By Matt Gryta
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: December 18, 2009, 3:14 PM /
Byron Howard was convicted Thursday of murdering his ex-fiancee and the father of her young son and then setting fire to the house where their bodies were found Jan. 18.
After the week-long nonjury trial that Howard had demanded, Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D’Amico found him guilty as charged of two counts of first-degree murder,
four counts of second-degree murder, arson, burglary and weapons offenses.
He was convicted of killing Chisha Hawkins, 27, 27 and Vernard Millner, 39, in her Dartmouth Avenue home after waiting there three hours for the victims to return from a night out celebrating Hawkins’ birthday and the couple’s recent reunion.
Jailed since his arrest in April, Howard, 22, of Easton Avenue, was sent back to jail until his sentencing Jan. 14. Though he could face 20 years to life in prison, prosecutors said they will urge that he be sentenced to life without parole on his first-degree murder convictions.
After the verdict, Howard’s mother wept loudly, but the victims’ relatives denounced him as a remorseless killer.
While feeling justice had been done, Hawkins’ sister Danielle Johnson—who has obtained custody of her sister’s 3-year-old boy — said, “I don’t wish this type of nightmare on any other families” and denounced Howard as “a sick individual.”
After being shot dead in the second-floor bedroom, both victims were burned beyond recognition.
Though Hawkins had been planning to change the locks after forcing out Howard, who had lived with her about two years, he still had keys to the house and waited there for the victims to come home at about 6 a. m.
Prosecutors Thomas M. Finnerty and Lauren A. Gauthier proved through telephone and cell phone records that Howard was in the house for hours before the murders. The prosecutors also proved through telephone records that between 12:30 and 2:30 a. m. that day Howard made 19 threatening cell phone calls to Millner’s cell phone.
On the stand, Howard claimed that he and Hawkins had mutually agreed to delay their marriage while he enlisted in the U. S. Air Force and completed basic training. He also told the judge the powerfully built Millner had regularly threatened him.
He insisted his friend Brandon “Cobi” Barr, also 22, had actually committed the murders and set fire to the corpses as a favor to him.
But Finnerty and Gauthier had Barr testify Monday about supplying Howard with the .22-caliber murder weapon. Barr said that when he gave Howard the loaded handgun, he was unaware what his friend had planned to do with it.
mgryta@buffnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment