Jutland, had first reported to them that Andersen had attacked his daughter in July last year.
She had alleged that Andersen, a truck driver who had recently become friendly with Hoath, had touched her over her clothing during a fishing trip. He had also suggested playing strip poker, she said. Andersen had lured the girl away from her father with the pretence of getting a torch from his car.
Detectives at first decided to take no action because there were no witnesses and no physical evidence. They did, however, decide to charge Andersen five days before his murder but had not done so at the time of his death. The police did not tell Mr Hoath of their intentions.
Hoath told the court that he had confronted Andersen about the attack. He said he had meant only to threaten him, but lost his temper when Andersen boasted he was going to molest his daughter again. Andersen allegedly said to Hoath: "I will get her again. You cannot always watch her."
In an interview from his prison cell earlier this year, Mr Hoath said: "I had to do something. The police did nothing. I couldn't believe it. He threatened to get my daughter again and still they did nothing. I tried to do everything by the book but in the end I had to protect her."
He said: "I never intended to kill him but I'm not ashamed of what I did. My wife is close to a breakdown. My daughter will live with what he did for the rest of her life - and now she's lost her dad."
Niels Pinborg, of the Ekstra Bladet newspaper in Copenhagen, said that Andersen was known to have several convictions for paedophile offences.
Hoath's lawyers are considering an appeal because he has been given just five years to live. ..more.. by David Bamber and Julian Isherwood in Copenhagen
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Oregon Man accused of killing sex offender
4-18-2006 Oregon:
MEDFORD, Ore. -- A murder trial is set to open in Medford for a man charged with killing a paroled sex offender.
Twenty-six-year-old David Michael Jurich is accused of bludgeoning to death 68-year-old David Evan Rice in an Ashland motel room in October 2004.
Jurich told detectives that he, quote, "went insane" when Rice "flashed" him and asked the younger man to lie down in bed with him. A judge later threw out the confession, ruling it came after Jurich asked for a lawyer.
His defense attorney has already notified the court of plans to introduce expert testimony showing that Jurich was suffering from an "extreme emotional disturbance."
If he can prove that, the murder charge will be reduced to manslaughter. ..more.. by Associated Press
Accused killer may plead insanity
4-19-2006 Oregon:
Following Tuesday's graphic depiction of a paroled sex offender's Ashland death scene, the trial will continue today for the man accused of killing him.
David Michael Jurich, 26, alternately stared at his hands and glanced at photos of the body of 68-year-old David Evan Rice shown Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court. Jurich told police that he believed he struck Rice in the head with a metal bar on Oct. 29, 2004, when the older man "flashed" him and asked Jurich to lie down in bed with him.
In Tuesday's opening statement to jurors, Jurich's defense attorney Robert Abel, did not deny that his client killed Rice. However, he is arguing that Jurich suffered from an "extreme emotional disturbance" at the time of the slaying.
"The issue is not whether David Jurich is innocent," Abel told the court. "It's what crime is he guilty of."
If Abel proves the defense, Jurich will be convicted of first-degree manslaughter instead of murder. His punishment would be a mandatory 10 years, as opposed to murder's 25-year minimum sentence, before he would be eligible for parole.
Abel said Tuesday that expert witnesses would testify later in the trial to Jurich's mental state. Jurich also told police that he was drunk the night he shared a room with Rice at the Relax Inn on Clover Lane.
By the time Rice's body had been discovered, Jurich had fled the area. He was arrested four days later in Reno, Nev., and has since remained in custody at the Jackson County Jail and the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.
The trial is set to run through April 25 in Circuit Court. ..more.. by MailTribune
Victim's family sympathetic to killer
4-28-2006 Oregon:
The family of a murdered sex offender say their hearts go out to the killer.
No one appeared on behalf of 68-year-old David Evan Rice at the Thursday sentencing of David Michael Jurich. Convicted Wednesday of Rice's 2004 murder, Jurich, 26, was sentenced in Jackson County Circuit Court to life in prison with a minimum term of 25 years before he is eligible for parole.
Many of Rice's relatives suffered physical abuse at his hands, said former stepdaughter 45-year-old Lani Narducci, of Grand Junction, Colo., contacted by phone. Most were relieved to hear he had died, she said.
"I cannot grieve for this man," she said.
Narducci and Rice's granddaughter, 27-year-old Malaina Blickenstaff, of Tri-Cities, Wash., said they feel Jurich's sentence is too harsh, nearly characterizing the crime as a community service.
"As far as I'm concerned, he Jurich took a pedophile and a child molester off the streets," Blickenstaff said.
Imprisoned and paroled for sex crimes against young girls, Rice met Jurich in the county's work center. The two panhandled around Ashland and drank together. Jurich returned on Oct. 29, 2004, to a motel room on Clover Lane that he had rented with Rice's identification to find the older man in his bed. He bludgeoned Rice to death, hitting his head with a metal bar 20 to 30 times.
