July 5
INDIANA:
Attorney: Death Row Inmate Plans No More Appeals----Execution Set For
Later This Month
Kevin A. Conner, who is scheduled to be executed July 27 for killing 3
people, is not seeking clemency from Gov. Mitch Daniels and had no further
appeals pending as of Tuesday.
"As of the moment, right now, there is no intention on his part to file
anything," said Kathy Stinton-Glen, a Zionsville attorney who has helped
represent Conner. She said that could change, however.
Earl Coleman, assistant to the Indiana Parole Board, said Conner signed
paperwork last week to waive his clemency rights before the board and Gov.
Mitch Daniels. Clemency is often sought from the governor as a last effort
to save someone from execution.
For inmates that formally seek clemency, the parole board usually holds
two days of hearings to take testimony from the condemned person,
attorneys and others.
Conner, 40, was convicted of the January 1988 slayings of 3 former school
mates, Bruce Voge, Steve Wentland and Tony Moore, after drinking alcohol
at Moore's house in Indianapolis.
Prosecutors said Conner, Moore and Wentland went for a drive and Moore
stabbed Wentland during an argument. When Wentland left the vehicle and
ran, Moore chased and struck Wentland with the car and Conner beat and
stabbed Wentland multiple times, prosecutors said.
Conner then argued with Moore and shot him, then returned to the house and
shot Voge, prosecutors said. He was convicted of 3 counts of murder,
sentenced to death, and has had his convictions and sentence affirmed at
every level of review by various courts.
The Indiana Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal seeking
post-conviction relief and set the execution date.
Joseph Corcoran, a Fort Wayne man accused of killing 4 people, also was
scheduled to be executed later this month. But a federal judge blocked the
execution set for July 21 so a federal court could review decisions made
by state courts.
(source: Associated Press)
IDAHO:
Court documents: Idaho children were sexually molested
8-year-old Shasta Groene told authorities that a man later identified as a
violent sexual predator tied up her family before she and her 9-year-old
brother were taken away in a pickup truck, according to court papers
released Tuesday.
The affidavit makes no mention of the savage beating deaths of the
abducted children's mother, older brother and mother's boyfriend, or
whether the girl witnessed the killings.
Joseph Edward Duncan III, 42, of Fargo, N.D., was charged with two
first-degree kidnapping counts and ordered held without bail Tuesday.
Duncan was shackled and appeared unshaven as he looked intently at the
judge during a brief appearance via video link.
The intent of the crimes, court documents said, was to rape, seriously
injure or commit a lewd and lascivious act on a child under 16 years old.
Duncan has not been charged with anything other than the kidnapping
counts, which can carry the death penalty or life in prison.
Kootenai County Sheriff's Sgt. Brad Maskell wrote in the terse,
handwritten document that both Shasta and 9-year-old Dylan Groene "were
repeatedly molested."
While it is the Associated Press' policy not to identify alleged victims
of sexual assault in most cases, the search for the children and Shasta's
recovery were so heavily publicized that their names was already widely
known.
The children vanished May 16, when the bodies of their mother, older
brother and mother's boyfriend were found at their rural home. Early
Saturday, employees and customers spotted the girl eating breakfast with
Duncan in Coeur d'Alene.
Authorities on Tuesday continued to wait for DNA test results of human
remains found in western Montana earlier this week that may be those of
9-year-old Dylan, who authorities believe is dead. Those results are
expected to take 3 days.
Duncan had spent more than a decade in prison for sexually assaulting a
14-year-old boy at gunpoint and was a fugitive at the time of his arrest,
accused of molesting a 6-year-old boy in Minnesota.
A registered high-risk sex offender, Duncan was released on $15,000 bail
earlier this year after being charged with molesting the boy. Police in
Fargo, N.D. had been looking for Duncan since May, when he failed to check
in with a probation agent.
Duncan has refused to cooperate with authorities in their search for the
9-year-old boy, officials said. Authorities have relied on information
from his sister, evidence from Duncan's stolen red Jeep Cherokee and some
100 new tips from the public in the search for the boy.
At a news conference in St. Regis, Mont., FBI Special Agent in Charge Tim
Fuhrman of Salt Lake City confirmed Tuesday that the children were with
Duncan in the Lolo National Forest of northwestern Montana sometime over
the past seven weeks. But he said officials had not yet confirmed whether
Duncan was with them the entire time.
A gas station and convenience store clerk in the western Montana logging
community of about 300 people told The Associated Press she recognized
Duncan after seeing his photo.
Jackie Allen, 26, told police Duncan had been a customer several weeks
after the children disappeared. Neither of the children were with him at
the time, she said.
"It's been crazy. I mean, if I would have known I probably could have
saved those babies," said Allen, a mother of 2.
Authorities believe Shasta may have tried to get patrons at another gas
station and convenience store to recognize her, hours before she was found
at the Denny's restaurant.
Security camera videotape showed the girl and her alleged kidnapper at the
store Friday evening in Kellogg, about 40 road miles east of Coeur
d'Alene.
"In the small takes I saw out of that surveillance video, she's walking
around, stopping, looking right at the faces of the different patrons
there," Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said Tuesday on
ABC's Good Morning America.
Cameron Conoco owner Ted Beamis told The Associated Press that the girl's
alleged abductor, "acted like he didn't have a care in the world" until
one point during his visit.
"He was walking around. You could see him kind of watching her. One time
in the store she's wandering up and down the aisles, and he kind of loses
track of her, and you can see him looking around in a panic."
(source: Associated Press)
