(NECN: Eileen Curran, Manchester, NH) - A 35-hour standoff between police and an armed New Hampshire man came to a deadly end Saturday morning.
James Breton,50, of Manchester was shot and killed by a state police SWAT team officer.
"He had made statements that he was not going to come out alive," said NH Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jeffery Strelzin.
Breton barricaded himself in his home with his seven year old daughter Thursday evening after police had come to his door to do a wellness check on the girl. That morning, the 18 year old daughter of Breton's girlfriend filed a sexual assault complaint against him. When police showed up at his door, they say he brandished a gun.
"It doesn't sound like him at all," said Breton's childhood friend Roland Lecerte. "I guess everybody has a breaking point and I guess it's been going on for about a year he's been under a lot of pressure."
Dozens of SWAT team members responded, there were intense negotiations and the evacuation of nearby homes. Around 6:30 Saturday morning, police went to peer in the window to check on the father and daughter.
Strelzin describes what happened next.
"He reacted extremely angrily to officers, they were up against the building. At that point...it appears he had a handgun and one of the SWAT team members ended up firing, killing him in the process."
A family friend says the daughter was not in the room when her father was shot, but ran in to find him on the floor. Joseph Lavasseur says earlier that morning, Bretton leaned over his daughter as if saying goodbye.
"He gave her his necklace and said I'll be watching over you forever," said Lavasseur.
Police grabbed the girl out of the home and took her to the hospital, where she was checked out and found to be physically ok.
Police recovered a semi-automatic handgun next to Breton's body. An autopsy will be conducted on Monday.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Bainbridge, GA: Triple Murder in Iron City
Two women and a man were killed Saturday afternoon ending what apparently was an ongoing domestic dispute in Iron City Georgia. Larry Easterwood, in his late 50's, is in the custody of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office and charged with 3 counts of Malice Murder according to Seminole County Chief Investigator Dale Swanner. Malice Murder is the strongest murder charge in Georgia.
The scene, Daryl Fink on what he saw, the capture of Easterwood and Sheriff Heath Elliott moments after the capture
Seminole County Sheriff Heath Elliott stated store video showed the 3 victims were in their car at the Iron City convenience store. Larry Easterwood pulled in and walked up to the drivers side window and opened fire on the occupants.
The driver of the car, Christy Scott, was dead at the scene. Her husband, Rodney Scott, was transported to Donalsonville Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Easterwood's ex-girlfriend, Stacy Dismuke, was life-flighted to Tallahassee Memorial where she died. The 3 victims were in their thirties. The Scott's 5 year old daughter, also in the car during the shooting, was unharmed. The murders occurred at about 5:30 pm.
One hour later. Easterwood drove his jeep by the crime scene. Bystanders yelled there he goes and deputies, GBI and GSP all rushed to their cars and took off after him. Moments later he was located and arrested at his home about 2 blocks away. A bystander on scene stated they believed that Easterwood had returned to the area and sat behind a building close by and watched the scene before driving home.
Larry Easterwood had been released from federal prison about 1 1/2 years ago and was on parole. Very upset family members spoke with us saying that Stacy Dismuke and Larry Easterwood had lived together for about a year until about 3 weeks ago. Drugs, alcohol and domestic violence was said to be the cause of the breakup.
Larry Easterwood's mother, sister-in-law and neighbor talk about the domestic situation
Stacy Dismuke then moved in with her best friend and her husband, Christy and Rodney Scott, the other 2 murder victims. Since that time, there appears to have been ongoing harassment between Stacy and Easterwood. They lived only 5-6 blocks from Larry Easterwood's home in this small community. Family members felt the Sheriff's office should have done something before it escalated to this point.
"There was just so much we could do." Sheriff Heath Elliott stated. "It's very frustrating that we can not do anything to stop this type situation before someone actually does something to be arrested."
Sheriff Elliott stated a criminal trespass notice had been issued to Larry Easterwood and he had been warned to stay away from Stacy. Sheriff Elliott stated that he had personally spoken with both parties in an attempt to stop the ongoing harassment. He stated the he even spoke with Easterwood's federal parole officer in their attempt to handle the situation.
We understand a .22 caliber rifle was used in the shooting. The family told us that Larry Easterwood had gotten the shells for the rifle from his brother on Friday night.
Regarding domestic abuse, from what we understand, it is very tough to first of all get an arrest warrant, and even tougher to convict, if the victim does not want to proceed with prosecution. Added only for clarification, as we know nothing of this situation. We do however see probably 9 out of 10 domestic violence victims refuse to proceed with charges.
Based on many comments we heard, it appears to us that Larry Easterwood had decided he was going back to jail and this is how he wanted to go out.
The scene, Daryl Fink on what he saw, the capture of Easterwood and Sheriff Heath Elliott moments after the capture
Seminole County Sheriff Heath Elliott stated store video showed the 3 victims were in their car at the Iron City convenience store. Larry Easterwood pulled in and walked up to the drivers side window and opened fire on the occupants.
The driver of the car, Christy Scott, was dead at the scene. Her husband, Rodney Scott, was transported to Donalsonville Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Easterwood's ex-girlfriend, Stacy Dismuke, was life-flighted to Tallahassee Memorial where she died. The 3 victims were in their thirties. The Scott's 5 year old daughter, also in the car during the shooting, was unharmed. The murders occurred at about 5:30 pm.
One hour later. Easterwood drove his jeep by the crime scene. Bystanders yelled there he goes and deputies, GBI and GSP all rushed to their cars and took off after him. Moments later he was located and arrested at his home about 2 blocks away. A bystander on scene stated they believed that Easterwood had returned to the area and sat behind a building close by and watched the scene before driving home.
Larry Easterwood had been released from federal prison about 1 1/2 years ago and was on parole. Very upset family members spoke with us saying that Stacy Dismuke and Larry Easterwood had lived together for about a year until about 3 weeks ago. Drugs, alcohol and domestic violence was said to be the cause of the breakup.
Larry Easterwood's mother, sister-in-law and neighbor talk about the domestic situation
Stacy Dismuke then moved in with her best friend and her husband, Christy and Rodney Scott, the other 2 murder victims. Since that time, there appears to have been ongoing harassment between Stacy and Easterwood. They lived only 5-6 blocks from Larry Easterwood's home in this small community. Family members felt the Sheriff's office should have done something before it escalated to this point.
"There was just so much we could do." Sheriff Heath Elliott stated. "It's very frustrating that we can not do anything to stop this type situation before someone actually does something to be arrested."
Sheriff Elliott stated a criminal trespass notice had been issued to Larry Easterwood and he had been warned to stay away from Stacy. Sheriff Elliott stated that he had personally spoken with both parties in an attempt to stop the ongoing harassment. He stated the he even spoke with Easterwood's federal parole officer in their attempt to handle the situation.
We understand a .22 caliber rifle was used in the shooting. The family told us that Larry Easterwood had gotten the shells for the rifle from his brother on Friday night.
Regarding domestic abuse, from what we understand, it is very tough to first of all get an arrest warrant, and even tougher to convict, if the victim does not want to proceed with prosecution. Added only for clarification, as we know nothing of this situation. We do however see probably 9 out of 10 domestic violence victims refuse to proceed with charges.
Based on many comments we heard, it appears to us that Larry Easterwood had decided he was going back to jail and this is how he wanted to go out.
Greenburg, PA: Trial set to open for youngest of 6 suspects in torture killing of disabled western Pa. woman
PITTSBURGH — When the youngest of six defendants charged in the torture death of a mentally disabled woman goes to trial on Monday, she'll try to prove that it wasn't a fit of jealous pique that inspired the killing.
Angela Marinucci, 18, of Greensburg, concedes she was involved in the death of Jennifer Daugherty, 30, according to her lawyer Michael DeMatt.
Prosecutors say Daugherty was bound with Christmas lights by people she thought were here friends, then beaten, forced to drink urine and detergent and then stabbed to death on Feb. 9, 2010. Her mangled body was found two days later, stuffed into a plastic garbage container and left beneath a truck in a school parking lot in Greensburg, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Authorities said Daugherty, described by her family as having the mental capacity of a 12- or 14-year-old, was found with her head shaved and her face painted with nail polish.
Marinucci, who was 17 at the time, is being tried separately from the others after dropping her fight to have her case tried in Westmoreland County Juvenile Court.
In March, she spent a day with prosecutors, detailing her version of Daugherty's death. DeMatt said she had hoped for a plea bargain to charges less than the first-degree murder count that will automatically send her to prison for life if she's convicted. With no such deal forthcoming, Marinucci will try to convince the jury of six men and six women that she wasn't the instigator but a lesser player in Daugherty's grisly demise, DeMatt said.
Greensburg police and District Attorney John Peck have said that Marinucci was sexually involved with the man most of the other defendants have identified as the ringleader of the killing, Ricky Smyrnes, 25, a small-time criminal. They allege that the others attacked and systematically tortured Daugherty after a jealous Marinucci learned that Smyrnes had also had sex with Daugherty.
"That's exactly what the district attorney is going to be saying to the jury, and that's going to be their theory of the case, and we disagree with that," DeMatt told The Associated Press. Prosecutors said they believed Daugherty was raped during the torture, but no rape charges were filed.
The defense attorney wouldn't comment on Marinucci's alleged relationship with Smyrnes, but said, "The relationships involved here are complicated and I think it's overly simplistic to put it the way the district attorney is putting it."
DeMatt said he'll wait until trial to reveal Marinucci's version of events.
But testimony and police statements that have emerged during pretrial hearings have most heavily implicated Smyrnes and his friend, Melvin Knight, 21.
Smyrne's attorney has argued that his client's IQ is so low, he cannot be executed under a U.S. Supreme Court decision barring the death penalty for the mentally disabled. That issue has yet to be resolved as Peck has said he will pursue the death penalty against Smyrnes, and two other defendants, Melvin Knight, 21, and Knight's girlfriend, Amber Meidinger, 21, if they're convicted of first-degree murder.
Peck said he will not seek the death penalty against two other defendants, Peggy Miller, 28, and Robert Masters, 37. Marinucci can't face the death penalty under Pennsylvania law, because she was a juvenile at the time.
In recorded statements played at their preliminary hearing last year, Knight and Smyrnes both said the group was angry with Daugherty because she wanted to have sex with Smyrnes while she visited them at an apartment in Greensburg.
Daugherty's sister, Joy Burkholder, of Mount Pleasant, told the AP that the family would not comment until after the trial is over.
Bobby Murphy, the victim's stepfather, said at the time that he dropped her off at a bus station on Feb. 8 for the 10-mile trip to Greensburg, where she had a medical appointment. She also had friends there she had made through a community center.
Murphy said his stepdaughter called home later that day to say she planned to spend the night and would return home the next day.
Instead, according to police, she was tied up sometime that night, beaten with a towel rack, vacuum cleaner hose and a crutch, and bound with Christmas decorations. She was fed vegetable oil, medications and spices in addition to laundry detergent and urine. At some time during the ordeal, police said Daugherty was even forced to write a purported suicide note.
Angela Marinucci, 18, of Greensburg, concedes she was involved in the death of Jennifer Daugherty, 30, according to her lawyer Michael DeMatt.
Prosecutors say Daugherty was bound with Christmas lights by people she thought were here friends, then beaten, forced to drink urine and detergent and then stabbed to death on Feb. 9, 2010. Her mangled body was found two days later, stuffed into a plastic garbage container and left beneath a truck in a school parking lot in Greensburg, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Authorities said Daugherty, described by her family as having the mental capacity of a 12- or 14-year-old, was found with her head shaved and her face painted with nail polish.
Marinucci, who was 17 at the time, is being tried separately from the others after dropping her fight to have her case tried in Westmoreland County Juvenile Court.
In March, she spent a day with prosecutors, detailing her version of Daugherty's death. DeMatt said she had hoped for a plea bargain to charges less than the first-degree murder count that will automatically send her to prison for life if she's convicted. With no such deal forthcoming, Marinucci will try to convince the jury of six men and six women that she wasn't the instigator but a lesser player in Daugherty's grisly demise, DeMatt said.
Greensburg police and District Attorney John Peck have said that Marinucci was sexually involved with the man most of the other defendants have identified as the ringleader of the killing, Ricky Smyrnes, 25, a small-time criminal. They allege that the others attacked and systematically tortured Daugherty after a jealous Marinucci learned that Smyrnes had also had sex with Daugherty.
"That's exactly what the district attorney is going to be saying to the jury, and that's going to be their theory of the case, and we disagree with that," DeMatt told The Associated Press. Prosecutors said they believed Daugherty was raped during the torture, but no rape charges were filed.
The defense attorney wouldn't comment on Marinucci's alleged relationship with Smyrnes, but said, "The relationships involved here are complicated and I think it's overly simplistic to put it the way the district attorney is putting it."
DeMatt said he'll wait until trial to reveal Marinucci's version of events.
But testimony and police statements that have emerged during pretrial hearings have most heavily implicated Smyrnes and his friend, Melvin Knight, 21.
Smyrne's attorney has argued that his client's IQ is so low, he cannot be executed under a U.S. Supreme Court decision barring the death penalty for the mentally disabled. That issue has yet to be resolved as Peck has said he will pursue the death penalty against Smyrnes, and two other defendants, Melvin Knight, 21, and Knight's girlfriend, Amber Meidinger, 21, if they're convicted of first-degree murder.
Peck said he will not seek the death penalty against two other defendants, Peggy Miller, 28, and Robert Masters, 37. Marinucci can't face the death penalty under Pennsylvania law, because she was a juvenile at the time.
In recorded statements played at their preliminary hearing last year, Knight and Smyrnes both said the group was angry with Daugherty because she wanted to have sex with Smyrnes while she visited them at an apartment in Greensburg.
Daugherty's sister, Joy Burkholder, of Mount Pleasant, told the AP that the family would not comment until after the trial is over.
Bobby Murphy, the victim's stepfather, said at the time that he dropped her off at a bus station on Feb. 8 for the 10-mile trip to Greensburg, where she had a medical appointment. She also had friends there she had made through a community center.
Murphy said his stepdaughter called home later that day to say she planned to spend the night and would return home the next day.
Instead, according to police, she was tied up sometime that night, beaten with a towel rack, vacuum cleaner hose and a crutch, and bound with Christmas decorations. She was fed vegetable oil, medications and spices in addition to laundry detergent and urine. At some time during the ordeal, police said Daugherty was even forced to write a purported suicide note.
Pittsburgh, PA: Wife gets 15 to 30 years for killing her husband
Saturday, May 07, 2011
By Vivian Nereim, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A 53-year-old woman pleaded guilty Friday to third-degree murder for fatally shooting her husband in the back after he kicked her out of their Hill District home.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Kevin Sasinoski sentenced Ozie L. Kennedy to 15 to 30 years in prison, a penalty agreed upon by her lawyer and the prosecutor.
Ms. Kennedy was charged with homicide in October 2009 for killing her husband, Samuel Kennedy, 67, found dead outside their apartment in the K. LeRoy Irvis Towers.
Ms. Kennedy told detectives that her husband had frequently physically abused her and had kicked her out of the apartment before, according to testimony from her preliminary hearing. On Oct. 21, 2009, after Mr. Kennedy ordered her out, she stole a gun from a friend's home and returned the next day to retrieve belongings, she told detectives.
While she was there, her husband yelled at her, shoved her into a wall and went to the kitchen, where she heard him opening drawers, she said.
Though Ms. Kennedy told detectives she fired the gun at her husband when her finger slipped, a forensic investigator found that "the pressure needed to pull that trigger was not consistent with an accidental firing," according to Assistant District Attorney Michael Sullivan.
Ms. Kennedy also pleaded guilty Friday to carrying a firearm without a license.
Lawyer Lisa Phillips told Judge Sasinoski that her client, who has seven adult children, had cooperated with police and showed remorse.
"She told police she was praying to God in her mind that he would forgive her for what she had done," Ms. Phillips said.
Ms. Kennedy appeared in court in a blue turtleneck, tears streaming down her face as she entered her plea. She told the judge she was taking psychiatric medication and felt slightly muddled, but understood the proceeding. When Judge Sasinoski asked Ms. Kennedy if she wanted to say anything else, she declined.
Vivian Nereim: vnereim@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1413.
Read more:
By Vivian Nereim, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A 53-year-old woman pleaded guilty Friday to third-degree murder for fatally shooting her husband in the back after he kicked her out of their Hill District home.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Kevin Sasinoski sentenced Ozie L. Kennedy to 15 to 30 years in prison, a penalty agreed upon by her lawyer and the prosecutor.
Ms. Kennedy was charged with homicide in October 2009 for killing her husband, Samuel Kennedy, 67, found dead outside their apartment in the K. LeRoy Irvis Towers.
Ms. Kennedy told detectives that her husband had frequently physically abused her and had kicked her out of the apartment before, according to testimony from her preliminary hearing. On Oct. 21, 2009, after Mr. Kennedy ordered her out, she stole a gun from a friend's home and returned the next day to retrieve belongings, she told detectives.
While she was there, her husband yelled at her, shoved her into a wall and went to the kitchen, where she heard him opening drawers, she said.
Though Ms. Kennedy told detectives she fired the gun at her husband when her finger slipped, a forensic investigator found that "the pressure needed to pull that trigger was not consistent with an accidental firing," according to Assistant District Attorney Michael Sullivan.
Ms. Kennedy also pleaded guilty Friday to carrying a firearm without a license.
Lawyer Lisa Phillips told Judge Sasinoski that her client, who has seven adult children, had cooperated with police and showed remorse.
"She told police she was praying to God in her mind that he would forgive her for what she had done," Ms. Phillips said.
Ms. Kennedy appeared in court in a blue turtleneck, tears streaming down her face as she entered her plea. She told the judge she was taking psychiatric medication and felt slightly muddled, but understood the proceeding. When Judge Sasinoski asked Ms. Kennedy if she wanted to say anything else, she declined.
Vivian Nereim: vnereim@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1413.
Read more:
Durham, NC: Durham PD investigate apparent murder-suicide involving 22-month-old
By NBC17 Staff
Durham Police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide involving a 22-month-old girl.
The shooting took place around 12:50 p.m. Saturday at the Hampton Forest Apartments at 901 Chalk Level Road, police say.
When officers arrived at the apartment complex, they found 25-year-old Tyrone Xavier Hester lying behind a building. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said Hesters’ 22-month-old daughter, Aaisha Hester, was critically injured and was taken to Duke University Hospital. A short time after arriving at the hospital, she was pronounced dead.
Investigators believe Hester shot the child once and then shot himself. Police said Hester was not living at the apartment complex, but was visiting relatives.
Durham Police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide involving a 22-month-old girl.
The shooting took place around 12:50 p.m. Saturday at the Hampton Forest Apartments at 901 Chalk Level Road, police say.
When officers arrived at the apartment complex, they found 25-year-old Tyrone Xavier Hester lying behind a building. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said Hesters’ 22-month-old daughter, Aaisha Hester, was critically injured and was taken to Duke University Hospital. A short time after arriving at the hospital, she was pronounced dead.
Investigators believe Hester shot the child once and then shot himself. Police said Hester was not living at the apartment complex, but was visiting relatives.
Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles man kills twin children, girlfriend before killing self
8 MAY 2011 78 VIEWS NO COMMENT BY: BNO NEWS
LOS ANGELES (BNO NEWS) -- Los Angeles homicide bureau detectives on Sunday said that a man killed his twin children and their mother on late Saturday evening before turning the gun on himself.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the murder-suicide happened somewhere in Los Angeles when the suspect, his girlfriend, and five children were driving in a vehicle. While in the vehicle, the suspect and his girlfriend became involved in a domestic dispute.
Officials said 45-year-old Salvador Acevedo produced a handgun during the dispute and shot his 33-year-old girlfriend, Iris Oseguera, before firing at his 6-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. "The boy and girl were twins," Sgt. Harry Drucker said.
Three adolescent children were also in the vehicle but were not harmed, according to Deputy Lillian Peck. "Acevedo dropped the adolescent children off at a relative's home and drove away," she said. "The children told an adult about the incident and they alerted East Los Angeles Sheriff's Station."
Peck said deputies later located Acevedo's vehicle in the 1100 block of South Hicks Avenue in East Los Angeles. "There, deputies discovered Acevedo suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and the three injured victims inside of the vehicle," she said.
Acevedo and Oseguera were pronounced dead at the scene, while their twin children were transported to a local hospital, where they were pronounced dead. A handgun was recovered at the scene.
LOS ANGELES (BNO NEWS) -- Los Angeles homicide bureau detectives on Sunday said that a man killed his twin children and their mother on late Saturday evening before turning the gun on himself.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the murder-suicide happened somewhere in Los Angeles when the suspect, his girlfriend, and five children were driving in a vehicle. While in the vehicle, the suspect and his girlfriend became involved in a domestic dispute.
Officials said 45-year-old Salvador Acevedo produced a handgun during the dispute and shot his 33-year-old girlfriend, Iris Oseguera, before firing at his 6-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. "The boy and girl were twins," Sgt. Harry Drucker said.
Three adolescent children were also in the vehicle but were not harmed, according to Deputy Lillian Peck. "Acevedo dropped the adolescent children off at a relative's home and drove away," she said. "The children told an adult about the incident and they alerted East Los Angeles Sheriff's Station."
Peck said deputies later located Acevedo's vehicle in the 1100 block of South Hicks Avenue in East Los Angeles. "There, deputies discovered Acevedo suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and the three injured victims inside of the vehicle," she said.
Acevedo and Oseguera were pronounced dead at the scene, while their twin children were transported to a local hospital, where they were pronounced dead. A handgun was recovered at the scene.
Brooklyn, NY: Friend leads walk to honor slain Brooklyn mom, fight domestic abuse
BY Ben Chapman
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, May 8th 2011, 4:00 AM
Leonida Nunez was a beloved mother of three whose smiling face was once a common sight on the streets of Greenpoint.
She was brutally killed in 2008, allegedly by her abusive ex-husband.
Next Sunday her best friend is leading a march and vigil to honor her memory - and help prevent the same tragedy from happening again.
"Leonida was loved by everyone, and she was killed by an abusive man," said Diane Delgado, 42, a sales clerk from Bushwick who was best friends with Nunez for two decades.
"I want to make sure that no one forgets her, and that hopefully this never happens to another woman," said Delgado.
Nunez was a single mother with two young children in 2002, when she met William Davila, a maintenance man at the office where she worked.
They were married two years later and moved to the Bronx, but trouble started soon.
"He was crazy - getting jealous over the smallest things," said Delgado.
After four tumultuous years of marriage, during which the couple had a son, Nunez and Davila split, but the abusive husband wouldn't let his wife go.
Davila began stalking Nunez, who took out several orders of protection against him. He was jailed in 2007 for beating her and violating her order of protection.
On May 14, 2008, Nunez's slashed and handcuffed body was found in Davila's truck in a Manhattan parking garage.
Two days later, Davila turned himself in for the crime. He's currently in jail, awaiting trail for second-degree murder and faces 25 years to life in prison.
Delgado started holding vigils to honor her dead friend a month after she died, and continued to do so each year on the anniversary of her death.
"It's a way for us to remember the person we cared about so much - and who left us too soon," said Delgado.
Friends and relatives attend the events, which Delgado organizes and pays for herself, making memorial cards, signs and shirts with her dead friend's photo.
This year's march begins next Sunday at noon near Nunez's apartment at Harman St. in Bushwick.
About 100 friends and family are expected to turn out for the event and march to Maria Hernandez Park, where they'll barbecue and listen to music in Nunez's memory.
"It's not a big crowd, but the important thing is that we're bringing attention to Leonida, and how she died," said Delgado.
"If anyone is getting abused out there, they should know that they need to get out of that relationship as soon as they can."
To learn more about Sunday's event, call Delgado at (347) 682-8170 or email bklyngirl4k@aol.com.
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, May 8th 2011, 4:00 AM
Leonida Nunez was a beloved mother of three whose smiling face was once a common sight on the streets of Greenpoint.
She was brutally killed in 2008, allegedly by her abusive ex-husband.
Next Sunday her best friend is leading a march and vigil to honor her memory - and help prevent the same tragedy from happening again.
"Leonida was loved by everyone, and she was killed by an abusive man," said Diane Delgado, 42, a sales clerk from Bushwick who was best friends with Nunez for two decades.
"I want to make sure that no one forgets her, and that hopefully this never happens to another woman," said Delgado.
Nunez was a single mother with two young children in 2002, when she met William Davila, a maintenance man at the office where she worked.
They were married two years later and moved to the Bronx, but trouble started soon.
"He was crazy - getting jealous over the smallest things," said Delgado.
After four tumultuous years of marriage, during which the couple had a son, Nunez and Davila split, but the abusive husband wouldn't let his wife go.
Davila began stalking Nunez, who took out several orders of protection against him. He was jailed in 2007 for beating her and violating her order of protection.
On May 14, 2008, Nunez's slashed and handcuffed body was found in Davila's truck in a Manhattan parking garage.
Two days later, Davila turned himself in for the crime. He's currently in jail, awaiting trail for second-degree murder and faces 25 years to life in prison.
Delgado started holding vigils to honor her dead friend a month after she died, and continued to do so each year on the anniversary of her death.
"It's a way for us to remember the person we cared about so much - and who left us too soon," said Delgado.
Friends and relatives attend the events, which Delgado organizes and pays for herself, making memorial cards, signs and shirts with her dead friend's photo.
This year's march begins next Sunday at noon near Nunez's apartment at Harman St. in Bushwick.
About 100 friends and family are expected to turn out for the event and march to Maria Hernandez Park, where they'll barbecue and listen to music in Nunez's memory.
"It's not a big crowd, but the important thing is that we're bringing attention to Leonida, and how she died," said Delgado.
"If anyone is getting abused out there, they should know that they need to get out of that relationship as soon as they can."
To learn more about Sunday's event, call Delgado at (347) 682-8170 or email bklyngirl4k@aol.com.
Fairfield, CA: Man Shoots 2, Then Himself, Police Say
Shooter Had Fights With Ex, Sources Say
POSTED: 7:06 pm PDT May 7, 2011
UPDATED: 9:30 pm PDT May 7, 2011
FAIRFIELD, Calif. -- Neighbors have identified the man police believe is responsible for killing his housemates and then himself as Jason Eisenberg. A family friend who did not want to be identified publicly described Eisenberg as a “nice person” who was in “a bad situation.” The friend said the two victims were Eisenberg’s ex-girlfriend and roommate.
A Fairfield police sergeant would only say that the shooter was a 37-year-old man who eventually turned the gun on himself and that the victims were a 27-year-old woman and a man who was between 30 and 40 years old.
Fairfield police Sgt. Jeff Osgood said officers received a 911 call from the home, on the 5200 block of Venus Drive, at 12:08 p.m. Saturday. That call came from another male roommate, who is 28 years old and was also shot, but has a “non-life-threatening injury,” Osgood said.
Also at the home was Eisenberg’s elderly father, Mark Eisenberg, who appeared distraught outside the home on Saturday. Eisenberg said the shooting occurred upstairs while he was downstairs, but was too emotional to offer further details.
Osgood said that officers had been to the home numerous times and the most recent visit was on Friday night. Officers responded to a call that arose out of a “disturbance,” he said, connected to a “civil process" that had occurred Friday. There were no details available about that proceeding.
The Eisenberg family’s friend, who is also a neighbor, said Jason Eisenberg and his ex-girlfriend had been fighting regularly since she moved back into the home in December. The friend said that the couple’s relationship was so strained that Eisenberg had once sought a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend. However, the friend said, Eisenberg and his ex were both listed as owners of the home. His ex-girlfriend found herself homeless in December, the friend said, and a judge ordered that she could return to the home she co-owned.
Neighbors described a scene outside the home on Saturday as chaotic and difficult for neighborhood children to watch. There were multiple Fairfield police vehicles, ambulances and a helicopter overhead, they said. Also, one neighbor, who police say was behaving in an unruly way and impeding officers, was shocked with a Taser as neighbors watched. That man, who identified himself only as “Gino,” did not offer details of what led to the Taser incident, but said he had been trying to help the elder Eisenberg. He was unconnected to the shooting, Osgood said.
Reported by: Sharokina Shams
POSTED: 7:06 pm PDT May 7, 2011
UPDATED: 9:30 pm PDT May 7, 2011
FAIRFIELD, Calif. -- Neighbors have identified the man police believe is responsible for killing his housemates and then himself as Jason Eisenberg. A family friend who did not want to be identified publicly described Eisenberg as a “nice person” who was in “a bad situation.” The friend said the two victims were Eisenberg’s ex-girlfriend and roommate.
A Fairfield police sergeant would only say that the shooter was a 37-year-old man who eventually turned the gun on himself and that the victims were a 27-year-old woman and a man who was between 30 and 40 years old.
Fairfield police Sgt. Jeff Osgood said officers received a 911 call from the home, on the 5200 block of Venus Drive, at 12:08 p.m. Saturday. That call came from another male roommate, who is 28 years old and was also shot, but has a “non-life-threatening injury,” Osgood said.
Also at the home was Eisenberg’s elderly father, Mark Eisenberg, who appeared distraught outside the home on Saturday. Eisenberg said the shooting occurred upstairs while he was downstairs, but was too emotional to offer further details.
Osgood said that officers had been to the home numerous times and the most recent visit was on Friday night. Officers responded to a call that arose out of a “disturbance,” he said, connected to a “civil process" that had occurred Friday. There were no details available about that proceeding.
The Eisenberg family’s friend, who is also a neighbor, said Jason Eisenberg and his ex-girlfriend had been fighting regularly since she moved back into the home in December. The friend said that the couple’s relationship was so strained that Eisenberg had once sought a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend. However, the friend said, Eisenberg and his ex were both listed as owners of the home. His ex-girlfriend found herself homeless in December, the friend said, and a judge ordered that she could return to the home she co-owned.
Neighbors described a scene outside the home on Saturday as chaotic and difficult for neighborhood children to watch. There were multiple Fairfield police vehicles, ambulances and a helicopter overhead, they said. Also, one neighbor, who police say was behaving in an unruly way and impeding officers, was shocked with a Taser as neighbors watched. That man, who identified himself only as “Gino,” did not offer details of what led to the Taser incident, but said he had been trying to help the elder Eisenberg. He was unconnected to the shooting, Osgood said.
Reported by: Sharokina Shams
Baltimore, MD: Man Arrested In Ex-Girlfriend's Killing
Baltimore Police Recover Semiautomatic Handgun
POSTED: 4:48 pm EDT May 6, 2011
UPDATED: 9:35 am EDT May 7, 2011
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore police arrested a man Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend in April.
Police identified the man Friday as Daniel Sullivan, 30, of Baltimore, saying he was charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, theft and gun charges.
Keenya Jordan, 32, was found April 6 shot in the 600 block of Lennox Street. She was taken to Shock Trauma, where she died. An autopsy revealed Jordan was shot four times, according to charging documents. Police said Sullivan admitted to being with Jordan on the morning of her killing.
Investigators identified Sullivan as an Jordan's estranged ex-boyfriend, saying Jordan had been arrested in the past on allegations that he abused her. Police said Sullivan stalked Jordan upon his release from prison.
According to the charging documents, a witness told investigators that Sullivan told Jordan, "If I can't have you, I'm going to kill you and then kill myself." The documents indicate detectives also spoke with a woman with whom Sullivan is currently involved in a relationship. Detectives said that woman indicated that Sullivan physically abuses her.
Detectives ultimately recovered a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun that police later identified as the weapon used in Jordan's killing.
POSTED: 4:48 pm EDT May 6, 2011
UPDATED: 9:35 am EDT May 7, 2011
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore police arrested a man Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend in April.
Police identified the man Friday as Daniel Sullivan, 30, of Baltimore, saying he was charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, theft and gun charges.
Keenya Jordan, 32, was found April 6 shot in the 600 block of Lennox Street. She was taken to Shock Trauma, where she died. An autopsy revealed Jordan was shot four times, according to charging documents. Police said Sullivan admitted to being with Jordan on the morning of her killing.
Investigators identified Sullivan as an Jordan's estranged ex-boyfriend, saying Jordan had been arrested in the past on allegations that he abused her. Police said Sullivan stalked Jordan upon his release from prison.
According to the charging documents, a witness told investigators that Sullivan told Jordan, "If I can't have you, I'm going to kill you and then kill myself." The documents indicate detectives also spoke with a woman with whom Sullivan is currently involved in a relationship. Detectives said that woman indicated that Sullivan physically abuses her.
Detectives ultimately recovered a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun that police later identified as the weapon used in Jordan's killing.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Omaha, NE: Man to stand trial in girlfriend's shooting
By Jason Kuiper
World-Herald News Service
Published: Thursday, May 5, 2011 9:54 AM CDT
OMAHA - When Officer George Cardenas pulled up to a Chevy Camaro stopped on the on-ramp to L Street from 72nd Street, it looked like nothing more than car trouble.
The woman in the car, Rita J. Eckhout, told Cardenas there was "no problem."
The driver, Mitchel L. Hadan, held up a key fob and said the car wouldn't start.
Seconds later, as Cardenas was calling out on his radio that he was on a motorist assist call and would divert traffic, he heard two "pops" from inside the Camaro.
The troubled relationship between Hadan and Eckhout ended Jan. 1 in what Omaha police and prosecutors say was a homicide and failed suicide attempt.
Cardenas saw the woman he had just spoken to climb out of the passenger side window and fall to the ground. He took cover behind his cruiser and waited for backup.
When extra Omaha and Ralston police officers arrived, they found Eckhout, 35, had been shot in the left cheek and that Hadan, 47, had shot himself in the head but was still alive.
Paralyzed on the right side, Hadan appeared Wednesday in a Douglas County courtroom wearing tan pants and a matching shirt. He was seated at the defense table in a wheelchair with a nurse at his side.
Douglas County Judge Susan Bazis ordered Hadan to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder, use of a firearm to commit a felony, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a controlled substance.
Eckhout died at the scene, and Hadan spent months in the hospital.
Detective Chris Gordon said Hadan's left arm was still moving when officers got to the Camaro. A handgun was on his lap and two bags of what was later determined to be methamphetamine were on the passenger-side floorboard.
He testified that Hadan had been making comments and sending texts to friends that he was despondent.
Hadan and Eckhout had a tumultuous relationship that began in 2006.
There was a pending terroristic-threats charge against Hadan in which Eckhout was the alleged victim. Hadan also had served more than eight years in prison for two violent crimes - assaulting an officer and robbery with a gun.
Both Eckhout and Hadan had meth in their systems, Gordon said.
Hadan's attorney, J. William Gallup, said that since gunshot residue testing results had not yet been returned, Eckhout may have shot Hadan.
In therapy sessions, Hadan has said relatives have told him that he shot Eckhout and then himself. He has also said Eckhout shot him and then someone else shot Eckhout in the face, Gallup said.
"I am not sure who shot who," Gallup said.
Hadan is being held at the Nebraska Department of Corrections Diagnostic and Evaluation Center.
Jackie Hascall, 28, a cousin of Eckhout, sat in court and heard some details of the shooting for the first time. She fought back tears when the autopsy results were relayed.
Afterward, she said she hopes justice is served and that other women in similar relationships avoid her cousin's fate.
World-Herald News Service
Published: Thursday, May 5, 2011 9:54 AM CDT
OMAHA - When Officer George Cardenas pulled up to a Chevy Camaro stopped on the on-ramp to L Street from 72nd Street, it looked like nothing more than car trouble.
The woman in the car, Rita J. Eckhout, told Cardenas there was "no problem."
The driver, Mitchel L. Hadan, held up a key fob and said the car wouldn't start.
Seconds later, as Cardenas was calling out on his radio that he was on a motorist assist call and would divert traffic, he heard two "pops" from inside the Camaro.
The troubled relationship between Hadan and Eckhout ended Jan. 1 in what Omaha police and prosecutors say was a homicide and failed suicide attempt.
Cardenas saw the woman he had just spoken to climb out of the passenger side window and fall to the ground. He took cover behind his cruiser and waited for backup.
When extra Omaha and Ralston police officers arrived, they found Eckhout, 35, had been shot in the left cheek and that Hadan, 47, had shot himself in the head but was still alive.
Paralyzed on the right side, Hadan appeared Wednesday in a Douglas County courtroom wearing tan pants and a matching shirt. He was seated at the defense table in a wheelchair with a nurse at his side.
Douglas County Judge Susan Bazis ordered Hadan to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder, use of a firearm to commit a felony, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a controlled substance.
Eckhout died at the scene, and Hadan spent months in the hospital.
Detective Chris Gordon said Hadan's left arm was still moving when officers got to the Camaro. A handgun was on his lap and two bags of what was later determined to be methamphetamine were on the passenger-side floorboard.
He testified that Hadan had been making comments and sending texts to friends that he was despondent.
Hadan and Eckhout had a tumultuous relationship that began in 2006.
There was a pending terroristic-threats charge against Hadan in which Eckhout was the alleged victim. Hadan also had served more than eight years in prison for two violent crimes - assaulting an officer and robbery with a gun.
Both Eckhout and Hadan had meth in their systems, Gordon said.
Hadan's attorney, J. William Gallup, said that since gunshot residue testing results had not yet been returned, Eckhout may have shot Hadan.
In therapy sessions, Hadan has said relatives have told him that he shot Eckhout and then himself. He has also said Eckhout shot him and then someone else shot Eckhout in the face, Gallup said.
"I am not sure who shot who," Gallup said.
Hadan is being held at the Nebraska Department of Corrections Diagnostic and Evaluation Center.
Jackie Hascall, 28, a cousin of Eckhout, sat in court and heard some details of the shooting for the first time. She fought back tears when the autopsy results were relayed.
Afterward, she said she hopes justice is served and that other women in similar relationships avoid her cousin's fate.
Las Vegas, NV: Man nabbed in Philippines after wife’s remains found in backyard
By Jackie Valley (contact)
Thursday, May 5, 2011 | 2:11 p.m.
A Las Vegas man whose wife's remains were found buried in their former backyard has been arrested in the Philippines, Metro Police said Thursday.
FBI agents and Filipino authorities arrested 53-year-old Hugh Cave in Sabang, Morong Bataan, in the Philippines earlier today, officials said. He has been charged with the murder of 45-year-old Gloria Cave, whose remains were found last month.
