September 25
ARKANSAS:
Double murder trial costly for county----First bills in carnival killings will
arrive soon
The filing of criminal charges in Barton County against the 4 Arkansas
residents accused of murdering 2 vendors at the Barton County Fair may be weeks
away, County Attorney Amy Mellor told commissioners Monday morning. But, the
county will soon receive bills for investigative work done by Arkansas
authorities.
"Those will start to trickle in," she said. There will be bills for the
transfer of evidence and the autopsy costs from Crawford County, Ark., where
the victims were found and the suspects were arrested.
Mellor was referring to the deaths of Sonny and Pauline Carpenter of Wichita,
who were probably killed on the night of July 14 at the Barton County Fair.
Their bodies were found Monday, July 16, buried in a forest near Van Buren,
Ark.
3 suspects were arrested the next day in Van Buren and a 4th has since been
charged, Mellor said. They remain in custody in Crawford County, and among the
Arkansas charges are abuse of a corpse, theft and obstruction of law
enforcement.
Jailed are Michael Fowler, Rusty Frazier and Kimberly Younger, also known as
Myrna Khan, and Christine Tenney.
Charges pending
Mellor told commissioners she met with Kansas Attorney General's Office
personnel on Sept. 7. "I wanted to get a timeline as to when charges would be
filed (in Kansas). They said we are not at that point."
Mellor and the AG's Office are jointly prosecuting the case.
Last Thursday and Friday, Mellor, 2 assistant Kansas attorneys general and an
agent from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation traveled to Arkansas. They viewed
the burial site and other evidence in the case.
"We were very impressed," Mellor said of the investigators in Arkansas. "I
think they are very competent."
The speedy trial requirements in Arkansas are more lenient than in Kansas,
Mellor said. Starting at the arraignment, authorities have up to nine months to
take a case to trial if a suspect is in custody (12 months if the suspect is
not incarcerated).
This is an issue because Mellor said Barton County doesn’t want to get caught
missing the Kansas trial deadline. In Kansas, the speedy trial clock runs 150
days if the suspect is jailed (180 days if not) and starts at the arraignment,
when pleas are entered.
But, "we should be fine," Mellor said. As of now, the suspects remain securely
in jail on the Arkansas cases.
Still, she is hoping to have local charges filed within six to eight weeks.
This will depend in part on when her office receives reports from Crawford
County and when evidence is transferred to the Great Bend Police Department.
"We want to make sure we know all the facts when we file charges," Mellor said.
"We want to be ready to go to trial."
So, this may not be before the end of the year, she said.
When this is done, the defendants will be extradited to Barton County.
What to expect
"There is just a lot I don't know right now," Mellor said. With 2 victims,
4defendants and charges in 2 states, this is a complicated case that could take
up to 2 years or more to complete.
This will likely be a capital murder case, meaning prosecutors could seek the
death penalty, Mellor said. The defendants will have either a local public
defender or representation from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit from the
Board of Indigents' Defense Services.
There are deadlines for prosecuting the case. But, there can be extensions and
continuances.
This is where the costs will soar, she said. "It's going to be significant."
There will be prisoner transfers, expenses for witnesses, investigative costs
and other charges. These will string out until the case is resolved.
"The (Barton) county is responsible for these cost," Mellor said.
(source: Great Bend Tribune)
OKLAHOMA:
Tulsan charged in slaying of pregnant ex-girlfriend could receive death
sentence
The Tulsa County District Attorney's Office on Monday filed notice of its
intent to ask for consideration of the death penalty against a 26-year-old man
charged with killing his ex-girlfriend, her unborn child and another man last
year.
A bill of particulars in the case alleges Keenon Deon Rodney White should be
subject to capital punishment because he has at least 1 previous conviction for
a violent crime, knowingly created a great risk of death to more than 1 person
and could be a continuing threat to society.
The bill of particulars is the 2nd filed this month and the 6th across 5
pending murder cases in Tulsa County.
White, 27, is charged with killing 40-year-old Teddy Prejean and 21-year-old
Shayron Brown at the Savanna Landing apartments near 61st Street and Peoria
Avenue on Sept. 5, 2017. Brown was pregnant at the time of her death.
In addition to the 3 1st-degree murder counts, White also faces charges of
witness intimidation, committing a gang-related offense and child neglect. He
is scheduled to appear before District Judge James Caputo on Monday afternoon
for trial court arraignment and is expected to receive his jury trial date.
A man jailed at the time on unrelated charges alleged during White's
preliminary hearing that White told him he would kill Assistant District
Attorney Isaac Shields, the lead prosecutor on the case, in court. He said
White discussed how he would retrieve a homemade weapon he would conceal inside
his rectum and use it to slit Shields' throat. The man also claimed White
confessed to killing people and that White admitted he was part of a set of the
Hoover Crips street gang.
White had been one of the Tulsa Police Department's Most Wanted fugitives
before the homicides took place, as he faced charges on crimes of robbery,
felony assault and battery and kidnapping in connection with an earlier assault
against Brown. A Tulsa Police officer testified in the preliminary hearing that
he detained White after hearing him say, "I did it. Y'all got me. I'm Tulsa's
Most Wanted."
White pleaded no-contest in July to the robbery charge and pleaded guilty to
the other offenses, for which Caputo imposed a combined 40-year prison
sentence. He has another pending case in which he is accused of shattering an
inmate's eye socket during a fight in December.
White had been charged with exposing himself in October to a medical employee
at the Tulsa County jail, but prosecutors filed a motion Monday morning to
dismiss that case "pending further investigation."
(source: Tulsa World)
CALIFORNIA:
East Palo Alto man convicted in beating death of toddler
A 26-year-old East Palo Alto man was convicted Friday of second-degree murder
in the beating death of his former live-in girlfriend s 2-year-old daughter.
A San Mateo County jury also found Adair Jeru Enriquez Zevallos guilty of
felony assault on a child causing death in the killing 2 years ago of Leia
Kiele Panduro. The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for 5 1/2 hours,
prosecutors said.
Zevallos now faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
On Nov. 27, 2016, East Palo Alto police responded to the girl's home in the 300
block of East O’Keefe Street at about 1 p.m. on a report that she was "in
distress and having trouble breathing." When police arrived, they found Leia
not breathing and without a pulse.
The girl was rushed to Stanford Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about
one hour later. An autopsy revealed Leia died of blunt force trauma,
prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the girl, who had been left in the care of Zevallos, was
beaten to death and died of blunt force trauma. Zevallos did not testify during
the trial, and his defense attorneys argued that prosecutors did not present
"evidence to establish it was not an accident."
"A helpless child, to die from those types of injuries, goes so contrary to
basic human instinct," Wagstaffe said. "It remains a mystery on how somebody
could do something like that to a child."
Zevallos is scheduled to return to court Nov. 7 for sentencing.
The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office is currently prosecuting three
other cases involving the murder of young children, including a death-penalty
case, Wagstaffe said.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Daniel Contreras, 30, a
Redwood City man accused of sexually assaulting and killing a 17-month-old girl
left in his care in August, 2015. Contreras has been charged with murder with
the special circumstance that he killed the girl - identified by prosecutors as
Evelyn - while committing a forcible lewd act, assault on a child causing
death, and forcible lewd acts on a child.
The case against Contreras is scheduled for trial in April.
Marco Antonio Alvarado-Cisneros, a 27-year-old Redwood City resident, has been
charged with murdering his then girlfriend's 18-month-old son in September,
2016. The case is set for jury trial in February.
Fabian Zaragoza, 24, was charged in the gang-related shooting at an occupied
car that killed a 3-month-old boy in June, 2011. Prosecutors said 15 shots were
fired at the car. Zaragoza was 17 at the time of the crime but is being charged
as an adult. Zaragoza is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 19 to set a
jury trial date and pretrial conference date.
