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Murder trials
May 18, 2012
Woman pleads guilty to murder in 2010 parking lot shooting
Francesca Marie Luna, 28, pleaded guilty to murder today in District Court in Travis County in connection with the shooting death of 23-year-old Cynthia Martinez in November 2010.
Luna, seen at right, who faces 5 to 99 years or life in prison, will be sentenced June 6, said Assistant District Attorney Mary Farrington.
Prosecuting attorney Mona Shea asked District Judge Karen Sage that the sentencing be put off until June so that the victim’s family can be present, said attorney Jon Evans, who represents Luna.
Two other men — John Pesina, 29, and Valentino Garcia, 22 — are also charged with murder in the shooting death. Their cases are pending.
On Nov. 20, 2010, Martinez was with a man identified as Eric Munoz at an apartment complex parking lot in North Austin. After Munoz’s car struck Garcia’s truck, Garcia followed Munoz and struck Munoz’s car from behind, according to an affidavit.
Later than night, Munoz and Martinez were sitting in their car in the same parking lot when Garcia and others began shooting, killing Martinez and wounding Munoz, according to the affidavit.
Updated 4:37 p.m. to add photo.
Updated 5:48 p.m. with additional information, corrects location of parking lot.
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May 10, 2012
Murder defendant allowed Mother's Day trip
Murder defendant Kaitlyn Ritcherson, 19, charged in the stabbing death of 21-year-old Huston-Tillotson student and track team member Fatima Barrie, will be allowed to leave Austin to spend Mother’s Day with her grandmother in Smith County, a judge ruled Thursday.
Ritcherson’s attorney, Charlie Baird, sought the approval of 331st District Judge David Crain by promising that Ritcherson’s mother, Pat Ritcherson, would accompany her daughter for the one-day visit to Northeast Texas. “She’s been compliant and has met all her bond conditions and is under electric monitoring,” Baird said outside the courtroom.
Following the judge’s approval, which was also approved by the prosecution, Ritcherson, accompanied by family members, sat in the audience of the court, smiled, wiped tears from her face and began reading a small book. A pretrial hearing on her case is set for June 15.
She is charged in the death of Barrie resulting from a stabbing outside a downtown night club Dec. 4. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Barrie and a friend turned to leave but the friend felt someone grab her hair and turned around to see Ritcherson with a knife in her hand. A third friend pulled them back, but as they walked away, Barrie fell to the ground bleeding. Barrie, a junior biology major, died Dec. 21 from her injuries.
Barrie, from Katy, had been recognized as an All-American runner by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and was twice named to the All-Red River Conference team.
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March 20, 2012
Man gets 35 years in 2000 murder of Austin mother
A man who fatally beat a young Austin mother in 2000 and then eluded authorities for a decade pleaded guilty today to murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Juan Reza Ortiz, 50, must serve half that prison term before he would be eligible for parole.
Prosecutor Jim Young said it is not clear why Ortiz bludgeoned 22-year-old Veronica Sanchez to death at an apartment complex near Rundberg Lane in North Austin on August 3, 2000. Sanchez was the mother of a 4-month-old.
Neighbors saw Ortiz leaving the scene of the attack, Young said.
An indictment charged him with murdering Sanchez by striking her about the head and torso with a wooden board, a hand and an unknown object.
Ortiz disappeared after the killing and at one point moved to Baton Rouge, La., where he had lived under a pseudonym. Authorities linked him to the murder through fingerprints after a traffic stop in Baton Rouge in September 2010.
State District Judge Karen Sage sentenced Ortiz under the terms of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
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March 19, 2012
Murder case against former Travis County jailer dismissed, may be refiled
At the request of prosecutors, state District Judge Mike Lynch today dismissed a murder charge against former Travis County corrections officer Chad Lum.
Lynch, though, denied a motion by Lum’s defense lawyer that would have barred the charge from being re-filed later.
Prosecutors have said they could not prove their case against Lum (pictured) without the testimony of Kathleen Helton, his ex-wife and a witness to the April 2010 fatal shooting of Michael Rendon, 47.
Helton has disappeared and extensive efforts to find her have failed, authorities have said. Prosecutor Steven Brand has speculated in court filings and during a hearing earlier this month that Helton does not want to testify against Lum and has been hiding to help him.
Lum, 36, has been free on bail in the case. Defense lawyer Joe Turner has said Helton’s statement to police about the shooting indicates the shooting was in self-defense. He argued that Lum’s right to a speedy trial has been violated and asked Lynch to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it could not be refiled.
In an order filed today, Lynch wrote that he “may entertain the belief that the best path forward is an immediate trial.” He said that decision is up to prosecutors. He said the law does not give him the authority to dismiss the case with prejudice.
Prosecutors have said authorities would continue to try and locate Helton.
Lum was a 10-year sheriff’s office employee on the morning of April 18, 2010, when Helton called 911 reporting the shooting at 500 Alva Drive in Briarcliff, near Pace Bend Park in western Travis County.
Lum declined to talk to sheriff’s investigators about the shooting, but Helton told detectives that Rendon and his then-23-year-old son, Mark Rendon, had come to her and Lum’s house at about 3 a.m. that day and stayed up drinking with the couple for hours, according to an arrest affidavit.
At one point in the early morning, she heard Lum and Michael Rendon arguing, then fighting in the bathroom, the affidavit said. Helton said that Mark Rendon jumped in against Lum and that the fight ended only after she had intervened.
Helton said that Mark Rendon then left the house and that she had been trying to push Michael Rendon out the door when she realized Lum had a gun behind his back, according to the affidavit.
“The next thing she knew she heard two gunshots and Michael fell to the floor dead,” the affidavit said.
Helton told investigators that when Lum pointed the gun, she had put her hand up and was shot in the finger at close range, the affidavit said.
Lum was also indicted on three aggravated assault charges related to allegations that he shot Helton and pointed a gun at Rendon’s two children.
Helton indicated early in the investigation that she intends to invoke her spousal privilege if called as a witness in the murder case.
Texas law allows one spouse to avoid testifying for the state against the other in a criminal trial. There are exceptions to that privilege, though, including that a spouse must testify when called by the state in a crime in which she is the victim.
In order to pin down Helton’s testimony against Lum for possible use at a later murder trial, prosecutors last year said they would proceed to trial first on the aggravated assault count involving the allegations that Lum shot Helton.
But authorities could not find Helton before a scheduled Aug. 23 trial date and still could not find her for a Sept. 13 date.
Prosecutors then dismissed the three aggravated assault counts against Lum but preserved the right to refile them.
The murder case had been set for late January, but the state could not find Helton. Lynch had been considering Lum’s speedy trial motion since then.
At a hearing earlier this month, Austin lawyer Bruce Fox said he represents Helton and said he had spoken to her by telephone about two weeks earlier. Fox did not reveal Helton’s whereabouts but said she still intends to invoke her spousal privilege.
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March 1, 2012
Witnesses say man who caused fatal crash had drug problem, ADHD
A Travis County jury heard sentencing testimony today in the trial of Charles “Chas” Roberts, who has been convicted of murder for evading a sheriff’s deputy and crashing his car into a man waiting for a bus last year.
Among the witnesses were Roberts’ father, who testified that Roberts would have a “village of support behind him” when he is released from prison, and a forensic psychologist, who testified that Roberts has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The jury did not hear from Roberts, 24, (at right) who also did not testify during the guilt/innocence phase of the trial.
The jury in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court will return at 10 a.m. Friday to hear closing arguments. Roberts faces from five years to life in prison.
He stands convicted in the death of Rondal Lynn Brooks, a 41-year-old who worked as a rehab technician, similar to a nurse’s aide, at Texas Neurorehab Center. Shortly after 10 p.m. on April 11,2011 — following a double shift — Brooks was waiting for a Capital Metro bus on Manchaca Road, near Dittmar Road.
Roberts, who was being chased by a sheriff’s deputy trying to pull him over for traffic violations, crashed into the bus stop after running a red light at the intersection, according to testimony. Roberts ran away from the scene and told one person at a nearby house: “I’ve got warrants. I need to get home to my wife and kids.”
Roberts has previously been convicted of driving while intoxicated, and in 2011 he pleaded guilty to credit card abuse and was sentenced to four years’ deferred adjudication, a form of probation.
A warrant for his arrest in that case had been issued about a month before the fatal crash. Stephen Thorne, a forensic psychologist, told jurors today that he spent about five hours interviewing Roberts and learned that Roberts had a drug and alcohol problem. He also determined that Robers suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Thorne explained that people who suffer the disorder have trouble controlling their impulses and are about two to four years behind in their social and emotional maturity.
“It’s not just a classroom disorder where you can’t sit still,” Thorne said.
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Man charged in fatal strip club shootings gets almost 20 years in drug case
A Manor man facing a capital murder charge in the shooting deaths of two stepbrothers outside a Travis County strip club in 2010 has been sentenced to almost 20 years in federal prison in a separate drug case.
Jorge Gutierrez, 30, (pictured) had been a target of a multi-state drug trafficking investigation when he was arrested on May 31,2010, following the fatal shootings of Jose Hernandez, 24, and Arturo Rodriguez Jr., 26, outside the Pink Monkey Cabaret, a strip club in eastern Travis County.
Relatives of the victims have said that a dispute over a stolen iPhone led to a fistfight and, ultimately, to the shooting.
Witnesses to the shooting said the gunman fled the club parking lot in a Ford F-250 pickup, which deputies later pulled over with Gutierrez inside, an arrest affidavit said. Witnesses identified Gutierrez as the shooter and he was arrested, the affidavit said.
Gutierrez was indicted in federal court in Alexandria, Va., three days after the shooting. In November he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced last week to 235 months in prison. He is among 15 people sentenced to federal prison time in the case.
Federal prosecutors said Gutierrez led the ring that brought large quantities of cocaine from Mexico to his home in Manor and then had co-conspirators deliver the cocaine in vehicles to Arkansas, Virginia and Pennsylvania. During six months of 2009 and 2010 the group smuggled about 60 kilograms to Virginia alone, prosecutors said in a news release.
Officials have not alleged a link between the drug trafficking and murder cases. Gutierrez is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on his Travis County capital murder indictment on March 19. No trial date has been set.
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February 29, 2012
Jury: Man guilty of murder in bus stop crash
Update 5:27 p.m.: A Travis County jury has found Charles “Chas” Roberts Jr. guilty of murder for speeding away from a sheriff’s deputy and crashing into Rondal Lynn Brooks while Brooks waited at a Manchaca Road bus stop last year.
Roberts faces up to life in prison at the sentencing phase of the trial, which is scheduled to begin tomorrow.
Earlier: It was after 10 p.m. on April 15, 2011, and Rondal Lynn Brooks, 41, had just gotten off a double shift assisting patients at a South Austin rehabilitation center and was waiting for the bus home alongside Manchaca Road.
Travis County prosecutors told a 12-member jury today that Brooks had probably been listening to music and likely did not know what hit him when a van whose driver had been fleeing a sheriff’s deputy crashed into him.
The impact severed Brooks’ spinal cord and almost cut his leg off, Assistant District Attorney Brandon Grunewald said.
“He got hit so hard it launched him into a tree,” Grunewald said during closing arguments in the murder trial of the man accused of being the driver of that van, Charles “Chas” Roberts Jr.
“The evidence demands that you return a verdict of guilty,” Grunewald said.
The jury began deliberating the case this afternoon. Roberts, 23, faces up to life in prison if convicted.
His defense lawyer, Rhett Braniff, suggested that prosecutors did not offer enough proof that Roberts is guilty of murder and said they certainly did not offer any proof that Roberts used a deadly weapon, a finding that would mean Roberts would have to serve half of any potential prison term before being considered for parole.
A sheriff’s deputy had been trying to pull the Toyota Sienna van over for traffic violations minutes before the crash, according to testimony. At one point the driver of the van, which was heading north on Manchaca Road, slowed down before speeding ahead and through a red light at the intersection of Manchaca and Dittmar Road.
The van, which reached speeds of 90 mph during the chase, swerved to avoid another vehicle right before it crashed into the Capital Metro bus stop, prosecutor Steven Brand said. The driver of the van, which authorities say was registered to Roberts, fled into a nearby neighborhood.
Witness Kim Dominguez said she had been visiting a friend in the area that night when she saw a disheveled man come over a fence and say: “I’ve got warrants. I need to get home to my wife and kids.” The man then ran away, she said.
The defendants’ father, Charles Wesley Roberts Sr., testified that his son called him about 10:30 that night, shortly after the crash.
“I could tell he was real scared and upset,” Roberts Sr. said. “He said he had messed up really bad and had had a really bad wreck and he thought he totaled his car.”
“I asked if anybody else was involved. He said ‘No, dad.’”
Roberts Sr. said his son later told him he had fled the deputy because he was afraid of going to jail on an outstanding warrant and not being able to go to work the next day to support his wife and kids.
The next morning, Roberts Sr. said, a detective showed up at his house and told him that someone had died in the crash.
Roberts Sr. said he agreed to help the detective find his son, and within three hours he and his son were at the sheriff’s office together.
Roberts Sr., who sobbed on the stand while testifying, said he had decided that “we are going to own up to this responsibility.”
Roberts Jr. declined to speak to detectives without a lawyer present, his father said.
The jury learned that Roberts had active warrants but state District Judge Julie Kocurek ruled while jurors were not in court that it would be too prejudicial for them to learn the reason for those warrants.
According to court documents, Roberts has been previously convicted of driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. In 2011 he pleaded guilty to credit card abuse, a felony, and was sentenced to four years deferred adjudication, a form of probation.
A warrant for his arrest in that case had been issued about a month before the fatal crash. In Texas, there are two ways a person can be convicted of murder, including when they intentionally or knowingly caused somebody’s death.
The other way is the state’s felony murder statute, which states that someone is guilty of murder if while committing a felony they commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of another person.
The indictment against Roberts charges him with causing Brooks’ death while committing the felony crime of evading arrest in a vehicle. The indictment states that striking Brooks with the vehicle was the act clearly dangerous to human life.