Although jurors rejected Jurich's testimony of suffering an "extreme emotional disturbance" when Rice sexually propositioned him, Narducci and Blickenstaff said they completely believe the story. Narducci said Rice goaded many people into just such a rage over the years.
"I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same," Blickenstaff said.
Jurich's father, 53-year-old Dave Jurich, of San Pedro, Calif., said Rice's family conveyed the same sentiments to him shortly after his son's arrest. Surprised at Wednesday's guilty verdict for which he says prosecutors failed to present a clear motive, Jurich said his son was a nice guy who was easily manipulated by a sexual predator.
"If it came down to the benefit of the doubt," he said, "who would you give it to?" ..more.. by SARAH LEMON
MEDFORD, Ore. -- A murder trial is set to open in Medford for a man charged with killing a paroled sex offender.
Twenty-six-year-old David Michael Jurich is accused of bludgeoning to death 68-year-old David Evan Rice in an Ashland motel room in October 2004.
Jurich told detectives that he, quote, "went insane" when Rice "flashed" him and asked the younger man to lie down in bed with him. A judge later threw out the confession, ruling it came after Jurich asked for a lawyer.
His defense attorney has already notified the court of plans to introduce expert testimony showing that Jurich was suffering from an "extreme emotional disturbance."
If he can prove that, the murder charge will be reduced to manslaughter. ..more.. by Associated Press
Accused killer may plead insanity
4-19-2006 Oregon:
Following Tuesday's graphic depiction of a paroled sex offender's Ashland death scene, the trial will continue today for the man accused of killing him.
David Michael Jurich, 26, alternately stared at his hands and glanced at photos of the body of 68-year-old David Evan Rice shown Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court. Jurich told police that he believed he struck Rice in the head with a metal bar on Oct. 29, 2004, when the older man "flashed" him and asked Jurich to lie down in bed with him.
In Tuesday's opening statement to jurors, Jurich's defense attorney Robert Abel, did not deny that his client killed Rice. However, he is arguing that Jurich suffered from an "extreme emotional disturbance" at the time of the slaying.
"The issue is not whether David Jurich is innocent," Abel told the court. "It's what crime is he guilty of."
If Abel proves the defense, Jurich will be convicted of first-degree manslaughter instead of murder. His punishment would be a mandatory 10 years, as opposed to murder's 25-year minimum sentence, before he would be eligible for parole.
Abel said Tuesday that expert witnesses would testify later in the trial to Jurich's mental state. Jurich also told police that he was drunk the night he shared a room with Rice at the Relax Inn on Clover Lane.
By the time Rice's body had been discovered, Jurich had fled the area. He was arrested four days later in Reno, Nev., and has since remained in custody at the Jackson County Jail and the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.
The trial is set to run through April 25 in Circuit Court. ..more.. by MailTribune
Victim's family sympathetic to killer
4-28-2006 Oregon:
The family of a murdered sex offender say their hearts go out to the killer.
No one appeared on behalf of 68-year-old David Evan Rice at the Thursday sentencing of David Michael Jurich. Convicted Wednesday of Rice's 2004 murder, Jurich, 26, was sentenced in Jackson County Circuit Court to life in prison with a minimum term of 25 years before he is eligible for parole.
Many of Rice's relatives suffered physical abuse at his hands, said former stepdaughter 45-year-old Lani Narducci, of Grand Junction, Colo., contacted by phone. Most were relieved to hear he had died, she said.
"I cannot grieve for this man," she said.
Narducci and Rice's granddaughter, 27-year-old Malaina Blickenstaff, of Tri-Cities, Wash., said they feel Jurich's sentence is too harsh, nearly characterizing the crime as a community service.
"As far as I'm concerned, he Jurich took a pedophile and a child molester off the streets," Blickenstaff said.
Imprisoned and paroled for sex crimes against young girls, Rice met Jurich in the county's work center. The two panhandled around Ashland and drank together. Jurich returned on Oct. 29, 2004, to a motel room on Clover Lane that he had rented with Rice's identification to find the older man in his bed. He bludgeoned Rice to death, hitting his head with a metal bar 20 to 30 times.
Although jurors rejected Jurich's testimony of suffering an "extreme emotional disturbance" when Rice sexually propositioned him, Narducci and Blickenstaff said they completely believe the story. Narducci said Rice goaded many people into just such a rage over the years.
"I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same," Blickenstaff said.
Jurich's father, 53-year-old Dave Jurich, of San Pedro, Calif., said Rice's family conveyed the same sentiments to him shortly after his son's arrest. Surprised at Wednesday's guilty verdict for which he says prosecutors failed to present a clear motive, Jurich said his son was a nice guy who was easily manipulated by a sexual predator.
"If it came down to the benefit of the doubt," he said, "who would you give it to?" ..more.. by SARAH LEMON
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