Sept. 11 TEXAS: Women's deaths remain unsolved----Police hope new sketches will aid cases of 4 found in an area dubbed the 'Killing Fields' More than 20 years after the body of a young woman was found in a field near Interstate 45, authorities have made no arrests in connection with her death or those of 3 others found in the same "Killing Fields." The 4 unsolved deaths remain a thorn in the side of League City police officers who for years have aggressively sought the culprit. Not only do the deaths remain part of a "cold case," but authorities still have not been able to identify 2 of the 4 victims. Police have released sketches of the 2 unidentified women whom authorities have dubbed Jane Doe and Janet Doe. Now police, with the help of an FBI forensic artist, are releasing sketches of the 2 women to resemble what they would have looked like before their deaths. After a brainstorming session, League City police Capt. Pat Bittner said someone suggested having the sketches redrawn "and take some years off them. It's possible that the families hadn't seen these girls for several years before we found them. "Their families may not even know they're dead. They assume they're dead because it's been so long. We need to get these pictures out to show them not as old as they were when we found them, but as old as they were when they last left home." A forensic artist at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., drew the black and white sketches that show each of the unidentified women. The skeletal remains of Jane Doe were discovered in the field in the 3000 block of Calder Road, just west of the interstate, by children riding dirt bikes on Feb. 2, 1986. She had been shot in the back. Police believe Jane Doe died six weeks to 6 months before being discovered and was about 25 years old. She is described as being between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 140 to 160 pounds. She had shoulder-length, light reddish-brown hair and had a distinct gap between her upper front teeth. Her autopsy showed healed fractures of the ribs. First victim found in '84 Investigators believe Janet Doe died a month to 4 months before her skeletal remains were found in the same field on Sept. 8, 1991, by horseback riders. Police believe she was about 31 years old. Janet Doe had a small frame and stood between 5 feet and 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed about 100 to 130 pounds and had long, fine, light brown hair. She also had low-quality upper dentures and may have had difficulty moving her head because of poorly healed fractures in two ribs. On the same day police were probing the area for clues in the death of Jane Doe, investigators came across the body of 16-year-old Laura Miller. Miller, a Clear Creek High School sophomore, had been missing since shortly after the Miller family moved to League City in September 1984. The teen disappeared from a neighborhood convenience store. She had gone there with her mother to use the telephone because theirs was not connected yet. Her cause of death was not determined. The 1st victim, Heidi Villarreal Fye, 23, a cocktail waitress, was found after a dog carried her skull to a nearby house on April 4, 1984. She had vanished 6 months earlier after walking from her parents' home to use the telephone at the same convenience store where Miller was last seen. The medical examiner noted Villarreal had broken ribs and may have been beaten to death. All 4 victims were found nude, leading investigators to suspect sexual assaults. Dad heads EquuSearch Police believe the identities of Jane and Janet Doe will help solve the deaths of all 4 women. Tim Miller, the father of Laura Miller, said he hopes the new sketches will lead to the 2 women's identities. He does not believe that the 2 women are from the area. "Once we get them ID'd, then maybe law enforcement will have a little bit more to work with," said Miller, who heads up Texas EquuSearch, a mounted search and recovery team he founded to help find missing persons. Bittner said police have a pool of suspects, although no charges have been filed in any of the 4 deaths. Anyone with information about the unsolved murder cases is asked to call the League City Police Department at 281-338-4173, the FBI at 202-324-3000 or Texas Missing Person Clearinghouse at 800-346-3243. ********************************* Texas loses link to justice in Mexico -- The apparent closure of a unit helping to punish criminals across border is criticized Hunting down the alleged killer of an 18-year-old woman - found sexually assaulted, strangled and stuffed under her bed 10 years before in the tiny town of Natalia - was a campaign promise of Medina County Sheriff Gilbert Rodriguez in 2000. He just wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. He lacked money, manpower and jurisdiction: The suspected killer was a Mexican national who shortly after the crime hightailed it across the border, where fugitives are safe from extradition if they face the death penalty in Texas. Then, in the summer of 2002, the Texas attorney general's foreign prosecution unit offered to help. Within a year, the unit's chief, David Garza, used his contacts with Mexican law enforcement and knowledge of a little-known provision in the Mexican Federal Penal Code known as "Article IV" to get the suspect apprehended, tried in a Mexican court and sentenced to a Mexican prison for 25 years, Rodriguez said. The sheriff was elated. He waited to hear the results of an appeal to get more years added to the sentence. But he never heard back. Rodriguez said that in fall 2003, Garza called to say the attorney general had closed the unit and was no longer filing Article IV cases. "I don't know