Worst of the Worst

[Charlene]

When I am researching current cases or updating older cases, I sometimes come across facts that shock the heck out of me. Yes, even me....

I decided to start a sticky thread where we can post and discuss those cases.

[Charlene]

Alvaro Calambro pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death for the killing of 2 people at a U-Haul business in Reno.

In late September, 1993, Duc Huynh, a Vietnamese immigrant, was fired from his job at U-Haul Rental in Reno, Nevada after a complaint filed by a fellow employee, Peggy Crawford, age 31. This was to prove a fatal action for Peggy. Three months later, Huynh teamed up with 21-year-old Alvaro Calambro, a Filipino-born brother of Huynh’s common-law wife, Lea. The two men planned the robbery of this same U-Haul store and the murder of Peggy and, as it would later turn out, a fellow clerk, 25-year-old Keith Christopher.

Alvaro Calambro (who preferred to be called John), was born in the Philippine Republic, but from age ten had lived in Downey, California, and later in adolescence settled in Reno, Nevada. In December, 1993, Huynh and Calambro, both financially strained and unemployed, planned a robbery and murder to take place at the U-Haul store. No masks were to be used. As Hunyh was a former employee, he would be recognized by the clerks, but the clerks would not live to tell anyone. Calambro purchased oversized shoes to wear so that any footprints left would throw off the police. They would enter the store at closing time, to guarantee the presence of the entire day’s receipts (estimated by Huynh as being in the five figures) and the absence of any last-minute customers who might be potential witnesses. A home burglary in late December netted the two the needed guns for the robbery.

On January 3, 1994, as the U-Haul store was closing for the evening, Huynh and Calambro slid in through the doors as the store was being locked up, with Huynh telling Keith Christopher that he had permission from the store’s manager to borrow one of their smaller trucks. To the disappointment of Calambro and Huynh, most of the day’s receipts had already been placed in a secured safe, and, when their guns forced the clerks to empty all cash drawers, only $2,435 was obtained.

Huynh had started out being in charge of the robbery but, at this point, an impatient Calambro, who felt things were moving too slowly, took over. Grabbing some twine and masking tape at the U-Haul counter, while Huynh held the gun on the clerk, Calambro proceeded to bind the two clerks’ wrists and ankles together behind their backs in a hog-tied position with the twine, and then gagged both with tape.

In later recorded confessions to police, Calambro stated that Huynh left him in charge of the helpless clerks while Huynh, with the money, went out to the parking lot for a smoke. Calambro later admitted that he was amused by Peggy’s beginning to pray while he bound her wrists and ankles together as he knew that she would soon be with God anyway. He also expressed amusement as she helplessly strained against her bonds and was unable to scream while she watched Keith being murdered, knowing that her turn would come next.

Fantasizing that it would be fun to watch his victims’ brains run out of their skulls and to possibly eviscerate his victims, Calambro took a ballpeen hammer and began crushing in Keith’s skull as Peggy lay bound and gagged next to him. After receiving ten hits with the hammer on the skull, Keith was dead. Calambro then took a tire iron, also lying in the store, and used it to try to pry Keith’s skull apart. This eventually produced a wide enough fissure to allow Calambro to place his hands inside the skull, but, since Calambro was afraid that the sharp, bony edges of the skull might cut his fingers, he abandoned the dead Keith and turned his attention to Peggy. Three whacks on the skull with a hammer killed Peggy. This time Calambro was gratified to see brains and blood emerge from the skull. He then forced the tire iron through one of Peggy’s eye sockets and left the tire iron protruding from the socket as he exited the store to rejoin Huynh.

A day later, the Reno police came looking for Huynh, who, as the prime suspect in the robbery/murder, was hiding in the ceiling of his mobile home. Calambro met the police at the door of the mobile home and successfully sent them on their way by telling them that Huynh had disappeared several days earlier.

Calambro and Huynh then went on a twelve day crime spree through California, engaging in a series of burglaries and armed robberies that moved them in a southwesterly course through the Golden State until finally, on January, 16, 1994, with a female security guard as hostage, Huynh driving, and Calambro shooting through the car’s windshield, the Los Angeles police, accompanied by a SWAT team, first chased the pair down the Los Angeles freeway system and then cornered them in a building, forcing them to surrender. During the final siege by SWAT on the building, Calambro accidentally shot himself in the foot, later denying that this self-inflicted wound was in any way intentional.

Extradited back to Nevada in March, 1994, Calambro was sent to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. In December, 1994, a psychiatrist found Calambro to be competent, an antisocial personality, not very bright, and a danger to the community.

On June 19, 1996, both Duc Huynh and Alvaro Calambro were convicted and sentenced to be executed. Huynh hung himself at the Ely State Prison on December 19, 1996. A tragic side story of Huynh’s suicide is that Calambro’s sister, Lea (Huynh’s common-law wife), in a suicide pact with Huynh, attempted to kill both herself and their four-year-son, Binh. Lea survived, but little Binh did not. Lea, convicted of murdering Binh, is currently in prison in Southern Nevada, serving a sentence of a life without the possibility of parole.

Although Calambro resisted appeals in his behalf, his mother tried to stop the execution, but after being found competent for execution by forensic psychiatrist Franklin Master, the mother's request to be allowed to represent Calambro's interests was denied. After an evening of speaking with family members for several hours on the telephone, taking communion, and having a last meal of steak, rice, corn, apple pie and Sprite, Calambro calmly walked to the execution chamber, was given a lethal injection, stated, “I regret it,” and died at 9:06 p.m. on Monday evening, April 5, 1999.

(Edited for Draco!)

[jasmine]

It\'s hard to retain any opposition to the death penalty after reading that account.

[mst3k4evur]

Is it alright if others post? The Hi-Fi murders top even Calambro and the first time I read the story I wanted to throw up.

[Charlene]

Aug 26, 2008 20:05:14 GMT -6 mst3k4evur said:

Is it alright if others post? The Hi-Fi murders top even Calambro and the first time I read the story I wanted to throw up.

Yes, certainly you can post your choices for the category.

I read "Victim" by Gary Kinder long before I became involved in the issue of violent crime, and it was hugely impactful. I had never read a true crime book from the perspective of the victims before and that was such a horrific crime, it probably started me on this path.

[Charlene]

It didn't take long to find another one. This execution occurred in the same month as the first one.

On October 12, 1991, Arthur Ray Jenkins, III and his younger brother, Kevin Frame, 16, went to the home of Jenkins' uncle, Floyd Jenkins. During the day, the pair had been drinking whiskey and beer. In the early evening, Jenkins engaged in a fight with another man outside a local restaurant. Jenkins's mother and grandmother drove Jenkins and Frame away from the restaurant and to the vicinity of the home where Jenkins was residing on Route 617 in Warren County. Jenkins had lived there for about one month following his release from prison on September 6, 1990. The home was owned by Elizabeth Morris, Jenkins's aunt. Lee Brinklow, age 69, and the uncle, Floyd Jenkins, age 72, also lived in the house.