“You have the law in front of you,” Grunewald told jurors, “and the law tells you this is murder.”
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February 28, 2012
Man on trial for murder of man killed waiting at bus stop
A Travis County jury began hearing evidence today in the murder trial of Charles Wesley Roberts Jr., a 23-year-old accused of driving his van into a South Austin bus stop while fleeing a sheriff’s deputy last year.
Rondal Lynn Brooks, 41, who was waiting for the bus home from his job at the Texas Neurorehab Center, died in the April 15 crash. Roberts was arrested the next day and later indicted on a charge of felony murder. That charge accuses him of causing Brooks’ death while committing the felony of evading arrest while committing an act clearly dangerous to human life.
He faces up to life in prison if convicted. The trial in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court is expected to continue at least through tomorrow.
According to court documents, Roberts has been previously convicted of driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. In 2011 he pleaded guilty to credit card abuse, a felony, and was sentenced to four years deferred adjudication, a form of probation.
A warrant for his arrest in that case had been issued about a month before the fatal crash.
On that day, a sheriff’s deputy saw Roberts’ 2007 Toyota Sienna van and another vehicle apparently following or chasing one another in the 11900 block of Manchaca Road in far south Travis County, near FM 1628, according to an arrest affidavit.
The deputy followed the van and a short time later watched the driver fail to signal and run a stop sign while exiting an apartment complex, the affidavit said.
The deputy followed the van north on Manchaca but did not catch up to it for a couple of miles, near the intersection of Slaughter Lane and Manchaca, the affidavit said.
After the deputy turned on his overhead lights, the driver of the van pulled into the right lane, slowed down and then suddenly accelerated, the affidavit said.
The deputy then put his siren on and the van ran a red light at Dittmar Road, swerved to avoid a westbound car and crashed off the eastern side of the roadway, the affidavit said.
When the deputy got to the scene he found the van empty and Brooks on the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later.
A Capital Metro bus bench had been destroyed in the crash.
Brooks was a rehab technician, which is similar to a nurse’s aide, and had been on his way home after working a double shift, according to testimony.
After the crash, people at neighboring houses reported seeing a disheveled man running through the neighborhood asking for a ride.
Witness Kim Dominguez told the jury that the man told her: “I’ve got warrants, I need to get home to my wife and kids.”
Roberts’ father, Charles Wesley Roberts Sr., said under questioning by prosecutor Brandon Grunewald that his son called him at about 10:30 that night, shortly after the crash.
“I could tell he was real scared and upset,” said Roberts Sr. “He said he had messed up really bad and had had a really bad wreck and he thought he totaled his car.”
“I asked if anybody else was involved. He said ‘no, dad.’”
Roberts Sr. said his son later told him he had fled the deputy because he was afraid of going to jail for a warrant and not being able to go to work the next day and to support his wife and kids.
The next morning, Roberts Sr. said a detective showed up at his house and told him that someone had died in the crash.
Roberts Sr. said he agreed to help the detective find his son, and within three hours he and his son were at the sheriff’s office together.
Roberts Sr., who sobbed on the stand while testifying, said he had decided that “we are going to own up to this responsibility.”
Roberts Jr. declined to speak to detectives without a lawyer present, his father said.
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February 21, 2012
Hearing on former corrections officer's murder charge rescheduled
A hearing to determine whether a former Travis County corrections officer will face trial on a charge of murder was rescheduled today, a prosecutor said.
Chad Lum, 36, was arrested in 2010 following a shooting at his Briarcliff house. Police say Lum fatally shot 46-year-old Michael Rendon, but his lawyer says the shooting was in self-defense.
Prosecutors say they can’t go forward with a trial against Lum without the ability to call his former wife, who has disappeared.
Lum’s lawyer has filed a motion claiming that his right to a speedy trial has been violated. The motion requests that state District Judge Mike Lynch dismiss the case against Lum with prejudice, meaning it could not be refiled.
Prosecutors want to dismiss the case while preserving their ability to file charges against Lum again if they find his ex-wife.
Prosecutor Steven Brand said today that the hearing was rescheduled for March 6.
Read the full story about Lum here.
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February 14, 2012
Man gets life with no parole in Williamson County murder
Updated, 6 p.m., to correct that Allan Williams is Burks’ attorney, not a prosecutor:
A man convicted of capital murder in a 2010 roadside ambush was sentenced by a Williamson County jury this afternoon to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bobby Burks Jr., 34, could have been given the death penalty.
Burks was found guilty last week of killing 18-year-old Raul Vizueth Torres after Burks’ sisters-in-law helped lure the victim and his cousin into a trap along a county road near Taylor in April 2010.
The jury deliberated about four hours this afternoon before returning to with its sentence. The judge imposed the sentence immediately and ordered Burks to be transferred to prison, District Attorney John Bradley said in a news release, adding that Burks will never be eligible for any type of early release.
As Burks was leaving the courtroom, Burks placed his hand over his heart and smiled at family members sitting in the courtroom.
Outside court, defense attorney Allan Williams said he was pleased with the sentence.
“It was the right thing to do under the evidence,” he said.
Prosecutor Jane Starnes declined to comment.
Earlier:
A Williamson County jury is deliberating whether to sentence a man convicted of capital murder to death or life without parole.
Bobby Burks Jr. was convicted last week of the robbery and fatal shooting of 18-year-old Raul Vizueth Torres, whom he ambushed on a Williamson County road in April 2010.
To impose the death penalty, the jury must decide that Burks is a future danger to society and that there are no mitigating circumstances in his case. One of the prosecutors, Jane Starnes, said this morning in closing arguments that Burks’ criminal history showed he would be a future threat.
Burks is a “bully” who did a drive-by shooting as a teenager, dealt drugs as a gang member, was convicted of assaulting his wife and also punched somebody in jail after he was arrested in connection with the death of Torres, Starnes said.
Defense attorney Steve Brittain argued that Burks would not be a threat in the future in prison because he had already spent thousands of days in the penitentiary on previous charges and had not gotten into trouble. Burks punched another inmate once after the inmate charged at him with what appeared to be a weapon, Brittain said.
Two sisters-in-law of Burks’ lured Torres and his cousin, Jorge Castaneda, away from an Austin nightclub on April 17, 2010, officials have said. The sisters, Veronica Ortiz and Isabel Gonzales, testified earlier in the trial that they and Burks planned to rob Castaneda after they discovered he was carrying $300 in cash.
The women asked Castaneda and Torres for a ride to Taylor and promised to “party” with them, Ortiz testified. Ortiz got Castaneda to pull over on FM 1660 after pretending to be sick, and Burks, who was parked nearby, walked up to Castaneda’s Chevrolet Tahoe, robbed the men and shot Torres in the head, police said.
Castaneda drove Torres to St. David’s South Austin Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The women fled with Burks in his Ford Mustang.
Ortiz and Gonzales testified against Burks in exchange for having capital murder dropped from their charges. They are both charged with two counts of aggravated assault, and each faces a maximum of 40 years in prison.
Another defense attorney, Allan Williams, said during closing arguments this morning that there were mitigating circumstances in Burks’ case. The killing of Torres wasn’t premeditated because Burks got scared when he saw Castaneda reach under a car seat and thought he was reaching for a weapon, Williams said.
“There was no plan to kill,” he said.
Williams also said that the “vast majority” of people convicted of capital murder in Texas had received life sentences. He said there were more than 2,000 people in jail for capital murder, while only about 300 people are on death row for capital murder convictions.
Burks’ criminal history consisted mostly of misdemeanors and does not merit the death sentence, Williams said.
“There was another side of Bobby,” Williams said. “His mother and his brother and his children loved him, and he loved them.”
Another prosecutor, Lindsey Roberts, wound up closing arguments this morning. He said Burks not only shot at Torres during the robbery but also shot at Castaneda but missed and tried to hide evidence. Roberts said Williams understated Burks’ criminal history, including the drive-by shooting.
“He calls it a bad situation,” Roberts said. “Really? Bobby shot into a house.”
Roberts also said that Burks probably behaved well in jail before because there was always the possibility of parole for his past convictions. There are no mitigating circumstances in Burks’ life, Roberts argued, even though witnesses testified that he loved his nine children.
“He consistently abandoned his children over the years,” Roberts said. His mother now has custody of six of his children, but the children were visiting Burks and his wife the night before Torres died, Roberts said. Instead of spending time with his children and his wife, Burks planned the robbery and had sex with his girlfriend, said Roberts.
“Bobby has always done what he wanted to do and consistently gotten into trouble even though people tried to intervene like his mother,” said Roberts. “He was continuing to deal drugs and carry guns even until the day he got caught.”
Police have never found the gun used in Torres’ shooting.
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February 1, 2012
Prosecutors seek to try teen murder defendant as an adult
Travis County prosecutors believe that a 16-year-old accused of murder in the shooting death of an Akins High School student last month should be tried as an adult.
Assistant Travis County District Attorney LaRu Woody said prosecutors have asked that a juvenile court judge certify the teen charged with murder in Mark Brandon Dominguez’s death to be tried as an adult.
Woody said a judge would hold a future hearing on that request. She said she does not believe that a hearing has been scheduled. A judge must consider several factors in making the decision, including the nature of the crime, the sophistication and maturity of the child defendant and his previous record, Woody said.
Police and prosecutors have not identified the teen tried in the case, citing his age. Because he stands tried as a juvenile, court records in his case are not public.
Dominguez was fatally shot at about 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 8 near his home in the Canterbury Trails neighborhood of far South Austin. Police have said that he and two of his brothers heard suspicious noises outside their home and, thinking someone was trying to break into a car, went outside to investigate.
Dominguez was found in the 11100 block of Franklins Tale Loop and taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge, where he later died, police officials have said.
Police later found two boys in a taxi, one matching the description and wearing the same clothing as the boy involved in the shooting, a police spokeswoman has said. Both were carrying guns and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. One was also charged with murder, the spokeswoman said.
Dominguez was an aspiring firefighter who was an active member of an “Explorers” program in which at-risk and low-income teens learn the ropes on becoming firefighters. The high school junior was saving up money to enter a firefighting academy after turning 18, according to Lt. Eddie Dominguez, a Travis County firefighter who wasn’t related to the teen but had mentored him for the past two years.
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December 16, 2011
Man gets 23 years for murder of strip club patron
A Travis County jury today sentenced 23-year-old Jon Tyrell Banks to 23 years in prison for robbing and killing strip club patron Elmore Allen last year, according to Banks’ lawyer David Frank.
The jury in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court on Wednesday found banks guilty of felony murder in the April 12, 2010, attack at a southeast Austin apartment complex. Banks’ girlfriend, Jessica Krause-Patterson, also faces a murder charge in the case and will be tried at a later date.
The two went to trial together in June, a trial that ended in a mistrial. Defense lawyers said at the time that the panel reported being split 7-5 in favor of acquittal.
After that trial, Banks turned down a plea bargain offer that included a 14-year sentence.
Allen, who worked as a furniture store deliveryman, went to the Hot Bodies all-nude club on Burleson Road on April 12, 2010, according to testimony at the June trial. Allen remained at the club into the night, receiving private dances from several strippers, including Krause-Patterson, who performed under the stage name “Sin,” according to testimony.
Banks went to the club that night but left with his brother about 1:45 a.m., according to testimony.
At about 2 a.m., Krause-Patterson left with Allen, who drove her to a nearby apartment complex. Prosecutors argued that it was a robbery setup and Banks was waiting there, hit Allen in the head, knocking him to the ground where he hit his head and died.
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December 14, 2011
Man guilty of murder in death of strip club patron last year
A Travis County jury today found Jon Tyrell Banks guilty of felony murder in the death of a strip club patron last year.
Banks faces up to life in prison for robbing and killing Elmore Allen, 49, after he left the Hot Bodies men’s club in Southeast Austin, where Banks’ girlfriend worked.
The sentencing phase of Banks’ trial began this afternoon in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court. Banks faces up to life in prison.
Banks’ girlfriend, Jessica Krause-Patterson, also faces a murder charge in the case and will be tried at a later date.
The two were tried together before a different jury in June. That trial ended in a mistrial after jurors reported that they were hopelessly deadlocked. Following that trial, defense lawyers said that jurors had been split 7-5 in favor of acquittal.
Allen worked as a furniture store deliveryman and was a regular at area strip clubs, including Hot Bodies on Burleson Road. He went there early in the afternoon on April 12, 2010, flashed a pocketful of cash, drank heavily and received private dances from several strippers, including Krause-Patterson, who performed under the stage name “Sin,” according to testimony at the June trial.
Banks went to the club that night but left with his brother about 1:45 a.m., according to testimony.
Prosecutors argued that Krause-Patterson asked Allen for a ride to a nearby apartment complex and when they arrived there, Banks was waiting and hit Allen in the head, knocking him to the ground where he hit his head and died.
For previous coverage of the case, click here.
The offense date has been corrected in this blog.
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December 9, 2011
Killer gets 60 year in Airport Boulevard shooting
State District Judge Mike Lynch today sentenced Johnny Ray Barr to 60 years in prison for shooting his girlfriend outside an Airport Boulevard club last year.
Barr, 38, must serve half of that sentence before he is eligible for parole.
On Thursday, a Travis County jury convicted Barr of murder in the death of Eula Nutall, 37, outside the Airport Club and Grill, near East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, shortly after midnight on Nov. 7, 2010.
A man who had been at the club with the couple witnessed the shooting, according to a police affidavit.
The case was prosecuted by Travis County assistant district attorneys Gary Cobb and Geoffrey Puryear.
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December 8, 2011
Man gets 50 years for killing wife, living with her body for a month
Update: John Malcolm Nordstrom III, who murdered his wife and lived with her body for about a month last year, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. A Travis County jury deliberated for about five hours before delivering it to state District Judge Jim Coronado this evening.
Earlier:
A Travis County jury just after noon today began deliberating a sentence for John Nordstrom III, who lived in his East Austin house with his wife’s body for about 30 days after murdering her last year.