what transpired," Rodriguez said. "That was my source of information, my bridge, and my bridge was taken out from under me." Garza and officials with the Mexican attorney general's office say that, in 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott quietly closed the decade-old unit in charge of filing foreign prosecution cases in Mexico, leaving Texas the only U.S. border state without the crucial link to Mexico's criminal justice system. "The message is very bad for Texas," said Fernando Morones, Mexico's legal attache to the United States who is based in San Antonio. "If I kill a policeman in San Antonio and I go to hide in Mexico, I'm going to be sure that nobody is going to do anything to me." Article IV has become an increasingly popular option for prosecutors after California started using the procedure in the late 1970s in cases where Mexico refused to extradite. The expensive, intensely bureaucratic procedure, often the last hope for American victims' families, allows Mexican pro-secutors to try and punish their own citizens for crimes they committed in the United States or other foreign countries. Frustrated officials The apparent closure of Texas' unit, opened with much fanfare in 1993, has concerned Texas district attorneys who relied on it and frustrated Mexican attorney general officials who believe Texas is, in effect, helping Mexicans get away with murder. Abbott was not available for comment. Spokesman Paco Felici insisted "the unit has not been shut down," although he acknowledged that the attorney general's office has not filed an Article IV case since 2003. Felici said that's because no prosecutor has asked. "If someone were to request that type of assistance, we would provide the assistance necessary," Felici said. He said Garza simply had been replaced by Edna Butts, special assistant attorney general. She also was unavailable for comment. Felici said the agency recently has assisted some prosecutors with "different logistical aspects" of filing an Article IV case, but that no treaty requires the attorney general to file the case directly. Abandoned office? Still, there are strong indications that the office is closed or severely scaled back. The Article IV section of the attorney general's Web site - once praised for its thoroughness - hasn't been updated for years. A list of the "latest" fugitives includes a man, Alvaro Rodarte, who was set free 2 years ago after a judge ruled the statute of limitations had expired. Morones, with Mexico's attorney general's office, said Butts and Felici both told him the unit had been closed and that those requesting assistance would receive a brochure. According to Morones, the only person in Texas still filing Article IV cases regularly is Dallas Police Department veteran Jesus Briseno. The detective, who started filing the cases about the time the Texas attorney general's unit began, learned the craft from experts in California law enforcement, who pioneered the procedure and have helped other states, including Texas, establish units. Briseno said he was surprised to learn the Texas unit had closed and that, ever since, he's gotten calls from Mexican prosecutors and law enforcement wondering whom to turn to now. "They've called me several times, wanting to know who they can talk to about suspects from other parts of the state. I'm only in charge of the suspects in Dallas," Briseno said. Morones said Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca is troubled by the halt in cases filed by his Texas counterpart and may try to discuss it with Abbott. "I think we're going to try to convince him to open again that office or to just name someone who can deal with the procedures," Morones said. An arduous process As it is now, Morones said, district attorneys from small counties wanting to file Article IV cases are left alone to face a gauntlet of bureaucratic legal procedures that can take several months and cost up to $10,000. Mexico requires that entire cases, including witness statements, police reports and autopsy reports, be carefully translated into Spanish and certified. A Mexican judge's verdict is based solely on evidence because there are no jury trials or live testimony. Those filing Article IV cases also must appear in person in Mexico to present the case to the judge, which means costly airfare and lodging expenses. Without help, Morones said, counties can become overwhelmed. "They say, 'No, no, it's too much paperwork, and the attorney general is not trying to help' and they don't do anything," Morones said. The process could also be overwhelming for Mexico, Morones said, if it had to deal with district attorneys in each of Texas' 254 counties, instead of just the attorney general's office. Alberto Gonzalez, special assistant to California's attorney general, said Texas has lost a nationally known expert on foreign prosecution. "They got rid of their expertise when they got rid of David (Garza)," he said. Gonzalez's office oversees the nation's most sophisticated Article IV units, complete with a tracking system that logs and monitors the progress of each case. The point man is gone For 5 years, Garza was ground zero for Texas and Mexican prosecutors seeking justice against fugitives south of the U.S. border. Often, Article IV cases are filed in tandem with extradition requests, as a backup in case the latter failed. It's a civilized alternative to the days of desperate American vigilantes, who often braved the border in an attempt to hunt down fugitives in Mexico and drag them back to Texas for trial. Garza said he assisted on hundreds of cases in Texas and other states, fielding calls from district attorneys, answering legal questions, making middleman