Posts Tagged ‘Murder’

Defense Attorney: Prosecution of Gosnell Is ‘Elitist, Racist’

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

Defense lawyer Jack McMahon delivered his closing argument on behalf of abortionist Kermit Gosnell on Monday, accusing  prosecutors of “manipulating” the case to engage in an essentially “racist” prosecution of the man charged with four counts of first-degree murder, killing babies born alive during abortions by snipping their spinal cords with surgical scissors.

“Never have I seen the presumption of innocence so trampled on, stomped on,” said McMahon in court today, adding that the Philadelphia district attorney’s office “tried to manipulate everybody” and was pursuing an “elitist, racist prosecution.”

“Dr. Gosnell is not the only one doing abortions in Philadelphia,” McMahon said, “but he was an African American singled out for prosecution.”

“We know why he was targeted,” he said.  “If you can’t see that reality, you’re living in some sort of la-la land.”

Speaking for nearly two hours before the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, McMahon painted Gosnell as a doctor who cared for his community “providing a service” to vulnerable young girls.

He talked about 13-  and 14-year-old “desperate young girls.”

“And who comes to help them?” McMahon asked.  “Dr. Gosnell.”

“He gave them a solution to their problem,” he said.  “They went in for a service and Dr. Gosnell got it done.”

Gosnell, 72, is facing four counts of first-degree murder for the killing of babies born alive after abortions, and a third-degree murder charge in the anesthesia-overdose death of a mother, Karnamaya Mongar, at his clinic the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia.

He is also charged with infanticide, conspiracy, abortion at 24 or more weeks, theft, corruption of minors, solicitation and other related offenses.

The grand jury report presented in the case asserted that Gosnell killed “hundreds” of babies over the years, by cutting their spinal cords with scissors after they survived late-term abortions.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/defense-attorney-prosecution-gosnell-elitist-racist

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Idaho inmate charged with 1983 rape, murder in Ogden

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

Ogden • Weber County’s top prosecutor expects a man charged late last week with the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl to be extradited from Idaho within the next two months.

Speaking to reporters at a Monday morning news conference, Weber County Attorney Dee Smith outlined the case against Gregory L. Seamons, and lauded Ogden detectives for solving a 29-year-old mystery, bringing closure to Rebecca Lemberger’s mother.”There isn’t anything that can happen now that can undo what happened to her daughter back in 1983,” Smith said. “But she’s got some answers now.”

An arrest warrant filed in 2nd District Court alleges Seamons, 44, was the person who killed 11-year-old Rebecca, who went missing after walking to Edison Elementary School on March 2, 1983.

After she was reported missing, a pair of 11-year-old classmates grabbed BB guns from their homes and told their parents they were “going to look for Becky,” according to news accounts at the time. They found her in a wooden shed near the school. She was underneath an old mattress, wrapped in a blanket. Police said her head had been smashed at least eight times with a rock.

Evidence collected at the scene indicated Rebecca also had been raped. Nearly 30 years later, officials said a DNA match led them to Seamons, who is serving prison time in Idaho. According to the warrant, a DNA sample taken by Seamons in July 2011 matched the DNA from the 1983 murder scene, which was placed into a national database. Police also determined that Seamons, who was 15 at the time, was living in the same Ogden neighborhood as the Lembergers at the time she was killed. Police verified the DNA match in October 2011.

Smith credited the Ogden Police Department for its work.

“They feel like they owe it to victims of violent crimes not to let their cases go,” he said. “For the families that have suffered this loss, that never goes away. But if you can provide some answers and closure…it’s very rewarding.”

Seamons was interviewed from prison twice and told police he did not know the victim and was not with her during the time frame when she was murdered.

Seamons has been charged with first-degree murder and rape, both first-degree felonies.

The Idaho Department of Correction website states that Seamons is currently in prison for a second-degree kidnapping conviction. His prison sentence is scheduled to end in 2017.

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Mistrial declared in rape, murder case

Friday, September 14th, 2012

A judge has declared a mistrial in one of the most high-profile murder cases ever heard in a South Florida courtroom.

Joel Lebron, 33, is one of the co-defendants in another trial regarding the gang rape and murder of a teenage girl. He is the fourth person to go on trial for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Ana Maria Angel back in April of 2002.

During the prosecution‘s interview with the lead detective on the case, Thursday afternoon, the detective mentioned the previous convictions of Lebron’s co-defendants. So as not to bias a jury, Judge William Thomas halted testimony and ordered a break. An hour later he decided to declare a mistrial, and he was not happy about it. “This court is forced, forced to grant the motion for mistrial,” he said.

The trial will start again from scratch next week after a new jury is selected. Michelle Perez, one of the jurors dismissed following the mistrial said she believes that Lebron was on his way to being convicted no matter his prior history with the law. “Based on the information that we had up to this point, I can’t see how he would walk out of here an innocent man,” she said, “no matter what jury tries him. There was no way.”