Near 10:00 p.m., Jenkins and Frame entered the home through the front door. Lee was sitting on a couch in the living room. Lee told Frame to leave the house because the aunt, who was not present, did not allow Frame inside. An argument ensued between Lee and Jenkins. Jenkins went to Lee's bedroom, obtained a .22 rifle capable of firing only one shot at a time, and returned to the living room. Jenkins loaded the rifle and shot Lee once in the face; the shot did not kill him. Jenkins walked to the "back bedroom" where the uncle was lying in bed listening to a radio. After Jenkins reloaded the rifle, he "stuck it" to the uncle's head. Floyd "grabbed it" and Jenkins said, "Let go before I kill you." The uncle "let go" and Jenkins "stuck the gun to his head" and shot him. The uncle began "gagging," and Jenkins returned to the living room.

Jenkins asked Lee the location of Lee's hand gun, and Lee responded that the weapon was in Lee's pick-up truck parked outside the house. Ordering Frame to "watch" his uncle, Jenkins "took" Lee to the truck, where the hand gun could not be located. Jenkins escorted Lee back into the house where Jenkins went to the kitchen and procured two "butcher knives." Jenkins gave one to Frame and retained the other.

Jenkins returned to the uncle's bedroom where he was still "gagging." By this time, Lee had been brought into the same bedroom where he laid on the floor. Jenkins shot the uncle again in the head and "went berserk." He began stabbing the uncle with the knife until his "guts came out." As Jenkins was picking up the "guts" and throwing them onto the uncle's body, Frame said, "Shoot him," referring to Lee. Lee pleaded with Jenkins not to kill him, stating that he "loved" Jenkins. Jenkins "stuck" the rifle to Lee's head and "pulled the trigger."

Jenkins and Frame carried the victims' bodies out the front door of the house and laid them in the bed of Lee's truck. Jenkins and Frame returned to the house where they broke into the aunt's locked bedroom. The aunt had stored sums of money in various items in her bedroom; these items, with the money, were loaded into the truck.

The evidence also showed that, at some point, Jenkins and Frame took the victims' wallets as well as other personal items. Jenkins drove the truck away from the house, intending to drive "to the police station." Frame persuaded Jenkins to turn in a different direction as they left the premises.

A short distance from the residence, Jenkins lost control of the truck, which left the road and came to rest in a creek. Jenkins and Frame walked back to the home and attempted to clean the rooms, which were spattered with blood and contained body parts. The pair then left the premises, and Jenkins fled to the southwestern part of the State.

The aunt returned to her home about 1:50 a.m. on October 13 to find it in disarray and her funds missing. A short time later, the truck containing the victims' bodies was found by the police. Jenkins was arrested about 11:30 p.m. on that day near Abingdon.

Autopsies of the victims' bodies showed that Lee sustained four gunshot wounds to the head, two of which were fatal. The uncle sustained three gunshot wounds to the head, two being fatal. He also sustained seven stab wounds to the abdomen, which injured vital organs and which penetrated the body up to a depth of eight inches.

(edited for Draco!)

[mst3k4evur]

Stephen Hugueley, 40
Death Row State of Tennessee

Written by mst3k4evur from News, documentary and prodp sources.

On a night in 1984 Stephen Hugueley, then a 16 boy still living with his mother in Tennessee, was on the phone with his 26-year-old girlfriend, talking about a date they had planned for later. His mother had never approved of the relationship and upon seeing her son on phone referred to the woman as a ‘whore.’ Huguely then told the woman that he was “fixin to kill this b*tch” but that they would still go out later. He then shot his mother in the head with a rifle, put his mother’s corpse in the trunk of his car and threw it off a bridge. He went on his date but was arrested soon after. He was caught and sentenced to life in prison with a chance at parole after 25 years. To this day he expresses no regrets for his mother’s murder-or the two that would follow.

“She was sticking her nose in my love life,” he said later. It would be a common theme, show Hugueley the slightest disrespect and he would kill-and kill brutally.

It would be just five years after his 1986 conviction that he would kill again. This time it was inmate James Shelton in the West Tennessee State Prison in 1991. Shelton had been stabbed over 60 times with a homemade knife and bludgeoned with a pillow case full of d-cell batteries. He was convicted again sentenced to life, this time with no parole.

“I’ve never lost a moment of sleep over anything I’ve ever done,” said Huguely during a documentary interview.

Hugueley claims Shelton had come to his cell the day of the murder to threaten him, but it seems unlikely given the weapons Huguely had with him. Most likely the murder stemmed from Hugueley’s other complaint about the victim: he made too much noise.

In 1997 he tried again, repeatedly stabbing another inmate, only the poor construction of this knife saved the victim.

In 2002, one man decided he was not impressed with Hugueley, no longer the teenager he had been in 1984 but a hulking, muscular adult with a tattoo of a swastika across his forhead. Counselor Delbert Steed began filing disciplinary reports on Hugueley and was unsympathetic to his demands for art supplies, perhaps because they included sharp pencils, and his request for a cleaner cell mate. Hugueley also claims that Steed made ‘derogatory remarks’ about the twice convicted murderer. After grievances filed on the matter were ignored Hugueley made another knife and confronted Steed in the hallway of the Hardeman County Correctional Facility. He stabbed him and kept stabbing as Steed fell to the ground, using a weapon fashioned from a piece of metal melted into a magic marker. Hugueley later explained his desire to stab through the lungs and the heart. He did and Hugueley committed his third murder.

After he received a death sentence for Steed’s murder, Huguely dropped his appeals but then resumed them as his execution date neared in 2006. He believes that he may kill again.

“It may be one year, five years or 10 years, but sooner or later, somebody will do something to set me off,” he said.

He remains incarcerated at the Administrative Segregation unit of the Brushy Mountain Maximum Security Prison, awaiting execution rather than with other death row inmates at Riverbend Prison because of the unique threat he poses. According to inmate and close friend Ron Mosby, Hugueley is the most feared inmate in the state of Tennessee.

[amazonfuneralpyre]

ummm yikes!

[Charlene]

Around 6:00 am on Saturday, April 28, 1979, Terry Chasteen, a young 21-year-old single mother, left home to take her three children to their babysitter's house before reporting to work in the produce department at a Marsh grocery store. While driving on Interstate 465, Terry noticed the driver of a construction truck motioning toward her car. She pulled over.

The man, Steven Timothy Judy, pretending to be a Good Samaritan, pulled to the side of the road. He told her it looked as if a rear tire on the car were loose. He offered to tighten it, and she got a lug wrench out of the trunk. They returned to their vehicles. But Terry got back out and approached Judy, saying something was wrong with the emergency brake. He walked to the front of the car and opened the hood. But instead of fixing anything, he removed a coil wire from the engine so the car would not start.