calls to Mexico. "It's more involved than just, 'Here, follow these steps,' " Garza said. "I basically held their hands and said, 'OK, this is what you need to do.'" "These are cases that take a lot of time. We had a 100 % conviction rate on the cases we prosecuted in Mexico, but the hard part was finding those people." Garza said he directly handled an average of 10 to 15 new Article IV cases a year, nearly all homicides, including preparing documentation, overseeing translations and flying to Mexico to present the cases. Garza said he isn't sure why the attorney general scaled back the Article IV operation. He said he was offered another job at the agency, but was so disappointed by Abbott's decision that he took an investigative job at another state agency. ''They've never said they're doing away with it," Garza said of Article IV prosecutions. "The Web site is still there. If you call, they'll send you a booklet. The program may be there, but to what extent is the question." 'Help was just tremendous' Josh McCown, district attorney in Wharton County, said Garza's unit was invaluable when he was trying to prosecute a Mexican national suspected of killing his ex-wife who had fled to Mexico, effectively orphaning their 2 small children. "I can't begin to tell you how complex it all gets. It's horrible," McCown said. Like many Texas prosecutors, McCown said he struggled with handing over a case, especially one as heinous as this one, to Mexican prosecutors. "It's hard to let another country dictate to you policies of something that happened to you in your jurisdiction," McCown said, but he added, "I couldn't put this family at risk of this guy coming back and doing something else bad." He said Garza helped find translators, and even offset some of Wharton County's expenses. Eventually, Mexico granted a rare extradition in the case. "David's help was just tremendous," McCown said. "When they did away with that office, I just thought, 'I hope I don't get another case.'" Garza said part of his job was educating, proselytizing reluctant prosecutors about Article IV. "If you asked the family of a victim what they'd prefer: 'Would you rather sit back and wait to see if the guy comes back, and maybe he never comes back, and you never have closure, or would you rather we try to prosecute him in Mexico?' most people would say, 'I'd rather he be prosecuted in Mexico,'" Garza said. Losing an option? Leighton Stallones would agree. "We'd rather have an Article IV than nothing," said Stallones, whose 82-year-old mother, Mildred, was raped and strangled a dozen years ago in her Tomball home, allegedly by a Mexican day laborer whose jeans were found soaked with her blood. All these years, Stallones hoped for 2 things: That someday, Alfredo Ramirez Rosas, an FBI's most wanted fugitive, would be caught in Texas. Or that the Texas attorney general's Article IV unit would put pressure on Mexico to prosecute him. Stallones was stunned to learn that one of those options may be gone now. He said Felici had set up a few interviews with Spanish-language media, and insisted in their phone conversations that the attorney general was on top of the case. Now he's not sure. "Other than lip service, I can't tell you anything he's been doing," Stallones said. (source for both: Houston Chronicle) ****************** County to tap inmates' accounts to collect fees, fines Prosecutors seeking lengthy prison terms in major felony cases often tell juries to forget about fining defendants, preferring to put criminals away for as long as possible and assuming that fines normally won't be paid anyway. While prosecutors are more interested in protecting society than raising cash, a new program to improve collection rates for court costs, fees and fines being instituted in the state's largest counties has some officials thinking more about both. Even before the past legislative session made it mandatory that counties with more than 50,000 people have collection programs in place by 2007, McLennan County District Clerk Karen Matkin was researching similar methods to collect fees, fines and court costs. Counties have had the authority since 1996 but few exercise their right to tap into a prison inmate's trust account and collect a portion of those funds to pay the inmate's court-ordered fees, fines, victim restitution or to reimburse counties for court-appointed attorneys' fees. In McLennan County, that changed when Matkin was appointed district clerk. In settling into her new job, she realized that the county had been given the authority to develop a collection program but had not done so under her predecessor, Joe R. Johnson. And when county records indicated that there was about $800,000 worth of uncollected court costs, related fees and fines generated from felony cases last year alone, interest peaked in getting the program up and running, Matkin said. "We began this process of looking at doing this in March and getting the computer printouts and documentation and forms that we would need and what kind of dollars we are looking at," Matkin said. "And when it became apparent that there was a substantial amount of money being left on the table, we asked the commissioners to give us an additional person to help us with all the paperwork that will be associated with the new program." In presenting her case for an additional employee to the traditionally tight-fisted commissioners court, Matkin guaranteed that the program would recover 1 1/2 times the employee's $26,000 annual salary or the court could cut the position in the next fiscal year. Matkin's office sent out the first set of collection orders in July in 22 state jail felony cases, reasoning that those inmates serve the