Nordstrom III faces five years to life in prison for killing Deborah Diane “D.D.” Gordon at the couple’s East Austin home.
His lawyer, Tom Weber, asked the jury to consider that Nordstrom had been dogged by financial problems. He also noted that while Nordstrom was legally sane and competent, there had to have been “something seriously wrong” for Nordstrom to have lived with his wife’s body for so long.
“I am not defending what he did. He committed intentional murder,” Weber said. “But this is bizarre. This is bizarre behavior.”
Prosecutors suggested that Nordstrom had been trying to find a way cover up the crime, noting testimony that showed he had performed computer searches about how how make a murder look like a suicide.
“That’s what he was doing for 30 days, surfing the net trying to figure out how to stage this,” prosecutor Judy Shipway said. “And that’s something to think about. This isn’t just a straight murder, this is a murder by somebody who is a diabolical person.”
Ralph Barrera/AMERICAN-STATESMAN: Earlier this week, John Malcolm Nordstrom III, 64, pleaded guilty today to murdering his wife Deborah Diane Gordon, 58, in September 2010 and then living with her deceased body for 25 days before his son noticed the odor and notified police. He sits with his defense attorney Tom Weber Monday before the punishment phase of his trial begins in District 427th Judge John Coronado’s court.
Nordstrom had a very successful career as a lead salesman in the Dallas area. He has two grown sons, once founded a Boy Scouts troop and has served as mayor of the Town of Double Oak.
He came to Austin about 2007 and married Gordon, his fifth wife. Gordon worked as pilates instructor and personal trainer and was described by Shipway as “a vibrant, lovely, healthy woman,”
“She had friends and family that loved her, and it meant nothing to that man sitting right there,” Shipway said. “I ask you to think about justice for D.D. Gordon.”
Shipway did not ask for a specific sentence, only “justice.”
For previous Statesman coverage of this trial click here and here.
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Man guilty in Airport Boulevard club killing
A Travis County jury today found a 38-year-old Johnny Ray Barr guilty of murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend at a club on Airport Boulevard last year.
Barr will be sentenced by state District Judge Mike Lynch tomorrow in the killing of Eula Nutall, said prosecutor Gary Cobb. Barr faces up to life in prison.
Barr shot Nutall outside the Airport Club and Grill shortly after midnight Nov. 7, 2010, according to an arrest affidavit.
A man who had gone to the club with the couple said that Nutall had complained to him inside the club that Barr had assaulted her, and as they were leaving Nutall again started talking to him, the affidavit said.
The witness then saw Barr shoot Nutall, the affidavit said. Nutall, 37, died a day later.
Nutall was born in Bryan and graduated from A&M Consolidated High School, according to an online obituary. She was a certified nurse aide and enjoyed singing, dancing and cooking, the obituary said.
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December 5, 2011
Man who police say lived with wife's body for 25 days pleads guilty to murder
An Austin man who police say lived with his wife’s dead body for 25 days before it was discovered last year pleaded guilty today to murdering her.
After John Malcom Nordstrom III, 65, admitted that he killed Deborah Diane Gordon, 58, lawyers in the case selected a jury of Travis County residents who will decide Nordstrom’s punishment. He faces up to life in prison.
Testimony during the sentencing trial is expected to last several days and is scheduled to begin in state District Judge Jim Coronado’s court about 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Police were called to the couple’s Northeast Austin home on Aug. 30, 2010, after one of Nordstrom’s sons reported smelling a suspicious odor coming from the residence on Rogge Lane, according to a search warrant.
Police found Gordon, who had died from a gunshot wound to the head, on the couple’s couch covered by a sheet, the warrant said. Police believe she had been killed Aug. 5.
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November 30, 2011
Man accused of driving into mother at gas station found incompetent
A man accused of killing his mother by intentionally running her over with his vehicle at a South Austin gas station in September has been found incompetent to stand trial.
State District Judge Jim Coronado last week ordered Shaun David Samuelson committed to a state psychiatric hospital for a period not to exceed 120 days. Samuelson is to receive treatment designed to help him attain legal competency— the ability to consult with his lawyer and understand the legal proceedings against him.
An order signed by Coronado said that prosecutors and Samuelson’s defense lawyer agreed on the finding after a court-appointed psychiatrist examined the defendant. Court filings did not elaborate on the psychiatrist’s findings.
Samuelson, 45, who faces an attempted capital murder charge, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Police have said that officers were called to a gas station on South Lamar Boulevard and found Virginia Samuelson in her vehicle with minor injuries. As they prepared to put her in an ambulance, her son drove toward them at a high rate of speed. Officers and paramedics jumped out of the way but were unable to move the stretcher, police said.
Samuelson was arrested a short distance away. His mother, Virginia Samuelson, 72, died at the scene.
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November 21, 2011
Man who shot sheriff's deputy gets another life term
A man serving a life sentence for shooting a Travis County sheriff’s deputy 30 years ago received a second life term today for shooting a man during the same crime spree in 1981.
The new sentence, doled out by state District Judge David Crain, means that Rickey Ellison, 55, will not be eligible for parole until he has served 20 years of his latest sentence. Crain said Ellison, who earlier this month was convicted of murdering Jimmy Milo, would receive credit for time served on the new sentence back to 2009, when he was indicted in the case.
Ellison was convicted in 1982 of attempted capital murder in the shooting of deputy Charles Lacey on U.S. 183 near what is now the Austin airport. Lacey was paralyzed in the shooting and later died of his injuries.
At the time authorities had linked Ellison to the fatal shootings of Milo and of 21-year-old Cassandra Jackson, whose body was found on the side of a road outside Elgin.
Those cases were never prosecuted but investigators began looking into them again a few years after Ellison first became eligible for parole in 2001.
Ellison, 55, has been indicted in Travis County on a capital murder charge in Jackson’s death, and Assistant District Attorney Bryan Case said he plans to try Ellison in that case.
“In pronouncing Ellison’s sentence, Crain said: “In spite of the 30 years that have passed, it still was the taking of a life and it was a very brutal taking of a life.”
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November 4, 2011
Travis County jury finds man guilty of 1981 murder
A Travis County jury today convicted Rickey Ellison of murder for fatally shooting an Austin man during a 1981 crime spree that also left another woman dead and a Travis County sheriff’s deputy paralyzed.
Ellison had been sentenced to life in prison for attempted capital murder in 1982 for shooting Deputy Charles Lacey, who later died of his injuries.
Ellison was linked to the killings of Jimmy Milo and Cassandra Jackson shortly after his 1981 arrest but the cases were not prosecuted.
Ellison has recently been regularly eligible for parole, and prosecutors have said they wanted to secure the new murder convictions to make sure he never gets out of prison.
After a weeklong trial, the jury in state District Judge David Crain’s court convicted Ellison today in the killing of Milo, who was shot in the mouth on East 11th Street.
Ellison faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced by Crain later this month. Prosecutor Bryan Case has said that Ellison would face trial in Jackson’s death at a later date.
Ellison, 55, shot Lacey during a traffic stop on U.S. 183.
Case said during opening statements in the case that ballistics testing linked a gun found near Ellison when he was arrested with the shootings of Jackson, Milo and Lacey.
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November 1, 2011
Trial begins in 1981 murder case
A man serving a life sentence for shooting a Travis County sheriff’s deputy 30 years ago went on trial again today, charged with murder in the death of an Austin man fatally shot during the same crime spree.
Rickey Ellison, 55, is on trial in the death of Jimmy Milo, 28, who was shot once in the mouth on East 11th Street on Feb. 19, 1981. During opening statements in state District Judge David Crain’s court this morning, prosecutor Bryan Case said Milo was a transvestite whose death authorities linked to Ellison through ballistics testing.
Ellison was convicted in 1982 of attempted capital murder in the shooting of deputy Charles Lacey the previous year. Lacey, who later died of his injuries, was paralyzed from his encounter with Ellison during a traffic stop on U.S. 183.
At the time authorities had linked Ellison to the killings of Milo and Cassandra Jackson of San Antonio, who was found dead in Bastrop County, but they never took those cases to trial.
A few years after Ellison first came up for parole in 2001, authorities began re-investigating Ellison. In 2009, a Travis County grand jury indicted Ellison on a murder charge in Milo’s death and on a capital murder charge in the death of Jackson.
Case has said that Ellison will be tried in Jackson’s death at a later date.
Case said prosecutors are motivated in part to secure new sentences against Ellison to ensure he is not released on parole.
The first witness was Carlos Wilson, who said that in February 1981 he loaned Jackson, his girlfriend at the time, his car with his nickel-plated Derringer double barreled pistol with a homemade wooden handle in the glove compartment.
Authorities have said that Ellison abducted Jackson after midnight on Feb. 19, 1981, and drove her to Austin.
Milo was shot at about 6 a.m. that day. Authorities believe Jackson witnessed that shooting.
Later in the day, Ellison shot Jackson and left her body in a ditch on Monkey Road in Bastrop County, southwest of Elgin, authorities have said.
About 7 p.m. that same day, Ellison abducted state worker Barbara Bailey from a parking garage in downtown Austin, according to her testimony at Ellison’s 1982 trial.
Bailey told the jury that Ellison drove her car south on U.S. 183, where a sheriff’s deputy pulled the car over.
When the deputy — later identified as Lacey — got to the car, Ellison said, “Hi, how are you?” and then “took the gun and shot him,” Bailey testified at the 1982 trial.
Bailey said that Ellison raced away and the next day the pair ended up in Hempstead, where Bailey escaped in her car when Ellison went inside a service station to pay for the gas. Ellison was arrested several hours later.
Case told the jury that the arrest came after Ellison got his car stuck in the mud. Authorities found a Derringer double-barreled pistol in the mud after the arrest.
That gun was linked through testing to the shootings of Milo, Jackson and Lacey, Case said.
Ellison’s lawyer, Alex Calhoun, chose to defer his opening statement until the state has presented its case. For a story on the case earlier this month, Calhoun told the American-Statesman that trying Ellison again is a waste of time and resources because Ellison is never going to be granted parole.
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August 8, 2011
Driver who fled police sentenced in crash that killed passengers
A judge today sentenced a 38-year-old man to 20 years in prison for leading authorities on a high-speed chase last year that began near Parmer Lane, snaked through Central Austin and downtown before ending in a South Austin crash that killed two of his passengers.
Eliot Carvajal, at right, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of murder in a deal with prosecutors that allowed senior state District Judge Jon Wisser to pick a sentence between 10 and 25 years.
Before choosing a sentence, Wisser watched a video of the 20-minute chase, in which Carvajal is followed while driving up to 100 mph on roads such as Lamar Boulevard and Guadalupe Street.
“I found it terrifying watching the defendant driving at those speeds and especially running the red lights,” Wisser said. “But for the grace of God nobody was coming through the intersections.”
Sylestine said Carvajal and the two men who died — Stephen Carter, 37, and Hiram Espitia, 23 — had together stolen a flat screen television from a Wal-Mart near Parmer Lane and Interstate 35.
Carvajal was the getaway driver during the April 26, 2010, heist, he said. Before he got out of the parking lot — at 1:01 a.m. — a Travis County sheriff’s deputy pulled up behind him and tried to pull Carvajal over.
Carvajal instead weaved through the parking lot and headed south on the Interstate 35 frontage road and eventually on to the main part of the highway. At the Rundberg Lane exit he abruptly exited.
At Rundberg Lane, Carvajal drove up to 100 mph hour on the highway frontage road and turned on Powell Lane, where he ran a stop sign, a sheriff’s office affidavit said.
He continued south, running a red light at the U.S. 183 frontage road, jumping a curb on Airport Boulevard and driving about 100 mph on North Lamar Boulevard, the affidavit said . Numerous police vehicles, including Austin police, were pursuing Carvajal.
He went over the Lamar Boulevard Bridge over Lady Bird Lake and continued south. He crossed Ben White Boulevard and came to a stop only when he struck a utility pole on the frontage road of U.S. 290 West and and Brodie Lane, near the Spec’s store.
Carter, also known as Chad Francis, died at the scene.
Two other passengers and Carvajal were taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge.
Espitia died later of head injuries and pneumonia, Sylestine said.
Carvajal pleaded guilty to felony murder, which occurs when someone causes another’s death while committing a felony and an act clearly dangerous to human life. In Carvajal’s case, the felony was evading arrest in a vehicle and the dangerous acts were speeding and ignoring traffic signs while driving drunk.
He must serve half his sentence before he is eligible for parole.
His defense lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, told Wisser: “no question (that) foolishness and bad judgment were working together that night.”
“Yeah, my client is going to answer with some significant portion of this life and he’s aware of that,” he said.
Sylestine urged Wisser to “focus on what could have happened as well as what did happen.”
“Mr. Carvajal might as well have been shooting a gun in public.“
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June 13, 2011
Mistrial declared in case of stripper and boyfriend accused of murder
Update 5:07 p.m.
Senior state District Judge Bob Perkins has declared a mistrial in the cases of a stripper and her boyfriend charged with murder and aggravated robbery in the death of a strip club patron last year.
The jury deliberated for close to 11 hours over two days and reported to Perkins repeatedly this afternoon that jurors are deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
“It is our firm belief that this decision is final and will not change without a surrender of our conscientious convictions,” the jury foreman wrote in his most recent note, which Perkins read in court.
It is unclear if Jessica Krause-Patterson, 20, and Jon Tyrell Banks, 23, will be retried in the death of Elmore Allen, 49.
Earlier
The foreman of a Travis County jury deliberating in the murder trial of an Austin stripper and her boyfriend who are accused of killing one of her customers during a robbery last year sent senior state District Judge Bob Perkins a note today indicating the panel is deadlocked.
“We can not come to a mutual decision,” said the note, read by Perkins in court this afternoon. “We seek your guidance. What now?”
Jessica Krause-Patterson, 20, and Jon Tyrell Banks, 23, are accused of killing 49-year-old strip club patron Elmore Allen while taking his cash, a ring and a cell phone after Krause-Patterson lured him from the Hot Bodies Men’s Club, where she worked.