He offered Terry and her kids a ride. So 5-year-old Misty, 4-year-old Mark and nearly 3-year-old Steven crawled into the truck. Their mom sat by the door. Within an hour, Terry was raped and dead, and her children were drowned. All four were killed that morning by 24-year-old Steven Judy.

After getting them in his vehicle, Judy then drove the victims to a secluded location and pulled his truck off the road. He testified that he directed them on foot toward the creek, and that he sent the children down the path ahead of Terry and him. Judy testified that he then raped Terry Chasteen and bound her hands and feet and gagged her.

When Terry cried out, the children ran back up the path to them. Judy stated that the children stood around him and yelled. At that point, he strangled Terry Chasteen and threw her body into the creek. Judy testified that he then threw each of the children as far as he could into the icy water. He stated that he remembered seeing one of the children standing in the creek.

Judy returned to his truck after attempting to eradicate his footprints. He then drove away from the scene. Several witnesses related that they had seen various segments of the incident.

On the day of the killings and the preceding day, Steven Judy had in his control a red and gray truck which several witnesses placed at or near the location of Terry Chasteen's car on Interstate 465. One of the witnesses testified that he saw a blond-haired man, whom he later identified as Judy, standing near a car parked on the interstate with the hood open. Another witness testified that he was driving southwest on State Road 67 and saw a red and gray truck carrying a man, a woman, and some children, proceeding in the same direction. This witness stated that the truck was moving at a fast pace, and in a sometimes erratic manner, and that the woman in the truck waved to him when the two vehicles stopped at a traffic light.

Judy's truck was also seen parked near the scene of the killings by White Lick Creek around 7:00 to 7:30 am. One witness recognized the truck from having seen it on several occasions at a construction site. Another witness testified that he saw a man near the scene carrying a child under one arm and carrying a bundle, which actually had the shape and size of a child, under his other arm. A third child was walking in front of the man. The witness saw no other person at that time.

At approximately 7:30 am, a man was seen running away from the creek toward the parked truck. Near that same time, another person saw a man with blond hair backing his truck onto the travelled portion of the highway from this same location. The person who witnessed this occurrence testified that the driver of the truck was alone.

Evidence established that Judy returned the truck to his foster father Robert Carr in Indianapolis between 8:00 and 9:00 am on the day of the killings. Judy initially denied any involvement in the incident, and asserted that he was with his girlfriend at the time in question and could not remember what had happened. Judy's girlfriend first corroborated this story, but subsequently contradicted Judy's alibi.

"I have no use for anyone who kills children," said Robert Williams, retired officer of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department. He and then-Sheriff Dick Allen were the first on the scene at White Lick Creek that morning after mushroom hunters stumbled upon a body along the fast-flowing creek bank around 9:30 am. Williams's daughters were 2 and 6 at the time. "I could have pulled the switch myself," he said, referring to Judy's electrocution.

Terry was naked and had been bound with cloth strips torn from her Marsh uniform. Her head was covered with her slacks and she had been gagged and strangled with other strips of cloth.

Tom Gray was in his first term as Morgan County prosecutor when Steven Judy came along. He was among the first at the murder scene. "I'll not ever forget that morning, the eerie mist of that morning," Gray said. A moment stands out, after the mother's body was found and her daughter was found snagged on tree limbs under water nearby. "We found two more," echoed a shout from downstream.

Steve Oliver was working as an intern in the Morgan County prosecutor's office in April 1979. When his boss called him to White Lick Creek the morning of April 28, he saw a dead body for the first time. Oliver, 28 at the time, spent the day on the creek bank and at the morgue instead of at the party in his honor for passing the bar exam. He spent the next several months collecting information about Judy's past crimes and compiling evidence to prove Judy was sane when he killed Terry Chasteen and her children. "He was a true sociopath, with absolutely no conscience or remorse or guilt," Oliver said. "It made me really want to see that this man was killed."

Defense attorney Steve Harris was 34 when the case landed in his lap. Having already defended four murder defendants in his career, Harris was the most likely choice to be appointed public defender in the death penalty case. For months, he and Judy spent time together on a daily basis, preparing for trial and then going through the process. He remembers his client as personable, polite, considerate, cooperative - and also as a calculated killer. "It was a strange situation for me, to be there with this guy who seemed so normal, so sociable on the surface, who was capable of such horrible things." Even Harris said Judy had to die. "He would have killed again had he not been executed," his lawyer said.

Judy's version of the events very substantially corroborated the evidence presented by the State at trial. At the death phase of the trial, Judy ordered his attorneys not to present any evidence of mitigating circumstances. Judy testified that he had been committing various offenses since he was ten years old.

He asserted that he had been involved in approximately two hundred shoplifting incidents, a like number of burglaries, twenty to fifty robberies, approximately twenty-four car thefts, and from twelve to sixteen rapes. He also estimated that he had been examined by approximately thirty psychiatrists during those years.

From 1975 to the time of these offenses, Judy had been out of jail for a total time of approximately four months. During those periods, he testified, he had lived with or had intercourse with fifteen women. Three women with whom Judy had lived testified that he had never threatened or physically harmed them. In fact, Judy was living with one of those women during the week prior to the commission of these murders.

However, other women testified as to various attacks Judy had committed upon them. These incidents involved accosting the victims in their cars and kidnapping, threatening and beating them. One witness testified to being a victim of one of Judy's armed robberies. These witnesses all believed Judy was in control of himself during the incidents and could have stopped doing what he was doing. However, one witness stated at one point that Judy "acted crazy" when he was beating her about the face.

Previously conducted psychiatric evaluations classified Judy as having a personality disorder and concluded there was no indication of a mental illness. Two court-appointed psychiatrists, Dr. John Kooiker and Dr. Larry Davis, testified that they had examined Judy and that, in their opinions, he had an antisocial personality disorder. Both concluded that he was legally sane at the time of the commission of these crimes. In fact, the record reveals that every psychiatrist who has ever examined Judy has been of the opinion that he is of normal or above-average intelligence and that he is legally sane.

The jury rejected Judy's insanity defense and convicted him on all charges. Judy stated to the jury in open court at the sentencing hearing that he would advise them to give him the death sentence, because he had no doubt that he would kill again if he had an opportunity, and some of the people he might kill in the future might be members of the jury. He also directed a similar comment to the trial judge. Jury foreman John Sappington, a retired postal clerk, will never forget the day he voted to sentence Judy to death. "He looked at me, and he said, 'I know where you live, and I know you have a daughter.' He threatened all of us, and the judge too, if we didn't give him the death penalty."

The 12 jurors didn't hesitate. When the nine men and three women got into the jury room to deliberate a sentence, Sappington asked whether they wanted to discuss the options or take an immediate vote. They wanted to vote. They all wanted Judy to die for his crimes. "I said, 'Let's sit here for a while, so it doesn't look so bad.' We had some coffee, and then called for the bailiff."