Hugh Cave apparently fled to the Philippines after selling his Las Vegas home and allegedly told his wife's Filipino family that she died in a car accident, police said.
Police responded at 11:16 a.m. April 24 to the 1300 block of Gold Avenue to investigate reports of possible human remains. That location is near Owens Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard.
A woman who moved into the home contacted police after she and a neighbor found the body while they were moving a backyard planter, according to the warrant.
Fe Rawson-Oseo told police that after Hugh Cave sold her the home, he asked to remain there until after the Super Bowl on Feb. 6. She took him to the airport the following day because he was going to the Philippines, according to the warrant.
Rawson-Oseo had heard from Cave twice since then — once in regard to tax forms for his wife that were coming in the mail and again when he emailed her April 11.
In the email, Hugh Cave informed Rawson-Oseo that his wife had died in a car accident before he moved.
"This is why I sold the house and why I sold it quickly and for less than it's (sic) appraisal value," the email states. "I did not want to go through all the 'We're sorry for you' and the "What happened' and all over and over again."
Neighbors told police they last remember seeing Gloria Cave around Thanksgiving, according to the warrant.
Meanwhile, detectives interviewed Gloria Cave's former co-workers at Spring View and Desert View Home Health, who said she abruptly faxed them a letter Dec. 16 saying she was headed to the Philippines because her brother was ill, police noted in the warrant.
On April 11, a friend of Gloria Cave called her sister in the Philippines, who told her Hugh Cave had delivered the news of Gloria dying in a car accident. He had arrived with an urn supposedly containing her ashes, according to the warrant.
Authorities have no records of Gloria Cave involved in a car accident or documentation of her death. The Clark County Coroner's Office confirmed April 28 that the remains found in the backyard were those of Gloria Cave.
It's unclear how Gloria Cave died. The official cause and manner of her death are pending toxicology reports and further police investigation.
Hugh Cave is in the process of being extradited to Las Vegas, officials said.
Thursday, May 5, 2011 | 2:11 p.m.
A Las Vegas man whose wife's remains were found buried in their former backyard has been arrested in the Philippines, Metro Police said Thursday.
FBI agents and Filipino authorities arrested 53-year-old Hugh Cave in Sabang, Morong Bataan, in the Philippines earlier today, officials said. He has been charged with the murder of 45-year-old Gloria Cave, whose remains were found last month.
Hugh Cave apparently fled to the Philippines after selling his Las Vegas home and allegedly told his wife's Filipino family that she died in a car accident, police said.
Police responded at 11:16 a.m. April 24 to the 1300 block of Gold Avenue to investigate reports of possible human remains. That location is near Owens Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard.
A woman who moved into the home contacted police after she and a neighbor found the body while they were moving a backyard planter, according to the warrant.
Fe Rawson-Oseo told police that after Hugh Cave sold her the home, he asked to remain there until after the Super Bowl on Feb. 6. She took him to the airport the following day because he was going to the Philippines, according to the warrant.
Rawson-Oseo had heard from Cave twice since then — once in regard to tax forms for his wife that were coming in the mail and again when he emailed her April 11.
In the email, Hugh Cave informed Rawson-Oseo that his wife had died in a car accident before he moved.
"This is why I sold the house and why I sold it quickly and for less than it's (sic) appraisal value," the email states. "I did not want to go through all the 'We're sorry for you' and the "What happened' and all over and over again."
Neighbors told police they last remember seeing Gloria Cave around Thanksgiving, according to the warrant.
Meanwhile, detectives interviewed Gloria Cave's former co-workers at Spring View and Desert View Home Health, who said she abruptly faxed them a letter Dec. 16 saying she was headed to the Philippines because her brother was ill, police noted in the warrant.
On April 11, a friend of Gloria Cave called her sister in the Philippines, who told her Hugh Cave had delivered the news of Gloria dying in a car accident. He had arrived with an urn supposedly containing her ashes, according to the warrant.
Authorities have no records of Gloria Cave involved in a car accident or documentation of her death. The Clark County Coroner's Office confirmed April 28 that the remains found in the backyard were those of Gloria Cave.
It's unclear how Gloria Cave died. The official cause and manner of her death are pending toxicology reports and further police investigation.
Hugh Cave is in the process of being extradited to Las Vegas, officials said.
Pocatella, ID: Pocatello man charged with 1st degree murder in estranged wife's bludgeoning death
POCATELLO, Idaho — Bannock County prosecutors say the estranged husband of a Pocatello woman who was found beaten to death late Monday has been charged with first degree murder.
Officials say the charges were filed against Michael Sparks in the death of 41-year-old Judith Rachel Johnson. Sparks was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.
Pocatello police have said Sparks fled the house and was involved in a single-vehicle crash northeast of Pocatello shortly after midnight Monday. He was taken to the hospital with multiple injuries.
Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Neilsen says
Johnson was beaten with a rifle and a baseball bat.
Officials said the couple had been married for about a year. Ellis has said there was a history of domestic abuse and Johnson had a "no contact" order against Sparks.
Officials say the charges were filed against Michael Sparks in the death of 41-year-old Judith Rachel Johnson. Sparks was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.
Pocatello police have said Sparks fled the house and was involved in a single-vehicle crash northeast of Pocatello shortly after midnight Monday. He was taken to the hospital with multiple injuries.
Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Neilsen says
Johnson was beaten with a rifle and a baseball bat.
Officials said the couple had been married for about a year. Ellis has said there was a history of domestic abuse and Johnson had a "no contact" order against Sparks.
Easton, MA: Teen arraigned in mother’s death Woman’s body found in shallow grave behind her Easton house
EASTON — A 17-year-old boy is believed to have killed his mother and buried her in the backyard after becoming bitter over his parents’ divorce, authorities said yesterday.
“I think that my son may have done something to my ex-wife,’’ said Michael Worster, the father of Matthew Worster, during a 911 call to Easton Police late Wednesday afternoon. “I heard that he shot her.’’
When asked where he thought his former wife was, he said, “in a freshly dug hole in the garden,’’ according to a police report.
Police unearthed the body of Beth Spartichino, 42, at 3 a.m. yesterday from a 9-by-3-foot grave behind her house at 7 Union St. She had been shot in the back, and the grave had been dug in advance, authorities said.
As news of the crime quickly traveled along the street, where the victim’s extended family owns three side-by-side homes on about 38 acres, police said that she had obtained an emergency restraining order against Michael Worster almost exactly a year ago. In that order, she claimed that he had threatened to kill her and bury her in the yard and that he was coaching their three sons to treat her with contempt.
The couple began divorce proceedings last summer, after 17 years of marriage, and the divorce was granted two weeks ago. Authorities also said they had responded to the address several times for domestic situations.
Michael Worster moved into 15 Union St., a house next to his ex-wife, after their separation. He has not been arrested or charged with any crime.
But Matthew, the oldest of the sons, was arraigned yesterday in Taunton District Court on a charge of armed assault with intent to murder.
Matthew’s address, as listed on the police report, was the same as his mother’s, house, but his two younger siblings were listed under their father’s address.
Matthew Worster was expressionless as he listened to Bill McCauley, Bristol assistant district attorney, give an outline of the events surrounding Spartichino’s death.
“He told his mother that all would be better off if she were dead,’’ McCauley said during the arraignment.
An autopsy will be performed today and depending on the results, the charges against Worster may be upgraded to murder.
He is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing June 10.
Worster’s attorney, Joe Krowski Jr., entered a plea of not guilty on his client’s behalf, saying the case is based on a footprint found next to the grave.
“Absent the shoe print comparison,’’ he said, “we have a case with no eyewitnesses, a case with no forensic evidence, a case with no murder weapon.’’ he said.
Authorities found two rectangular-shaped holes near the garden.
One had a large rock in the center and the other, where Spartichino was later found, had freshly-overturned gravel, with broken tree branches stuck in the gravel. A shovel and several 5-gallon buckets were found nearby.
Investigators also noticed a footprint, which matched a shoe worn by Matthew Worster, the police report said.
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On Wednesday morning, according to McCauley, Spartichino went to a gym, and planned to meet Matthew after her workout. Later in the day, she planned to cook dinner for her sons at her house.
But she was last seen alive leaving the gym, McCauley said.
Michael Worster told authorities he received a call from his ex-wife’s phone at 10:43 a.m. Wednesday but allowed the call to go to voicemail. He then received a text message from Matthew in the afternoon that led him to believe Matthew was distraught.
At 5:31 p.m., Michael Worster listened to the voicemail. In the message, Matthew stated, “I did what I had to do but know that I will be alright (sic),’’ according to the police report.
Matthew was arrested Wednesday evening outside his mother’s house. Authorities said he allegedly made several statements to relatives and friends that implicated him.
He is believed to have told his 13-year-old brother that “I shot her. . . . It’s over.’’
And in a flurry of emotion at his girlfriend’s house, Matthew, in tears at her kitchen table, purportedly told his girlfriend and her mother, “I needed to do what I needed to do. . . . I needed to save my brothers.’’
The girlfriend told authorities that Matthew then called his father, and Michael Worster encouraged him to turn himself in. But Matthew responded that he needed one night.
Near Union Street, a friend of Matthew Worster’s since childhood described him as a loner who often spent hours in solitude at a tree house he built in a wooded section of the family’s property.
The friend, who requested that his name not be used, said Matthew recently participated in a “wayward kids program,’’ that seemed ineffective.
“They put him and the others out in the woods by themselves to resolve their problems, but it was like a field trip for Matt,’’ the friend said.
That friend sat with about a dozen relatives of the defendant during the arraignment. The family declined comment as they walked out of the courtroom, except for a tall elderly man with thick gray hair and glasses. Shaking his head, he said: “Were devastated.’’
Andrew Reservitz, the lawyer who represented Worster in the divorce, said yesterday in a telephone interview: “My client is beside himself. I spoke with him earlier and what happened is shocking to him and the entire family. He’s trying to deal with this tragedy.’’
Alyssa Asack, who represented Spartichino in the divorce, offered a brief statement: “Beth was a wonderful human being and a loving mother.’’
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com
“I think that my son may have done something to my ex-wife,’’ said Michael Worster, the father of Matthew Worster, during a 911 call to Easton Police late Wednesday afternoon. “I heard that he shot her.’’
When asked where he thought his former wife was, he said, “in a freshly dug hole in the garden,’’ according to a police report.
Police unearthed the body of Beth Spartichino, 42, at 3 a.m. yesterday from a 9-by-3-foot grave behind her house at 7 Union St. She had been shot in the back, and the grave had been dug in advance, authorities said.
As news of the crime quickly traveled along the street, where the victim’s extended family owns three side-by-side homes on about 38 acres, police said that she had obtained an emergency restraining order against Michael Worster almost exactly a year ago. In that order, she claimed that he had threatened to kill her and bury her in the yard and that he was coaching their three sons to treat her with contempt.
The couple began divorce proceedings last summer, after 17 years of marriage, and the divorce was granted two weeks ago. Authorities also said they had responded to the address several times for domestic situations.
Michael Worster moved into 15 Union St., a house next to his ex-wife, after their separation. He has not been arrested or charged with any crime.
But Matthew, the oldest of the sons, was arraigned yesterday in Taunton District Court on a charge of armed assault with intent to murder.
Matthew’s address, as listed on the police report, was the same as his mother’s, house, but his two younger siblings were listed under their father’s address.
Matthew Worster was expressionless as he listened to Bill McCauley, Bristol assistant district attorney, give an outline of the events surrounding Spartichino’s death.
“He told his mother that all would be better off if she were dead,’’ McCauley said during the arraignment.
An autopsy will be performed today and depending on the results, the charges against Worster may be upgraded to murder.
He is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing June 10.
Worster’s attorney, Joe Krowski Jr., entered a plea of not guilty on his client’s behalf, saying the case is based on a footprint found next to the grave.
“Absent the shoe print comparison,’’ he said, “we have a case with no eyewitnesses, a case with no forensic evidence, a case with no murder weapon.’’ he said.
Authorities found two rectangular-shaped holes near the garden.
One had a large rock in the center and the other, where Spartichino was later found, had freshly-overturned gravel, with broken tree branches stuck in the gravel. A shovel and several 5-gallon buckets were found nearby.
Investigators also noticed a footprint, which matched a shoe worn by Matthew Worster, the police report said.
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On Wednesday morning, according to McCauley, Spartichino went to a gym, and planned to meet Matthew after her workout. Later in the day, she planned to cook dinner for her sons at her house.
But she was last seen alive leaving the gym, McCauley said.
Michael Worster told authorities he received a call from his ex-wife’s phone at 10:43 a.m. Wednesday but allowed the call to go to voicemail. He then received a text message from Matthew in the afternoon that led him to believe Matthew was distraught.
At 5:31 p.m., Michael Worster listened to the voicemail. In the message, Matthew stated, “I did what I had to do but know that I will be alright (sic),’’ according to the police report.
Matthew was arrested Wednesday evening outside his mother’s house. Authorities said he allegedly made several statements to relatives and friends that implicated him.
He is believed to have told his 13-year-old brother that “I shot her. . . . It’s over.’’
And in a flurry of emotion at his girlfriend’s house, Matthew, in tears at her kitchen table, purportedly told his girlfriend and her mother, “I needed to do what I needed to do. . . . I needed to save my brothers.’’
The girlfriend told authorities that Matthew then called his father, and Michael Worster encouraged him to turn himself in. But Matthew responded that he needed one night.
Near Union Street, a friend of Matthew Worster’s since childhood described him as a loner who often spent hours in solitude at a tree house he built in a wooded section of the family’s property.
The friend, who requested that his name not be used, said Matthew recently participated in a “wayward kids program,’’ that seemed ineffective.
“They put him and the others out in the woods by themselves to resolve their problems, but it was like a field trip for Matt,’’ the friend said.
That friend sat with about a dozen relatives of the defendant during the arraignment. The family declined comment as they walked out of the courtroom, except for a tall elderly man with thick gray hair and glasses. Shaking his head, he said: “Were devastated.’’
Andrew Reservitz, the lawyer who represented Worster in the divorce, said yesterday in a telephone interview: “My client is beside himself. I spoke with him earlier and what happened is shocking to him and the entire family. He’s trying to deal with this tragedy.’’
Alyssa Asack, who represented Spartichino in the divorce, offered a brief statement: “Beth was a wonderful human being and a loving mother.’’
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Costa Mesa, CA: Shooting suspect charged with murder
Victims are special-education preschool instructional aide and her father. Slain woman, her ex-husband were arguing over custody of their daughter, police said.
May 04, 2011|By Lauren Williams, lauren.williams@latimes.com
COSTA MESA — The small, residential street of Santa Clara Circle was quiet Wednesday, with few signs that two people had been slain there the night before.
Two yellow tarps were draped in front of Robert Lehmann's modest, single-story house. A thin trail of blood had dried and was crusted on the path that led to the well-manicured lawn, which police had taped off.
A brown truck parked in the driveway had the license plate "Dady ♥ AJ."
Costa Mesa police detectives returned to the scene in the 3400 block during the day Wednesday to see if they could spot anything they might have initially missed after the fatal shooting Tuesday night, said Lt. Bryan Glass.
Lehmann, 36, was arrested Tuesday as the suspect in the shooting deaths of his ex-wife, Emily Ford, 32, of Costa Mesa, and her father, Russell Ford, 62, of Downey. Police said Lehmann's motive might have been over child custody arrangements.
Booked and charged with two counts of murder, Lehmann was being held in the jail at the Costa Mesa Police Department as of Wednesday, said Lt. Robert Sharpnack.
The Fords had come to Lehmann's home to pick up the former couple's 7-year-old daughter, Glass said.
Emily Ford was a special-education preschool instructional aide at Paularino Elementary School in Costa Mesa, who was described as engaging and loved by the staff. She worked with autistic children between the ages of 3 and 4, said Principal Stacy Lynne.
She also leaves behind a 3-month-old son she had with her current husband and her 7-year-old daughter, who attends Sonora Elementary School in Costa Mesa, school district officials said.
"She was a wonderful, nice lady who always had a smile on her face," Lynne said. "She was very happy with where her life was. She was in a very happy relationship."
She came to work cheerful every day, Lynne said.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has sent grief counselors to Paularino and Sonora.
Romolo Docson, who was pushing his 2-year-old, Julia, in a red car around the neighborhood Wednesday, said that the killings surprised him.
Marco Antonio Arroyo lives two doors down from Lehmann. He said that he didn't even know the couple were separated and that the family always seemed very happy.
Arroyo, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said he would see Lehmann's daughter playing outside the home, and said that Lehmann was always very affectionate with her.
"I would have never imagined," Arroyo said. "Never! I never saw anything contrary. They always seemed happy."
May 04, 2011|By Lauren Williams, lauren.williams@latimes.com
COSTA MESA — The small, residential street of Santa Clara Circle was quiet Wednesday, with few signs that two people had been slain there the night before.
Two yellow tarps were draped in front of Robert Lehmann's modest, single-story house. A thin trail of blood had dried and was crusted on the path that led to the well-manicured lawn, which police had taped off.
A brown truck parked in the driveway had the license plate "Dady ♥ AJ."
Costa Mesa police detectives returned to the scene in the 3400 block during the day Wednesday to see if they could spot anything they might have initially missed after the fatal shooting Tuesday night, said Lt. Bryan Glass.
Lehmann, 36, was arrested Tuesday as the suspect in the shooting deaths of his ex-wife, Emily Ford, 32, of Costa Mesa, and her father, Russell Ford, 62, of Downey. Police said Lehmann's motive might have been over child custody arrangements.
Booked and charged with two counts of murder, Lehmann was being held in the jail at the Costa Mesa Police Department as of Wednesday, said Lt. Robert Sharpnack.
The Fords had come to Lehmann's home to pick up the former couple's 7-year-old daughter, Glass said.
Emily Ford was a special-education preschool instructional aide at Paularino Elementary School in Costa Mesa, who was described as engaging and loved by the staff. She worked with autistic children between the ages of 3 and 4, said Principal Stacy Lynne.
She also leaves behind a 3-month-old son she had with her current husband and her 7-year-old daughter, who attends Sonora Elementary School in Costa Mesa, school district officials said.
"She was a wonderful, nice lady who always had a smile on her face," Lynne said. "She was very happy with where her life was. She was in a very happy relationship."
She came to work cheerful every day, Lynne said.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has sent grief counselors to Paularino and Sonora.
Romolo Docson, who was pushing his 2-year-old, Julia, in a red car around the neighborhood Wednesday, said that the killings surprised him.
Marco Antonio Arroyo lives two doors down from Lehmann. He said that he didn't even know the couple were separated and that the family always seemed very happy.
Arroyo, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said he would see Lehmann's daughter playing outside the home, and said that Lehmann was always very affectionate with her.
"I would have never imagined," Arroyo said. "Never! I never saw anything contrary. They always seemed happy."
Article: Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day
He "threatened me," "strangled me with a PlayStation cord," "lunged at me with a pocketknife." A horror movie? No, real life for far too many young women, an exclusive new Glamour survey reveals. Why is relationship violence still so frighteningly common in 2011? And how can we help? The answer starts with two simple words: Tell Somebody.