“Elmore Allen went to Hot Bodies looking for a good time and he ended up dead,” prosecutor Kathryn Scales told jurors during closing arguments Friday.
Defense lawyers argued that Allen had groped Krause-Patterson after offering her a ride home on April 13, 2010, and that when Banks found them at the apartment complex he punched Elmore to protect her from an impending sexual assault.
“Just because of what she does for a living doesn’t mean she has to put up with these unwanted advances from people,” said Russ Hunt Jr., one of Krause-Patterson’s defense lawyers.
The 12-member jury began deliberating at about 8 p.m. Friday and stopped at about 11 p.m. Members returned at 9 a.m. today and have been deliberating since.
At about 2:50 p.m. today, Perkins called the jurors into court where he read standard instructions used by judges when jurors indicate they are deadlocked.
In what is called an Allen charge after a court case on the topic, the purpose of the instructions are to motivate jurors to re-examine their opinions to come to a unanimous verdict.
“This is an important case. The trial has been expensive in time, effort, money… to both the defense and the prosecution,” reads part of the instruction.
The jury continued deliberating at about 3 p.m.
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June 9, 2011
Murder defendant's brother puts him at crime scene
The brother of murder defendant Jon Tyrell Banks testified today that he drove Banks to the apartment complex on Bluff Springs Road in Southeast Austin hours before strip club patron Elmore Allen was found dead there last year.
Ricky Epps said after parking at the front of the complex his brother walked deeper into the complex before returning about 3½ minutes later with his girlfriend, Jessica Krause-Patterson. While they drove home, Banks asked Epps to pull up to a garbage pail so he could throw out something from Krause-Patterson’s bag.
“They were acting happy and normal,” Epps testified.
Banks, 23, and Krause-Patterson, 20, are being tried together on aggravated robbery and murder charges in the death of Allen.
Krause-Patterson was a stripper at the all-nude Hot Bodie’s Men’s Club in Southeast Austin, where witnesses say Allen had been drinking heavily, trying to touch dancers inappropriately and flashing his money from the afternoon of April 12, 2010, into the early morning hours of April 13.
Prosecutors say Krause-Patterson lured Allen to the apartment complex on Bluff Springs Road, where Banks was waiting so the pair could rob Allen. When Allen, a 49-year-old furniture store delivery man from Del Valle, was found dead in the apartment complex that morning, he had suffered a gash to his eye and had smacked the back of his head on some landscaping stone.
David Frank, one of Banks’ lawyers, told the jury during opening statements that Banks punched Allen to defend Krause-Patterson from Allen’s aggressive behavior after Allen agreed to give Krause-Patterson a ride home. Frank said that Banks did not intend to kill Allen.
Epps, who said that police gave him immunity from prosecution in the case, testified that he drove to Hot Bodies to give his brother and Krause-Patterson a ride home in the early morning hours of April 13, 2010. He said that at about 1:45 a.m. he and his brother drove to the store and when they returned the club Krause-Patterson was gone.
He said they drove to the apartment complex on Bluff Springs, where Krause-Patterson used to live, to meet her.
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June 7, 2011
Stripper's boyfriend to claim he killed patron in her defense, lawyer says
Two very different versions of what happened one night last year with a strip club patron, a stripper and her boyfriend emerged during opening statements in a Travis County murder trial today.
Prosecutor Kathryn Scales told a jury that Elmore Allen, 49, was killed in a April 13, 2010, robbery by Jessica Krause-Patterson, who danced at Hot Bodies in southeast Austin, and her boyfriend Jon Tyrell Banks.
David Frank, who represents Banks, 23, told the jury that Allen, a patron of the club, had groped Krause-Patterson while giving her a ride home from the club. He said that Banks later attacked Allen to save Krause-Patterson, 20, from an impending sexual assault.
Krause-Patterson and Banks are being tried together on murder and aggravated robbery charges before senior state District Judge Bob Perkins. The trial is expected to last at least a week and each defendant faces up to life in prison if convicted of either charge.
Jessica Krause-Patterson (left) and Jon Tyrell Banks (right) in court today. Photo by Larry Kolvoord/AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Scales said that Allen had spent the hours before his death drinking and getting lap dances at Hot Bodies, an all-nude strip club off Burleson Road.
Scales said that Allen had been flashing his money at the club and that he left after the club closed at 2 a.m. with Krause-Patterson, who had danced for him earlier in the evening.
During a drive from the club to an apartment complex where Krause-Patterson used to live on Bluff Springs Road, near Interstate 35 and William Cannon Drive, Krause-Patterson and Banks were in constant communication on their cell phones, Scales said.
She told the jurors that those communications made it clear their intent was “to lure Elmore Allen from Hot Bodies and to separate him from his money.”
Scales told the jurors that Banks’ brother will testify that he drove Banks to that apartment complex around that time, parked near the front and waited for a time while Banks walked away before returning with Krause-Patterson.
Allen had a gash near his eye, his head was resting on stone garden edging, and he had suffered “a devastating fatal wound to the back of his head,” Scales said.
Banks later gave a friend a ring taken from Allen and told someone that he may have killed someone, Scales said.
Krause-Patterson’s lawyer, Russ Hunt Jr., reserved his opening statement for later in the trial.
Frank, Banks’ lawyer, implored the jury to wait to hear all of the evidence before reaching a conclusion in the case. He said that Banks and his brother went to the club the night that Allen died but left at just before closing to get gas.
Finding the brothers gone when the club closed at 2 a.m., Krause-Patterson accepted an offer of a ride with Allen, Frank said.
During the drive, Allen turned the radio up so Krause-Patterson could not make calls on her cell phone and began groping her, Frank said.
“Elmore Allen is breathing heavy on her,” Frank said. “He had his hands on her shoulders, on her breasts… He was feeling her all over.”
Frank said that Krause-Patterson directed Allen to a friend’s apartment complex because she did not want to tell a customer where she lived. Frank said that Krause-Patterson asked Allen to let her out during the drive but he refused.
When they got to the Colonial Village at Canyon Hills apartments on Bluff Springs Road, Krause-Patterson got out and tried to walk away but Allen followed her and would not let go of her, Frank said.
“She is screaming to let go of me,” Frank said.
He told the jury that soon Banks, who had been alerted by text message that Krause-Patterson asked to be dropped at that complex, came running and told Allen, “Get off my girlfriend.”
“Elmore Allen, who has a blood alcohol concentration of .09, gets in front of Jessica and says, ‘Oh no you don’t. I’m the man here,’” Frank said. “And J.T. (Jon Tyrell Banks) stands up and protects his girlfriend against Elmore Allen… and he hits him and Elmore Allen falls back.
“There is no intent to kill Elmore Allen,” Frank said. “His intent was to save his girlfriend from what is obviously and imminently going to be a sexual assault.”
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May 5, 2011
Prosecutor: Student was viciously assaulted, stabbed dozens of times
UPDATE 11 a.m.
Prosecutor Allison Wetzel told a Travis County jury today that 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado was stabbed and cut dozens of times and “viciously” sexually assaulted in her far East Austin apartment in 2009.
Some of those wounds were on Maldonado’s hands and arms, Wetzel said during opening statements in Areli Escobar’s capital murder trial in Travis County. She told the jury that they would see graphic photos of Maldonado’s injuries.
“You will know how hard she fought to struggle against the person who was doing this to her,” she said. “Those photos are hard to look at, but they are essential for you to understand the crime.”
Escobar faces the death penalty if convicted.
He is accused of killing Maldonado in the Huntington Meadows apartment complex on Decker Lane, where he also lived. Maldonado was attacked while at home with her 1-year-old son in the predawn hours while her mother and sister were working delivering newspapers.
Lawyers said the two did not know each other.
Defense lawyer Stephen Brittain told the jury that they would find reasonable doubt that Escobar is guilty. He said that DNA evidence is reliable in excluding people but not of definitively matching people to evidence.
He also seemed to suggest that Maldonado’s killing was not committed by someone in the course of committing sexual assault, which would not make her killing a capital crime.
Brittain said wounds to Maldonado’s anus and vagina occurred after her death. A sexual assault is a crime on a live person.
Earlier
Shortly after 9 a.m. today, a Travis County jury will hear opening statements in the capital murder trial of Areli Carbajal Escobar, accused of brutally killing his 17-year-old neighbor Bianca Maldonado in her family’s far East Austin apartment in 2009.
Maldonado was an LBJ High School student who maintained a B average while raising her 1-year-old son. She was attacked and sexually assaulted in her family’s unit at the Huntington Meadows apartment in the early morning hours of May 31, 2009, after her mother and sister left for jobs delivering newspapers.
Escobar, 32, faces the death penalty if convicted by a Travis County jury.
Authorities have said he did not know Maldonado.
The trial in state District Judge Mike Lynch’s court is expected to last two weeks. Among the witnesses expected to be called by prosecutors is Zoe Lopez, who told police that she called Escobar after she noticed he had left his apartment around the time Maldonado was killed.
When Lopez tried to call Escobar, the call connected and she heard a female voice screaming and moaning for 10 minutes before the call disconnected, a police affidavit said.
Follow live courtroom updates throughout the trial below and on Twitter at @StevenKreytak. Note: Some testimony could be graphic.
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April 28, 2011
Schizophrenic murder defendant to return to state hospital
Travis County prosecutors have decided not to seek permission to forcefully medicate schizophrenic murder defendant James McMeans and he has been once again committed to a state psychiatric hospital, according to McMeans’ lawyer John Butler.
McMeans, who has been ruled incompetent to stand trial and hospitalized for most of the time since his 1999 arrest, was returned to the Travis County Jail last year after doctors at Kerrville State Hospital said he was competent — that he understood the proceedings against him and could assist in his own defense.
But officials said he refused to take his psychotropic medications while in jail and his mental health degraded. He was once again ruled incompetent and last month, Travis County prosecutors said they would take the rare measure of asking a judge to allow jail staff to forcefully medicate McMeans.
But Butler said the state abandoned that motion, filed in Travis County probate court, and this week asked a judge to commit McMeans to a state hospital. Magistrate Judge Leon Grizzard found this week that McMeans is again incompetent and committed him to North Texas State Hospital.
McMeans, 41, has paranoid schizophrenia. He once told a state psychologist that stabbing people is the only way to tell if they are androids.
Austin police say he was homeless in September 1999 when he fatally stabbed 36-year-old Clara Oda Torriente-Capote at a Texaco station near Interstate 35 and Oltorf Street.
Butler said he did not oppose McMeans’ commitment. He said that if McMeans gets back on his medication and regains competency then prosecutors and the judge in his case want to try him quickly upon his return to Travis County.
“He deserves his day in court,” Butler said. “It’s not necessarily the best thing for him to be in and out of institutions for the rest of his life.”
Prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.
To read more about McMeans’ case and the issue of competency in Travis County click here for a March Statesman story.
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April 27, 2011
Judge: Man not guilty of murder in '86 killing
State District Judge Karen Sage today found Jimmie Dale White not guilty in the 1986 murder of his roommate, Michael DesJardines.
The state’s case rested on largely on the testimony of White’s sister, Euna White Kilbert, who was previously convicted of making false statements related to a bankruptcy case. Her credibility was assaulted by White’s defense lawyers, who also noted that she has held a grudge against White and other members of her family over the drug and alcohol use of her son, who died in an automobile accident.
Kilbert testified that her brother called her to his North Austin house in 1986 and said that he had killed a man, wrapped his body up and dumped him in a parking lot. Kilbert said that his house was disarray, that there was a hole the size of a bullet in his bedroom headboard, and that he asked her to go out and buy him new bedding and a windowpane.
In announcing her verdict, Sage noted that Kilbert’s statement “is both completely uncorroborated” and “lacks any detail that would give it any indicia of reliability.”
She said the passage of time has “hindered us in our ability to find the truth.”
The case had a long road to trial. It was not until prosecutors had Kilbert arrested in 2003 and brought before a grand jury in Austin in 2003 that White was indicted in the case. In 2006, now-retired state District Judge Jon Wisser dismissed the murder charges against White, ruling that too much time had passed and too many witnesses had died for White to receive a fair trial.
An appellate court reinstated the case, and White agreed Tuesday to waive trial by jury and allow Sage to decide his fate. Prosecutors and defense lawyers eliminated the need for several witnesses by agreeing on certain evidence, including that DesJardines was shot at close range in the head, chest and abdomen, and that his body was dumped in a parking lot at 5550 N. Lamar Blvd.
Kilbert was one of only two prosecution witnesses. The other was a man who bought a house in the 1200 block of Dwyce Drive from White. At the time of his death, DesJardines, 23, lived with White in that house, which is about 1½ miles north of where his body was found.
“I not only have a reasonable doubt in this case,” Sage said. “I have some serious doubts and although there is some evidence that the defendant may have committed this murder that is not enough.”
For a story from today’s Statesman about White’s trial click here.
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April 26, 2011
Sister says brother confessed to '86 slaying
UPDATE 1:25 p.m.
The sister of murder defendant Jimmie Dale White testified today that in 1986, White called her over to his Austin house asking for help and said he had just killed a man.
White said “that he and this guy had gotten into a fight and the guy threatened to kill him and it just turned out the other way,” said Euna White Kilbert.
Her credibility was attacked on cross-examination by one of White’s defense lawyers, who noted that Kilbert was once convicted in federal court related to making false statements under oath and suggested that she made the story up because of a grudge she has against her brother.
Kilbert was one of two prosecution witnesses called during White’s murder trial in a Travis County courtroom today. He is accused of killing his roommate, Michael DesJardines, 23, who was found fatally shot in a North Austin parking lot.
White waived trial by jury and state District Judge Karen Sage will decide his fate. After about an hour trial, Sage said she would review the evidence and announce her decision Wednesday morning.
If convicted, White faces up to life in prison.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed before the trial on the crime scene evidence, which meant that several witnesses were unnecessary.
Among the facts they stipulated were that DesJardines was shot at close range in the head, chest and abdomen and that his body was dumped in a parking lot at 5550 N. Lamar Boulevard.