On the surface, Steven Judy seemed harmless enough. He could be personable and charming. He liked children, and they liked him. His foster parents supported him. And yet he was capable of evil. "The thing that influenced me the most was the realization that there are many people in society who appear to be as normal and friendly as he was, and yet they are as dangerous as he was," said defense lawyer Harris. "It's scary for me to think how many people like him are out there."

When Judy was 13, he posed as a Boy Scout and forced his way into a woman's home in Indianapolis. He raped her then stabbed her with a pocket knife 41 times, until the blade broke. He then took a hatchet to her head, fracturing her skull and cutting off a finger on her left hand as she tried to block his blows. For that brutal attack, he spent 6 months at a center for delinquent juveniles.

From there, he was admitted to Central State Hospital and diagnosed as a sexual psychopath. He stayed there from October 1970 until January 1973, when he was released to the custody of foster parents Bob and Mary Carr. The Carrs, who had several young children at the time, said they didn't know the violent details of Judy's past. They bailed him out of jail after an armed robbery arrest a week before he killed Chasteen and her children.

Judy admitted the killings. Harris argued that his client was not guilty because he was insane. The state had to prove he was not. Prosecutors Gray and Oliver worried. "A guy kills three little kids and a mother? You worry the jury will think, 'Only a crazy person could do that,' " Gray said. "That was our fear." And if the jury had found Judy not guilty by reason of insanity, he would have been sent to a mental hospital until he was deemed cured, then released.

At the time, Indiana did not give jurors the option of guilty but mentally ill. But jurors agreed that Judy knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong. He was not crazy. He was guilty. And unlike most killers, he wanted to die. In many ways, Judy's refusal to allow appeals on his behalf to stop the death penalty made it easier to support and carry out - just as his threats to jurors and others in the case had made the penalty of death inevitable. He let Judge Jeffrey Boles know he wanted to die. "I honestly want you to give me the death penalty because one day I may get out," he said to Boles. "If you don't want another death hanging over your head, I think that's the only thing you can do."

Harris said his client wanted to take some kind of action at the sentencing hearing to make sure he was sentenced to death. "He said he was going to jump over the table and choke Tom Gray, and I told him that no, he shouldn't do that, that someone might shoot him, and that it might be me."

Then Judy asked whether he could address the jurors. Harris said yes, but asked him to keep it clean. In a chilling moment, Judy threatened them, one by one, saying he would come after them and their families if he ever got out.

"I never go across that bridge without thinking of those people he killed," said Sappington, the jury foreman, who lives just a few miles away. "And I never lost one night's sleep over our decision. We had no choice." Sappington is a Catholic. His faith opposes capital punishment. "I've had to cope with that," he said. "I'm a man of conscience, and I thought it might bother me." But it has not. "If anyone against the death penalty had seen and heard what I did, they might reconsider," he said. "The world is better off."

Death came quickly for Steven Judy once he halted the appeals process. There was no delay, no stay of execution. No years on death row. Harris, his court-appointed attorney, was there 'til the end. "One of the last things he said to me was, 'You know, this is the best thing,' ," Harris said. "And even though I knew it was probably the right thing to do, it's hard to go through an execution with someone." He felt an obligation to be there for his client. And a series of phone lines had been established in case Judy asked for a last-minute stay from the governor. "About a half-hour before the execution, he wavered," Harris said. A nervous, chain-smoking Judy offered some advice. "He said, 'If you ever have another client who wants the death penalty, tell them not to do it.' Then he was making jokes again. He said he was going to quit smoking."

Judy was offered a 10-milligram injection of valium. His lawyer urged him to refuse it so he could think clearly. Judy wanted the shot and quickly relaxed. They said goodbye in a small, barred cell furnished with a toilet and sink that didn't work. "We shook hands, he said, 'Thanks, this is the right thing, don't feel bad about it,' and that was it."

Harris took a seat in the viewing room. The next time he saw Judy, he was being led to the electric chair. A black cloth covered his face. He was about 15 feet away, beyond a glass panel. Four guards stood on each side. They strapped him in and attached a metal saucer to his head and electrodes to one leg. Judy's last words were, "I don't hold no grudges. It was my doing. I'm sorry it happened.

A few minutes after 1 a.m., the warden spoke the words: "Commence the execution." After it began, Judy's body stiffened, smoke came out of his head, and he shook violently, Harris said. Witnesses sat in silence, waiting 4.5 minutes to make sure Judy's heart had stopped beating so a physician could declare him dead.

One of Judy's last acts was handing over a letter to his lawyer. He asked Harris to wait until after the execution to read it. Judy had said he would admit to other crimes, other murders, he had committed. Harris figured this was the written admission. Inside were several pages of stenographer's notebook paper. Written on the first page was this: "I'm sorry, Steve, but I've decided to handle it this way because I care too much for my foster mom and family. I hope you can understand. Thank you for all you've done for me." Judy signed his name. The remaining pages were blank.

"That little son of a *bi+ch*," Harris said. Judy's was the first, and last, capital punishment case for Harris. "It's by choice," he said. "I'll never do another one."  

[mst3k4evur]

On July 6, 1964 Theresa Knorr called the police to her Galt, Nevada home to report she had shot her husband in self defense after he began beating her in a drunken rage. When the police arrived they found Clifford Sanders lying face down in front of the door and a bullet from a deer rifle in his chest. Despite his 18 year old wife’s claims, an autopsy showed the bullet had passed through his wrist because he was holding his hands in front of him, apparently begging for his life. The examiner also found no powder burns indicative of the close contact gunshot that Theresa claimed and no alcohol in his system. Years later, it would emerge that Clifford Sanders’ had become so tired of his irrational, jealous and violent wife that he had packed his bags and decided to leave-only to be shot before he could. Taking the stand, telling a story of abuse and aided by a general belief that women were unlikely to kill, she was able to beat the charges. She then turned her attention to her children.

Theresa Knorr was never a loving mother, but as the years she began to isolate and abuse her children, five from various fathers, including physical and sexual abuse. As she grew older she drank and ballooned to over 250 lbs while her three daughters entered their teenage years as beautiful, slender girls. This was enough reason for Knorr to begin beating and force feeding her daughters Suesan, Sheila and Terry. At times she would made large amounts of macaroni and cheese covered in lard and, forcing her daughters to sit cross legged on the floor, place the burning hot pot on their bare legs and force them to eat by beating them. When they threw up she forced them to eat their own vomit. Then Knorr forced her daughters into prostitution through violence. When Suesan, 14, tried to leave her abusive mother, Knorr shot her in the chest. She survived, but to avoid ballistics evidence Knorr cut the bullet out of her daughter. When the wound became infected Knorr forced her two young sons to help her bring the girl into the desert where Knorr then lit her still living daughter on fire. She died July 16 1984 but would not be identified until 1993.