Not long before sunrise on a Midwestern Friday, college student and part-time waitress Alexandra Briggs sat in her one-bedroom apartment, meticulously applying thick makeup all over her face, neck and arms. It took two coats to cover her boyfriend's teeth marks and the cigarette burns he'd inflicted, along with her newly purpling bruises; her pants hid the spot on her thigh where he'd stabbed her with a fork. When she finished, he drove her to the Original Pancake House for her 7:00 a.m. shift. "I'm sick," she told her boss as she clocked in and headed to the restroom.
Briggs, a freckled, blue-eyed Beatles fan who was studying criminal justice, had first chatted with Matthew Hubbard over Instant Messenger five months earlier. After their first date, she hadn't been interested, but when Hubbard, a fellow student, begged her to give him a chance, she did.
By that morning, she was barely a whisper of herself. As Hubbard would later admit in court, before Briggs had gone to work he'd hit her repeatedly with a small bat and strangled her until she slumped, unconscious -- typical of the violence that had started a month into the relationship. "He had me in a choke hold against the wall, saying, 'I'm going to kill you. No one will find your body; no one cares about you,'" Briggs, now 26, recalls. Dazed, she had agreed to Hubbard's order to go to work, fake the stomach flu and return home with him. She was huddled over the toilet when her manager, Shea Duymovic, pushed her way into the stall and sat on the floor. "Look at me," Duymovic said, her face next to Briggs'. "I know what he's doing to you. And I can't stand to see this happen anymore."
A moment passed. When Briggs finally turned, she saw her boss's eyes filled with tears. She remembers thinking one simple thought: Someone cares? Overwhelmed, she began to sob. "Do you want me to call your parents?" Duymovic asked gently. Briggs could only nod.
That day wasn't the first time Duymovic, then 33, had worried about her employee. She'd weathered a violent relationship herself, swept into it young, as Briggs had been. "I knew Alex's situation was getting really bad," Duymovic recalls. She had seen the bruises on Briggs' arms and noticed that she'd begun wearing glasses and heavy foundation; once bubbly, Briggs now spent most breaks tethered to her cell phone. "She came in and I could just tell," Duymovic says. "I think she would have died if she had left with him." And so Duymovic stepped in: staying by Briggs' side until her father arrived, keeping in touch as Briggs recovered from her injuries -- including a broken nose and ruptured eardrum. And the day that Hubbard was sentenced to 10 years in prison and the details of Briggs' abuse went on record, Duymovic was there, cheering her on. As Briggs says today, "Shea was my angel."
Duymovic is a hero. But what she did is something each and every one of us can do -- and must do. Because the violence Briggs kept secret is much too common.
The truth is, four women are killed every single day in the United States by someone they're involved with. One year ago, on May 3, the world lost Yeardley Love, a 22-year-old University of Virginia lacrosse player whose boyfriend now faces trial for her murder; he told police he shook her so hard her head repeatedly hit the wall. And the headlines kept coming, telling the horror stories of New York swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay, 33, strangled and left in her hotel bathroom, allegedly by her boyfriend; Samantha Miller, 34, shot in the head on Christmas near a Tennessee Army base; Courtney Delano, 19, killed in Michigan when she was six months pregnant. The very day Glamour went to press with this story, Sarah Coit, 23, was stabbed multiple times, reportedly by her boyfriend, in their Manhattan apartment. "I knew he was going to kill her," a former neighbor told the New York Post. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: Over the course of an average year in twenty-first-century America, more than 1,400 women will be murdered by someone they've loved.
Most alarming, things are only getting more dangerous for some women: While overall female "intimate partner homicides," as these deaths are called, have dropped almost 20 percent since domestic violence awareness began in the 1970s, a closer look at data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that, frighteningly, among women who are dating -- as opposed to married -- the homicide rate is climbing. "For girlfriends killed by boyfriends, especially white girlfriends, the homicide rates have actually risen slightly," says James Alan Fox, Ph.D., a criminology expert at Northeastern University and former fellow of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, who analyzed the government data for Glamour. And the rates of violence for young married women are still unacceptably high as well: In an exclusive Glamour/Harris Interactive random survey of 2,542 women ages 18 to 35 -- single, living together and married -- a full 29 percent said they'd been in an abusive relationship. Another 30 percent said they'd never been abused but then went on to acknowledge that, at some point, a partner had viciously hurt them: from verbal degradation to being strangled or threatened with a knife. That means more than half of all women have been harmed by their partner.
Why is this still happening in 2011? After all, as women, we're clearly no longer second-class citizens, so dependent on men's earnings and support that we must put up with brutal relationships simply because we have no choices. We have more choices than ever -- and men are surely more enlightened. So why are women more likely to be killed by their boyfriend than they were 35 years ago? And what can we do to reverse the trend?
Glamour is hoping to answer those questions. To honor the one-year anniversary of Yeardley Love's death, we're encouraging women to talk about relationship violence -- both to ask for help and to offer it without judgment. Our campaign starts on these pages -- full of real stories, hard science and guidance about exactly what to say and do. The most important step: Tell Somebody.
Why Young Women Are More At Risk Now
We've come a long way since the 1980s, when movies like Farrah Fawcett's "The Burning Bed" helped break decades of silence about relationship abuse. Back then "everyone thought that domestic violence and rape were rare occurrences," says Patricia Tjaden, Ph.D., who headed the acclaimed National Violence Against Women Survey 10 years ago. "Now there is a consensus among practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and the public that these types of violence are widespread." And yet it seems that greater awareness hasn't translated into a public condemnation of these crimes -- instead, some days, our reaction looks like one giant cultural shrug. Consider Charlie Sheen, who apparently spent two decades pushing, shoving, threatening and, on one occasion, even accidentally shooting the women in his life -- much of the time while enjoying his role as TV's highest-paid actor. ("I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom!" he reportedly said to his third wife, Brooke Mueller.) Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to charges stemming from hitting his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva ("You f--king deserved it," he ranted) and then went on to star in "The Beaver," one of his biggest films in years. Over in the sports world, at least three players in the NFL alone were accused of domestic violence last year. It all maddens attorney Gael Strack, cofounder of the National Family Justice Center Alliance. "It's like, 'I just got charged with DV, what's the big deal?'" she says. "In a lot of cases, there are few or no consequences."
But cultural complacency may be only one reason relationship violence persists. New technology is playing a part, too. For years experts have known -- and told victims -- that any partner who constantly needs to know where you are and what you're doing is a dangerous partner, that such "monitoring" often leads to physical violence. But these days it's become so acceptable for couples, colleagues and friends to text and email one another at any given moment that women may miss those early danger signs. What's more, GPS and computer spyware are cropping up increasingly in stalking and dating violence cases. "Abusers can now be on you 24/7," says Cindy Southworth, founder of the Safety Net Project, a team of experts on digital abuse at the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
And believe it or not, in a hookup culture, some advocates worry that young women may be brushing off "bad boy" behavior. "A major misperception is that if the relationship isn't serious, the abuse can't be serious," says Cristina Escobar, a spokeswoman for Break the Cycle, a dating violence organization for teens and twentysomethings. "Just because you're hooking up doesn't mean you're not experiencing violence." In fact, says Tjaden, "there's more intimate violence reported in cohabiting couples than in marriages."
Perhaps most surprising, some researchers believe that because young women today feel invulnerable in relationships, they may actually try to tough it out themselves rather than ask for help when things turn bad. "We've grown up in a different generation, where women are leaders, we have careers, children -- we break glass ceilings," one 24-year-old student tells Glamour, explaining why she spent two and a half years with a boyfriend who called her "bitch" and "whore" and, according to her police report, hit her and threatened her. "We expect to be strong and independent. When the abuse began, I thought, I can handle this on my own."
In other words, it's hard for young women to see themselves as victims at the hands of a man. "They don't believe they'll ever be an Ike and Tina Turner story," says Kenya Fairley, program manager for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, "because they see the initial incidents of abuse in the same way they see obstacles they're tackling at work. So if a boyfriend criticizes her, she thinks, I can handle it, just like she does with her boss. Women today keep managing the abuse until they're so far in they need help getting out."
That's exactly what happened to April Singiser, 22, a San Diego nursing student. Over the course of three years, she says, her then boyfriend threw food at her and held her hostage in his apartment when she wanted to leave. She told no one -- not her family, not her friends, not her coworkers -- because "I was ashamed and embarrassed," she says. "I am not that type of person. I'm the person who always says, 'I don't care how big you are.'" But after she tried to break up with him, he forced her into her Honda Civic at knifepoint, and she had to face it: She might be strong, but at 6' 5" and 300 pounds with a switchblade in his hand, he was stronger.
"He was telling me, 'You shouldn't have left me; I'm going to take you to an Indian reservation where I can kill you and no one will find you,' and holding the knife to my throat," she recalls. "I was driving on the 805 North, bawling, thinking, How am I going to get out of this? Should I just crash the car on his side?" When, at his direction, she got off the freeway, they hit a red light. Singiser sprang out, raced to the car behind her and banged on the windows. "He's going to kill me!" she screamed. It was literally the first time she'd ever asked for help.
Singiser's ex is now in jail; he gets out next February. She is worried -- on his Facebook profile, his interests include "Gettin Even" -- but she's also thriving, going to school and working as a medical assistant. "Even though I thought I could handle it," she says of her early reluctance to talk about her situation, "I obviously couldn't."
Why Doesn't She Just Leave?
Perhaps the most nagging question about this issue is, Why do women stay? Some of the reasons are the age-old ones: Love, as uncomfortable as it is to confront, was the top answer from women in our survey when asked why they had not left an abusive partner. And research is proving exactly how emotional and physical abuse physiologically changes the brain. Using MRI scans, neuroscientists like Alan Simmons, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, have found that repeated abuse makes a victim more prone to being withdrawn, forgetful and so stuck in negative thinking that she can't even see how a situation could improve. Many survivors look back and say they were in a fog; often the phrase is "I lost myself." "There is something biological," says Simmons. "It's not a sign of weakness. It's akin to what happens to the brain during war."
This rings true for Reena Becerra, 38, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, whose then boyfriend, Mike Vargas, once bashed her head against the linoleum floor and strangled her. (Despite that and his 18 prior incidents, he got five years' probation and no jail time -- shockingly not atypical in these cases.) "People think, You don't have kids, you're a beautiful girl -- what's keeping you with him?" she says. "Well, I started out a confident, strong girl. Five years of someone telling me, 'If you just shut up, I wouldn't have to hit you,' and I started thinking, Maybe I should shut up."
Rene Renick, a vice president at the National Network to End Domestic Violence and a counselor for 20 years, sees women like Becerra all the time. "You become isolated, and the only feedback you're getting is from this guy who's giving really distorted messages, like 'You caused this,' which gets inside your head," Renick says. "You fall in this cycle of believing that if you caused the violence, you can stop it, which you can't -- only he can."
Speak Up -- It Really Matters
Vanessa Saulter, 37, thanks God every day that she told her friends about the violence her on-again, off-again boyfriend put her through, and that they stuck by her. Longtime pal 32-year-old Janet McKnight may have even saved her life one night.
As Saulter remembers it, that early spring evening started off well enough. She and her boyfriend were hanging out at her apartment, but his mood veered after an argument in which he accused her of cheating. In what became a deranged marathon of violence, he punched and choked Saulter until at one point she looked out the window of her third-story bedroom and -- fell? jumped? she's not sure -- but somehow found herself, one sneaker on, plunging three stories through the midnight air.
When she came to on the parking lot cement, "he told me, 'I can leave you here, or I can take you back upstairs,'" says Saulter, now a resident director at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. "I couldn't feel my legs. I knew I needed help." He carried her to her bed but instead of calling 911, continued to torture her for another 12 hours. Sometime the next morning, he hacked off her hair.
Meanwhile, McKnight was trying desperately to reach Saulter; knowing about the violence, she always worried when Saulter didn't answer her calls immediately. Frantic, she phoned Saulter's parents and urged them to hurry to the apartment. When McKnight got there herself, she says, "I saw her hair everywhere, holes in the wall, blood. And I was thinking, What happened to her?"
Saulter's family rushed their daughter to the hospital; she had multiple rib fractures, a collapsed lung and "she'd broken her back in two bad places," says her doctor, Leonard Nelson, M.D. "It takes an unusual amount of force to do that."
After more than a year, Saulter got back on her feet, both physically and emotionally. "Honestly, I thought I would never get to the point where I could leave," she says, giving full credit to her friends for their support. "They saw the signs from the beginning. They would tell me I would go missing and my picture would end up on a milk carton. Over time, it slowly sank in."
It does sink in, say experts. "If others can continually counter with messages like 'It's not you. You didn't cause this. This is not a normal relationship,'" says Renick, "they can help women escape the abuser's reality."
That's exactly the script Ashia Troiano, 21, a recent Swarthmore College graduate, used with her best friend, Quasona Cobb, also 21. "There were plenty of times where I was like, 'This isn't healthy -- you're not even happy,'" she says of Cobb's relationship with boyfriend Keith Bailey and his ongoing brutality.
Cobb, a hotel administrative assistant and college student in New York, eventually came to the same conclusion herself; last December, she demanded that Bailey move out. Troiano stood by her -- and is still her rock through the even darker time that has followed. One night before Bailey left, as Cobb later told police, he pulled out a chunk of her hair and dragged her down the hall; then, planting his foot on her stomach and holding a lighter in one hand, he started dousing her with her own aromatherapy oil. Vanilla, maybe, or grapefruit. She realized, with horror, what he was about to do. "I was screaming. I was begging, 'Please do not set me on fire. I'll do anything you want, OK? I'll stay with you,'" she recalls. He finally calmed down and fell asleep. Immediately, Cobb texted Troiano: Be here at 7:30 in the morning to help me move out. Bailey would leave for work by then.
When Troiano arrived, the two threw some clothes in a bag for Cobb and went straight to the 42nd Precinct to file a police report. And then Cobb called her mom, Arlene Gordon, a 42-year-old assistant analyst for Con Edison. Although they talked five times a day, Cobb had never told her mother about Bailey's rages. Now she did, and they agreed that Cobb shouldn't see her boyfriend again; instead, Gordon, a fierce mama-bear type, would supervise Bailey as he cleared his belongings out of her daughter's apartment. Cobb urged her to go with a male relative, but Gordon said no, she could take care of this herself. Cobb called and talked to her mother at the apartment around 4:30. When she phoned again at 5:01, no answer; 5:10, nothing. So Cobb dialed 911.
At 7:30 she heard. Cobb says police had found her mother facedown on the bed, set afire -- the heat so intense, a garbage bag over her head had melted into her hair. She was alive, but barely. Her head had been crushed by a heavy object, Cobb says. The only thing untouched were her perfectly pedicured red toes.
"That was the hardest night," says Cobb. "I wanted to die myself. You go through the blame -- Why didn't I go with her?"
Five months later, Gordon remains in the hospital. At press time, she has said just two words, but two words of a fighting spirit: "I want." Bailey, for his part, faces 10 counts, including arson and attempted murder of Gordon.
The two friends are still in constant contact. They're struggling with their guilt, but Cobb reassures Troiano that she's saved at least one life. "Ashia is my she-ro," she says. "I tell her every day: 'You are the best friend in the whole wide world.'"
Here's What You Can Say
Over the five years that Cobb stayed with her boyfriend, Troiano never stopped talking to her about what was going on. But many people -- 37 percent in Glamour's survey -- don't reach out to a friend or acquaintance if they suspect abuse. It is hard to know what to say, but here are some of the exact phrases that helped 50 survivors we interviewed with the help of the National Family Justice Center Alliance:
"I am afraid for you." Nicole Van Winkle, 24, heard these words after confiding to an old friend that she worried her boyfriend would hit her if she didn't return his calls. "She said it wasn't OK, but she didn't judge me," says Van Winkle. "She just listened -- and that really helped."
"You're not leaving until I take pictures." A friend said this to Yvonne Coiner, 44, after she spotted Coiner's bruises one day. The friend gave the photos to a counselor, who told Coiner that she wasn't safe. "I needed to hear that," Coiner says, "because when you're in the abuse, you're paralyzed."
"I am proud of you." After Petra Johansson, 39, filed for divorce from her abusive husband, her friend sent her that text. "I'll never forget it," she says, "and during bad times I'd pull it up again, reread it and be able to go on."
"I'm sorry, but honey, if he's hit you once, he'll hit you again." A friend said this to Jennica Tulao, 25, after noticing her bruises. "I'd told her I wanted to give him another chance," says Tulao. "That's when she said the thing about hitting. It was one of the turning points for me."
"Do you want your kids to go through that?" Ashley Raymer's dad asked that question when she came back home after a fight with her boyfriend. "I really wanted to be a mom," says Raymer, 24, "and that stayed with me."
"I can prosecute a felony DV charge with you alive -- or wait until you're dead and prosecute a felony murder charge." Reena Becerra, 38, was considering going back to her abuser when the district attorney said this. "It was the wake-up call I needed," she says. "I thought I was in danger; I just didn't know how much."
Many of the survivors we spoke to acknowledged just how tough it is for a friend to step in but said that having a caring, nonjudgmental supporter was nothing short of lifesaving. "Even if it doesn't happen overnight," stresses Renick, "the victim will say, 'You know, someone told me, "That isn't OK," and it took me six months, but it planted a seed.' It helps women begin to think about leaving a relationship."
And saying something -- even an awkward, uncomfortable something -- is always better than saying nothing. "So many women think there's no way out," says Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "If every woman who reads this says something, the ripple effect will be unbelievable."
As Vanessa Saulter, whose circle of female friends never gave up on her, puts it: "Along with my family and faith, my close friends are 100 percent responsible for the fact that I'm finally free."
How you can help: Text TELLNOW to 85944 to make a $10 donation that will go toward keeping a domestic violence hotline open. The Avon Foundation will match every dollar you donate up to $200,000. Find out more about our texting campaign.
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Liz Brody is Glamour's editor at large. For more resources on how to help, to share your story or to see video accounts from survivors, go to glamour.com/go/tell-somebody.
Not long before sunrise on a Midwestern Friday, college student and part-time waitress Alexandra Briggs sat in her one-bedroom apartment, meticulously applying thick makeup all over her face, neck and arms. It took two coats to cover her boyfriend's teeth marks and the cigarette burns he'd inflicted, along with her newly purpling bruises; her pants hid the spot on her thigh where he'd stabbed her with a fork. When she finished, he drove her to the Original Pancake House for her 7:00 a.m. shift. "I'm sick," she told her boss as she clocked in and headed to the restroom.
Briggs, a freckled, blue-eyed Beatles fan who was studying criminal justice, had first chatted with Matthew Hubbard over Instant Messenger five months earlier. After their first date, she hadn't been interested, but when Hubbard, a fellow student, begged her to give him a chance, she did.
By that morning, she was barely a whisper of herself. As Hubbard would later admit in court, before Briggs had gone to work he'd hit her repeatedly with a small bat and strangled her until she slumped, unconscious -- typical of the violence that had started a month into the relationship. "He had me in a choke hold against the wall, saying, 'I'm going to kill you. No one will find your body; no one cares about you,'" Briggs, now 26, recalls. Dazed, she had agreed to Hubbard's order to go to work, fake the stomach flu and return home with him. She was huddled over the toilet when her manager, Shea Duymovic, pushed her way into the stall and sat on the floor. "Look at me," Duymovic said, her face next to Briggs'. "I know what he's doing to you. And I can't stand to see this happen anymore."
A moment passed. When Briggs finally turned, she saw her boss's eyes filled with tears. She remembers thinking one simple thought: Someone cares? Overwhelmed, she began to sob. "Do you want me to call your parents?" Duymovic asked gently. Briggs could only nod.
That day wasn't the first time Duymovic, then 33, had worried about her employee. She'd weathered a violent relationship herself, swept into it young, as Briggs had been. "I knew Alex's situation was getting really bad," Duymovic recalls. She had seen the bruises on Briggs' arms and noticed that she'd begun wearing glasses and heavy foundation; once bubbly, Briggs now spent most breaks tethered to her cell phone. "She came in and I could just tell," Duymovic says. "I think she would have died if she had left with him." And so Duymovic stepped in: staying by Briggs' side until her father arrived, keeping in touch as Briggs recovered from her injuries -- including a broken nose and ruptured eardrum. And the day that Hubbard was sentenced to 10 years in prison and the details of Briggs' abuse went on record, Duymovic was there, cheering her on. As Briggs says today, "Shea was my angel."
Duymovic is a hero. But what she did is something each and every one of us can do -- and must do. Because the violence Briggs kept secret is much too common.
The truth is, four women are killed every single day in the United States by someone they're involved with. One year ago, on May 3, the world lost Yeardley Love, a 22-year-old University of Virginia lacrosse player whose boyfriend now faces trial for her murder; he told police he shook her so hard her head repeatedly hit the wall. And the headlines kept coming, telling the horror stories of New York swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay, 33, strangled and left in her hotel bathroom, allegedly by her boyfriend; Samantha Miller, 34, shot in the head on Christmas near a Tennessee Army base; Courtney Delano, 19, killed in Michigan when she was six months pregnant. The very day Glamour went to press with this story, Sarah Coit, 23, was stabbed multiple times, reportedly by her boyfriend, in their Manhattan apartment. "I knew he was going to kill her," a former neighbor told the New York Post. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: Over the course of an average year in twenty-first-century America, more than 1,400 women will be murdered by someone they've loved.
Most alarming, things are only getting more dangerous for some women: While overall female "intimate partner homicides," as these deaths are called, have dropped almost 20 percent since domestic violence awareness began in the 1970s, a closer look at data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that, frighteningly, among women who are dating -- as opposed to married -- the homicide rate is climbing. "For girlfriends killed by boyfriends, especially white girlfriends, the homicide rates have actually risen slightly," says James Alan Fox, Ph.D., a criminology expert at Northeastern University and former fellow of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, who analyzed the government data for Glamour. And the rates of violence for young married women are still unacceptably high as well: In an exclusive Glamour/Harris Interactive random survey of 2,542 women ages 18 to 35 -- single, living together and married -- a full 29 percent said they'd been in an abusive relationship. Another 30 percent said they'd never been abused but then went on to acknowledge that, at some point, a partner had viciously hurt them: from verbal degradation to being strangled or threatened with a knife. That means more than half of all women have been harmed by their partner.
Why is this still happening in 2011? After all, as women, we're clearly no longer second-class citizens, so dependent on men's earnings and support that we must put up with brutal relationships simply because we have no choices. We have more choices than ever -- and men are surely more enlightened. So why are women more likely to be killed by their boyfriend than they were 35 years ago? And what can we do to reverse the trend?
Glamour is hoping to answer those questions. To honor the one-year anniversary of Yeardley Love's death, we're encouraging women to talk about relationship violence -- both to ask for help and to offer it without judgment. Our campaign starts on these pages -- full of real stories, hard science and guidance about exactly what to say and do. The most important step: Tell Somebody.
Why Young Women Are More At Risk Now
We've come a long way since the 1980s, when movies like Farrah Fawcett's "The Burning Bed" helped break decades of silence about relationship abuse. Back then "everyone thought that domestic violence and rape were rare occurrences," says Patricia Tjaden, Ph.D., who headed the acclaimed National Violence Against Women Survey 10 years ago. "Now there is a consensus among practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and the public that these types of violence are widespread." And yet it seems that greater awareness hasn't translated into a public condemnation of these crimes -- instead, some days, our reaction looks like one giant cultural shrug. Consider Charlie Sheen, who apparently spent two decades pushing, shoving, threatening and, on one occasion, even accidentally shooting the women in his life -- much of the time while enjoying his role as TV's highest-paid actor. ("I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom!" he reportedly said to his third wife, Brooke Mueller.) Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to charges stemming from hitting his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva ("You f--king deserved it," he ranted) and then went on to star in "The Beaver," one of his biggest films in years. Over in the sports world, at least three players in the NFL alone were accused of domestic violence last year. It all maddens attorney Gael Strack, cofounder of the National Family Justice Center Alliance. "It's like, 'I just got charged with DV, what's the big deal?'" she says. "In a lot of cases, there are few or no consequences."
But cultural complacency may be only one reason relationship violence persists. New technology is playing a part, too. For years experts have known -- and told victims -- that any partner who constantly needs to know where you are and what you're doing is a dangerous partner, that such "monitoring" often leads to physical violence. But these days it's become so acceptable for couples, colleagues and friends to text and email one another at any given moment that women may miss those early danger signs. What's more, GPS and computer spyware are cropping up increasingly in stalking and dating violence cases. "Abusers can now be on you 24/7," says Cindy Southworth, founder of the Safety Net Project, a team of experts on digital abuse at the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
And believe it or not, in a hookup culture, some advocates worry that young women may be brushing off "bad boy" behavior. "A major misperception is that if the relationship isn't serious, the abuse can't be serious," says Cristina Escobar, a spokeswoman for Break the Cycle, a dating violence organization for teens and twentysomethings. "Just because you're hooking up doesn't mean you're not experiencing violence." In fact, says Tjaden, "there's more intimate violence reported in cohabiting couples than in marriages."
Perhaps most surprising, some researchers believe that because young women today feel invulnerable in relationships, they may actually try to tough it out themselves rather than ask for help when things turn bad. "We've grown up in a different generation, where women are leaders, we have careers, children -- we break glass ceilings," one 24-year-old student tells Glamour, explaining why she spent two and a half years with a boyfriend who called her "bitch" and "whore" and, according to her police report, hit her and threatened her. "We expect to be strong and independent. When the abuse began, I thought, I can handle this on my own."
In other words, it's hard for young women to see themselves as victims at the hands of a man. "They don't believe they'll ever be an Ike and Tina Turner story," says Kenya Fairley, program manager for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, "because they see the initial incidents of abuse in the same way they see obstacles they're tackling at work. So if a boyfriend criticizes her, she thinks, I can handle it, just like she does with her boss. Women today keep managing the abuse until they're so far in they need help getting out."
That's exactly what happened to April Singiser, 22, a San Diego nursing student. Over the course of three years, she says, her then boyfriend threw food at her and held her hostage in his apartment when she wanted to leave. She told no one -- not her family, not her friends, not her coworkers -- because "I was ashamed and embarrassed," she says. "I am not that type of person. I'm the person who always says, 'I don't care how big you are.'" But after she tried to break up with him, he forced her into her Honda Civic at knifepoint, and she had to face it: She might be strong, but at 6' 5" and 300 pounds with a switchblade in his hand, he was stronger.
"He was telling me, 'You shouldn't have left me; I'm going to take you to an Indian reservation where I can kill you and no one will find you,' and holding the knife to my throat," she recalls. "I was driving on the 805 North, bawling, thinking, How am I going to get out of this? Should I just crash the car on his side?" When, at his direction, she got off the freeway, they hit a red light. Singiser sprang out, raced to the car behind her and banged on the windows. "He's going to kill me!" she screamed. It was literally the first time she'd ever asked for help.
Singiser's ex is now in jail; he gets out next February. She is worried -- on his Facebook profile, his interests include "Gettin Even" -- but she's also thriving, going to school and working as a medical assistant. "Even though I thought I could handle it," she says of her early reluctance to talk about her situation, "I obviously couldn't."
Why Doesn't She Just Leave?
Perhaps the most nagging question about this issue is, Why do women stay? Some of the reasons are the age-old ones: Love, as uncomfortable as it is to confront, was the top answer from women in our survey when asked why they had not left an abusive partner. And research is proving exactly how emotional and physical abuse physiologically changes the brain. Using MRI scans, neuroscientists like Alan Simmons, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, have found that repeated abuse makes a victim more prone to being withdrawn, forgetful and so stuck in negative thinking that she can't even see how a situation could improve. Many survivors look back and say they were in a fog; often the phrase is "I lost myself." "There is something biological," says Simmons. "It's not a sign of weakness. It's akin to what happens to the brain during war."
This rings true for Reena Becerra, 38, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, whose then boyfriend, Mike Vargas, once bashed her head against the linoleum floor and strangled her. (Despite that and his 18 prior incidents, he got five years' probation and no jail time -- shockingly not atypical in these cases.) "People think, You don't have kids, you're a beautiful girl -- what's keeping you with him?" she says. "Well, I started out a confident, strong girl. Five years of someone telling me, 'If you just shut up, I wouldn't have to hit you,' and I started thinking, Maybe I should shut up."
Rene Renick, a vice president at the National Network to End Domestic Violence and a counselor for 20 years, sees women like Becerra all the time. "You become isolated, and the only feedback you're getting is from this guy who's giving really distorted messages, like 'You caused this,' which gets inside your head," Renick says. "You fall in this cycle of believing that if you caused the violence, you can stop it, which you can't -- only he can."
Speak Up -- It Really Matters
Vanessa Saulter, 37, thanks God every day that she told her friends about the violence her on-again, off-again boyfriend put her through, and that they stuck by her. Longtime pal 32-year-old Janet McKnight may have even saved her life one night.
As Saulter remembers it, that early spring evening started off well enough. She and her boyfriend were hanging out at her apartment, but his mood veered after an argument in which he accused her of cheating. In what became a deranged marathon of violence, he punched and choked Saulter until at one point she looked out the window of her third-story bedroom and -- fell? jumped? she's not sure -- but somehow found herself, one sneaker on, plunging three stories through the midnight air.
When she came to on the parking lot cement, "he told me, 'I can leave you here, or I can take you back upstairs,'" says Saulter, now a resident director at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. "I couldn't feel my legs. I knew I needed help." He carried her to her bed but instead of calling 911, continued to torture her for another 12 hours. Sometime the next morning, he hacked off her hair.
Meanwhile, McKnight was trying desperately to reach Saulter; knowing about the violence, she always worried when Saulter didn't answer her calls immediately. Frantic, she phoned Saulter's parents and urged them to hurry to the apartment. When McKnight got there herself, she says, "I saw her hair everywhere, holes in the wall, blood. And I was thinking, What happened to her?"
Saulter's family rushed their daughter to the hospital; she had multiple rib fractures, a collapsed lung and "she'd broken her back in two bad places," says her doctor, Leonard Nelson, M.D. "It takes an unusual amount of force to do that."
After more than a year, Saulter got back on her feet, both physically and emotionally. "Honestly, I thought I would never get to the point where I could leave," she says, giving full credit to her friends for their support. "They saw the signs from the beginning. They would tell me I would go missing and my picture would end up on a milk carton. Over time, it slowly sank in."
It does sink in, say experts. "If others can continually counter with messages like 'It's not you. You didn't cause this. This is not a normal relationship,'" says Renick, "they can help women escape the abuser's reality."
That's exactly the script Ashia Troiano, 21, a recent Swarthmore College graduate, used with her best friend, Quasona Cobb, also 21. "There were plenty of times where I was like, 'This isn't healthy -- you're not even happy,'" she says of Cobb's relationship with boyfriend Keith Bailey and his ongoing brutality.
Cobb, a hotel administrative assistant and college student in New York, eventually came to the same conclusion herself; last December, she demanded that Bailey move out. Troiano stood by her -- and is still her rock through the even darker time that has followed. One night before Bailey left, as Cobb later told police, he pulled out a chunk of her hair and dragged her down the hall; then, planting his foot on her stomach and holding a lighter in one hand, he started dousing her with her own aromatherapy oil. Vanilla, maybe, or grapefruit. She realized, with horror, what he was about to do. "I was screaming. I was begging, 'Please do not set me on fire. I'll do anything you want, OK? I'll stay with you,'" she recalls. He finally calmed down and fell asleep. Immediately, Cobb texted Troiano: Be here at 7:30 in the morning to help me move out. Bailey would leave for work by then.
When Troiano arrived, the two threw some clothes in a bag for Cobb and went straight to the 42nd Precinct to file a police report. And then Cobb called her mom, Arlene Gordon, a 42-year-old assistant analyst for Con Edison. Although they talked five times a day, Cobb had never told her mother about Bailey's rages. Now she did, and they agreed that Cobb shouldn't see her boyfriend again; instead, Gordon, a fierce mama-bear type, would supervise Bailey as he cleared his belongings out of her daughter's apartment. Cobb urged her to go with a male relative, but Gordon said no, she could take care of this herself. Cobb called and talked to her mother at the apartment around 4:30. When she phoned again at 5:01, no answer; 5:10, nothing. So Cobb dialed 911.
At 7:30 she heard. Cobb says police had found her mother facedown on the bed, set afire -- the heat so intense, a garbage bag over her head had melted into her hair. She was alive, but barely. Her head had been crushed by a heavy object, Cobb says. The only thing untouched were her perfectly pedicured red toes.
"That was the hardest night," says Cobb. "I wanted to die myself. You go through the blame -- Why didn't I go with her?"
Five months later, Gordon remains in the hospital. At press time, she has said just two words, but two words of a fighting spirit: "I want." Bailey, for his part, faces 10 counts, including arson and attempted murder of Gordon.
The two friends are still in constant contact. They're struggling with their guilt, but Cobb reassures Troiano that she's saved at least one life. "Ashia is my she-ro," she says. "I tell her every day: 'You are the best friend in the whole wide world.'"
Here's What You Can Say
Over the five years that Cobb stayed with her boyfriend, Troiano never stopped talking to her about what was going on. But many people -- 37 percent in Glamour's survey -- don't reach out to a friend or acquaintance if they suspect abuse. It is hard to know what to say, but here are some of the exact phrases that helped 50 survivors we interviewed with the help of the National Family Justice Center Alliance:
"I am afraid for you." Nicole Van Winkle, 24, heard these words after confiding to an old friend that she worried her boyfriend would hit her if she didn't return his calls. "She said it wasn't OK, but she didn't judge me," says Van Winkle. "She just listened -- and that really helped."
"You're not leaving until I take pictures." A friend said this to Yvonne Coiner, 44, after she spotted Coiner's bruises one day. The friend gave the photos to a counselor, who told Coiner that she wasn't safe. "I needed to hear that," Coiner says, "because when you're in the abuse, you're paralyzed."
"I am proud of you." After Petra Johansson, 39, filed for divorce from her abusive husband, her friend sent her that text. "I'll never forget it," she says, "and during bad times I'd pull it up again, reread it and be able to go on."
"I'm sorry, but honey, if he's hit you once, he'll hit you again." A friend said this to Jennica Tulao, 25, after noticing her bruises. "I'd told her I wanted to give him another chance," says Tulao. "That's when she said the thing about hitting. It was one of the turning points for me."
"Do you want your kids to go through that?" Ashley Raymer's dad asked that question when she came back home after a fight with her boyfriend. "I really wanted to be a mom," says Raymer, 24, "and that stayed with me."
"I can prosecute a felony DV charge with you alive -- or wait until you're dead and prosecute a felony murder charge." Reena Becerra, 38, was considering going back to her abuser when the district attorney said this. "It was the wake-up call I needed," she says. "I thought I was in danger; I just didn't know how much."
Many of the survivors we spoke to acknowledged just how tough it is for a friend to step in but said that having a caring, nonjudgmental supporter was nothing short of lifesaving. "Even if it doesn't happen overnight," stresses Renick, "the victim will say, 'You know, someone told me, "That isn't OK," and it took me six months, but it planted a seed.' It helps women begin to think about leaving a relationship."
And saying something -- even an awkward, uncomfortable something -- is always better than saying nothing. "So many women think there's no way out," says Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "If every woman who reads this says something, the ripple effect will be unbelievable."
As Vanessa Saulter, whose circle of female friends never gave up on her, puts it: "Along with my family and faith, my close friends are 100 percent responsible for the fact that I'm finally free."
How you can help: Text TELLNOW to 85944 to make a $10 donation that will go toward keeping a domestic violence hotline open. The Avon Foundation will match every dollar you donate up to $200,000. Find out more about our texting campaign.
* * * * *
Liz Brody is Glamour's editor at large. For more resources on how to help, to share your story or to see video accounts from survivors, go to glamour.com/go/tell-somebody.
Hollidayburg, PA: Pennsylvania Man Killed Self After Trying to Abduct Ex
Published May 03, 2011
HOLLIDAYBURG, Pa.-- State police say a central Pennsylvania man fatally shot himself after trying to abduct his ex-girlfriend.
State police in Hollidaysburg say the situation unfolded about 5:30 p.m. Sunday when 46-year-old Michael Avery, of Martinsburg, tried to kidnap his ex-girlfriend in Freedom Township. Police say the woman escaped and called 911 from a convenience store.
Police chased Avery's vehicle when they spotted it and he crashed into a ditch in Frankstown Township. Police say that's when Avery killed himself with a shotgun.
Police tell the Altoona Mirror that they later learned Avery had rented a motel room where they found rope, duct tape, an eye mask and sleeping pills which they believe were intended for the woman.
HOLLIDAYBURG, Pa.-- State police say a central Pennsylvania man fatally shot himself after trying to abduct his ex-girlfriend.
State police in Hollidaysburg say the situation unfolded about 5:30 p.m. Sunday when 46-year-old Michael Avery, of Martinsburg, tried to kidnap his ex-girlfriend in Freedom Township. Police say the woman escaped and called 911 from a convenience store.
Police chased Avery's vehicle when they spotted it and he crashed into a ditch in Frankstown Township. Police say that's when Avery killed himself with a shotgun.
Police tell the Altoona Mirror that they later learned Avery had rented a motel room where they found rope, duct tape, an eye mask and sleeping pills which they believe were intended for the woman.
Philomath, OR: Philomath man arraigned in slaying of woman, son
Corvallis Gazette-Times | Posted: Tuesday, May 3, 2011 12:36 am | (3) Comments
Gustavo David Martinez-Aquepucho, appearing by video, is arraigned Monday for the slaying of his girlfriend and his son, and is denied bail by Circuit Judge Janet Holcomb. At the proceedings are Deputy District Attorney Mark Flinn, left, and Martinez-Aquepucho’s court-appointed attorneys Daniel Koenig and Mark Sabitt. (SCOBEL WIGGINS | Corvallis Gazette-Times)
OSU international student from Peru faces three counts of aggravated murder
Gustavo David Martinez-Aquepucho, 20, of Philomath, was arraigned Monday on charges that he killed his former girlfriend and their son.