Three other men have already been convicted in this case. According to prosecutors, Ana Maria and her boyfriend, Nelson Portobanco, were on a date, strolling the beach after dinner, when they were kidnapped and robbed by Lebron and four other men.

Portobanco was stabbed and left for dead while Ana Maria was raped by all five men, prosecutors said, then she was shot in the back of the head. Portobanco survived the attack.

A fifth man’s trial remains pending.

Read more: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21008526664952/mistrial-declared-in-rape-murder-case/#ixzz26RQ0hJaN

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Murder suspect’s mom: He didn’t do it

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

Lisa Winquist called her son a “loner” who made “poor choices in friends,” but said she’s confident he’s not responsible for the gruesome murder of two homeless men in a Hingham park seven years ago.

The Hingham mother made the comments outside a Brockton courtroom where her son, James Winquist, is set to go to trial today for the 2005 slayings of William Chrapan, 47, and David Lyons, 49. Jury selection for the trial was expected to wrap up this morning after three days and would be followed by opening remarks from the prosecution and the defense.

James Winquist watched the proceedings in the courtroom Wednesday and made a few hushed comments to his mother, seated on a back bench, before he was placed in handcuffs and led out of the courtroom.

Winquist will face the two murder charges without his one-time co-defendant, Eric Snow, who was found dead in his cell in the Plymouth County jail in March with a plastic bag over his head. That was two months before he and Winquist were originally due to go to trial.

Lisa Winquist said she was confident that her son did not commit the murders, but declined to comment on the role that Snow or any of their acquaintances may have played.

“He’s the only one I can vouch for,” she said. “I know my son didn’t do it.”

Prosecutors say Winquist and Snow attacked the two homeless men with a baseball bat and left their bodies in a former ammunition bunker near Bare Cove Park in Hingham, where they were discovered by a pedestrian in May 2005. Authorities say Winquist later showed off Chrapan’s severed hand at a party and bragged about the killings.

Winquist has been held without bail since he was arrested in 2007, more than two years after the murders. He had been living in Weymouth before his arrest. His mother called the last five years “pure hell” for her family, but said her son has managed to maintain a relationship with his daughter, Aryana, who was 8 months old when her father was arrested.

“She loves her daddy,” Lisa Winquist said. “She makes him pictures all the time.”

Authorities have said Snow and Winquist met while serving time in jail and were members of a white supremacist group that called itself the “Brotherhood of Blood.” Prosecutors said both had their nicknames tattooed on their bodies: “Killa” for Snow and “Twisted” for Winquist.

Read more: Murder suspect’s mom: He didn’t do it – Weymouth, Massachusetts – Weymouth News http://www.patriotledger.com/news/cops_and_courts/x1526500702/Murder-suspects-mom-He-didnt-do-it#ixzz26Lfn0YpI

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Murder Suspect Testifies Attack Was Prompted By Rage Over Rape Of His Girlfriend

Friday, September 7th, 2012

Michael LaBarge, accused of killing and dismembering a 34-year-old drug dealer three years ago, testified at his trial Thursday that he was enraged upon seeing the other man raping his girlfriend on the hood of a car.

LaBarge also testified that he was reminded of the years his father had molested him as a child. He said he recognized the wide-eyed expression on the face of his girlfriend, Sherri Clarke, as fear.

“I charged him. I ran right at him,” LaBarge, 51, said of Cornell Johnson. “I tried to hit him with the bat. I hit him a couple of times in the head.”

He said he then blacked and doesn’t remember stabbing Johnson 19 times, or castrating him, as he is accused of doing.

LaBarge is on trial at Superior Court in New Britain, charged with murder, tampering with evidence, second-degree arson and conspiracy to commit second-degree arson.

On the witness stand, LaBarge said it was love at first site when he met Clarke in April 2009. He said the two of them met Johnson in June that year, and that Clarke started getting crack cocaine from him.

LaBarge testified that on the night of Aug. 29, 2009, by chance, he happened to spot Johnson raping Clarke.

LaBarge said he was stealing catalytic converters from cars at a housing complex on Long Swamp Road, near the Plainville town line, when Clarke accidentally pocket-dialed him. All he could hear was fumbling, he said. He was calling her back a few minutes later, he said, when he saw Johnson drive past with Clarke in the passenger seat. Johnson’s car went over an overpass into Plainville and stopped, and LaBarge said he could see the brake lights and expected the car to turn around. When it didn’t, LaBarge said, he ran toward the car armed with a bat and a knife.

He saw Clarke naked with her face down on the hood of Johnson’s car, and Johnson behind her.

LaBarge said he remembers struggling with Johnson, who was twice as big as him, and hitting him with the bat. But, he said, he doesn’t remember stabbing or castrating him.