Knorr then murdered her eldest daughter Sheila, 20, apparently enraged that she contracted a venereal disease after Knorr forced her into prostitution. She was pummeled by her mother and locked in the closet. There she was left to die of dehydration over the course of a week. Despite near constant begging her mother refused to give her water and her brothers and surviving sister were two afraid to help her. Her body was placed in a cardboard box and dumped at the side of a road.

After burning the house where the murders occurred Knorr’s surviving daughter Terry left home and quickly told the police what she knew. Sadly, she would spend these years drinking heavily and doing drugs and so carried little weight with local police. In 1993, a homicide detective chose to investigate the claims and one of Knorr’s sons confessed. Knorr plead guilty, apparently after a guarantee from the DA not to charge her sons, and is serving two life sentences. She will be eligible for parole in 2027.

[Charlene]

Good grief, these older cases that I am unfamiliar with are shocking me.

Arthur Frederick Goode, III was a child molester who went on a crime spree that resulted in the abduction, sexual assault and murder of two boys and the kidnapping and sexual assaults of at least one other boy.

In his teenage years, Goode had been arrested three times for sexually assaulting minors in his neighborhood. His parents bailed him out each time. In March of 1975, Goode was again arrested on five sexual assault charges regarding a 9-year-old boy. His parents paid the $25,000 bond but while out on bail, Good molested an 11-year-old boy. Incredibly, he received only a 5 year probation sentence, on the condition that he undergo voluntary psychiatric treatment at a state hospital.

Less than four months later, Goode left the hospital and hopped a bus for home. A bench warrant was issued but no further action was taken to arrest Goode.

On March 5, 1976, Goode asked 9-year-old Jason Verdow to help him find something in the woods near a bus stop where the boy was waiting. Goode later said, "I told him he was going to die and described how I would kill him. I asked him if he had any last words and he said, "I love you," and then I strangled him." Goode said he strangled the boy by putting a belt around his neck and swinging him through the air. The body of Jason Verdow was found near Pondella Road in Cape Coral, Florida, nude except for his socks. A memorial park was later established in Jason's name in Cape Coral, Florida.

Goode was questioned in Jason's murder on two occasions, so he left town and returned to the state hospital, however he did not remain long. He imagined that the receptionist was calling the police to turn him in so he fled.

He then kidnapped 10-year-old paperboy Billy Arthes, taking him to Washington, D.C. where they spent the next 10 days touring the capital. On March 20, Goode picked up 11-year-old Kenny Dawson and took him and Billy on a bus to Tysons Corner, Virginia. While there, Goode took the boys on a hike in a wooded area where he forced Kenny to undress, sexually assaulted him and then strangled him with a belt in front of a frightened and horrified Billy.

That same week, a woman in Falls Church recognized Billy Arthes from news photos and called the police, resulting in Goode's arrest and Billy's rescue.

When Goode was placed under arrest, he said to police, "You can't to nothing to me. I'm sick." Goode wrote a letter to Jason's parents, saying, "Ha! Ha! I murdered your sexy little boy, Jason, and I'm proud of it!"

Goode was tried in Maryland for Kenny Dawson's murder and sentenced to life in prison. Extradited to Florida, Goode went on trial for the murder of Jason Verdow. Goode acted as his own attorney and a brave 11-year-old Billy Arthes testified that he was in Goode's company for several days shortly after Jason Verdow's murder and that Goode had told him that he had killed Jason.

After Billy's brave testimony was complete, Goode handed him a piece of candy and said: "I love you, Billy. Goodbye." The trial judge's handling of the matter was forceful, effective and appropriate. He called a recess for coffee, and forcefully reprimanded Goode out of the presence of the jury.

Goode, although he declined to plead guilty, systematically and cleverly brought out evidence to assure his own conviction, testified in gory detail as to his guilt, and argued to the jury that he should be convicted and sentenced to death. In the sentencing phase Goode himself testified, in awful specificity, of his willingness to kill again: "The next statement I have here to prove my guilt, is if Judge John Shearer would authorize this next statement, which I know he won't--I know you won't authorize it--but if the judge would authorize me to murder a little boy ... I am ready right now, I am ready right now to murder another little boy. I am strictly a dangerous, cold-blooded murderer."

Prosecutor Joe D’Alessandro said Goode once asked him to visit his jail cell. “I wasn’t there five minutes when he invoked something in me that has never been invoked," he said. “I wanted to hurt him. If I had been there alone, I would have hurt him. That scared me."

In pronouncing the sentence on March 21, 1977, the trial court judge said, "If organized society is to exist with the compassion and love that we all espouse, there comes a point when we must terminate that, and there are certain cases and certain times when we can no longer help, we can no longer rehabilitate and there are certain people, and Arthur Goode is one of them, that's actions demand that society respond and all we can do is exterminate. Philosophically I believe that in certain limited instances we should do that. In this particular case that is my opinion, and that is my order, and the only answer I know that will once and for all guarantee society, at least as far as it relates to this man, is that he will never again kill, maim, torture or harm another human being. You have violated the laws, you have had your trial and I am convinced that the punishment is just and proper, and truthfully, may God have mercy on your soul."

Goode was known as the "most hated man on the row." Other inmates threw things at him and even ministers avoided contact with him.

In 1984, a reporter from Baltimore interviewed Goode extensively. www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13919 During the interview, Goode said, "There's nothing wrong with me. It's the damn people in society who are prejudiced against pedophilia. There's every reason in the world why I want to be executed. Of course, that's the last thing I really want because I'd like to be on the street doing sex with young boys. What I want to do is get a legal way to marry a boy. Society doesn't have the right to get into my business."

He also said, "Kenny Dawson, I wish I hadn't killed him. He was one of the nicest kids I ever met." When asked later if he felt guilt about killing the boys, Goode said, "Yeah, I do. You see, I loved the kids. That's one thing I hate to do, but it's my way to protest. I feel proud I killed those two kids knowing that society will never let me have sex with kids again. At least I can pay them back."

Every line of questioning on other topics was almost instantly turned back to pedophilia by Goode. "I like children in general, be friends with them. I'm like a clown. I'd like to be a scoutmaster. People don't understand pedophilia. In other words, there's going to be more kids missing and killed until society understands and possibly considers pedophilia. In the future they're going to have to do something. people better start considering all sorts of life, not just being selfish on normal sex. They need to understand what it is, not that they're going to like it, but they've got to accept it and understand it. Somehow they must legalize it in certain ways or their kids will be raped or molested. People are responsible for their own kids."

He talked about assaulting a 13-year-old boy in Baltimore. "I lured a 13-year-old boy in the woods in Dundalk area and I had sex with him and kept all his clothes. They found him, some motorist saw him coming out of the woods with no clothes on. I had actually tried to kill him. I gave him some Dramamine. That was before I knew anything about strangling. The thing that was funny is that he came out of the woods with no clothes on."

Eight years after Jason's murder, Goode was executed in the electric chair. Goode cried as he made his final statement. "I want to apologize to my parents. I have remorse for the two boys I murdered. But it's difficult for me to show it."