DesJardines and White lived together in a home about 1½ miles north of the parking lot, at 1211 Dwyce Drive.
The first prosecution witness, Thomas Chalmers, testified that he bought that house from White in 1987. Chalmers said during a walk-through of the house with White he noticed a hole in a bedroom window frame about the size of his little finger.
White said at the time that the hole was caused by gun discharging while he was cleaning it, Chalmers said.
Kilbert, White’s sister, testified next. Under questioning by prosecutor Judy Shipway, Kilbert said she was living in Austin in 1986 when her brother called her asking for her help one day.
She said when she arrived at his house it was in disarray and that White asked her to go to the store and get him some bedding and a windowpane.
Kilbert said it looked like there was “some sort of altercation in the midst of a party.”
She said in White’s bedroom the water bed had no water in it and there was hole “about like the tip of my little finger” in the bed headboard.
She said White seemed to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and eventually told her that he had killed someone.
“I said, ‘Well, where is the guy?” Kilbert said. “He said he wrapped him up and took him off and left his body at some skid row bar parking lot.”
She said skid row is what they called the Short Horn Lounge bar on North Lamar Boulevard.
White threatened to kill her if she had told anybody about it, Kilbert said. She said that is why she did not tell anybody about his statements until 2003 when she was arrested on a subpoena to appear before a Travis County grand jury investigating DesJardines’ murder.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Joe James Sawyer attacked Kilbert’s credibility. He noted Kilbert had been convicted of concealing assets and lying about it in a bankruptcy case.
“The plain fact is you lied under oath sitting in a witness stand just like the one you are sitting in now, do you remember that?” Sawyer asked.
“I do remember that, yeah,” Kilbert said.
Sawyer asked Kilbert about her son, who she said had been killed in an automobile accident.
Sawyer suggested that Kilbert blamed her son’s death on White because he introduced her son to drinking and drugs.
“It’s not just Jimmie, it’s the family,” Kilbert said.
Sawyer also suggested that Kilbert made up the story she gave about her brother’s admission to killing DesJardines because she wanted to satisfy aggressive investigators.
“You know you better testify how they want you to or you know you are going back to prison,” Sawyer asked.
“Yes,” Kilbert said.
EARLIER A man who once got a reprieve from a judge who said that his murder case was too old and marred by too many dead witnesses to try fairly — a decision that was overturned on appeal — goes on trial today in Travis County in the 1986 killing of his roommate.
Jimmie Dale White is accused of killing 23-year-old Michael DesJardins, who was shot in the head, chest and abdomen before his body was dumped in a parking lot at 5550 N. Lamar Blvd.
DesJardins and White shared a home about 1½ miles north of the parking lot, at 1211 Dwyce Drive.
According to court records and police, White has made several incriminating statements, including telling his sister that he killed a man in his house and dumped the body in a parking lot.
In 1996, according to court records, a bar patron recalled that 10 years earlier an intoxicated White had mentioned wanting to kill DesJardins over a debt. White offered to pay the bar patron to help with the killing, police said.
White was arrested in 2003 and charged with murder.
In 2006, now retired District Judge Jon Wisser dismissed the indictment.
Defense lawyers had argued that as many as 27 potential defense witnesses had died during the intervening years. Some witnesses could have vouched for White’s whereabouts around the time of the murder, while others had information about additional suspects, defense investigator Lester Johnson has said.
Prosecutors appealed, and last year the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals ruled the dismissal was improper because the 17-year delay between the crime and White’s arrest was not intentional nor a bad-faith attempt by law enforcement to gain a prosecutorial advantage over the defendant.
White has waived his right to be tried by a jury. State District Judge Karen Sage will hear the evidence, which is expected to last one to two days, and then rule on White’s fate. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Staff writer Steven Kreytak is covering the trial and will provide live updates via Twitter below.
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April 20, 2011
Murder charge dismissed in 2006 slaying
Five years after Jason Pool was arrested and charged with killing a man outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in South Austin, Travis County prosecutors have dismissed the murder charge against him.
Pool, 28, had been scheduled to go to trial next week in the killing of Channing Harper, who friends described as a gentle and peaceful man who loved to talk about Eastern spirituality and wore tie-dyed T-shirts every day.
Buddy Meyer, trial bureau director for the Travis County district attorney’s office, said Pool remains a suspect but prosecutors did not believe they had a strong enough case to go to trial.
“There are some lingering questions such as motives and the whereabouts of the defendant at critical times and other questions,” Meyer said.
Pool has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness marked by paranoid and delusional thinking, and was found incompetent to stand trial in 2008. He has been back and forth from state mental hospitals since then before he was finally ruled competent late last year.
His lawyer, Ben Florey, has said he is innocent and that he began pointing out holes in the case against his client since shortly after his client’s arrest.
“It’s frustrating it took so long,” Florey said.
Harper and Pool both attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on April 10, 2006, at the Timberline office complex, on Wallingwood Drive just off South MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1). Harper’s body was found the next morning in a wooded area behind the complex, near the Barton Creek greenbelt. Florey said he had been stabbed more than 20 times.
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April 18, 2011
Former studio owner sentenced to 36 years for 1985 murder
Update 3:26 p.m. A judge today sentenced former Austin recording studio owner Dennis Davis to 36 years in prison for the 1985 beating death of 38-year-old Natalie Antonetti, his former girlfriend.
Davis, 62, owned Studio D on South Lamar Boulevard in the 1980s before moving to Nashville, where he worked on albums by the likes of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Because his sentence must follow the 1985 parole laws, he will be eligible for parole when his time served plus good time equals a third of his sentence, or 12 years, prosecutors said.
Davis was convicted of murder by a Travis County jury on Friday. He opted to have state District Judge Mike Lynch sentence him and did not have a discernible reaction to the sentence. His wife, Becky Davis, dropped her head into her lap while sobbing and quivering.
It was her tip to Austin homicide detectives that reinvigorated the investigation into Antonetti’s death in 2007.
Outside court, Antonetti’s son, Austin musician Johnny Goudie, remembered his mother as someone who was always kind to others.
He said before the investigation was re-opened by former Austin Police Department cold case unit detective Tom Walsh in 2007, he had given up hope that his mother’s killer would be caught.
Goudie, 42, said he had never previously suspected Davis of the killing.
“I thought of him as kind of a meek fellow,” Goudie said.
Earlier, during a brief sentencing hearing, Goudie told prosecutor Mark Pryor about the horror of the day his mother was beaten in their Barton Hills Drive apartment in the early morning hours of Oct. 13, 1985. He was 16 at the time and found her in a state of shock, unable to speak but still walking around the apartment while covered with blood. She lapsed into a coma and died 18 days later.
“I’ve never be able to get that out of my mind,” Goudie said. “I never will. It’s the last way you want to find someone you care about.”
Dave Davis, the defendant’s brother, told Lynch that his brother has always helped people and moved from Nashville to Pennsylvania several years ago to help their father who was in failing health.
Dave Davis said his brother also helped Becky Davis in the past deal with serious health problems, including back problems.
She “was basically totally helpless,” Dave Davis said. “I don’t think she would have made it without him.”
Becky Davis called the Austin police homicide tip line while the couple was divorcing in 2007. She suggested they should look at Dennis Davis in Antonetti’s murder and said that years older Davis had told her that he had sinned against God and man.
After that tip, detectives re-opened the case and found key witnesses who previous investigators had not spoken to. A woman who Dennis Davis had dated said she did not spend the night of Antonetti’s attack with him, as Davis had told investigators. And Davis’ best friend told them that he had been with Davis and Antonetti hours before the attack at a Sixth Street Club and that Davis and Antonetti had been arguing.
Police also talked to another ex-girlfriend, who testified last week that Davis had confessed Antonetti’s murder to her.
Becky Davis, who reconciled with her husband and was by his side during the trial, said he never got angry with her for calling in the tip.
“He just said, ‘Becky why didn’t you ask me?” She said. “’I could have told you what happened.’”
Becky Davis pleaded with Lynch to give him a sentence that would allow him a chance to see his family again. Davis’ lawyer, Wade Russell, echoed that request in a short closing argument.
Prosecutor Mark Pryor said that Davis has had 25 years to be with his family.
“That’s something he denied Natalie Antonetti,” Pryor said
Update 2:35 p.m.: A judge has sentenced former Austin recording studio owner Dennis Davis to 36 years in prison in the 1985 beating death of Natalie Antonetti.
Earlier: The sentencing phase of Dennis Davis’ murder trial gets under way in state District Judge Mike Lynch’s court his afternoon.
A Travis County jury on Friday convicted Davis, 61, of murder in the 1985 beating death of Natalie Antonetti, a 38-year-old Austin mother. Antonetti was attacked in the living room of her Barton Hills Drive apartment on Oct. 13, 1985, and died 18 days later of head injuries.
Today prosecutors are expected to outline what they claim is a history of abusive behavior. The jury had previously heard only limited evidence on Davis’ previous behavior.
Davis faces up to life in prison.
During the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, prosecutors argued that Davis, Antonetti’s ex-boyfriend, was jealous that Antonetti had a new love interest.
Davis was questioned by police after the attack and told them he was in Onion Creek at the time watching a movie with a new girlfriend. But after re-opening the case in 2007 police finally spoke to that woman who said she was not with him that night. A friend of Davis’, who also had not been interviewed after the attack, told police that Davis and Antonetti were together with him at a Sixth Street bar hours before the attack. The two were involved in a heated argument, the friend said.
Davis’ wife called Austin homicide detectives in 2007 and told them that they should look at Davis in Antonetti’s death because years earlier he had said he had sinned against God and man. The two were going through a divorce at the time but later reconciled and spent breaks during Davis’ trial embracing outside the courtroom.
After police re-opened the investigation they spoke to Gelinda Mudgett, another of Davis’ former girlfriends, who told them that Davis had confessed Antonetti’s murder to her.
Staff writer Steven Kreytak will be covering today’s hearing and will provide live updates via Twitter below.
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April 8, 2011
Final conviction secured in West Campus slayings
Update Like his two co-defendants, Roy Renick today pleaded guilty to murder in the 2009 West Campus murders of two recent University of Texas graduates. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Renick helped plan the crime and designed a homemade silencer used by James Richard “Ricky” Thompson, who fatally shot John Goosey and Stacy Barnett on July 21, 2009.
Prosecutor Steven Brand said Renick received a shorter sentence than his co-defendants because of the information he gave to prosecutors and police following the killings.
Earlier
A 20-year-old man accused of helping plan, cover up and of serving as the getaway driver in the July 2009 West Campus slayings of two University of Texas graduates was sentenced to 50 years in prison today after pleading guilty to two counts of murder.
Samuel Hadden Gifford is the second person convicted in the murders of John Goosey, 21, and Stacy Barnett, 22.
In August, James Richard “Ricky” Thompson, the accused shooter, received a life sentence after pleading guilty.
A capital murder charge is pending against Roy Renick, 22.
Thompson shot the couple to erase a debt he owed to Goosey, his marijuana supplier, according to a police affidavit. Goosey and Barnett were found dead in an apartment they shared on West 21st Street.
In a tearful statement following the sentence, Barnett’s sister pleaded with Gifford: “Why did you take her from us?”
Gifford, who sat next to his lawyers at the defense table, said nothing and revealed little emotion while Barnett’s family members addressed him. Behind him his father sobbed silently while covering his face with a handkerchief.
Stacy Barnett had just graduated with honors from the UT School of Architecture when she was killed. Her sister noted that she cared deeply for other people and volunteered at a church and a children’s hospital.
“The only thing she did wrong…was she cared for someone who made mistakes,” Cathy Barnett said.
Nobody from Goosey’s family spoke in court.
State District Judge Julie Kocurek sentenced Gifford under a plea bargain he reached with prosecutors. He had faced either life in prison without parole or the death penalty under a capital murder charge. He admitted to intentionally promoting or assisting murder by promoting, assisting, aiding or attempting to aid the killing of Goosey and Barnett.
He was sentenced to two concurrent 50-year sentences. Under Gifford’s plea to murder, he will be eligible for parole upon serving half his sentence.
Gifford’s father and his lawyers David Sheppard and Dan Dworin declined to comment as they left court.
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April 1, 2011
Spousal privilege rejected in upcoming trial in '85 killing
State District Judge Mike Lynch has rejected a bid by the longtime partner of murder defendant Dennis Davis to avoid testifying at his upcoming trial by claiming a spousal privilege.
Lynch wrote in a written order filed today that there is insufficient evidence that a common law marriage existed between Rebecca Davis and Dennis Davis shortly after they met in 1991, therefore she must testify at his trial, scheduled to begin April 11.
Davis, the former owner of an Austin recording studio, was indicted in 2009 and accused of murder in the 1985 beating death of his ex girlfriend Natalie Antonetti at her Barton Hills apartment.
In 2007 Rebecca Davis called police and passed along a conversation she had had with Dennis Davis, according to prosecutor Mark Pryor. “She …told them that Dennis Davis had told her that he had sinned against God and man,” Pryor told the American-Statesman after a hearing on the issue last month.
At the hearing, Davis’ lawyer argued that she should not be made to testify about the statement because the two were married at the time and Texas law allows spouses to refuse to testify about conversations between them.
Rebecca Davis testified that she met Dennis Davis at a Christmas party Dec. 10, 1990. They went out a week later and “just really fell in love with each other.”
The couple moved in together in January 1991 and, within a month, were telling people they were married, she said. They even had a small “spiritual ceremony” professing their commitment to each other in the early part of that year, she said.
It was in April or May 1991 that Dennis Davis made the statement that Rebecca Davis later reported to police, she said.
The two were legally married in 2002 and divorced in 2007, the same year Rebecca Davis said she reported the statement to police. She said they quickly reconciled and live together today as man and wife.
Pryor, the prosecutor, argued that Dennis and Rebecca Davis were not married at the time of his alleged statement that she reported to police. They had only met a few months before the alleged statement, Pryor argued. He also submitted into evidence a hospital admission form from after the time Dennis Davis is alleged to have made the statement. On that form, Rebecca Davis wrote that she was single.