Martinez is charged with three counts of aggravated murder for the stabbing deaths of Kelsey Rozetta Baker, 19, and their son, 1-year-old Theo Martinez. Baker and her child were killed Friday at a residence where the three had lived together, 24882 Evergreen Road near Philomath.
Martinez appeared for his court arraignment Monday afternoon via a closed-circuit TV feed from the Benton County jail, where he has been held since Saturday night.
Judge Janet Holcomb entered a not guilty plea for Martinez and denied bail. Those charged with aggravated murder can be held without bail.
Martinez’s court-appointed attorneys, Mark Sabitt and Daniel Koenig, requested that the case be presented to a grand jury within 30 days. No judge yet has been assigned, and no court dates have yet been scheduled.
Martinez remained Monday night in the jail.
Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson explained the reasoning behind the three aggravated murder charges. Aggravated murder cases require the presence of one of a number of aggravating factors that are spelled out in state law.
In this case, two of the counts claim that the aggravating factor is that Martinez committed a second murder “in the course of the same criminal episode” that claimed the first victim.
So, count one charges that Martinez killed Baker and, in the course of the same criminal episode, killed his son.
Count two charges that Martinez killed Theo and, in the same criminal episode, killed Baker.
Count three lists a different aggravating factor: It charges that Martinez killed Theo, “a human being under the age of 14 years.”
A defendant convicted on a charge of aggravated murder could be sentenced to death, but Haroldson has not said whether he will seek the death penalty in this case.
Documents filed in connection with the case Monday charged that Martinez decided to kill Baker and the toddler after Baker told him that she would not reconcile with him. An affidavit filed in the case alleged that Martinez then planned to kill himself so the family could be together in the afterlife. (See the related story.)
The events unfolded Friday night in the Evergreen Road house owned by Russell Anderson and Ann Marchant, where Martinez, Baker and their son were living.
An email Anderson sent to the Gazette-Times on Sunday said that Martinez first moved into their house in 2007, when he was an exchange student from Peru attending Philomath High School. He and Baker became romantically involved in high school. Martinez graduated in 2008; Baker in 2009. They later dated on and off while students at Oregon State University, where Martinez majored in nutrition with plans to open his own restaurant. Baker majored in public health.
The on-again-off-again relationship solidified with the birth of the baby in April 2010, but had soured by March of this year, when Baker said she wanted out and moved with the baby into another room at the Anderson-Marchant house.
Gustavo David Martinez-Aquepucho, appearing by video, is arraigned Monday for the slaying of his girlfriend and his son, and is denied bail by Circuit Judge Janet Holcomb. At the proceedings are Deputy District Attorney Mark Flinn, left, and Martinez-Aquepucho’s court-appointed attorneys Daniel Koenig and Mark Sabitt. (SCOBEL WIGGINS | Corvallis Gazette-Times)
OSU international student from Peru faces three counts of aggravated murder
Gustavo David Martinez-Aquepucho, 20, of Philomath, was arraigned Monday on charges that he killed his former girlfriend and their son.
Martinez is charged with three counts of aggravated murder for the stabbing deaths of Kelsey Rozetta Baker, 19, and their son, 1-year-old Theo Martinez. Baker and her child were killed Friday at a residence where the three had lived together, 24882 Evergreen Road near Philomath.
Martinez appeared for his court arraignment Monday afternoon via a closed-circuit TV feed from the Benton County jail, where he has been held since Saturday night.
Judge Janet Holcomb entered a not guilty plea for Martinez and denied bail. Those charged with aggravated murder can be held without bail.
Martinez’s court-appointed attorneys, Mark Sabitt and Daniel Koenig, requested that the case be presented to a grand jury within 30 days. No judge yet has been assigned, and no court dates have yet been scheduled.
Martinez remained Monday night in the jail.
Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson explained the reasoning behind the three aggravated murder charges. Aggravated murder cases require the presence of one of a number of aggravating factors that are spelled out in state law.
In this case, two of the counts claim that the aggravating factor is that Martinez committed a second murder “in the course of the same criminal episode” that claimed the first victim.
So, count one charges that Martinez killed Baker and, in the course of the same criminal episode, killed his son.
Count two charges that Martinez killed Theo and, in the same criminal episode, killed Baker.
Count three lists a different aggravating factor: It charges that Martinez killed Theo, “a human being under the age of 14 years.”
A defendant convicted on a charge of aggravated murder could be sentenced to death, but Haroldson has not said whether he will seek the death penalty in this case.
Documents filed in connection with the case Monday charged that Martinez decided to kill Baker and the toddler after Baker told him that she would not reconcile with him. An affidavit filed in the case alleged that Martinez then planned to kill himself so the family could be together in the afterlife. (See the related story.)
The events unfolded Friday night in the Evergreen Road house owned by Russell Anderson and Ann Marchant, where Martinez, Baker and their son were living.
An email Anderson sent to the Gazette-Times on Sunday said that Martinez first moved into their house in 2007, when he was an exchange student from Peru attending Philomath High School. He and Baker became romantically involved in high school. Martinez graduated in 2008; Baker in 2009. They later dated on and off while students at Oregon State University, where Martinez majored in nutrition with plans to open his own restaurant. Baker majored in public health.
The on-again-off-again relationship solidified with the birth of the baby in April 2010, but had soured by March of this year, when Baker said she wanted out and moved with the baby into another room at the Anderson-Marchant house.
Livingston, MI: Authorities identify man who stabbed wife's boyfriend, killed himself
Written by
Lisa Roose-Church
daily press & argus
1:29 AM, May. 3, 2011|
Police identified the man who stabbed his
estranged wife’s live-in boyfriend and then
killed himself as Randall Jason Martin.
Michigan State Police officials at the
Brighton post said Monday that 40-year-
old Martin, of Handy Township, barged into
his estranged wife’s Pinckney Road home
Saturday and stabbed her live-in
boyfriend, Steven Nicholas Sayre, 41, with
a pocketknife several times in the neck,
throat and abdomen while two children, 11
and 13, were in the house.
Hours after the incident, Martin shot and
killed himself while sitting in his truck in the
400 block of Fowlerville Road in Handy
Township as a state trooper tried to talk to
him, police said.
Sayre was listed in critical condition Sunday
at the University of Michigan Medical Center
in Ann Arbor, but a spokeswoman said
Monday that he is not listed in the system.
It is unknown if he was released or
transferred to another facility.
Police said Martin had been at the woman’s
house earlier in the day and the two
argued about property in the presence of
the boyfriend. Martin also was upset
another male was in the home, but he left
without incident, police said.
“He walked out and waved cordially,”
Trooper Jeff Frasier said Saturday.
However, Martin returned just after
midnight, entering the home in the 2700
block of Pinckney Road through an
unlocked side door of the garage.
Sayre, who had been living there just a few
weeks, heard a noise and found Martin in
the garage. An argument broke out, and
Martin yelled at Sayre, threatening to kill
him and saying he wanted to talk to his
wife, police said.
Lisa Roose-Church
daily press & argus
1:29 AM, May. 3, 2011|
Police identified the man who stabbed his
estranged wife’s live-in boyfriend and then
killed himself as Randall Jason Martin.
Michigan State Police officials at the
Brighton post said Monday that 40-year-
old Martin, of Handy Township, barged into
his estranged wife’s Pinckney Road home
Saturday and stabbed her live-in
boyfriend, Steven Nicholas Sayre, 41, with
a pocketknife several times in the neck,
throat and abdomen while two children, 11
and 13, were in the house.
Hours after the incident, Martin shot and
killed himself while sitting in his truck in the
400 block of Fowlerville Road in Handy
Township as a state trooper tried to talk to
him, police said.
Sayre was listed in critical condition Sunday
at the University of Michigan Medical Center
in Ann Arbor, but a spokeswoman said
Monday that he is not listed in the system.
It is unknown if he was released or
transferred to another facility.
Police said Martin had been at the woman’s
house earlier in the day and the two
argued about property in the presence of
the boyfriend. Martin also was upset
another male was in the home, but he left
without incident, police said.
“He walked out and waved cordially,”
Trooper Jeff Frasier said Saturday.
However, Martin returned just after
midnight, entering the home in the 2700
block of Pinckney Road through an
unlocked side door of the garage.
Sayre, who had been living there just a few
weeks, heard a noise and found Martin in
the garage. An argument broke out, and
Martin yelled at Sayre, threatening to kill
him and saying he wanted to talk to his
wife, police said.
Lawrenceville, GA: Woman details events leading to husband’s murder
Defendant: ‘If I didn’t leave I was probably going to die’
After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified
LAWRENCEVILLE — After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified.
Though Greg Schutt had bloodied her nose, left a “basketball-sized” bruise on her back, stomped her with military boots, pulled chunks of hair from her scalp, choked her, tossed her against a bathtub, tables and kitchen appliances and besieged her with all manner of vile insults during the course of their rocky, nine-year marriage, Ashley couldn’t bear to see him so helpless, she testified.
<
And then, with the same knife, she inflicted wounds on herself.
“I cut my arm because I couldn’t move,” Ashley told a prosecutor. “It shocked me a little bit to get me going ... I was in shock, ma’am.”
Ashley testified for several hours Wednesday in the climax of her week-long murder trial, shedding some light on the mysterious hours between her going to sleep at 2:30 a.m. on July 25, 2009 and her frantic pounding for help on a neighbor’s door. Other answers were lost in the heat of the moment, Ashley said.
Events leading up to Greg’s death included an argument over her leaving a stove burner on, after Greg had demanded she fix his dinner, she said. She’d worked until midnight at a call-center in Newton County, had popped an Ambien and was preparing to sleep when Greg dragged her in their Lawrenceville home, she testified.
“I looked at him and said go ahead and hit me — it’ll be the last time you put your hands on me,” Ashley testified. “I told him I was leaving.”
Defense attorney Thomas Clegg led his client through recollections of a marriage that seemed more like an emotional quagmire than pleasant memory lane.
Ashley, donning a long black jacket and charcoal blouse, her face gaunt and pale, talked of the tumultuous years the couple spent on military bases from Nebraska to Japan. Each of their four separations were precipitated by his violence, and each time she returned sparked a short-lived honeymoon period, she testified.
Prosecutors believe Ashley plotted to kill Greg and overtook him in his sleep.
At 6 feet, 5 inches, Greg dwarfed his wife and outweighed her by 129 pounds. His abuses prompted dozens of doctor’s visits but no police reports or protective orders, she testified. Prosecutors believe some of the injuries could have stemmed from two vehicle crashes and a tripping accident at Discover Mills Mall months before the killing.
The turmoil between the couple had come to a head days before the killing, Ashley testified.
“I knew that if I didn’t leave I was probably going to die,” she said.
By afternoon, Clegg’s coaxing of details in support of his self-defense theory morphed into an unflinching grilling by Assistant District Attorney Tana Brackin; Ashley’s demeanor also appeared to switch. The slumping, soft-spoken 29-year-old who spoke between long, deep breaths in the morning later bristled at Brackin’s questions, often answering in unenthusastic tones or annoyance.
Brackin repeatedly asked Ashley to stand a couple feet from the jury and view gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos, pointing out certain wounds and asking exactly how they came to be. The tactic seemed to burn the defendant.
Ashley said she only turned to violence when Greg attacked her and wouldn’t let go.
At one point Brackin counted five stab wounds in Greg’s back, inquiring why she stabbed him in the back in an effort to get away. Ashley was incredulous. Their bedroom, Ashley pointed out, was lit only by a small, bedside lamp.
“Do you remember,” Brackin asked nonchalantly, pointing to a courtroom monitor, “is that how your husband looked, after you killed him?”
Ashley echoed a reply she used all afternoon: “I don’t remember.”
Brackin made Ashley specify that at least some of the stabbings took place in the couple’s bed, and that the sex toy she claimed Greg assaulted her with that morning actually penetrated her.
Investigators have testified that a negative rape exam first discredited Ashley’s claims that her home was stormed by masked intruders who raped her and killed Greg.
Brackin implied through questioning that the slaying was overkill.
“You feared your husband even after he was dead?”
“He has control over me today,” Ashley replied.
Closing arguments in the trial are expected this morning. Women jurors outnumber men 9 to 5, including alternates. Ashley faces life in prison.
After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified
LAWRENCEVILLE — After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified.
Though Greg Schutt had bloodied her nose, left a “basketball-sized” bruise on her back, stomped her with military boots, pulled chunks of hair from her scalp, choked her, tossed her against a bathtub, tables and kitchen appliances and besieged her with all manner of vile insults during the course of their rocky, nine-year marriage, Ashley couldn’t bear to see him so helpless, she testified.
<
And then, with the same knife, she inflicted wounds on herself.
“I cut my arm because I couldn’t move,” Ashley told a prosecutor. “It shocked me a little bit to get me going ... I was in shock, ma’am.”
Ashley testified for several hours Wednesday in the climax of her week-long murder trial, shedding some light on the mysterious hours between her going to sleep at 2:30 a.m. on July 25, 2009 and her frantic pounding for help on a neighbor’s door. Other answers were lost in the heat of the moment, Ashley said.
Events leading up to Greg’s death included an argument over her leaving a stove burner on, after Greg had demanded she fix his dinner, she said. She’d worked until midnight at a call-center in Newton County, had popped an Ambien and was preparing to sleep when Greg dragged her in their Lawrenceville home, she testified.
“I looked at him and said go ahead and hit me — it’ll be the last time you put your hands on me,” Ashley testified. “I told him I was leaving.”
Defense attorney Thomas Clegg led his client through recollections of a marriage that seemed more like an emotional quagmire than pleasant memory lane.
Ashley, donning a long black jacket and charcoal blouse, her face gaunt and pale, talked of the tumultuous years the couple spent on military bases from Nebraska to Japan. Each of their four separations were precipitated by his violence, and each time she returned sparked a short-lived honeymoon period, she testified.
Prosecutors believe Ashley plotted to kill Greg and overtook him in his sleep.
At 6 feet, 5 inches, Greg dwarfed his wife and outweighed her by 129 pounds. His abuses prompted dozens of doctor’s visits but no police reports or protective orders, she testified. Prosecutors believe some of the injuries could have stemmed from two vehicle crashes and a tripping accident at Discover Mills Mall months before the killing.
The turmoil between the couple had come to a head days before the killing, Ashley testified.
“I knew that if I didn’t leave I was probably going to die,” she said.
By afternoon, Clegg’s coaxing of details in support of his self-defense theory morphed into an unflinching grilling by Assistant District Attorney Tana Brackin; Ashley’s demeanor also appeared to switch. The slumping, soft-spoken 29-year-old who spoke between long, deep breaths in the morning later bristled at Brackin’s questions, often answering in unenthusastic tones or annoyance.
Brackin repeatedly asked Ashley to stand a couple feet from the jury and view gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos, pointing out certain wounds and asking exactly how they came to be. The tactic seemed to burn the defendant.
Ashley said she only turned to violence when Greg attacked her and wouldn’t let go.
At one point Brackin counted five stab wounds in Greg’s back, inquiring why she stabbed him in the back in an effort to get away. Ashley was incredulous. Their bedroom, Ashley pointed out, was lit only by a small, bedside lamp.
“Do you remember,” Brackin asked nonchalantly, pointing to a courtroom monitor, “is that how your husband looked, after you killed him?”
Ashley echoed a reply she used all afternoon: “I don’t remember.”
Brackin made Ashley specify that at least some of the stabbings took place in the couple’s bed, and that the sex toy she claimed Greg assaulted her with that morning actually penetrated her.
Investigators have testified that a negative rape exam first discredited Ashley’s claims that her home was stormed by masked intruders who raped her and killed Greg.
Brackin implied through questioning that the slaying was overkill.
“You feared your husband even after he was dead?”
“He has control over me today,” Ashley replied.
Closing arguments in the trial are expected this morning. Women jurors outnumber men 9 to 5, including alternates. Ashley faces life in prison.
Little Torch Keys, FL: Elderly Keys couple die in apparent murder-suicide
Posted: 05/05/2011 02:32:57 AM PDT
LITTLE TORCH KEY, Fla.—Officials say an 81-year-old man shot his wheelchair-bound wife and cat, and then turned the gun on himself in their home about 25 miles from Key West.
A neighbor called the Monroe County Sheriff's Office about noon Wednesday after hearing shots fired. Sheriff's deputies arrived at the home on Little Torch Key but didn't enter the home right away, fearing a suspect could be inside.
The bomb squad arrived, and sent a robot inside before the SWAT team entered the home and found 77-year-old Joan Tucker in a room on the first floor. Upstairs, they found Glen Tucker, along with the couple's cat.
The sheriff's office said the motive for the killings was not immediately known.
LITTLE TORCH KEY, Fla.—Officials say an 81-year-old man shot his wheelchair-bound wife and cat, and then turned the gun on himself in their home about 25 miles from Key West.
A neighbor called the Monroe County Sheriff's Office about noon Wednesday after hearing shots fired. Sheriff's deputies arrived at the home on Little Torch Key but didn't enter the home right away, fearing a suspect could be inside.
The bomb squad arrived, and sent a robot inside before the SWAT team entered the home and found 77-year-old Joan Tucker in a room on the first floor. Upstairs, they found Glen Tucker, along with the couple's cat.
The sheriff's office said the motive for the killings was not immediately known.
Dayton, OH: Domestic fight ends in fatal shooting of woman
DAYTON — Police say an argument led a boyfriend to shoot his girlfriend in the face before fleeing the house they shared at 719 Almond Ave. The girlfriend died at the scene.
Officers arrested Mark A. Reed, 44, about four hours after the shooting death of Lisa D. Palm, 43, said Dayton police Sgt. Dan Mauch, head of the homicide unit.
Palm was shot once. Mauch declined to say what the argument involved.
Reed was the only suspect and confessed to shooting Palm in a domestic dispute, Mauch said. Police have not recovered the weapon because Reed could not remember where he dumped the gun during his flight, Mauch said. Officers found Reed shoeless in the neighborhood because “he ran out of his shoes,” Mauch said. He was taken downtown for questioning. Following the questioning, Reed was arrested.
Reed is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a preliminary charge of murder. Formal charges probably won’t be filed until today, the sergeant said. In Montgomery County, charges must be approved by a three-prosecutor panel.
A Dayton police report two years ago identified Reed and Palm as engaged. At the time, her car was linked to an aggravated robbery in Toledo, and police subsequently arrested her son in connection with the robbery. The report indicated that Reed kept a gun in the house he shared with Palm.
Officers arrested Mark A. Reed, 44, about four hours after the shooting death of Lisa D. Palm, 43, said Dayton police Sgt. Dan Mauch, head of the homicide unit.
Palm was shot once. Mauch declined to say what the argument involved.
Reed was the only suspect and confessed to shooting Palm in a domestic dispute, Mauch said. Police have not recovered the weapon because Reed could not remember where he dumped the gun during his flight, Mauch said. Officers found Reed shoeless in the neighborhood because “he ran out of his shoes,” Mauch said. He was taken downtown for questioning. Following the questioning, Reed was arrested.
Reed is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a preliminary charge of murder. Formal charges probably won’t be filed until today, the sergeant said. In Montgomery County, charges must be approved by a three-prosecutor panel.