[Charlene]

State:
Virginia

Victim name:
Orline Christian
Michael McDuffie
Mary McGowen, 76
Christopher Phillips, 17
Johnny Harvey Gallaher
Mary Wilfong, 62
Blanche Page, 79
Charles Garner, 59
Judy Diane Barton, 23
Harvey Wilkerson
Harvey Wayne Barton, 5
unborn Barton child

Linwood Briley was sentenced to death for the murder of John Harvey Gallaher in Richmond, Virginia, on the evening of September 14, 1979, however, Linwood's first murder had been committed at the young age of 16. At home alone and bored, Linwood Briley picked up a rifle, aimed and shot it at his elderly next door neighbor Orline Christian as she walked past her window. Orline was fatally wounded. At first her death was believed to be of natural causes, but her family noticed a small amount of blood on her back during a viewing of the body and asked the funeral director to check it. He found a small caliber bullet wound in Orline's back and the murder was discovered.

Seeking to determine the source of the shot, investigators stood at the window in which Orline had been shot, and determined that the shot could only have come from the Briley home next door. Police found the rifle that had been used to kill Orline and when they questioned Linwood, he readily admitted to the murder, stating, "I heard she had heart problems; she would have died soon anyway." Linwood served one year of time in a reform school for Orline's murder.

Linwood's brother James soon was sentenced to time in juvenile detention after firing on a police officer during a pursuit.

On March 12, 1979, a deadly crime spree began with an attack on a couple in Henrico County. William and Virginia Bucher opened the door to Linwood Briley when he knocked and told them he was having car trouble and needed to phone for assistance. Once inside their home, he pulled out a gun and was joined by his brother Anthony. The couple was bound and the pair looted the house of electronics and jewelry. The brothers doused each room with gasoline as they left it. They threw a match on the gasoline and fled the house, leaving the couple in the growing inferno. William Burcher managed to work free of his bonds and got himself and his wife out of the house before the entire structure was engulfed in flame.

On March 21, the gang murdered Michael McDuffie, a vending machine repairman, in his home. He was robbed and shot to death.

On April 9, Mary McGowen, 76, was attacked outside her home as she returned from a babysitting job. She was raped, robbed and shot to death.

On July 4, 17-year-old Christopher Philips was spotted by the gang members in the vicinity of Linwood Briley's parked car. Suspecting that he might have been trying to break into the vehicle, the gang surrounded him and dragged him into a nearby backyard. There he was pinned to the ground by three members. When Philips screamed for help, Linwood murdered him by dropping a cinderblock on his skull, crushing it.

On September 14, "DJ Johnny G" John Gallaher was performing with his band at a bar in the city of Richmond. He took a smoke break between sets and was abducted by the Briley gang, which included the thre brothers Linwood, James and Anthony and sixteen-year-old Duncan Meekins. After being jumped by Linwood and stuffed into the trunk of his car, a Lincoln Continental, he was driven to an abandoned paper mill on Mayo's Island in the middle of the James River. He was taken out of the trunk and was shot dead at point-blank range, and then robbed before being dumped in the river. His body was found two days later. Meekins testified to the circumstances of the robbery and the brutal shooting of Gallaher in the back as he was being pushed helplessly about by the group. When eventually arrested, Linwood Briley was wearing a ring that he had stolen from Johnny's hand.

On September 30, 62-year-old private nurse Mary Wilfong was followed home to her Richmond apartment. The gang surrounded her just outside the door and Linwood Briley crushed her skull with a baseball bat. The gang then entered her apartment and looted it of valuables.

Several days later on October 5, just two blocks from the Briley home on 4th Avenue in Richmond, 79-year-old Blanche Page and her 59-year-old boarder Charles Garner were both brutally murdered by the gang members. Blanche was bludgeoned to death and Charles was fatally assaulted with a variety of weapons, which included a baseball bat, five knives, a pair of scissors, and a fork. The scissors and fork were left embedded in Charles Garner's back.

On October 19, after promising a judge that morning that he was staying out of trouble while out on parole for a 1973 robbery and malicious wounding conviction, James Briley led the gang on the prowl for yet another victim that night. When Harvey Wilkerson noticed the gang down the street from his home and, becoming nervous, closed and locked the front door. Unfortunately, this did not escape the notice of the gang, and put the target on the house. They walked over and knocked, and Harvey opened the door, afraid of what would happen if he did not.

Harvey, his 23-year-old wife Judy Barton, eight months pregnant, and their five-year-old son Harvey were bound and gagged with duct tape. Linwood Briley then pushed Judy into the kitchen where she was raped within earshot of her husband and child as well as the other gang members. Fellow gang member Duncan Meekins then raped Judy, after which she was dragged back into the living room. Linwood briefly rummaged the premises for valuables, and then left the house.

The three remaining gang members covered their victims with sheets. James told Meekins, "you've got to get one", at which point Meekins took a pistol and fatally shot the Harvey Wilkerson in the head. James then shot Judy and her little boy to death.

Police happened to be in the general vicinity of the neighborhood, heard the shots, and later saw the gang members running down the street at high speed. They did not know where the shots had been fired. The bodies were not discovered until three days following the crime, but the gang members were rounded up soon afterwards. This triple homicide marked the end of the Briley rampage in the City of Richmond.

During interrogation by police, Duncan Meekins was offered a plea agreement in return for turning state's evidence against the Brileys. He took the offer and offered a full detailing of the crime spree. As a result, he escaped the death penalty and was briefly incarcerated at a Virginia prison away from any of the Briley brothers.

A single life sentence, with parole eligibility was handed down to Anthony Briley, youngest brother of the trio, due to his limited involvement in the killings. Because of Virginia's triggerman statute, both James and Linwood received numerous life sentences for murders committed during the spree, but faced capital charges only in cases where they had physically committed the actual killing of the victim.

Linwood was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder of John Gallaher, while James received two death sentences, one each of the murders of Judy Barton and her son Harvey.

A Richmond judge presiding at one of the trials summed up the case following the verdict, "this was the vilest rampage of rape, murder and robbery that the court has seen in thirty years."

Both were sent to death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center near Boydton in early 1980. There, they were disruptive inmates who used their guile and physical prowess to threaten both fellow inmates and guards. A flourishing drug and weapon trade operated in the prison under their command.

Linwood and James Briley were the ringleaders in the six inmate escape from Virginia's death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center on May 31, 1984. During the early moments of the escape, in which a coordinated effort resulted in inmates taking over the death row unit, both Brileys expressed strong interest in killing the officers that they had taken hostage. They went so far as to douse captive guards in lighter fluid and were prepared to toss in a lit match to complete the action. Willie Lloyd Turner, another death row inmate, stepped in the way of James Briley and forbade him from doing so. Meanwhile, cop killer Wilbert Evans prevented Linwood Briley from raping a female nurse who had been taken hostage while en route to delivering medication to inmates in the unit.

Splitting off from their two remaining free escapees at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Brileys went to live with their uncle in the north of the city. They were captured on June 19 by a heavily armed group of FBI agents and police. Returned to Virginia, few sought to plead for their lives to be spared.

In short order, the remaining appeals ran out for both brothers. They were executed in the electric chair at the Virginia State Penitentiary. Linwood was put to death in Virginia's electric chair on October 12, 1984. James Briley was executed in the same manner on April 18 of the following year.

[draco]

Yo, Charlene! Paragraphs please. Doc, bann her!

[Shaka]

Aug 26, 2008 22:41:59 GMT -6 mst3k4evur said:

Stephen Hugueley, 40
Death Row State of Tennessee

Written by mst3k4evur from News, documentary and prodp sources.

On a night in 1984 Stephen Hugueley, then a 16 boy still living with his mother in Tennessee, was on the phone with his 26-year-old girlfriend, talking about a date they had planned for later. His mother had never approved of the relationship and upon seeing her son on phone referred to the woman as a ‘whore.’ Huguely then told the woman that he was “fixin to kill this b*tch” but that they would still go out later. He then shot his mother in the head with a rifle, put his mother’s corpse in the trunk of his car and threw it off a bridge. He went on his date but was arrested soon after. He was caught and sentenced to life in prison with a chance at parole after 25 years. To this day he expresses no regrets for his mother’s murder-or the two that would follow.

“She was sticking her nose in my love life,” he said later. It would be a common theme, show Hugueley the slightest disrespect and he would kill-and kill brutally.

It would be just five years after his 1986 conviction that he would kill again. This time it was inmate James Shelton in the West Tennessee State Prison in 1991. Shelton had been stabbed over 60 times with a homemade knife and bludgeoned with a pillow case full of d-cell batteries. He was convicted again sentenced to life, this time with no parole.

“I’ve never lost a moment of sleep over anything I’ve ever done,” said Huguely during a documentary interview.

Hugueley claims Shelton had come to his cell the day of the murder to threaten him, but it seems unlikely given the weapons Huguely had with him. Most likely the murder stemmed from Hugueley’s other complaint about the victim: he made too much noise.

In 1997 he tried again, repeatedly stabbing another inmate, only the poor construction of this knife saved the victim.

In 2002, one man decided he was not impressed with Hugueley, no longer the teenager he had been in 1984 but a hulking, muscular adult with a tattoo of a swastika across his forhead. Counselor Delbert Steed began filing disciplinary reports on Hugueley and was unsympathetic to his demands for art supplies, perhaps because they included sharp pencils, and his request for a cleaner cell mate. Hugueley also claims that Steed made ‘derogatory remarks’ about the twice convicted murderer. After grievances filed on the matter were ignored Hugueley made another knife and confronted Steed in the hallway of the Hardeman County Correctional Facility. He stabbed him and kept stabbing as Steed fell to the ground, using a weapon fashioned from a piece of metal melted into a magic marker. Hugueley later explained his desire to stab through the lungs and the heart. He did and Hugueley committed his third murder.

After he received a death sentence for Steed’s murder, Huguely dropped his appeals but then resumed them as his execution date neared in 2006. He believes that he may kill again.

“It may be one year, five years or 10 years, but sooner or later, somebody will do something to set me off,” he said.

He remains incarcerated at the Administrative Segregation unit of the Brushy Mountain Maximum Security Prison, awaiting execution rather than with other death row inmates at Riverbend Prison because of the unique threat he poses. According to inmate and close friend Ron Mosby, Hugueley is the most feared inmate in the state of Tennessee.

I remember the documentary and this a creep you don't easily forget. Plus the swastika across his forehead tends to stick in my mind. I don't think he is scared of being put to death especially by LI, honestly this is the kind of guy they invented Old Sparky for.

[lawrence]

My god , Charlene, i hope you take time out from reading all this rubbish and depressing accounts of murder. Its enough to turn anyone inside out with dispair. It is hard for me as an anti to remain so after reading some of these accounts. There truly is some scum about.

[Felix2]

Aug 26, 2008 19:55:46 GMT -6 @jasmine said:

It\'s hard to retain any opposition to the death penalty after reading that account.

In his specific case or all cases?

[Charlene]

Sept 3, 2008 2:30:19 GMT -6 lawrence said:

My god , Charlene, i hope you take time out from reading all this rubbish and depressing accounts of murder. Its enough to turn anyone inside out with dispair. It is hard for me as an anti to remain so after reading some of these accounts. There truly is some scum about.

I was reviewing some of the older pages on the main site and discovered that I had a lot of missing case histories. For the past week or so, most of my free time has been spent updating these case histories that were missing. I am very fortunate to have as a resource the person who has built the most extensive DP database in the world, K. William Hayes, and his files have helped me find appellate rulings on these old cases as well as fill in some of the details that aren't always included in those rulings.

Some of these cases happened long before I had taken notice of murder victims, outside of saying tsk tsk when I watched the evening news, so I was unaware of them. Even I can't believe how awful some of these are.

But yes, I do take breaks!

[lawrence]

I know what you mean. I don't know if your aware of a particular nasty event that happened a few days ago over here in blighty.

A guy who seemed quite well to do and his family went missing from there mansion house. No sign of them. The house and out buildings were burnt down and all the family animals were shot and burned. Then Police found the remains of three bodies in the house. It was later found that the Owner (sorry forget his name) shot his wife in the head. Then (this is the bit i cant get my head around) he went to his daughter and killed her too, 15 years old and a very pretty girl with the whole of her life ahead of her.

It appears that his business failed and he was having investigations into his affairs with money etc , his house was under supervision of the tax and fraud office so he thought sod it.

it is thought that he went insane and thought If i worked all my life for this, I'm buggered if the state are having it. So in anger, he went about burning his house and outbuildings down, killed his wife and daughter and then himself. The police have the evidence on CCTV apparently. What a scumbag. Why kill his wife and daughter, why didn't he just commit suicide? its truly a baffling and horrible case.

[Charlene]

Ernest John Dobbert, Jr., who had prior convictions for battery of a child and assault, was convicted of murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, child abuse, and child torture. The victims were his children.

He was convicted of the first-degree murder of his daughter Kelly Ann, aged 9, and second-degree murder of his son Ryder Scott, aged 7. He was also found guilty of torturing his son Ernest John III, aged 11, and of abusing his daughter Honore Elizabeth, aged 5.

The trial judge, in his factual findings at the sentencing phase of the trial, summarized Dobbert's treatment of his own offspring as follows: "The evidence and testimony showed premeditated and continuous torture, brutality, sadism and unspeakable horrors committed against all of the children over a period of time."