(source: Mercury News)
USA:
Federal attorney leaves Fields case, prosecution to continue
An award-winning prosecutor known for pursuing civil rights cases recently
retired from the U.S. Department of Justice and officials asked a federal judge
on Monday to remove him from the federal hate-crime case against James Alex
Fields Jr.
Federal prosecutors filed a request with the U.S. District Court in
Charlottesville to remove Stephen J. Curran from the Fields case. They also
added U.S. Assistant Attorney Risa Berkower to the team prosecuting Fields.
In June, a federal grand jury indicted Fields on 30 hate crime charges in the
deadly Aug. 12, 2017 car attack that killed one and injured dozens. He could
face the death penalty.
U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher
Kavanaugh are the lead attorneys for the prosecution.
The federal charges are in addition to 10 state charges, including 1st-degree
murder, malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding and failure to
stop at the scene of the crash.
Fields is scheduled to go to trial in Charlottesville Circuit Court starting on
November 26.
Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania said he has received
continuous updates about the federal case and said the change will have no
impact on the city's case.
Curran was involved in the federal investigation into the attack in downtown
Charlottesville that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
The investigation led to a federal grand jury charging Fields with 1 count of a
hate crime resulting in Heyer’s death; 28 counts of hate crime acts attempting
to kill or cause injury; and one count of "racially-motivated violent
interference with a federally protected activity resulting in the death" of
Heyer "for driving his car into a crowd of protesters."
"At the Department of Justice, we remain resolute that hateful ideologies will
not have the last word and that their adherents will not get away with violent
crimes against those they target," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said when the
charges were filed June 27.
[The] indictment should send a clear message to every would-be criminal in
America that we aggressively prosecute violent crimes of hate that threaten the
core principles of our nation," Sessions said, before thanking by name Curran
and fellow prosecutors Kavanaugh and Rachel Kincaid.
Curran may be best known for prosecuting Dylann Storm Roof, who was convicted
in 2016 and sentenced to death for 33 hate crimes in the deadly attack on
worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, in Charleston,
South Carolina.
In 2008, Curran won the U.S. Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award as
part of a team that prosecuted 7 Milwaukee police officers convicted of
brutally assaulting 2 young black men whom they had falsely accused of a crime.
In 2011, Curran won another distinguished service award as part of the team
that prosecuted 3 Pakistani citizens who pleaded guilty to conspiring to
provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Curran also helped prosecute James Gonzalo Medina in 2016 who was sentenced to
25 years in prison for attempting to attack an Aventura, Florida synagogue with
a weapon of mass destruction.
Medina pleaded guilty to planning to conduct a firearms or explosives attack on
the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, telling the court that he had conducted
surveillance of the center.
On April 29, 2016, Medina took possession of what he believed to be an
explosive device, obtained from a Southern Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force
agent, and approached the Jewish Center on foot with the device in hand,
intending to commit the attack.
(source: The Daily Progress)
**********************
Accused kidnapper's lawyers seek more time for mental-health analyses
A request by attorneys for accused kidnapper and murderer Brendt Christensen
for more time to decide if they'll present a mental-health defense illustrates
what a labor-intensive process they are involved in.
In a 30-page motion filed Friday, the 4-attorney defense team asked Judge James
Shadid for a hearing on their request. If granted, it will likely mean the
trial now set to begin April 3, 2019, would have to be pushed back.
Christensen, 29, has marked 2 birthdays behind bars since his arrest almost 15
months ago in the disappearance of visiting University of Illinois scholar
Yingying Zhang.
The 26-year-old woman from China was last seen June 9, 2017, at a campus bus
stop. Her body has never been found.
Christensen was arrested on his birthday - June 30, 2017 - on a kidnapping
charge. Thirteen weeks later, a federal grand jury indicted him on additional
charges of kidnapping resulting in death and lying to the FBI.
The former charge put Christensen in the crosshairs for the death penalty.
Federal public defenders were appointed just over a year ago after private
lawyers withdrew from representing Christensen when the specter of the death
penalty was raised, saying they did not have the resources to defend him.