shortest sentences among felony offenders and the urgency to garnish their accounts while they are locked up is greater. The Legislature allows counties to take funds from an inmate's trust account by order of a judge. Inmates don't handle cash in prison, but draw upon their accounts to buy snacks, grooming items and other commissary goods. If they have a job in prison, their salaries go into their trust accounts and their families also are able to deposit money there so they can buy items in prison. When a collection order is entered, the prison initially will draw out 20 % of the preceding 6 months' deposits, Matkin said. After that, prison officials will take out 10 % of monthly deposits in inmate accounts. Much of the money taken out is earmarked for state coffers. Some of it goes back to the counties, Matkin said. For instance, there are at least $198 worth of basic court costs for every felony case disposed of. Of that amount, $133 goes to state, Matkin said. About 60 prisoners on average are sent to prison from Waco every month and of those, the vast majority have court-appointed attorneys, who are paid an average of $500 for a simple plea of guilty. The county will be seeking to collect fines, fees, court costs, restitution for crime victims and reimbursement for their attorneys' fees. "The longer somebody is in the penitentiary, the greater the likelihood that we will recover more of our funds," Matkin said. "But our goal is ultimately, over time, say of that $800,000 from last year, our goal is to collect a minimum of 20 percent of it. "If they are serving a life sentence, theoretically, somebody is going to be sending them money every month and we are going to be standing there with our hand out to collect our portion of those funds," she said. Matkin knows the new program won't be popular among inmates or their families. "I'm sure that we will get some feedback, but a part of what we do we send notice to the inmate offender that we are doing this," she said. "I'm sure there will be some negative reaction. In speaking to other district clerks who have pursued this, they have indicated that some family members actually have come in and paid off the court costs rather than have the inmate trust fund attached in order to keep the inmate from being upset about it." Veteran criminal defense attorneys Ken Crow and Scott Peterson, who both are former McLennan County prosecutors, were critical of the collection program. "This is just like all government programs," Crow said. "They all start off with honorable intentions and then they turn into crap. They will spend more to administer the program than they will ever collect from indigent defendants. That's why everybody's taxes go up - because of stupid ideas like this." Peterson agrees, but for different reasons. "I think it is a terrible idea because all you are doing is hurting the inmate's family because they are going to be the ones giving them the money," Peterson said. "Why would you want to do something like that?" Judge George Allen, McLennan County's chief felony court judge, said some could view the new mandatory state collection program as just another unfunded mandate passed on to counties. "The county is going to spend the money to collect it and most of that money is going to go to the state of Texas," Allen said. "So the county is not going to get anything, or very little, and the state is going to get it. What are they going to spend it on? God only knows. Maybe more special sessions." McLennan County District Attorney John Segrest is in favor of inmates being forced to repay their various debts to society. However, he said it won't change how his office prosecutes cases. "I am not in the money-making business. I'm not here to make money for the government. Our role is to ask that defendants be put away for as long a time as is deemed appropriate because that is what they need and that is what they deserve," Segrest said. "If there is money to get, I think the state and county ought to get it. But when we turn our criminal justice system into a revenue stream, then I think we have to rethink the whole idea." Linda Uecker, Kerr County district clerk, said her county was the first to institute a collection program in the state eight years ago. She said the program has worked well, but said it would be hard to compare the results in Kerrville with expectations in McLennan County because of the vast differences in the size of the counties and numbers of people sent to the penitentiary. (source: Waco Tribune-Herald) NEW YORK: KARLA The Grammy Award-winning singer Steve Earle tries his hand at playwriting with this new drama about Karla Faye Tucker, the 1st woman in Texas since the Civil War to receive the death penalty and have it carried out. Jodie Markell portrays Tucker. Bruce Kronenberg directs. Previews begin Oct. 17. Opens Oct. 20. Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 253-9983. www.45bleecker.com (source: New York Times) ILLINOIS: Katrina brings new dimension to Sister Helen Prejean's mission to eliminate the death penalty The plight of poor blacks who could not escape Hurricane Katrina offers a twist on the popular "Left Behind" series about the people who remain on Earth after the Rapture. It also gives a new dimension to Sister Helen Prejean's mission to eliminate the death penalty. Herself one of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the disaster, she is going forward with her fall speaking schedule - cobbled back together after the original records in New Orleans were destroyed by flooding - with fresh ways to illustrate her points. She plans to draw comparisons, for example, between evacuation plans that made no provision for people who did not have cars and a criminal justice system that hands down the ultimate punishment overwhelmingly to low-income minorities. "We must stop relying on violence and incarceration and attend to the social fabric," Prejean said. "If people have decent housing, jobs and schools, the family stays together and they're not going to turn to crime." The 66-year-old Louisiana native may have been talking on a borrowed cell phone - calls to her own still wouldn't go through as she traveled between speaking engagements in Florida last week - but her message came through loud and clear. The same was true in 1993 when Prejean published "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," which became an international bestseller and the basis for an Academy Award-winning film starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. The Catholic nun plans to bring her message to Decatur on Tuesday. "I know other people are handling the hurricane victims, and I need to stay on mission," she said. "The American people are not any more vengeful than other people, but they just don't know what's going on with the death penalty and they don't reflect on it very deeply. "It's my job to take them there." Prejean did that in "Dead Man Walking" by writing about her role as spiritual advisor to two convicted murderers who died in the electric chair. She said the execution of the first, Elmo Patrick Sonnier, on April 5, 1984, changed the course of her life. "I walked out of that chamber in the middle of the night, and I threw up," she recalls. "I had never before watched someone killed in front of my eyes." Her new book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions," traces her journey counseling two death row inmates until they died by lethal injection - two men she believes were innocent. Her stop in Decatur is sponsored by Macon County Citizens Opposing Capital Punishment and the Millikin University chapter of Amnesty International. When not traveling, Prejean has been staying with her sister in Baton Rouge since evacuating New Orleans two days before Katrina struck Aug. 29. When not helping people find shelter and schools, she has been making final revisions for the paperback version of "Innocents," due out in January. "This catastrophe has felt biblical, like the way it feels before an execution when you focus only on the moment at hand," she said. It also has profound lessons to teach, Prejean said, in light of statistics showing that states without the death penalty have lower crime rates. "We were told the levees would protect us from flooding, but they broke," she said. "In the same way we believe the death penalty will protect us from crime, but it's all an illusion." IF YOU GO WHAT: Presentation by Sister Helen Prejean WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13 WHERE: Kirkland Fine Arts Center, Millikin University ADMISSION: Free HER BOOKS: "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," is $15, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions" is $25, and both will be available for $30. RELATED EVENTS: Central Christian Church, 650 W. William Street, will have a free public showing of the 1995 film, "Dead Man Walking," at 6 p.m. today, and Prejean will speak to students at St. Teresa High School at 1:55 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13. INFORMATION: Call Sister JoAn Schullian at 877-4404. (source: Herald and Review) MISSISSIPPI: 2 death row cases back before Miss. Supreme Court 2 Mississippi death row inmates, including the only woman in the group, are back before the state Supreme Court this term seeking new trials. The appeals of Michelle Byrom and Justin Underwood are among dozens the Supreme Court will decide based on written briefs submitted by attorneys. Michelle Byrom is back before the court on a post-conviction petition. Inmates use the petitions to claim they have discovered new evidence that would justify a new trial. The state Supreme Court upheld Byrom's conviction and death sentence in 2003. A Tishomingo County judge turned down her post-conviction petition last year. Byrom was convicted in 2000 of killing her husband of 20 years and recruiting her son in the plot. Edward Byrom Sr., an electrician, was shot to death June 4, 1999, with a World War II weapon that had belonged to his father. In a rare move at her 2000 trial, Michelle Byrom asked Circuit Judge Thomas Gardner, instead of the jury, to decide whether she should serve life in prison or be put to death. Gardner sentenced her to death. Prosecutors said Byrom killed her husband for money. Defense attorneys argued she had been physically abused as a child and by her husband. Edward Byrom Jr. testified against his mother during the trial as part of a plea bargain arrangement. He later pleaded guilty to several charges in the murder-for-hire scheme, including conspiracy to commit murder. Gardner sentenced him to 50 years in prison with 20 years suspended. In another case, Underwood was among dozens of death row inmates ordered in 1999 to be given court-appointed attorneys to handle post-conviction claims. The Supreme Court had upheld Underwood's death sentence in 1998. Underwood was convicted in the killing of a Flora woman in 1994. The body of Virginia Ann Harris was found near a lake in Madison County. Underwood was arrested in March on an unrelated burglary charge but confessed to killing the woman, according to court records. In a statement to law officers, Underwood also claimed that Harris had begged to be killed. He said he drove the woman to the lake, where he shot her. Underwood had previously argued that he was mental incompetent and had not voluntarily confessed to the crime. (source: Associated Press)