The judge then detailed some of the horrors inflicted upon young Kelly Ann, upon which he relied to meet the statutory requirement that aggravating circumstances be found: "Over the period of time of the latter portion of Kelly Ann's short, torturous life the defendant did these things to her on one or many occasions:

• Beat her in the head until it was swollen.
• Burned her hands.
• Poked his fingers in her eyes.
• Beat her in the abdomen until `it was swollen like she was pregnant.'
• Knocked her against a wall and `when she fell, kicked her in the lower part of the body.'
• Held her under water in both the bath tub and toilet.
• Kicked her against a table which cut her head - then defendant sewed up her wound with needle and thread.
• Scarred her head and body by beating her with a belt and board - causing marks from her cheek, across the neck and down her back - which injuries worsened without treatment `until the body juices came out.'
• On one occasion beat her continuously for 45 minutes.
• On many occasions kicked her in the stomach with his shoes on, and on the night she died he kicked her a number of times.
• Kept her out of school so that the many scars, cuts and bruises on her body would not be seen by others.
• Dobbert made no effort to get professional medical care and attention for the child and in fact actively prevented any outsiders from discovering her condition.
• Choked her on the night she died and when she stopped breathing he placed her body in a plastic garbage bag and buried her in an unmarked and unknown grave."

This sordid tale began to unravel in early 1972 when Ernest John III was found battered and wandering in Jacksonville, Fla. An arrest warrant was issued for the father, who evidently had fled the area.

About a year later, Honore Elizabeth was found in a Ft. Lauderdale hospital with a note pinned to her clothing asking that she be sent to her mother in Wisconsin. Shortly thereafter Dobbert's abandoned automobile was found near a bridge with a suicide note on the front seat. Dobbert, however, had fled to Texas, where he was eventually arrested and extradited to Florida.

In overriding the jury's recommendation for a life sentence, the trial court judge said, "There are sufficient and great aggravating circumstances which exist to justify the sentence of death. In concluding my findings I would like to point out that my 22 years of legal experience have been almost exclusively in the field of criminal law. The Judge of this Court has been a defense attorney of criminal cases, a prosecutor for eight and one half years and a Criminal Court Judge and a Circuit Judge - Felony Division for three and one half years. During these 22 years I have defended, prosecuted and held trial of almost every type of serious crime. During these years of legal experience I have never known of a more heinous, atrocious and cruel crime than this one. My experience with the sordid, tragic and violent side of life has not been confined to the Courtroom. During World War II, I was a United States Army Paratrooper and served overseas in ground combat. I have had friends blown to bits and have seen death and suffering in every conceivable form. I am not easily shocked or affected by tragedy or cruelty - but this murder of a helpless, defenseless and innocent child is the most cruel, atrocious and heinous crime I have ever personally known of - and it is deserving of no sentence but death." 

[lawrence]

There is nothing that can be said that wasnt said in the last paragraph. Jesus. I hope that POS suffered befor he died. What has happened to the other kids, how have they turned out. How much were they effected by this treatment and what do they do as adults, employment wise,are any married and have kids?

Where were the neighbours when this was going on, where were the social services, the reports from teachers etc, the hospitals, the police. How could this have happened.

[unkelremus]

This is the very reason that the DP is so important. I sure it does not deters some murders; however, P.O.S. like these will never enjoy this world again, and they need to be put out pronto.

[trogdor]

Google Gary Heidnik.

It don't get much worst than that.

[mst3k4evur]

Charlene, you should probably cover the Hi Fi killers as I haven't had the chance to read Victim yet.

[Charlene]

Sept 3, 2008 8:13:23 GMT -6 lawrence said:

There is nothing that can be said that wasnt said in the last paragraph. Jesus. I hope that POS suffered befor he died. What has happened to the other kids, how have they turned out. How much were they effected by this treatment and what do they do as adults, employment wise,are any married and have kids?

Where were the neighbours when this was going on, where were the social services, the reports from teachers etc, the hospitals, the police. How could this have happened.

My brother and I were talking about this case the other day, because we were discussing how important the first few years of life are in building your character, in creating the adult human being you are going to become. We wondered how someone overcomes a beginning like this. I hope those kids, now grown, are the exceptions to the rule and got the proper counseling and assistance needed to help them recover from their father's abuses.

Because these appellate rulings are strictly about the killer and the crime, there is no information contained in them about how the people around them could have not seen and stopped this abuse, but the ruling does say that he kept that little girl out of school and away from people who might have helped her.

[ichy]

The nastiest guy I can think of locally is Steven H. Oken, who was executed by the state of Maryland in 2004 for the rape, torture and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin. In addition to Garvin, Oken sexually assaulted and killed two other women, his sister-in-law Patricia Hirt, and a young motel clerk from Maine named Lori Ward. I seem to recall reading that when Oken was arrested some of Ward's brain matter was still in his hair. Not quite as vile as what the Hi Fi Killers did, but still an extraordinarily loathsome individual who committed three horrific crimes.

[ichy]

Oh, how could I forget Raymont Hopewell. He raped and murdered four elderly women (Constance Willis, aged 60, Sarah Shannon, aged 88, Sadie Mack, aged 78 and Lydia Wigfield, also 78), beat and strangled to death 82-year old Carlton Crawford, and raped but did not kill 63-year old Rosellen McDavid. God only know what other crimes he may have committed but wasn't convicted for. Unfortunately our cowardly state's attorney allowed Hopewell to plead guilty in exchange for life w/o parole, so he'll get to live out the next few decades with room & board provided by Maryland's taxpayers. I can only hope that he'll meet a violent end in prison. I realize there's no honor among thieves, but even most hoodlums should be repulsed by Hopewell's crimes.

[Shaka]

Sept 3, 2008 21:09:16 GMT -6 ichy said:

The nastiest guy I can think of locally is Steven H. Oken, who was executed by the state of Maryland in 2004 for the rape, torture and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin. In addition to Garvin, Oken sexually assaulted and killed two other women, his sister-in-law Patricia Hirt, and a young motel clerk from Maine named Lori Ward. I seem to recall reading that when Oken was arrested some of Ward's brain matter was still in his hair. Not quite as vile as what the Hi Fi Killers did, but still an extraordinarily loathsome individual who committed three horrific crimes.

It's official I've been here toooooooo long, that was way back in the days when you didn't have to be a board member. As I recall that was the scumbag who claimed he shouldn't be executed because the DP is racist even though he was white. There was something about narrow veins too. It was a good day when that POS was executed.

[Deleted]

We don't have the death penalty in Australia, but we do have many worthy candidates for such a penalty.

[Deleted]

Charlene,

You seem to be looking at florida and I remember the name Thomas Knight. I cannot remember what he did to put himself on death row, but I do remember he was sentenced to death again for murdering a prison guard. I think he would rank up the top near the worst of the worst

[Californian]

Aug 31, 2008 10:03:55 GMT -6 Charlene said:

When Goode was placed under arrest, he said to police, "You can't to nothing to me. I'm sick." Goode wrote a letter to Jason's parents, saying, "Ha! Ha! I murdered your sexy little boy, Jason, and I'm proud of it!"

If a cop had put a bullet in his head for that act, would anyone really blame him?