Antonetti died 18 days after she was found bleeding from the head. Davis is accused of beating her with a blunt object. Police had originally interviewed Davis during their initial investigation but did not charge him. The call from Rebecca Davis restarted their investigation.
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March 7, 2011
Witness invokes spousal privilege in murder case
A woman who says she has been married to accused murderer Dennis Davis since shortly after they met in 1991 wants to invoke her spousal privilege to avoid testifying at the former Austin recording studio owner’s trial next month.
In 2007, Becki Davis reported to Austin police that Dennis Davis (pictured) had made a statement to her in 1991, she testified Monday. The content of the statement was not disclosed in court but Dennis Davis’ lawyer argued that Becki and Dennis Davis were common law husband and wife at the time and therefore Becki Davis can not be forced to testify about it.
Prosecutor Mark Pryor argued to state District Judge Mike Lynch that the two were not married at the time. They had only met a few months before the alleged statement, Pryor argued. He also submitted into evidence a hospital admission form from after the time Dennis Davis is alleged to have made the statement.
On that form, Becki Davis wrote that she was single.
A Travis County grand jury in 2009 indicted Dennis Davis for murder in the 1985 beating death of Natalie Antonetti, 38, who was found bleeding from the head and slurring her speech at her Barton Hills apartment. She died 18 days later of a blow to the head.
Police have said that they interviewed Davis, who was Antonetti’s ex-boyfriend, after the killing. They said after the 2009 indictment that a tip in 2007 brought their investigation back to him. Police have not disclosed the nature of the tip.
Davis owned a recording studio in South Lamar Boulevard in Austin called Studio D in the 1980s before moving to Nashville in the 1990s and working in the recording industry, police have said.
Becki Davis testified today that she met Dennis Davis at a Christmas party Dec. 10, 1990. They went out a week later and “just really fell in love with each other.”
“We were planning on getting married from the first time we went out,” she said.
The couple moved in together in January 1991, and, within a month, were telling people they were married, Becki Davis said. They even had a small “spiritual ceremony” professing their commitment to each other in the early part of that year, although they did not formally marry, she said.
It was in April or May 1991 that Dennis Davis made the statement that Becki Davis later reported to police, she said.
The two were legally married in 2002 and divorced in 2007, when Becki Davis said she reported the statement to police. Becki Davis said they quickly reconciled and live together today as man and wife.
Dennis Davis’ lawyer Wade Russell said the duo met the legal definition of common law marriage before the alleged statement — they lived together, held each other out as husband and wife to others and considered themselves married.
Lynch said he needed time to consider the case and did not say when he would rule. The case is set for trial next month.
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February 1, 2011
Man gets life prison term in ax slaying of Austin actor
A man who killed Austin actor Louis Byron Perryman with an ax in 2009 pleaded guilty today to murder and aggravated assault and was sentenced to life in prison.
State District Judge Brenda Kennedy sentenced Seth Christopher Tatum, 28, under the terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He must serve a minimum of 40 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Tatum was initially charged with capital murder and if convicted at trial, which had been scheduled for next week, would have had no chance at parole. Prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty.
Prosecutors and police have said that Tatum came upon Perryman’s house by chance after he attacked his mother’s boyfriend earlier in the day on April 1, 2009, and killed him for his car.
“I hope that … if and when you ever get out you think about something other than anger, something other than violence,” Perryman’s daughter, Jennifer Perryman, told Tatum after the sentencing.
Perryman, 67, was a character actor who enjoyed a run of bit parts, including in the films “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2,” “Poltergeist” and “The Blues Brothers” as well as in television’s “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Friends who gathered in court today described him as a pioneer in the Austin film scene of the 1960s and 1970s. His daughter said he was once in the Army, had filmed University of Texas football for a television show and conducting research in the hopes of writing and acting in a film on Sam Houston when he was killed.
“He was one of the guys in the creative community of Austin when Austin was just becoming a creative place,” said friend Wayne Bell, a filmmaker.
As part of a competency hearing in 2006, a doctor said that Tatum was mentally ill with bipolar disorder and polysubstance dependence, which is defined as the abuse of three or more psychoactive substances, according to court documents.
Tatum was sent to prison for theft in 2005 and when he was released in early 2009 he returned to Austin to live with his mother in South Austin, according to police.
On April 1, 2009, he attacked his mother’s ex-boyfriend Carl Drake at the house where the three lived on Glen Meadow Drive, near William Cannon Drive and South Congress Avenue, court documents show.
Prosecutors Judy Shipway said that Tatum attacked Drake with gardening shears and an iron fireplace poker while Drake sat in the bathroom.
Shipway said there is no indication of what initiated the attack, although she noted the two had a history of bad blood. She said Tatum told detectives he had been using drugs before the attack.
Drake suffered a fractured skull in the incident.
Tatum fled the house on foot and later that same day ended up about two miles southwest on Darvone Circle, where he saw Perryman in his front yard, Shipway said.
In an interview with police, Tatum explained that he attempted to befriend Perryman in order to steal his car, Shipway said. They spoke for a bit in the yard before Perryman went back inside his house, she said.
Perryman was sitting at a desk using his computer when Tatum came through the front door and struck him in with an ax 10 times, mostly in the head, Shipway said.
Tatum fled in Perryman’s 1994 Geo and told police he spent the night at a park in the woods, Shipway said.
The next day he parked Perryman’s car near the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center and explained that it was stolen and that he had killed the man who owned it, an arrest affidavit said.
Shipway said that Tatum later explained to detectives that he turned himself in because he had been hungry and cold and knew he had done something wrong. Authorities soon found Perryman’s body in his house.
Perryman’s friends described him as gregarious and exuberant and said he was quick to offer a supportive ear to others. They believe that he may have offered to help Tatum.
“He loved human beings, he loved people,” said friend Tyson McLeod. “He probably would have felt sorry for this lonesome son of a (expletive) that killed him.”
Photo: Alberto Martínez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
View Perryman map in a larger map
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January 25, 2011
Teen gets probation in gang initiation murder
A juvenile court judge today sentenced an Austin teen to ten years probation for stealing a 75-year-old woman’s purse during a gang-initiation robbery and causing injuries that led to the woman’s death last year.
The boy was 14 when, acting under the direction of an older teen, he grabbed Jennie Sue McClusky’s purse as she left a Taco Bell on West William Cannon Drive near Brodie Lane in South Austin one year ago today, according to a police affidavit.
During a struggle, McLusky was elbowed in the face and fell facedown on the pavement, the affidavit said.
A witness quoted in a police affidavit said that before the robbery, he heard Jonathan Anthony Contreras tell the younger teen, “If you want to be in the (gang), you gotta do it,” the affidavit said. “I’m your (original gangster.) You gotta do it.”
McClusky died about five weeks after the attack.
That document named only the older teen - Contreras - whose case was tried in adult court. Because of his age, the younger teen’s name was not in court papers, although an Austin police detective identified him as Joshua Martinez at a pretrial hearing in Contreras’case last year.
Martinez, 15, was tried in juvenile court.
In November, Contreras pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison under the terms of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Martinez pleaded guilty without a deal with prosecutors and his sentence was left to visiting state District Judge Jeanne Meurer, who last year had denied a bid by prosecutors to try Martinez in adult court.
Meurer could have given him up to 40 years in prison. Unlike in adult court, defendants in juvenile court also may be sentenced to probation for murder.
Martinez’s defense lawyer Jon Evans said Martinez had not been in trouble with the law before he stole McClusky’s purse and has stayed out of trouble since. He said his client deeply regrets what happened and has agreed to speak out against gang involvement.
Evans said Contreras, an older boy that Martinez feared, gave Martinez a stark decision at the Taco Bell: “He could either get his (butt) beat to smithereens or he could rob this old lady.”
Assistant District Attorney LaRu Woody said prosecutors asked for a long prison sentence under the state’s determinate sentencing law, which would begin immediately in a juvenile prison and carry the possibility of a transfer to adult prison on his 18th birthday. She said Meurer in turn suggested two other options: a term of a few years in juvenile prison or the probation, which would be completed when Martinez is legally an adult.
Woody said prosecutors preferred the probation option because it would result in the teen having the murder conviction on his record.
McClusky’s daughter, Jana McClusky, agreed with that sentence.
“We didn’t want him to go do hard time,” McClusky said. “That’s not where he belongs. That’s not going to do any good for anybody.”
Part of Meurer’s sentence will require Martinez to serve most of his next three summers off from school in juvenile detention, McClusky said. He will also be required to speak out against joining a gang at school, she said.
“My feeling was that if we send him to jail he is going to come out just like Mr. Contreras,” McClusky said. “We really felt like Mr. Martinez fell prey to Mr. Contreras and we took that into consideration. He’s got a chance to redeem himself and I’m going to believe that he will.”
The original version of this story incorrectly reported Martinez’s term of probation.
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January 19, 2011
After mistake, it's manslaughter -- not murder -- for shooting of beer thief
The Travis County jury that last week gave probation to a store clerk convicted of murder for killing a beer thief should not have been given the option of sentencing the clerk to anything less than five years in prison, a judge said Wednesday.
The Texas Legislature took away from juries the ability to sentence murder defendants to probation in 2007. Juan Romero, 24, fatally shot 22-year-old Jorge Vielma at a South Austin Shell station in 2009.
After learning of the mistake Wednesday, state District Judge Julie Kocurek threw out the jury’s verdict and with lawyers in the case came up with a solution — Romero pleaded guilty to manslaughter under a plea bargain that calls for an eight-year probation sentence. That’s the same sentence the jury gave Romero last week. A conviction and eight-year probation sentence for tampering with evidence will stand and the terms will run together.
“We all make mistakes but we acted quickly to fix it and ultimately justice has been served,” Kocurek said in an interview. “This is really in the spirit of what the jury wanted.”
Kocurek, defense lawyer Pat McNelis and prosecutor Rob Drummond each said Wednesday that prior to the trial they mistakenly thought a penal code annotation said the prohibition on probation in murder cases became effective Sept. 1, 2009, about two weeks after Romero shot Vielma.
But they took a harder look at the law this week after defense lawyer Jon Evans, who played no role in the case, told the lawyers that the law became effective in 2007.
Kocurek, Drummond and McNelis each then realized that 2009 was the date the section of the penal code prohibiting probation for murder was re-numbered by the Legislature, not the date the law became effective.
“I feel terrible,” Drummond said. “I am glad we were able to get an outcome that matched” what the jury wanted, he said.
Kocurek said she agreed to the new disposition in part because after the trial on Friday, she spoke to members of the jury and some asked why they were not given the option of finding Romero guilty of manslaughter, a charge the jurors felt better matched the crime.
Two jurors who came to court Wednesday hoping to see the case to completion said they did not have a problem with the outcome.
Kocurek said she would decide the terms of Romero’s probation — including whether she would require him to serve any jail time, perform community service or undergo counseling — next month, after a report is prepared by the county probation department.
Kocurek ordered Romero, who had been free on bail, jailed after the jury verdict Friday. He will remain in jail at least until the sentencing Feb. 8.
The store where Romero worked, on the southeast corner of Ben White Boulevard and South First Street, has suffered repeated crime in recent years - including a rash of people grabbing beer and running for the door without paying, according to trial testimony.
Romero told police in an interview following the shooting that he began bringing a gun to work because of the thefts. He said he had previously fired warning shots at people at the store but didn’t have the guts to shoot them.
A video of that interview was played for the jury last week. In it, Romero also told Detective Rogelio Sanchez that he shot Vielma after Vielma ran from the store with some beer. Romero said he fired a warning shot and then fired 15 more shots as Vielma jumped into a waiting car and drove off.
Romero said he did not verbally warn Vielma and saw no weapon in Vielma’s hand, but that he believed he had the right to shoot under Texas law.
Romero said he picked up the spent shell casings and some Budweiser cans that Vielma had dropped but did not call police. Romero told Sanchez he did not call police because they had previously ignored crime at the store.
According to testimony, a police officer responded to a shots fired call shortly after the shooting - at about 11:30 p.m. on August 15, 2009 - but Romero told the officer he had not heard or seen anything out of the ordinary.
Vielma’s friend, David Campos, left Vielma dead in his car in East Austin and called police to report a shooting in the area, according to testimony. Vielma died of a single gunshot to his back that severed a major vein, a deputy medical examiner said. Campos was not charged.
Romero’s defense lawyers argued that he was trying to recover the 12-pack and that he had the right to kill Vielma to recover the beer under Texas’ defense of property laws.
Texas law states that a person may kill if he “reasonably believes” the force is necessary to prevent someone from escaping immediately after stealing from the person during the nighttime. The shooter also must believe that the property cannot be protected by other means and that he would be at risk by trying to get the property back using less than deadly force.
Jurors Deirdre Ligarde, a 37-year-old property manager, and Jennifer Shelton, a 35-year-old web developer, said outside court Wednesday that it was difficult to determine how Romero’s conduct fit with the law.
Shelton said she did not believe that Romero’s shooting was “immediately necessary.”
Ligarde said she did not agree with Drummond, the prosecutor, who argued that Romero shot Vielma out of anger.
“I think it was more out of frustration,” Ligarde said.
Kocurek said she believes justice has been served. “I think the evidence supported a manslaughter conviction,” she said. “He acted recklessly.”
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January 14, 2011
Store clerk gets probation in shooting death of beer thief
Update 4:38 p.m. A jury has sentenced Juan Romero to eight years’ probation in the shooting death of Jorge Vielma.
Update 4:15 p.m. Jurors have just finished deliberating in the punishment phase of Juan Romero’s trial and are about to deliver a verdict.
One of Romero’s lawyers, Patrick McNelis, asked jurors to give Romero probation, saying that prison would just make Romero worse. Romero is eligible for probation because he doesn’t have a previous criminal record.
He said if Romero was on probation a judge could order that Romero be evaluated and Romero could get the help he needed, McNelis said.
He also said the jury also needed to consider that the friend who was with Vielma after he was shot, David Campos, could have driven Vielma to the hospital a block away instead of leaving him in the car to die. Campos was not charged in the case.