Public defender Christopher Eddy, who is representing LaBarge, asked his client why Johnson is dead.

“I don’t know why. Because of what he did to Sherri, raping her,” LaBarge said. “I don’t even know why he’s dead. I know I killed him.”

LaBarge said he regained awareness while showering at his apartment on Putnam Street. In the hours that followed, he said, he and Clarke returned to where Johnson’s body lay because Clarke was afraid Johnson would come back for her.

They pulled the body off the side of the road and took Johnson’s car, LaBarge said. He said he wanted to sell it and make money, but instead they set in on fire in Wallingford.

Clarke wanted to burn it for revenge, LaBarge said.

“Murdering him wasn’t enough? Leaving him there to die like road kill on the side of the road?” asked the prosecutor in the case, New Britain State’s Attorney Brian Preleski.

Preleski asked LaBarge about the phone calls between him and Clarke around the time of the murder. Preleski pointed out that the calls lasted multiple minutes, but LaBarge said he and Clarke never spoke with each other.

Preleski repeatedly asked LaBarge if Johnson and Clarke drove by him on Long Swamp Road by coincidence. The road is lightly traveled and ends at a wooded area in Plainville.

“You called Sherri Clarke back. There was no response and, lo and behold, she drives by this road no one had driven on,” he said.

He asked LaBarge if he ever thought about making money by robbing a drug dealer. LaBarge said, “No.”

After burning Johnson’s car, LaBarge said he went to a Home Depot and purchased hand saws, which he used to dismember the body.

Johnson’s remains were found on Sept. 4, 2009, in a wooded area near the Plainville town line.

Clarke also was charged with murder in the case and is awaiting trial. LaBarge’s trial is scheduled to resume Friday.

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Murder suspect faces new charges

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

The man charged with murdering a Sussex County woman and leaving her body on a rural road in Worcester County faces a slew of new charges after a grand jury indictment.

Matthew Nicholas Burton, 28, of Dagsboro will now stand trial for first-degree murder as well as first-degree rape, second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, fourth-degree sex offense, kidnapping and first-degree assault after being indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury on Tuesday, Aug. 28.

Nicole Bennett was the mother of three children, ages 11, 8 and 15 months. She and her family moved to Sussex County from Philadelphia about two years ago, renting a home in The Peninsula, a gated community in Oak Orchard.

Burton worked as a custodian at Bay Shore Community Church near Gumboro, where Bennett was both a worshipper and a day care worker. Bennett, 35, of Millsboro, was last seen working late at the church on June 14. Her husband, Kevin Bennett, reported her missing when she did not come home that night, and her body was found in a rural area of Worcester County the next morning. Authorities have said she’d been asphyxiated.

Several weeks later, police in Delaware arrested Burton after Maryland prosecutors announced they’d charged him with first- and second-degree murder in Bennett’s death.

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Bennett murder suspect faces new charges

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

The man charged with murdering a Sussex County woman and leaving her body on a rural road in Worcester County faces a slew of new charges after a grand jury indictment.

Matthew Nicholas Burton, of Dagsboro, Del., will now stand trial for first-degree murder as well as first-degree rape, second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, fourth-degree sex offense, kidnapping and first-degree assault after being indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury on Tuesday.

Nicole Bennett was the mother of three children, ages 11, 8 and 15 months. She and her family moved to Sussex County from Philadelphia about two years ago. She was found dead after being reported missing from the Bay Shore Community Church near Gumboro where she worked. Burton, 28, also worked at the church, as a custodian.

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Greensburg murder victim tried to fend off rape

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

Jennifer Daugherty tried to fight off a rape in the final hours of her life, an investigator testified Tuesday during the penalty-phase trial of a former Allegheny County man convicted of her murder.

Westmoreland County prosecutors contend that Daugherty was unsuccessful in her attempts to fend off 22-year-old Melvin Knight, who they say raped her, then fatally stabbed her in the heart.

Former county Detective Adam Jack told jurors that bruises on the 30-year-old victim’s arms and legs were consistent with the kinds of injuries typically seen on the victims of sexual assault.

“Are the injuries consistent with (those) occurring during the course of a rape?” asked District Attorney John Peck.

“Yes they are,” Jack replied.

Peck wants a jury to condemn Knight, a former Swissvale resident, to death for the February 2010 torture slaying of Daugherty.

Police said Knight and five other people who landed in a Greensburg apartment turned on the victim, who was mentally challenged. She had taken a bus into the city from her Mt. Pleasant home and thought she was spending the night with a group of friends.

After two days of captivity, Daugherty was beaten and abused before she was killed, according to prosecutors.