In Friday's motion, the federal defenders said they spent the first 5 months of
the year working on Christensen's behalf trying to keep the government from
seeking the death penalty while preparing for trial "under a wholly unrealistic
and unreasonable schedule."
The government announced in January that it would seek the death penalty.
In the 7 months since, the defense team said it has been working "diligently"
to piece together his social history, so they can identify the appropriate
mental-health experts who are willing and available to evaluate him.
Their motion outlined seven steps related to that process the lawyers must
complete before deciding if they intend to introduce evidence of Christensen's
mental condition during either the guilt phase of his trial or the penalty
phase.
As of Friday, they were about halfway there, having pulled together enough
information on Christensen and numerous family members from "several different
generations" to conclude they need to consult "at least three types of
mental-health experts."
Their work has involved interviews with "many different witnesses who are
located in at least 6 different states and gathering records from numerous
sources in a large number of different jurisdictions."
Based on what they learned, they have hired 2 of the 3 experts, but neither has
seen Christensen yet. One is scheduled to see him in October and the other in
October or November. The lawyers said they hope to know by December when those
2 will be able to give their opinions.
By December, they added, the 3rd expert will have been hired and should be able
to give them a timetable for getting Christensen evaluated and offering an
opinion.
They asked Shadid to set a status conference in December for the purpose of
giving them a new deadline by which they can inform the government of their
decision on whether they will be presenting evidence of Christensen's mental
condition.
Trying to illustrate why it takes so long, the lawyers quoted from American Bar
Association guidelines that say the those deciding on imposing a death sentence
have to consider anything in a defendant's life that could spare him the
ultimate punishment.
The guidelines say it's up to his lawyers to dig that up through "unparalleled
investigation into personal and family history," including medical, family,
social, educational, employment, criminal history and military service:
"A multigenerational investigation extending as far as possible vertically and
horizontally frequently discloses significant patterns of family dysfunction
and may help establish or strengthen a diagnosis or underscore the hereditary
nature of a particular impairment.
"At least in the case of the client, this begins with the moment of
conception."
(source: The News-Gazette)
US MILITARY:
These are the 4 inmates on the military's death row
Every service member knows the result of not living up to the expectations
placed upon them by donning the uniform of the Armed Forces of the United
States. Most will never receive a punishment beyond Article 15 of the Uniform
Code of Military Justice, non-judicial punishment. For repeat offenders, the
threat of "turning big rocks into little rocks" at Fort Leavenworth looms
large.
Actually being sent to the Kansas-based U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at
Leavenworth is, in reality, a tall order. The facility houses only the worst
offenders. It's the only maximum-security facility in the U.S. military and
hard time there is reserved for commissioned officers, enlisted personnel with
sentences longer than 10 years, and those who are convicted of crimes related
to national security. It's reserved for the worst of the worst - which includes
those on the military's death row.
Since the end of World War II, the facility has executed some 21 prisoners,
including more than a dozen Nazi German prisoners of war convicted of war
crimes. The last time an American troop was executed for his crimes was in
1961, when Army Pfc. John Bennett was hanged for the rape and attempted murder
of a young Austrian girl after spending 6 years on death row. There are
currently four inmates awaiting execution at Leavenworth, but these four will
not face the gallows.
Executions for military personnel will likely be by lethal injection and
performed at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
1. Ronald Gray
In 1986 and 1987, then-Specialist Ronald Gray was a cook stationed at Fort
Bragg, N.C., when he committed the series of crimes that landed him on the
military's death row. Gray raped and murdered 4 women, both on Fort Bragg and
in the area around nearby Fayetteville. He was sentenced to death in 1988 and
his execution was approved by President George W. Bush in 2008. He has since
filed a petition to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, but it was turned down,
meaning Gray might soon be the 1st prisoner executed by the military in over 50
years.