Prosecutor Rob Drummond did not recommend a sentence to jurors.
“Your verdict is about the importance of life, and if someone is going to take a life for property it better be something that is absolutely reasonable and necessary,” he said. “Your verdict is about the value of all our lives.”
Romero had acted in a dangerous way before he killed Vielma because other videos at the store where he worked showed him waving his gun at customers, Drummond said.
The victim’s stepmother, Sherry Vielma, told jurors that Jorge Vielma had never committed any crime before he took the beer from the convenience store without paying for it.
“He was not a bad person…I really believe this was a dare,” she said. “Not a day goes by where we don’t cry for him.”
Update 11:35 a.m. A Travis County jury this morning convicted Juan Romero of murder and tampering with physical evidence in the August 2009 shooting death of a man who had stolen a 12-pack of beer from the South Austin convenience store where Romero worked.
Romero did not react to the verdict. Members of Jorge Vielma’s family began crying so loudly that they had to be escorted from the courtroom. Vielma, 22, died from a gunshot wound to the back after Romero followed him out of the store and began firing.
The punishment phase of the trial begins this afternoon. Romero faces of up to life in prison on the murder charge and up to 10 years on the tampering charge, which stems from allegations that he hid bullet casings and altered a surveillance video taken at the time of the shooting. He could also receive probation because he has no prior criminal record.
Earlier
The Travis County jury in Juan Romero’s murder and tampering with evidence trial has sent a note to state District Judge Julie Kocurek stating that they are deadlocked. The note says the jury is split 10-1-1 without giving further information, including which verdict the jury favors. Kocurek is expected to seat the jury in her courtroom soon and tell them to keep deliberating. The jury has been deliberating since 8:30 a.m. Thursday after deliberating for two hours Wednesday.
Earlier, at the jury’s request they were again shown surveillance video taken at the store around the time of the shooting. It showed a man run from the store and Romero run after him — but cameras did not capture the shooting. Video also captured Romero smiling as he returned to the store, according to testimony of a police detective.
Prosecutors argued that Romero, 24, shot Vielma out of anger after Vielma ran with the beer from the store at a Shell station on the southeast corner of Ben White Boulevard and South First Street.
The shooting happened just before midnight Aug. 15, 2009, according to testimony. A police officer responding to a shots fired call asked Romero whether he heard or saw anything. Romero said he did not, the officer said.
Romero’s defense lawyers argued he had the right to kill Vielma under Texas’ defense of property laws.
Under Texas law a person may kill if he “reasonably believes” the force is necessary to prevent someone from escaping immediately after stealing from the person during the nighttime. The shooter also must believe that the property cannot be protected by other means and that he would be at risk by trying to get the property back using less than deadly force.
Vielma’s body was found about two hours after the shooting inside his friend’s car in East Austin. That friend ultimately led police to the store, where they learned Romero was on duty around the time of the shooting.
When police came to his house he gave them his 9 mm semiautomatic Smith & Wesson pistol and agreed to be interviewed.
The interview was recorded and played for the jury.
“Guy walked off with a 12-pack,” Romero said in matter-of-fact fashion. “I saw him… Shot one warning shot. He didn’t drop it, so I shot him. That’s it.”
After the beer thief left in a car, Romero said he knew the man had been hit because he saw blood on the pavement.
Romero told Det. Rogelio Sanchez that he fired 16 shots — he described himelf a “trigger happy” — and that he did not call police because police have done little in response to past complaints about thefts at the store. He said he believed he was within his rights to shoot the man under Texas law.
Romero is free on bail and has been working at a Johnson City convenience store owned by Jose Carranza, who owns the store on Ben White Boulevard where the shooting happened.
For a story on closing arguments in the case click here. For a story on Romero’s interview with police click here.
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January 13, 2011
Murder charge dismissed after witness disappears
After their key witness disappeared, Travis County prosecutors this week dismissed a murder charge against a man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend in 2008.
Rodolfo Villela Tovar, 28, was scheduled to go on trial Monday in the 2008 killing of 27-year-old Deysi Gonzalez Hernandez, who was described in a police affidavit as Villela Tovar’s ex-girlfriend.
Hernandez was found dead at 2:41 a.m. on May 28, 2008, her body slumped over in the driver’s seat of a white Chevrolet Avalanche, a police affidavit said. The Avalanche was running at the Summer Wind Condominiums on Fairfield Drive, which is off of North Lamar Boulevard near Rundberg Lane, the affidavit said.
Witnesses told police that Villela Tovar, known as “Flaco,” and Hernandez had been seen that night leaving together from a South Austin bar where Hernandez worked, the affidavit said. Witnesses told police that Hernandez that Villela-Tovar had recently been released from prison and wanted to rekindle his relationship with Hernandz, the affidavit said.
The affidavit said that witnesses told police that Hernandez did not want to restart the relationship and that Villela Tovar had looked at her the night of her death with a “mad” look.
Hernandez died of a gunshot wound to the torso, the affidavit said.
Raul Reyna, who described himself as friend of Villela Tovar’s since they grew up near each other in Mexico, told police that after Hernandez’s death, Villela Tovar admitted he killed her.
“I was drunk and I killed her because she made me mad,” Reyna quoted Villela Tovar as saying, according to a police affidavit.
Villela Tovar went to Mexico after Hernandez was killed and was extradited by Mexican authorities in 2009, said Buddy Meyer, a Travis County assistant district attorney.
The trial has been delayed numerous times and was scheduled for jury selection Monday. Meyer said authorities have not been able to find Reyna, who he believes does not want to testify against his friend, and were forced to dismiss the charge because they could not prove their case without his testimony. Meyer said he could not comment on Reyna’s possible whereabouts but said that authorities continue to actively look for him and would refile the murder charge if he is located, he said.
Villlela Tovar remains at the Travis County Jail on holds placed by immigration authorities and state parole officials.
His lawyer, Brad Urrutia, said that Villela Tovar had been on parole for a felony DWI conviction but he has discharged that sentence while in jail. Urrutia said Tovar could face illegal reentry of a deported alien charges in federal court.
Court records show that Villela Tovar was convicted of two counts of felony driving while intoxicated in Travis County in 2007. He also has past convictions for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, failure to identify and possession of a controlled substance, the records show.
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January 12, 2011
Jury to continue deliberations tomorrow in beer thief murder case
Update 6:05 p.m. The jury in Juan Romero’s murder trial has stopped deliberating for the day without reaching a verdict. They will resume deliberations tomorrow morning.
Update 4:05 p.m.
Rejecting a defense argument that convenience store clerk Juan Romero legally killed a beer thief in 2009 under Texas’ property defense laws, prosecutor Rob Drummond told a Travis County jury today that the killing stemmed from anger in Romero’s heart.
Romero, 24, was so angry about crime at the convenience store he managed on the corner of Ben White Boulevard and South First Street that Romero decided someone had to pay, Drummond said.
Drummond noted that Romero didn’t say a word as Jorge Vielma fled with a 12-pack of Budweiser or as Romero ran outside after Vielma, fired a warning shot and then shot the 22-year-old Vielma in the back.
Drummond noted that in an account he later gave police, Romero said he fired a total of 16 times, most of them after Vielma dropped the beer.
“He was so upset about these thefts he showed you that this had nothing to do with the 12-pack that Jorge Vielma dropped and everything to do with anger in that man’s heart,” Drummond said.
The 12-member jury began deliberating at about 4 p.m.
Earlier, defense lawyers argued that Romero should be found not guilty of murder under the Texas defense of property statute.
That law states that a person may kill if he “reasonably believes” the force is necessary to prevent someone from escaping who is “fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime.” The shooter also must believe that the property cannot be protected by other means and that he would be at risk by trying to get the property back using less than deadly force.
Defensse lawyer Thomas Fagerberg said the police did not respond to the store, so Romero could reasonably believe that there was no other way to recover property
And he slammed prosecutors for describing the shooting as an execution.
“To characterize this case as somebody died over a case of beer?” Fagerberg said. To do so, he argued, is to “Forget the law of the state of Texas”
Defense lawyer Pat McNelis said the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Romero did not reasonably believe the property could not be recovered another way.
“It’s not a what does your gut tell you. It’s the highest burden of proof in our legal system,” McNelis said.
“It’s real simple,” McNelis said. “You’re allowed to protect your property in the state of Texas.”
Earlier
Follow live Twitter updates of this trial below this story.
Closing arguments will begin this afternoon in the murder trial of Juan Romero, convenience store clerk who fatally shot a beer thief in 2009.
The Travis County jury, which yesterday heard Romero tell police in a recorded video that he believed he acted within Texas law in killing the man, earlier today watched surveillance video of that night - Aug. 15, 2009.
The video showed Romero run out of the Shell station convenience store at the corner of Ben White Boulevard and South First Street after a man who left with beer.
Three cameras caught part of the incident on video but none of them captured the shooting. One video showed that Romero was apparently smiling while returning to the store after the shooting.
Romero, 24, faces life in prison if convicted of murdering Jorge Luis Vielma, 22.
Vielma died of a single gunshot wound to his back that severed a major vein, according to testimony by deputy Travis County Medical Examiner Leisha Wood. Vielma would have died within minutes of the shooting, she said.
That account was disputed by Thomas Fagerberg, one of Vielma’s defense lawyers, who noted on cross examination that Wood is not a trauma surgeon. Fagerberg suggested that Vielma could have been saved if his friend and partner in crime, David Campos, had driven Vielma to the nearby St. David’s South Austin Medical Center.
Instead, Campos drove his Mistubishi Eclipse to East Austin and abandoned the car with his friend inside. He called police and reported a possible shooting in the area but later told police the men were stealing beer when Vielma was shot.
Campos did not testify and court records show he has not been charged.
Romero told police he had been frustrated by the police lack of action in response to crime at the convenience store. He said he had previously fired warning shots at other thieves, saying he didn’t have “the balls” to shoot them.
His lawyers say he acted within the parameters of Texas law on using deadly force in defense of property.
That law states that a person may kill if he “reasonably believes” the force is necessary to prevent someone from escaping who is “fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime.” The shooter also must believe that the property cannot be protected by other means and that he would be at risk by trying to get the property back using less than deadly force.
Prosecutor Rob Drummond said during opening statements that Vielma was “executed.”
In addition to murder, Romero is charged with tampering with evidence. He is accused of concealing or destroying bullet casings and video of the incident. He faces up to 10 years in prison on that charge.
He also could receive probation because he has no previous felony convictions. \
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December 14, 2010
Woman's killer gets life in prison
Update 4:25 p.m.
For killing a woman he hired as a prostitute last year, a Travis County jury today sentenced Nathaniel Briscoe to life in prison.
Briscoe, a 30-year-old former Austin head shop worker, had no discernible reaction when state District Judge Julie Kocurek read the verdict. He received a life term for murdering Amy Dickey, 28, and a 25-year sentence for tampering with evidence by dumping her body in a wooded area near West William Cannon Drive and MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1).
The sentences will run together and Briscoe will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.
Briscoe’s parents and sister sat quietly in court for about 10 minutes after the verdict was announced. They had no comment.
On the other side of the courtroom, Dickey’s mother gave long hugs to prosecutors Steven Brand and Brandon Grunewald, thanking them for pursuing her case.
Outside court, Brand said Dickey was an innocent victim.
“Your plight in life, where facts and circumstances put you, doesn’t make her less of a victim,” Brand said.
He praised the investigation of the Austin homicide unit and lead Detective Will White. White, in court for the verdict, in turn praised Brand and Grunewald.
Update 1:14 p.m.
A Travis County jury this afternoon began deliberating a sentence for Nathaniel Briscoe, convicted of suffocating Amy Dickey and dumping her body in a wooded area in Southwest Austin last year.
Dickey, a crack cocaine user who advertised her services as a prostitute on Craigslist, had no chance at redemption in her life because of Briscoe, prosecutors Steven Brand and Brandon Grunewald argued.
“This will not be an easy decision for you. I don’t think anybody wakes up and decides they want to send somebody to prison for life,” Brand said.
Brand argued that Briscoe needed to be incarcerated for life because he has proven himself to be dangerous. Brand noted allegations that Briscoe molested a young girl years ago and had been to prison before for possessing a live grenade.
“We do have the ability to tell people … they are not fit to live in our society based on their actions,” Brand said.
Defense lawyer Joe James Sawyer asked the jury to consider how difficult prison is and how once released Briscoe would have a tough life.
Briscoe, 30, faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison for murder. He was also convicted of tampering with evidence, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Those sentences would run concurrently.
Briscoe, who worked at Planet K, an Austin head shop, found Dickey online and summoned her to his apartment on Royal Crest Drive in Southeast Austin after midnight on May 21, 2009.
Detectives linked him to Dickey through phone records. Several days later, at the end of a long interview with homicide detectives Chris Smyth and Will White, Briscoe said he put his hands on Dickey’s throat for about five minutes before letting go. He said she left uninjured.
A medical examiner testified that Dickey died after she was suffocated or strangled.
Her body was found the next day in a wooded area on West William Cannon Drive near Briscoe’s parents’ house, where he grew up. There were bamboo sticks piled on top of her body similar to the bamboo that Briscoe’s father had put out by his garbage to be picked up as trash, according to testimony.
Dickey, 28, was a former medical assistant who battled drugs for several years, her mother testified. She had advertised her services on Craiglist, according to testimony.
Briscoe told detective she paid $150 for sex with Dickey.
Update 10:37 a.m. Convicted killer Nathaniel Briscoe had once been accused in separate incidents of sexually abusing a young girl and of possessing a live grenade, according to testimony at his sentencing hearing today.
A Travis County jury yesterday found Briscoe guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the 2009 killing of Amy Elizabeth Dickey, a former medical assistant who had been working as a prostitute.
Briscoe, a 30-year-old former head shop employee, cut off Dickey’s breathing at his East Riverside Drive-area apartment on May 21, 2009, and then dumped her body in a wooded area near West William Cannon Drive, near his parents’ house where he grew up, according to prosecutors. Dickey, 28, who used crack cocaine, advertised her services on Craigslist, according to testimony.