One of the suspects, Angela Marinucci, now 20, was convicted of first-degree murder last year and was sentenced to life in prison. Knight pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in April. Jurors hearing the penalty phase of the trial before Judge Rita Hathaway will be asked to determine whether he should get the death penalty or life imprisonment.

The prosecution contends Knight should be given the death penalty because he tortured and raped Daugherty.

The defense has argued that Knight’s mental illness and hard childhood should spare him.

In court on Tuesday, Jack described bruises on Daugherty’s left hand and right arm as defensive injuries inflicted as she warded off an attack.

Jurors were told that although none of Knight’s genetic material was found on Daugherty, a rape still could have occurred.

Sarah Kinneer, a forensic scientist with the state police crime lab, testified that the lack of evidence doesn’t exclude rape.
“We don’t always find semen. There are many reasons why,” Kinneer testified.

The prosecution for the first time directly linked Knight to Daugherty.

Greensburg Detective Jerry Vernail testified that Daugherty’s outgoing voicemail on her cell phone had been altered.

After her body was discovered in a trash can dumped under a truck parked at Greensburg Salem Middle School in the city, investigators tried Daugherty’s cell phone.

Vernail told jurors the outgoing voice-mail message told callers they had reached “Melvin, Amber and Jules.”

Vernail identified the new message as “Melvin’s voice.”

Knight’s girlfriend, Amber Meidinger, had moved into the Greensburg apartment with him. She and Knight were expecting a child, who was born in the county jail.

Peck will seek the death penalty against Meidinger and co-defendant Ricky Smyrnes in upcoming trials.

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“Kensington Strangler” Guilty of Murders, Rapes

Friday, August 17th, 2012

A Philadelphia judge found the so-called “Kensington Strangler” guilty Thursday of strangling and murdering three women in the city’s Kensington neighborhood.

Judge Jeffrey Minehart then sentenced Antonio Rodriguez to three consecutive life sentences without parole plus decades more behind bars for killing and raping Elaine Goldberg, 21; Nicole Piacentini, 35; and Casey Mahoney, 27.

Minehart found Rodriguez guilty on three counts each of first-degree murder, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and abuse of corpse,according to court records.

Besides the consecutive life sentences for the murders, Rodriguez got 10 to 20 years for each rape charge, 10 to 20 years for each involuntary deviate sexual intercourse charge and one to two years for each abuse of corpse conviction. Those charges are to be served concurrently with the life sentences, according to District Attorney Seth Williams.

The non-jury murder trial for 23-year-old Rodriguez began Monday. Rodriguez was charged with killing three women he picked up for sex in the city’s Kensington neighborhood in November and December 2010.

Rodriguez didn’t speak at Thursday’s sentencing.

Authorities say the victims – Goldberg, Mahoney and Piacentini — struggled with addiction and sometimes worked as prostitutes.

During the trial investigators said DNA evidence links Rodriguez to the killings.

Rodriguez’s life was sparred after prosecutors earlier said that they wouldn’t pursue the death penalty.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Elaine Goldberg, Nicole Piacentini, and Casey Mahoney,” said Williams. “I cannot begin to imagine the pain you are going through, but I hope this verdict will give you some sense of justice.

“The city of Philadelphia is a little bit safer tonight now that Antonio Rodriguez will be spending the rest of his life behind bars.”

Outside of the courtroom the victims’ families hugged one another glad that the killer of their loved ones was never going to be free to hurt anyone else.

“Not only did (Rodriguez) defy them, rape them, strangle them but then he also continued to rape them after they passed away,” said Goldberg’s sister Careen Goldberg. “I like the way the judge put it to the defendant that he didn’t even give them peace when they died that he continued to hurt them after they were gone.”

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Murder charges for man held in home invasion

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

Jermalle Brown

Charges have been upgraded to murder for a 19-year-old accused of home invasion in a July 25 incident on the South Side that left one of his fellow attackers dead, police said.

Jermalle Brown, 19, of the 7100 block of South East End Avenue was charged with murder in the accidental shooting death of Douglas Bufford, 16, police said.

Brown was already in custody because he’d been charged only with committing a home invasion, police said. He had appeared in bond court July 28 and was being held in lieu of $250,000, according to jail records.

Brown did not appear Saturday in court.

Police said that about 9:45 p.m. July 25, four or five males forced their way into a home on the 1400 block of East 73rd Street in the Grand Crossing neighborhood and announced a robbery.

One of a group accidentally shot a fellow attacker, identified as Bufford, in the back of the head with a shotgun, police said. The homeowner wasn’t injured, according to authorities.

In addition to Brown, a 16-year-old was also charged but his name was not available. It was not clear who the shooter was.

An autopsy July 30 determined Bufford died of a shotgun wound to the head, according to the Cook County medical examiner‘s office. Bufford was pronounced dead July 29 at 1:55 p.m. atJohn H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the medical examiner’s office said.

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