A Dayton police report two years ago identified Reed and Palm as engaged. At the time, her car was linked to an aggravated robbery in Toledo, and police subsequently arrested her son in connection with the robbery. The report indicated that Reed kept a gun in the house he shared with Palm.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Randallstown, MD: Police Release Names of Couple Involved in Attempted Murder/Suicide
Melissa Brown was shot multiple times and critically injured. Her husband, Neil Ivan Brown, died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
By Janet Metzner | Email the author | May 2, 2011
Baltimore County police released the names of the couple involved in an attempted murder and suicide on Sunday: Melissa Brown, 33, and her husband, Neil Ivan Brown, 45.
Melissa Brown was critically injured and her husband died in the incident in their home in the 4200 block of Dressage Court in Randallstown, according to a police statement issued Monday.
At about 4:25 p.m. Sunday, officers from Pikesville/Precinct 4 responded to the townhouse in Randallstown's Foxridge on McDonogh neighborhood for a domestic-related call.
"When officers arrived at the location, they heard a woman inside the location asking for help because she had been shot," according to the statement. "Officers quickly entered the home, and were able to safely remove her from the foyer."
She was transported in critical condition to Maryland Shock Trauma for treatment of multiple gunshot wounds in both legs, police said.
Officers then tried to contact Neil Brown inside the home with the help of Hostage Negotiation Team members and the Tactical Unit.
When they couldn't contact him, they entered the home and "found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," according to the statement.
By Janet Metzner | Email the author | May 2, 2011
Baltimore County police released the names of the couple involved in an attempted murder and suicide on Sunday: Melissa Brown, 33, and her husband, Neil Ivan Brown, 45.
Melissa Brown was critically injured and her husband died in the incident in their home in the 4200 block of Dressage Court in Randallstown, according to a police statement issued Monday.
At about 4:25 p.m. Sunday, officers from Pikesville/Precinct 4 responded to the townhouse in Randallstown's Foxridge on McDonogh neighborhood for a domestic-related call.
"When officers arrived at the location, they heard a woman inside the location asking for help because she had been shot," according to the statement. "Officers quickly entered the home, and were able to safely remove her from the foyer."
She was transported in critical condition to Maryland Shock Trauma for treatment of multiple gunshot wounds in both legs, police said.
Officers then tried to contact Neil Brown inside the home with the help of Hostage Negotiation Team members and the Tactical Unit.
When they couldn't contact him, they entered the home and "found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," according to the statement.
Gage, OK: Woodward teacher, husband die in apparent murder-suicide
Relatives who could not reach the couple on the telephone went to their house in Gage on Sunday and found the bodies.
WOODWARD — A Woodward Middle School teacher died over the weekend, the apparent victim of a murder-suicide.
The bodies of April Lynn Miranda, 34, and her husband, Guillermo Miranda, 38, were found in their home near Gage about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.
“We believe that he shot her and then shot himself,” Brown said.
The body of Guillermo Miranda had one gunshot wound to the head and April Miranda suffered two gunshot wounds, Brown said.
Brown would not say where April Miranda was shot.
Brown told the Woodward News she did not have information about what type of gun was used.
The bodies were found by family members, Brown said.
“Nobody was answering their phones, so they went by the house, and that’s when they discovered them,” she said.
Their three sons were not home at the time, Brown said.
The shootings apparently happened either overnight (Saturday) or on Sunday morning, Brown said. Relatives had contact with them Saturday.
WOODWARD — A Woodward Middle School teacher died over the weekend, the apparent victim of a murder-suicide.
The bodies of April Lynn Miranda, 34, and her husband, Guillermo Miranda, 38, were found in their home near Gage about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.
“We believe that he shot her and then shot himself,” Brown said.
The body of Guillermo Miranda had one gunshot wound to the head and April Miranda suffered two gunshot wounds, Brown said.
Brown would not say where April Miranda was shot.
Brown told the Woodward News she did not have information about what type of gun was used.
The bodies were found by family members, Brown said.
“Nobody was answering their phones, so they went by the house, and that’s when they discovered them,” she said.
Their three sons were not home at the time, Brown said.
The shootings apparently happened either overnight (Saturday) or on Sunday morning, Brown said. Relatives had contact with them Saturday.
Allegheny Township, PA: Coroner: Blair Co. Couple's Death Was Murder-Suicide
ALLEGHENY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The Blair County coroner said Monday that the death of a couple last week was a murder-suicide.
Coroner Patty Ross said 65-year-old Betsy Aurandt was shot once in the back last Thursday. Her badly burned body was found inside her home.
Ross said 69-year-old William Aurandt was found dead on a back porch with a gunshot wound to the chest.
The Aurandts were both retired corrections officers from the Blair County Jail.
Coroner Patty Ross said 65-year-old Betsy Aurandt was shot once in the back last Thursday. Her badly burned body was found inside her home.
Ross said 69-year-old William Aurandt was found dead on a back porch with a gunshot wound to the chest.
The Aurandts were both retired corrections officers from the Blair County Jail.
Auburndale, FL: Couple found dead in apparent murder-suicide
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUBURNDALE, Fla. -- A central Florida married couple was found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office reports that family members and a neighbor found the couple dead in their bedroom on Monday. They had been trying to reach 54-year-old Anthony Hill, who was celebrating his birthday that day.
Authorities say Hill had been shot in the back of the neck and in the side of the head. His wife, 48-year-old Mary Hill, was found next to him with a single gunshot wound to the head and a handgun in her right hand.
The Hills had been married since 1993. They ran a corndog-vending business that operated at carnivals
AUBURNDALE, Fla. -- A central Florida married couple was found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office reports that family members and a neighbor found the couple dead in their bedroom on Monday. They had been trying to reach 54-year-old Anthony Hill, who was celebrating his birthday that day.
Authorities say Hill had been shot in the back of the neck and in the side of the head. His wife, 48-year-old Mary Hill, was found next to him with a single gunshot wound to the head and a handgun in her right hand.
The Hills had been married since 1993. They ran a corndog-vending business that operated at carnivals
Sterling, VA: Apparent murder-suicide stuns Sterling
By Caitlin Gibson, Tuesday, May , 9:59 PM
Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, as residents in his quiet Loudoun County neighborhood were beginning to stir, 64-year-old Larry E. Perry called 911 and reported a shooting.
After he hung up the phone, Perry, a devoted husband, father and grandfather, walked outside near the garage and shot himself, authorities said.
Inside the home, his longtime wife, Mercedes “Kaye” Perry, 61, already was dead.
Loudoun sheriff’s spokesman Kraig Troxell said investigators think the murder-suicide was sparked by financial concerns and Kaye Perry’s “serious health issues,” but Troxell did not elaborate. The couple’s three grown daughters, friends and neighbors were left reeling by the seemingly inexplicable, sudden act of violence.
“Our parents were kind and loving people, and utterly and unfailingly devoted to their children and grandchild,” the Perrys’ daughters said Tuesday in a statement. “We are struggling to understand what happened early this morning and there is still much that is unclear. What is not unclear is our unconditional love for our parents. The family is struggling to come to terms with the loss we suffered.”
Troxell said deputies arrived at the home in the 800 block of South Birch Street in Sterling Park minutes after the 911 call. Kaye Perry’s elderly mother, who also lived at the house, was inside and unharmed, Troxell said.
Robert Samuel, 89, a longtime neighbor, said he learned of the tragedy when he came downstairs Tuesday morning and found police cars lining the quiet suburban street and yellow police tape surrounding the Perrys’ white, two-story house.
Samuel said he has lived next door to Larry and Kaye Perry for more than 25 years and saw them often. He described them as kind, friendly neighbors.
“Not long ago, the last time I saw Kaye, she said, ‘I’m going to have you over to eat,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t tell anything was wrong. Something happens like this, it’s just a tragedy.”
Samuel said the couple’s daughters live nearby and visited frequently. The Perrys also had a young granddaughter, he said, nodding toward a plastic child’s swing that hung from a branch of a large tree in the tidy front yard.
Samuel said he thought Kaye Perry had some health problems but did not know any details.
“Sometimes she didn’t seem quite right, but I didn’t know what was wrong or how bad it might be,” he said.
Ray Bowes, owner of the Shirlington Texaco service station in Arlington, said he knew Larry Perry for more than 20 years as an employee and a friend. He described Perry, who worked at the station for 24 years as a bookkeeper and service manager, as reliable and hardworking.
“The employees liked him, the customers liked him,” Bowes said. “Larry was a good guy, there was no question about that.”
Bowes said the Perry family was close and that he often saw Kaye and their daughters around the station. The two families socialized over the years, he said, and the Perrys’ oldest daughter worked at the service station as a bookkeeper for a short time.
He recalled that Kaye Perry had frequently suffered from crippling migraines, though he said he didn’t know the details of her health problems.
“Going back over the years, she used to have severe headaches, to the point that she would be in bed for days,” Bowes said.
Bowes said Larry Perry left the service station about 12 years ago, but they kept in touch. They last spoke several months ago.
“He was very upbeat,” Bowes said. “I knew that Kaye was sick, I knew his mother-in-law was staying there, but Larry was the type of person who did not complain. He did what he had to do — he did not back away from anything.
“I asked him how Kaye was doing,” Bowes recalled, “and his only comment was that she has her good days and her bad days.”
Bowes said he was stunned by the circumstances of their deaths.
“I’m just shocked that he would do this,” he said. “It had to be something more than what I know. He just wasn’t that kind of person. . . . They’re a good family. They’re good people.”
Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, as residents in his quiet Loudoun County neighborhood were beginning to stir, 64-year-old Larry E. Perry called 911 and reported a shooting.
After he hung up the phone, Perry, a devoted husband, father and grandfather, walked outside near the garage and shot himself, authorities said.
Inside the home, his longtime wife, Mercedes “Kaye” Perry, 61, already was dead.
Loudoun sheriff’s spokesman Kraig Troxell said investigators think the murder-suicide was sparked by financial concerns and Kaye Perry’s “serious health issues,” but Troxell did not elaborate. The couple’s three grown daughters, friends and neighbors were left reeling by the seemingly inexplicable, sudden act of violence.
“Our parents were kind and loving people, and utterly and unfailingly devoted to their children and grandchild,” the Perrys’ daughters said Tuesday in a statement. “We are struggling to understand what happened early this morning and there is still much that is unclear. What is not unclear is our unconditional love for our parents. The family is struggling to come to terms with the loss we suffered.”
Troxell said deputies arrived at the home in the 800 block of South Birch Street in Sterling Park minutes after the 911 call. Kaye Perry’s elderly mother, who also lived at the house, was inside and unharmed, Troxell said.
Robert Samuel, 89, a longtime neighbor, said he learned of the tragedy when he came downstairs Tuesday morning and found police cars lining the quiet suburban street and yellow police tape surrounding the Perrys’ white, two-story house.
Samuel said he has lived next door to Larry and Kaye Perry for more than 25 years and saw them often. He described them as kind, friendly neighbors.
“Not long ago, the last time I saw Kaye, she said, ‘I’m going to have you over to eat,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t tell anything was wrong. Something happens like this, it’s just a tragedy.”
Samuel said the couple’s daughters live nearby and visited frequently. The Perrys also had a young granddaughter, he said, nodding toward a plastic child’s swing that hung from a branch of a large tree in the tidy front yard.
Samuel said he thought Kaye Perry had some health problems but did not know any details.
“Sometimes she didn’t seem quite right, but I didn’t know what was wrong or how bad it might be,” he said.
Ray Bowes, owner of the Shirlington Texaco service station in Arlington, said he knew Larry Perry for more than 20 years as an employee and a friend. He described Perry, who worked at the station for 24 years as a bookkeeper and service manager, as reliable and hardworking.
“The employees liked him, the customers liked him,” Bowes said. “Larry was a good guy, there was no question about that.”
Bowes said the Perry family was close and that he often saw Kaye and their daughters around the station. The two families socialized over the years, he said, and the Perrys’ oldest daughter worked at the service station as a bookkeeper for a short time.
He recalled that Kaye Perry had frequently suffered from crippling migraines, though he said he didn’t know the details of her health problems.
“Going back over the years, she used to have severe headaches, to the point that she would be in bed for days,” Bowes said.
Bowes said Larry Perry left the service station about 12 years ago, but they kept in touch. They last spoke several months ago.
“He was very upbeat,” Bowes said. “I knew that Kaye was sick, I knew his mother-in-law was staying there, but Larry was the type of person who did not complain. He did what he had to do — he did not back away from anything.
“I asked him how Kaye was doing,” Bowes recalled, “and his only comment was that she has her good days and her bad days.”
Bowes said he was stunned by the circumstances of their deaths.
“I’m just shocked that he would do this,” he said. “It had to be something more than what I know. He just wasn’t that kind of person. . . . They’re a good family. They’re good people.”
Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
Pueblo, CO: Fatal Shooting, Burglary In 2 Days At Same Pueblo Home
LILA HOLLIN
KRDO NewsChannel 13
POSTED: 6:35 pm MDT May 3, 2011
UPDATED: 8:11 pm MDT May 3, 2011
Pueblo, Colo. -- A Pueblo man shoots his girlfriend then kills himself.
Pueblo Police said 29-year-old Matt Moreland shot his girlfriend, 21-year-old Robyn Harmon, in the face before turning the gun on himself. The shooting happened Saturday in their home on Belmont Avenue, by Lake Minnequa. On Sunday, their home was burglarized, police said.
One neighbor said he still can’t believe everything that has happened.
“Everyone is freaking out about it because they don't expect that out of him, never out of Matt,” said Gino Livingood.
Investigators told KRDO NewsChannel 13 the three had been drinking. They said the roommate found Harmon in a room with a gun crying, and ran to tell Moreland.
Police said Moreland and Harmon then went into a room and he shot her. The roommate took Harmon out of the room, then Moreland went back in and shot himself, police said.
Harmon survived the shooting. She is recovering at Parkview Medical Center. Police said the couple lived in the home with one other person.
“There is some speculation that he didn't know there was any rounds in the chamber,” said Sgt. Eric Bravo.
After the shooting, the home was burglarized the next day.
"As soon as they went to the hospital, somebody broke in their trailer and took their TV. Why would you do that to a person?” said Livingood.
Harmon is expected to be out of the hospital soon.
KRDO NewsChannel 13
POSTED: 6:35 pm MDT May 3, 2011
UPDATED: 8:11 pm MDT May 3, 2011
Pueblo, Colo. -- A Pueblo man shoots his girlfriend then kills himself.
Pueblo Police said 29-year-old Matt Moreland shot his girlfriend, 21-year-old Robyn Harmon, in the face before turning the gun on himself. The shooting happened Saturday in their home on Belmont Avenue, by Lake Minnequa. On Sunday, their home was burglarized, police said.
One neighbor said he still can’t believe everything that has happened.
“Everyone is freaking out about it because they don't expect that out of him, never out of Matt,” said Gino Livingood.
Investigators told KRDO NewsChannel 13 the three had been drinking. They said the roommate found Harmon in a room with a gun crying, and ran to tell Moreland.
Police said Moreland and Harmon then went into a room and he shot her. The roommate took Harmon out of the room, then Moreland went back in and shot himself, police said.
Harmon survived the shooting. She is recovering at Parkview Medical Center. Police said the couple lived in the home with one other person.
“There is some speculation that he didn't know there was any rounds in the chamber,” said Sgt. Eric Bravo.
After the shooting, the home was burglarized the next day.
"As soon as they went to the hospital, somebody broke in their trailer and took their TV. Why would you do that to a person?” said Livingood.
Harmon is expected to be out of the hospital soon.
New Orleans, LA: 17-year-old booked with manslaughter in shooting of his girlfriend
Published: Monday, May 02, 2011, 9:04 PM Updated: Monday, May 02, 2011, 9:36 PM
By Leslie Williams, The Times-Picayune
A 17-year-old man was arrested Monday moments after, he fatally shot his girlfriend of the same age, police said.
Isaac Felician was booked with manslaughter.
A preliminary investigation indicates that prior to the shooting Felician and the victim struggled over a gun, according to a news release.
Kassia Benton of Marrero was shot in an arm and then the bullet entered her chest, said John Gagliano, a spokesman for the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office.
The shooting occurred in eastern New Orleans in the 4900 block of Gawain Drive shortly after 11 a.m.
Officers found the girl in Felician's residence, police said. She was dead at the scene.
Homicide Detective Baret Morton is in charge of the investigation.
By Leslie Williams, The Times-Picayune
A 17-year-old man was arrested Monday moments after, he fatally shot his girlfriend of the same age, police said.
Isaac Felician was booked with manslaughter.
A preliminary investigation indicates that prior to the shooting Felician and the victim struggled over a gun, according to a news release.
Kassia Benton of Marrero was shot in an arm and then the bullet entered her chest, said John Gagliano, a spokesman for the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office.
The shooting occurred in eastern New Orleans in the 4900 block of Gawain Drive shortly after 11 a.m.
Officers found the girl in Felician's residence, police said. She was dead at the scene.
Homicide Detective Baret Morton is in charge of the investigation.
Franklin County, VA: Franklin County man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend
May 02, 2011|By Justin Ward | Reporter
A Franklin County man is now behind bars after police say he shot his girlfriend in the face, killing her.
21 year old Christopher Dotson is charged with murdering his girlfriend, 43 year old Katherine McManus Saturday night on Canton Church Road near Fork Mountain.
A friend of McManus told police Dotson had physically abused his girlfriend but she did not want to leave the relationship. Dotson's grandfather tells News7 the two were living with him and saw no sign of abuse until the shooting.
Dotson is currently held without bond at the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail.
A Franklin County man is now behind bars after police say he shot his girlfriend in the face, killing her.
21 year old Christopher Dotson is charged with murdering his girlfriend, 43 year old Katherine McManus Saturday night on Canton Church Road near Fork Mountain.
A friend of McManus told police Dotson had physically abused his girlfriend but she did not want to leave the relationship. Dotson's grandfather tells News7 the two were living with him and saw no sign of abuse until the shooting.
Dotson is currently held without bond at the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail.
Fresno, CA: Man Kills Himself after Shooting and Killing Ex-Girlfriend
Fresno - A nearly 7-hour long SWAT standoff came to an end late Tuesday night after officers find a man wanted for murder, dead, inside a southeast Fresno apartment.
The situation began at about 4 o'clock Tuesday afternoon. Fresno police got a call from a woman saying her ex-boyfriend had a gun. The woman was shot and killed on Shields Avenue, near Sierra Vista. Police say the motive was domestic violence-related.
The shooter then fled to an apartment complex on Yale Avenue and Sierra Vista, a little more than half-a-mile away from where the shooting took place, and barricaded himself inside one of the units.
SWAT team members arrived on scene.
Police say family members were able to get a hold of the man at one point, but police never made contact with him.
At about 10:30 Tuesday night, SWAT team members and crisis negotiators broke down the door of the apartment, and found the man had taken his own life by shooting himself.
Police found a high-powered rifle and bullets in the room as well.
The former couple have two children together; they were not hurt.
The situation began at about 4 o'clock Tuesday afternoon. Fresno police got a call from a woman saying her ex-boyfriend had a gun. The woman was shot and killed on Shields Avenue, near Sierra Vista. Police say the motive was domestic violence-related.
The shooter then fled to an apartment complex on Yale Avenue and Sierra Vista, a little more than half-a-mile away from where the shooting took place, and barricaded himself inside one of the units.