His 1st victim was 27-year-old civilian Linda Jean Coats and his second was
also a civilian, 18-year-old Tammy Cofer Wilson. He next turned his attention
to female soldiers, abducting, raping, and murdering 18-year-old Pvt. Laura Lee
Vickery-Clay. Vickery-Clay's body was discovered a block from her home on Fort
Bragg. He then raped and attempted to kill 20-year-old Pvt. Mary Ann Lang
Nameth, stabbing her in the throat after entering her barracks room, but
leaving her alive. She was able to identify him as her attacker when Gray was
arrested for another crime.
Just 3 days later, he raped and murdered another civilian, 23-year-old Kimberly
Ann Ruggles. It was this crime that would lead to his capture and conviction.
Ruggles was a taxi driver dispatched to pick up a "Ron" at Gray's address. Her
body was discovered later that night near her empty cab. Police identified the
gag on Ruggles' body as one belonging to Gray after holding him for another
crime just hours before. Gray's fingerprints were all over the cab and Ruggles'
prints were on money Gray was holding during his arrest.
Gray was tried and convicted in both civil and military courts in 1988.
Civilian courts sentenced Gray to 8 consecutive life sentences. His military
court martial sentenced him to die. He is currently the longest-serving
death-row inmate at Fort Leavenworth.
2. Hasan Akbar
In March, 2003, just days after U.S. troops initially crossed into Iraq, Army
Sgt. Hasan Akbar was at Camp Pennsylvania, a rear-staging area for the invasion
of Iraq, located in Kuwait. In the early morning hours, Akbar lobbed
fragmentation and incendiary grenades into the tents of sleeping officers, then
assaulted other members of his unit with his issued M-4 rifle. He killed Army
Capt. Christopher Seifert and Air Force Maj. Gregory L. Stone. and wounded 14
other service members.
Even though his defense team cited repeated attacks and insults on his Muslim
faith from fellow soldiers as a primary motivator for the attack, it was later
discovered that Akbar decided to plan and execute the attack once he was in
Kuwait, writing in a journal on Feb 4, 2003:
"As soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as
possible."
Hasan was convicted of 2 counts of premeditated murder and 3 counts of
attempted premeditated murder. The commander of the 18th Airborne Corps
affirmed the death sentence and an appeal to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals
is pending.
3. Timothy Hennis
In 1985, a mother and 2 of her children were found murdered in their
Fayetteville, N.C. home. Kathryn Eastburn was stabbed to death with 2 of her 3
daughters while her husband, an airman, was training in Alabama. The family was
getting ready to move away from the country and put an ad in the paper to sell
their dog. Timothy Hennis was a Fort Bragg soldier who admitted to police he
responded to the ad. An eyewitness identified Hennis as a man who left the
Eastburn home in the early morning hours after the killings would have taken
place.
Hennis was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in North Carolina civilian
courts but that verdict was later overturned and Hennis was acquitted in a
retrial. As a free man, Hennis returned to the Army and retired as a Master
Sergeant in 2004. But the Army wasn't done with the Hennis case. Semen samples
taken from Kathryn Eastburn's body were analyzed as DNA evidence that wasn't
available in the original case.
The Army again charged Hennis with the crime, this time framing the evidence to
the matching DNA samples. In 2010, A military court finally found Hennis guilty
of the crimes, stripped him of rank and pay, and sentenced him to death.
4. Nidal Hasan
Also known as "The Fort Hood Shooter" Hasan was an Army officer, a psychiatrist
stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan entered the Soldier
Readiness Center, pulled a handgun, and, for 10 minutes, began shooting at the
personnel there. He killed 13 people and injured another 30 before being shot
himself by Fort Hood's Army Civilian Police. The gunfight rendered Hasan
paralyzed from the waist down.
The Army charged Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of
attempted murder, with the Army announcing early on that Hasan was eligible for
the death penalty and that the Army would seek that sentence. Hasan defended
himself at the trial and in doing so was found guilty of all charges. He was
unanimously sentenced to Fort Leavenworth to await execution.
(source: wearethemighty.com)
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