SWAT team members arrived on scene.
Police say family members were able to get a hold of the man at one point, but police never made contact with him.
At about 10:30 Tuesday night, SWAT team members and crisis negotiators broke down the door of the apartment, and found the man had taken his own life by shooting himself.
Police found a high-powered rifle and bullets in the room as well.
The former couple have two children together; they were not hurt.
Denver, CO: Man Found Guilty In Former Wife's Suicide Pact Murder
Keenu Tiyme Faces Mandatory Life In Prison
Posted by Wayne Harrison, Web Editor
POSTED: 5:51 pm MDT May 3, 2011
UPDATED: 7:11 pm MDT May 3, 2011
DENVER -- A Denver jury has convicted a 37-year-old in the slaying of his former wife in a failed suicide pact.
Keenu Tiyme was found guilty Tuesday afternoon of first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Kauri Tiyme.
According to testimony, the two had rented a motel room on Oct. 28, 2008, as part of a suicide pact.
Kauri Tiyme's body was found in the room the next day by a housekeeper.
Keenu Tiyme was arrested four days later in New Mexico after a brief chase and crash. He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
The jury deliberated two days before reaching a verdict.
Tiyme will be sentenced on June 30 to life in prison.
Posted by Wayne Harrison, Web Editor
POSTED: 5:51 pm MDT May 3, 2011
UPDATED: 7:11 pm MDT May 3, 2011
DENVER -- A Denver jury has convicted a 37-year-old in the slaying of his former wife in a failed suicide pact.
Keenu Tiyme was found guilty Tuesday afternoon of first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Kauri Tiyme.
According to testimony, the two had rented a motel room on Oct. 28, 2008, as part of a suicide pact.
Kauri Tiyme's body was found in the room the next day by a housekeeper.
Keenu Tiyme was arrested four days later in New Mexico after a brief chase and crash. He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
The jury deliberated two days before reaching a verdict.
Tiyme will be sentenced on June 30 to life in prison.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Elko, NV: Police: Man sought as suspect in Elko homicide found dead in Las Vegas motel room
ELKO, Nev. — Police say a man sought in connection with an Elko homicide was found dead in a North Las Vegas motel room one day after the alleged murder.
Police Capt. Will Lehman tells the Elko Daily Free Press that 53-year-old David Michael Heinzig was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound early Sunday.
Heinzig was a suspect in the Saturday shooting death of his ex-wife, 42-year-old Mary Inman. She died from an apparent gunshot wound while working at Smith Power Products.
Police say Inman had previously been threatened by Heinzig. The couple divorced last year.
Heinzig's car was located in Las Vegas about 2 a.m.
Lehman says police evacuated adjoining rooms and ordered Heinzig to come out. When he didn't respond, officers entered and found him dead.
Police Capt. Will Lehman tells the Elko Daily Free Press that 53-year-old David Michael Heinzig was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound early Sunday.
Heinzig was a suspect in the Saturday shooting death of his ex-wife, 42-year-old Mary Inman. She died from an apparent gunshot wound while working at Smith Power Products.
Police say Inman had previously been threatened by Heinzig. The couple divorced last year.
Heinzig's car was located in Las Vegas about 2 a.m.
Lehman says police evacuated adjoining rooms and ordered Heinzig to come out. When he didn't respond, officers entered and found him dead.
Lakewood, CO: Lakewood couple found shot dead in home
Lakewood police found a couple dead of gunshot wounds in their apartment after the woman called 911 for help, saying that her husband had a gun.
Police have not said whether the deaths are the result of murder-suicide, but they aren't searching for anyone in the case, said Lakewood police spokeswoman Bonnie Martin.
The woman called for help at 10:37 p.m. Saturday, Martin said. Police arriving at The Cape apartment complex on South Reed Court heard a gunshot and "waited for on-duty SWAT to show up, then entered," Martin said.
Neighbors of the couple, who lived on the second floor at 868 S. Reed Court, said the two were in their 50s or 60s and were usually quiet.
"I never heard any arguing so I don't know what has been festering," said Ken Bolton, who lives in the apartment below.
He said he came home from work Sunday about 2:30 a.m. to find police and squad cars "all over the place. I said, 'This is not good.' "
Bolton, 52, said he has lived at the address for about 18 months and that it has been quiet.
"They were a nice couple," said a woman who would identify herself only as Elizabeth.
Police have not said whether the deaths are the result of murder-suicide, but they aren't searching for anyone in the case, said Lakewood police spokeswoman Bonnie Martin.
The woman called for help at 10:37 p.m. Saturday, Martin said. Police arriving at The Cape apartment complex on South Reed Court heard a gunshot and "waited for on-duty SWAT to show up, then entered," Martin said.
Neighbors of the couple, who lived on the second floor at 868 S. Reed Court, said the two were in their 50s or 60s and were usually quiet.
"I never heard any arguing so I don't know what has been festering," said Ken Bolton, who lives in the apartment below.
He said he came home from work Sunday about 2:30 a.m. to find police and squad cars "all over the place. I said, 'This is not good.' "
Bolton, 52, said he has lived at the address for about 18 months and that it has been quiet.
"They were a nice couple," said a woman who would identify herself only as Elizabeth.
Baltimore, MD: One dead, one shot after man barricades himself in home
A man shot a woman and then killed himself near Randallstown Sunday evening in a domestic dispute, according to Baltimore County police.
The woman was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center after police forced their way into the residence in the 4200 block of Dressage Court and quickly took her out of the house, according to Lt. Robert McCullough.
Police did not release the names of the pair or explain their relationship.
Officers had responded to the house about 4:25 p.m. The man barricaded himself in the house and police set up a barrier around the residence. About 6 p.m. police went into the home and found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, McCullough said.
The woman was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center after police forced their way into the residence in the 4200 block of Dressage Court and quickly took her out of the house, according to Lt. Robert McCullough.
Police did not release the names of the pair or explain their relationship.
Officers had responded to the house about 4:25 p.m. The man barricaded himself in the house and police set up a barrier around the residence. About 6 p.m. police went into the home and found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, McCullough said.
Indiananapolis, IN: Police: Woman fatally stabbed, man and girl are hurt in domestic dispute
A Near-Eastside stabbing ended in the death of a woman, the arrest of the woman's husband and a stab wound to their 16-year-old daughter.
Police went to a residence in the 1200 block of Evison Street around 3 p.m. Sunday and found that three people had been stabbed. Kenneth Schaefer, 56, was sent to Wishard Memorial Hospital in serious condition. His wife of 23 years, Bobbie J. Schaefer, 41, was declared dead at the scene.
The couple's children were at home when the stabbings happened, and the 16-year-old daughter suffered what police called a non-life-threatening stab wound to the upper left arm. Investigators did not say what led to the girl being stabbed. A second girl was not injured.
Investigators said there had been a domestic dispute in the house that led to the stabbing, apparently involving the man and the woman. Kenneth Schaefer was arrested on preliminary murder charges at the hospital.
Police did not immediately say what led to the argument and the stabbing.
Police went to a residence in the 1200 block of Evison Street around 3 p.m. Sunday and found that three people had been stabbed. Kenneth Schaefer, 56, was sent to Wishard Memorial Hospital in serious condition. His wife of 23 years, Bobbie J. Schaefer, 41, was declared dead at the scene.
The couple's children were at home when the stabbings happened, and the 16-year-old daughter suffered what police called a non-life-threatening stab wound to the upper left arm. Investigators did not say what led to the girl being stabbed. A second girl was not injured.
Investigators said there had been a domestic dispute in the house that led to the stabbing, apparently involving the man and the woman. Kenneth Schaefer was arrested on preliminary murder charges at the hospital.
Police did not immediately say what led to the argument and the stabbing.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Article: Illinois Women's Clubs host domestic violence vigil
ROCK ISLAND, Illinois— Domestic violence is a silent killer. Stats show it touches one out of four U.S. women. And in the Quad Cities, there have been many painful cases. One reason why the GFWC Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs is speaking out.
When Wanda Weldy's battered body turned up dead on a Davenport street in January, it brought home a tragic message about domestic violence.
"Every time I saw my sister, which was rarely, she always had black eyes and bruises," recalled her brother Don Harvey.
Inside a vigil for domestic violence awareness in Rock Island on Saturday, JoDee Kaufmann came to share her life story. It's one filled with abuse and deadly situations.
"Often our families become discouraged with us and begin to think that they've left us when actually we're just trying to hide," she said.
Kaufmann found refuge with Christian Care and is now helping others.
"Overwhelmingly, the majority of victims of domestic violence are women," said David VanLandegen, director of court services for Rock Island County.
At the vigil, participants held candle lights and learned about the horrors and heartbreaks of such abuse.
"Men need to step up and say, no more," he continued.
"It is a family issue," added Sue Swisher, Child Abuse Council. "Kids are impacted by domestic violence, sometimes very seriously."
JoDee's life experience is a painful reminder of domestic violence, and her long road emerging as a survivor.
"Today it's a much deeper subject that some people never really want to face or hear," she said.
But from a snowy street in Davenport, a subject that hits all too close to home for Wanda Weldy's family.
"The only thing I can say is my daughter is at peace," Chery Millage said. "They can't hurt her any more."
When Wanda Weldy's battered body turned up dead on a Davenport street in January, it brought home a tragic message about domestic violence.
"Every time I saw my sister, which was rarely, she always had black eyes and bruises," recalled her brother Don Harvey.
Inside a vigil for domestic violence awareness in Rock Island on Saturday, JoDee Kaufmann came to share her life story. It's one filled with abuse and deadly situations.
"Often our families become discouraged with us and begin to think that they've left us when actually we're just trying to hide," she said.
Kaufmann found refuge with Christian Care and is now helping others.
"Overwhelmingly, the majority of victims of domestic violence are women," said David VanLandegen, director of court services for Rock Island County.
At the vigil, participants held candle lights and learned about the horrors and heartbreaks of such abuse.
"Men need to step up and say, no more," he continued.
"It is a family issue," added Sue Swisher, Child Abuse Council. "Kids are impacted by domestic violence, sometimes very seriously."
JoDee's life experience is a painful reminder of domestic violence, and her long road emerging as a survivor.
"Today it's a much deeper subject that some people never really want to face or hear," she said.
But from a snowy street in Davenport, a subject that hits all too close to home for Wanda Weldy's family.
"The only thing I can say is my daughter is at peace," Chery Millage said. "They can't hurt her any more."
Columbus, OH: Police in Columbus say man fatally shoots wife, then kills self
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police in Columbus say a man killed himself after fatally shooting his wife.
Homicide Detective Dana Croom said the couple were having marital problems and had plans to separate. He said police arrived at the home about 6:30 a.m. Saturday. The couple's 22-year-old son, 16-year-old daughter, and 14-year-old son were there. The older son told police his mother and stepfather were shot.
From a preliminary investigation, police concluded that 45-year-old Francis J. Doyle shot 48-year-old Barbara M. Doyle, then turned the gun on himself.
The Columbus Dispatch reported neighbors and relatives said the family seemed fine Friday. Neighbor Jeff Cockerell said Mrs. Doyle was a sweet lady known as a neighborhood caregiver and once brought him a cake when he was injured at work.
Homicide Detective Dana Croom said the couple were having marital problems and had plans to separate. He said police arrived at the home about 6:30 a.m. Saturday. The couple's 22-year-old son, 16-year-old daughter, and 14-year-old son were there. The older son told police his mother and stepfather were shot.
From a preliminary investigation, police concluded that 45-year-old Francis J. Doyle shot 48-year-old Barbara M. Doyle, then turned the gun on himself.
The Columbus Dispatch reported neighbors and relatives said the family seemed fine Friday. Neighbor Jeff Cockerell said Mrs. Doyle was a sweet lady known as a neighborhood caregiver and once brought him a cake when he was injured at work.
Gaithersburg, MD :Police: Gaithersburg Man Shot Girlfriend, Then Killed Himself
A man shot and seriously wounded his girlfriend who "played dead" as the man turned the gun on himself in Stream Side Apartments near Olde Towne Gaithesburg on Saturday morning, county police said.
The 42-year-old man died. The 54-year-old woman was taken to a hospital where she was undergoing surgery for a "serious but not life-threatening" wound, said Lt. Robert Bolesta of the county police department’s major crimes unit.
Neither person has been identified as police attempt to notify family.
Police were called to the 400 block of North Summit Avenue around 11:15 a.m. after a neighbor reported "sounds of yelling and at least one gunshot fired," Bolesta said.
Gaithersburg and Montgomery County police found a woman in the stairwell of the three-story apartment suffering from a "serious gunshot wound to the upper extremities," Bolesta said.
Officers applied a tourniquet and interviewed the victim, who told police that her boyfriend had shot her, Bolesta said. She told the officers that she "played dead."
"She then indicated that he then turned the gun on himself and killed himself," Bolesta said.
After determining that no other people were in the apartment, based on the information from the victim, three officers from Gaithersburg and county police used a shield as they entered the apartment where they found the man dead, Bolesta said.
Police from the county’s forensics and major crimes units were processing the scene and interviewing neighbors early Saturday afternoon.
A young woman who had recently moved to an apartment below where the couple lived said she was not at home when the incident occurred and did not know the couple. She said that she had never heard any kind of trouble during the short time she had lived there.
Police do not know the reason for the shooting and are looking into whether there is any history of calls for police to the apartment, Bolesta said.
Police are treating the incident as a suicide, he said. There are no other suspects in the incident.
"We’re trying to determine what occurred, why it occurred," Bolesta said. "[The victim]’s in serious surgery and we likely won’t be able to interview her until tomorrow."
The 42-year-old man died. The 54-year-old woman was taken to a hospital where she was undergoing surgery for a "serious but not life-threatening" wound, said Lt. Robert Bolesta of the county police department’s major crimes unit.
Neither person has been identified as police attempt to notify family.
Police were called to the 400 block of North Summit Avenue around 11:15 a.m. after a neighbor reported "sounds of yelling and at least one gunshot fired," Bolesta said.
Gaithersburg and Montgomery County police found a woman in the stairwell of the three-story apartment suffering from a "serious gunshot wound to the upper extremities," Bolesta said.
Officers applied a tourniquet and interviewed the victim, who told police that her boyfriend had shot her, Bolesta said. She told the officers that she "played dead."
"She then indicated that he then turned the gun on himself and killed himself," Bolesta said.
After determining that no other people were in the apartment, based on the information from the victim, three officers from Gaithersburg and county police used a shield as they entered the apartment where they found the man dead, Bolesta said.
Police from the county’s forensics and major crimes units were processing the scene and interviewing neighbors early Saturday afternoon.
A young woman who had recently moved to an apartment below where the couple lived said she was not at home when the incident occurred and did not know the couple. She said that she had never heard any kind of trouble during the short time she had lived there.
Police do not know the reason for the shooting and are looking into whether there is any history of calls for police to the apartment, Bolesta said.
Police are treating the incident as a suicide, he said. There are no other suspects in the incident.
"We’re trying to determine what occurred, why it occurred," Bolesta said. "[The victim]’s in serious surgery and we likely won’t be able to interview her until tomorrow."
Salt Lake City, UT: Police arrest man they say killed his girlfriend
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – Police arrest a man they say confessed to choking to death his girlfriend.
It was a call to police asking them to check on the welfare of a 39 year old woman that led them to an awful discovery inside of a home on 5th North and 2nd West.
Jennifer Schubach was found dead allegedly strangled by the arms of her boyfriend, 42 year old Todd Eugene Anderson, who investigators say confessed to killing her after a heated argument.
“He did indicate that he did choke her,” says Sgt. Shawn Josephson, Salt Lake City Police.
According to the probable cause statement it states Anderson confessed to killing his girlfriend by strangling her with his arms, which he referred to as the “rear naked choke” causing her death. This information seems to be all the Salt Lake City police know about the crime.
They do not know how the fight started, how long the two have been dating, or if any children were present at the time. They do have Anderson in custody and Shubach’s body is now with the Medical Examiner.
It was a call to police asking them to check on the welfare of a 39 year old woman that led them to an awful discovery inside of a home on 5th North and 2nd West.
Jennifer Schubach was found dead allegedly strangled by the arms of her boyfriend, 42 year old Todd Eugene Anderson, who investigators say confessed to killing her after a heated argument.
“He did indicate that he did choke her,” says Sgt. Shawn Josephson, Salt Lake City Police.
According to the probable cause statement it states Anderson confessed to killing his girlfriend by strangling her with his arms, which he referred to as the “rear naked choke” causing her death. This information seems to be all the Salt Lake City police know about the crime.
They do not know how the fight started, how long the two have been dating, or if any children were present at the time. They do have Anderson in custody and Shubach’s body is now with the Medical Examiner.
Marion Township, MI: Marion man kills himself after stabbing wife's boyfriend
4/30/11 - A Marion Township man is dead after authorities say he tried to kill his estranged wife’s boyfriend and then killed himself. State Police from the Brighton Post say they responded to a home invasion call in Marion Township shortly after 12am Saturday. The suspect, identified only as a 40 year old male, had reportedly entered the home and stabbed the boyfriend of his estranged wife in the neck throat and abdomen. The 41 year old victim was transported to the University of Michigan hospital and was last listed in critical condition. The suspect was located in his residence with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken by Survival Flight helicopter to U of M, but died shortly before 9am. State Police were assisted by the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department and Fowlerville Police. (JK)
Fort Meyers, FL: Son charged in Indian Rocks Beach shooting death of father
An 18-year-old Fort Myers man is charged with the shooting death of his father late Friday at an Indian Rocks Beach hotel room.
James Allen Davis, 41, was shot by his son Brandon Lee Davis with a semi-automatic handgun after a domestic dispute, according to detectives.
On Friday night James Allen Davis and his wife Dana were in an argument that later their son Brandon Lee Davis got involved with.
At approximately 10:25 p.m. during the argument Brandon Lee Davis took out a semi-automatic handgun and shot his father several times causing his death, detectives said.
When Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputies and paramedics arrived to the hotel, 401 2nd St., in Indian Rocks Beach, they discovered James Allen Davis dead.
No one else was injured during the shooting. Deputies recovered the gun.
According to detectives the Fort Myers family was staying at the hotel for just a couple of days. They checked in on Thursday April 28, and they were due to check out Saturday April 30.
Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies arrested and charged Brandon Lee Davis with second degree murder in the death of his father.
Detectives are still investigating the shooting.
James Allen Davis, 41, was shot by his son Brandon Lee Davis with a semi-automatic handgun after a domestic dispute, according to detectives.
On Friday night James Allen Davis and his wife Dana were in an argument that later their son Brandon Lee Davis got involved with.
At approximately 10:25 p.m. during the argument Brandon Lee Davis took out a semi-automatic handgun and shot his father several times causing his death, detectives said.
When Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputies and paramedics arrived to the hotel, 401 2nd St., in Indian Rocks Beach, they discovered James Allen Davis dead.
No one else was injured during the shooting. Deputies recovered the gun.
According to detectives the Fort Myers family was staying at the hotel for just a couple of days. They checked in on Thursday April 28, and they were due to check out Saturday April 30.
Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies arrested and charged Brandon Lee Davis with second degree murder in the death of his father.
Detectives are still investigating the shooting.
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