Briscoe faces up to life in prison.
The first witness today was Austin Police Department bomb squad Sgt. Mike Bush who testified that in 2001 the unit responded to a report that someone had a grenade. Officers found a live grenade in a house and determined it belonged to Briscoe, Bush said.
The grenade was capable of killing anyone within about a 15-foot radius, Bush said. His testimony did not disclose if Briscoe, who was about 21 at the time, was charged.
Another witness testified that when she was about 5 years old Briscoe tried to get her to remove her shirt and pants and exposed his penis to her while the two were inside a toy tee pee. The girl, who is now 18, is not being identified because of the nature of her allegations.
No charges came from the incident and defense lawyers tried to paint the allegations as unreliable and among many made involving the girl’s family at the time.
Earlier:
The sentencing hearing for Nathaniel Briscoe begins today in a Travis County courtroom.
A Travis County jury on Monday found Briscoe guilty of murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with the death last year of a former medical assistant working as a prostitute.
He faces up to life in prison for the killing of Amy Elizabeth Dickey, 28.
Reporter Steven Kreytak is in the courtroom and will be providing live updates via Twitter below. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/stevenkreytak
Previous story: Man found guilty in Craigslist slaying
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December 13, 2010
Briscoe found guilty of murder
UPDATE: A Travis County jury today found Nathaniel Briscoe guilty of murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with the death last year of a former medical assistant working as a prostitute.
He faces up to life in prison for the killing of 28-year-old Amy Elizabeth Dickey. His sentencing hearing starts Tuesday. He faces up to life in prison.
Briscoe stood calmly while the verdict was read Monday afternoon after the jury deliberated about five hours. Some of Dickey’s relatives began weeping.
EARLIER:
Closing arguments today in the case against Nathaniel Briscoe, who has been accused of killing a prostitute he met through Craigslist, focused on whether she was murdered or died from a cocaine overdose.
Briscoe admitted he put his hands around Amy Elizabeth Dickey’s neck for five minutes, said one of the prosecutors, Brandon Grunewald. “He said her last words were ‘Dude, can you lighten up around the neck?,’” said another prosecutor, Steven Brand.
Brand said other evidence including Dickey’s blood found in Briscoe’s apartment and her DNA found on duct tape in Briscoe’s place showed that Briscoe killed her.
Defense attorney Duke Hildreth said a witness had testified that Dickey had not slept in the three or four days before she died and was using $500 a day in cocaine. The bruises she had around her neck could have come from another person besides Briscoe, Hildreth said. She was not strangled, he said. “(Medical examiner David)Dolniak said her voicebox was not crushed; it was all intact,” Hildreth said.
Dickey’s body was found May 21, 2009, in a wooded area a few blocks from the home of Briscoe’s father near the Randalls supermarket on W. William Cannon Drive at South MoPac Boulevard. (Loop 1). There were bamboo sticks piled on top of her body similar to the bamboo that Briscoe’s father had put out by his garbage can to be picked up as trash, according to testimony.
Dickey , 28, was a former medical assistant who had developed a drug problem and had been working for clients she recruited on Craigslist, witnesses said.
She disappeared after a friend drove her to meet a client at the Autumn Hills Apartments on Royal Crest Drive near East Riverside Drive, according to testimony.
Briscoe, 30, lived at those apartments and worked at a nearby Planet K, a gift and head shop, according to testimony. During a four-hour interview with police, Briscoe admitted had sex with Dickey and put his hands around her neck the night before her body was found.
Jurors have been deliberating in the case since 10:30 a.m.
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December 9, 2010
Kenneth Hernandez found guilty of murder in Mardi Gras slaying
Jurors found Kenneth Hernandez guilty of murder Thursday in the 2009 Mardi Gras slaying of Christy Lynne Espinosa.
Espinosa’s burned body, soaked in gasoline, was found by firefighters in eastern Travis County hours after she spent the night of Feb. 24, 2009 — Fat Tuesday — partying on Sixth Street.
Prosecutors say Espinosa fell victim to Hernandez and his wife, Martha Hernandez, who gave conflicting stories about a drunken, rambling drive that eventually culminated in her slaying.
Prosecutors had played recordings of a series of interviews Kenneth Hernandez gave to detectives in which he said his wife suffocated Espinosa with Saran Wrap from the back seat of their car while he drove and pleaded with her to stop.
“Kenneth Hernandez was a coward, but he wasn’t a killer in this case,” defense attorney Keith Lauerman told jurors in his closing argument.
In his charge to jurors, state District Judge Bob Perkins instructed them that “mere presence alone won’t constitute an offense” of murder.
“If you say this defendant is not guilty, you’re sending a message that it’s OK to be within feet of someone while they are getting murdered and getting killed, that it’s OK to conceal a crime, OK to clean up the car, OK to lie repeatedly to the police,” prosecutor Amy Meredith told jurors in her closing argument.
Earlier, prosecutor John Hunt told jurors: “You have to decide whether the anxiety he felt, being petrified, and the aggression his wife had, would essentially paralyze him while a woman is being murdered in the front seat of his car while he’s driving.”
Kenneth Hernandez had already pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in connection with the burning of Espinosa’s body.
“Who knows what happened in those early morning hours of Feb. 25, 2009 in that car?” Meredith told jurors. “The only people that know are this defendant, and his wife, and Christy.”
During the sentencing phase Thursday night, Espinosa’s father, Antonio Espinosa, told jurors that life since his daughter’s death has “been a fog for the most part. You do your best to function.”
“It was a completely needless, horrific death, and for what reason, I don’t know. It was a cowardly thing to do.”
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Jury deliberating in Hernandez murder trial
Jurors are now deciding whether Kenneth Hernandez passively witnessed his wife kill Christy Lynne Espinosa or whether he played an active role in the 2009 Mardi Gras crime. Lawyers presented closing arguments this afternoon.
Espinosa’s burned body, soaked in gasoline, was found by firefighters in eastern Travis County hours after she spent the night of Feb. 24, 2009 — Fat Tuesday — partying on Sixth Street.
Prosecutors say Espinosa fell victim to Hernandez and his wife, Martha Hernandez, who gave conflicting stories about a drunken, rambling drive that eventually culminated in her slaying.
Prosecutors had played recordings of a series of interviews Kenneth Hernandez gave to detectives in which he said his wife suffocated Espinosa with Saran Wrap from the back seat of their car while he drove and pleaded with her to stop.
“Kenneth Hernandez was a coward, but he wasn’t a killer in this case,” defense attorney Keith Lauerman told jurors in his closing argument.
In his charge to jurors, state District Judge Bob Perkins instructed them that “mere presence alone won’t constitute an offense” of murder.
“If you say this defendant is not guilty, you’re sending a message that it’s OK to be within feet of someone while they are getting murdered and getting killed, that it’s OK to conceal a crime, OK to clean up the car, OK to lie repeatedly to the police,” prosecutor Amy Meredith told jurors in her closing argument.
Earlier, prosecutor John Hunt told jurors: “You have to decide whether the anxiety he felt, being petrified, and the aggression his wife had, would essentially paralyze him while a woman is being murdered in the front seat of his car while he’s driving.”
Kenneth Hernandez has already pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in connection with the burning of Espinosa’s body.
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Murder defendant was very talkative in interview with police
After police linked Nathaniel Briscoe to Amy Dickey in the days after Dickey was found dead in southwest Austin last year, Briscoe agreed to go downtown and talk to detectives who told him they were investigating a missing persons case, according to testimony at Briscoe’s murder trial today.
During the drive to police headquarters from Briscoe’s East Riverside Drive-area apartment and later in an interview room Briscoe talked with detectives about a variety of subjects without asking why he was there. Recordings of those interviews were played for the jury in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court today.
Briscoe, now 30, talked about Star Trek movies and his job at the Planet K head shop, a cat he had staying at his apartment and vegans and Dungeons and Dragons. He talked fast and often, with detectives Will White and Chris Smyth occasionally interjecting to try to glean information on his background and routines.
Detectives asked him about the early morning hours of May 21, 2009 — the night Dickey died, according to testimony. Briscoe said he was at a showing of “The Terminator” with friends. (One of those friends testified earlier in the trial that that is not true.)
At one point more than an hour into the interview, detectives put a picture of Dickey in front of him and asked if he knew her. Briscoe said he did not. He continued to deny knowing her for a time before saying that she is a prostitute.
He said that he met her when she came into Planet K but that he never had sex with her. He later said he met her on Craigslist and did have sex with her once - at a hotel.
When detectives began asking Briscoe about whether Dickey’s DNA would be in his apartment, Briscoe said he had sex with her once at his apartment a couple of weeks before.
Briscoe said he initially lied to investigators because he was afraid of what people at work would think about him hiring a prostitute.
“We want to find this girl,” said Smyth.
“Yeah definitely,” Briscoe said.
He later offered: “She never treated me bad or wrong or anything.”
Judge Julie Kocurek called a lunchtime recess about halfway through the four -video.
Reporter Steven Kreytak had been posting live updates via Twitter. Read the updates below. You can also follow him at twitter.com/stevenkreytak
Related story: Father’s testimony puts defendant near scene of body
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Prosecution rests in Kenneth Hernandez murder trial
The prosecution rested late this morning in the murder trial of Kenneth Hernandez, who is accused in the 2009 Mardi Gras killing of Christy Lynne Espinosa.
Espinosa’s burned body, soaked in gasoline, was found by firefighters in eastern Travis County hours after she spent the night of Feb. 24, 2009 — Fat Tuesday — partying on Sixth Street.
Prosecutors say Espinosa fell victim to Hernandez and his wife, Martha Hernandez, who gave conflicting stories about a drunken, rambling drive that eventually culminated in her slaying.
Prosecutors had played recordings of a series of interviews Kenneth Hernandez gave to detectives in which he said his wife suffocated Espinosa with Saran Wrap from the back seat of their car while he drove and pleaded with her to stop.
They finished their side of the case by calling an inmate, Damon Lyons, who told jurors that when they were housed together in 2009 in Travis County Jail, Hernandez told him that he had ordered his wife to suffocate Espinosa using the Saran Wrap.
Hernandez’s defense attorney drew jurors’ attention to Lyons’ criminal history, which includes burglary and failure to register as a sex offender.
The case will resume this afternoon, with closing arguments expected today.
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December 8, 2010
Defendant's father puts son near scene of prostitute's body
Murder defendant Nathaniel Briscoe’s father testified today that the morning his son is accused of killing a prostitute he met on Craigslist last year, Briscoe came to his house to do laundry.
Robert Briscoe said it was about 8:30 or 9 a.m. on May 21, 2009, when he found his son in the laundry room.
“I didn’t see anything that seemed suspicious in any way,” said Robert Briscoe, whose house in Southwest Austin is a few blocks from the spot where Amy Dickey’s body was found.
“He didn’t seem out of character. He always kind of jokes about everything. He was in a light-hearted (mood),” said Robert Briscoe, who was called to testify by prosecutors.
Nathaniel Briscoe is on trial in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court in the murder of Dickey, whose body was found naked in a wooded area near the Randalls supermarket on West William Cannon Drive near MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1).
He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
After finding Dickey’s body, detectives linked Briscoe to Dickey through phone records. Prosecutors have said that Dickey’s DNA was found in Briscoe’s apartment near Royal Crest Drive, near East Riverside Drive.
Briscoe later told detectives that he had put his hands on Dickey’s throat but that she left his apartment unharmed, according to prosecutors.
A video of that interview is expected later in the trial.
In his testimony, Robert Briscoe said that his son had once acquired bamboo sticks to use in a community garden the two were planning to build in a greenbelt behind Robert Briscoe’s home.
The garden never materialized and before the day Dickey’s body was found, Robert Briscoe had set the bamboo sticks next to his garbage can. When detectives came to speak to him about the crime a few days later, Robert Briscoe had noticed that the bamboo was gone, he said.
He said the bamboo sticks that disappeared from near his garbage cans were similar to ones that prosecutors had entered in evidence earlier in the trial, that were piled on top of Dickey’s body.
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November 29, 2010
Second defendant sentenced in Big Chief Bar killings
The second of three defendants charged in a 2008 double killing at the Big Chief Bar in East Austin was sentenced to prison today.
State District Judge Wilford Flowers sentenced Melvin Avina, 35, to 28 years in prison under the terms of a plea bargain with prosecutors, said Assistant District Attorney Allison Wetzel. Avina, who was initially charged with capital murder, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery last week.
Last month, Darrel Walker, described by prosecutors as the shooter, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in exchange for concurrent life sentences, Wetzel said.
A capital murder charge is pending against Walker’s mother Delia Garcia, 40.
Police have said robbery was the motive during the February 2008 shootings at the bar on East Sixth Street, near Comal Street. Killed were owner Jose Ismael Contreras, 66, and customer David Tavera, 47.
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November 22, 2010
Hernandez gets 60 years in Mardi Gras killing
UPDATE 9:15 p.m.
A Travis County jury has sentenced Martha Hernandez to 60 years in prison for murder in the killing of Christy Lynn Espinosa, whose body was found burning in eastern Travis County after she disappeared from a Sixth Street Mardi Gras celebration.
Hernandez, 27, will be eligible for parole after serving half that time.
Hernandez also received a 20-year term for tampering with evidence. The sentence will run concurrently.
Her husband, Kenneth Hernandez, faces murder and tampering with evidence charges in the case and is scheduled to be tried next month.
UPDATE 6:50 p.m.
Jurors in Martha Hernandez’s murder trial began deliberating a sentence at about 6:45 p.m. today after prosecutors implored them to issue a harsh punishment for the suffocation and burning of 21-year-old Christy Lynn Espinosa in 2009.
“She was an innocent victim that was out having a good time on Mardi Gras,” said prosecutor Amy Meredith. “She did nothing wrong to this defendant. She did nothing wrong to Kenneth Hernandez. She did not deserve what happened to her.
“If this is not a life case I don’t know what is,.” Meredith said.
Hernandez, who was convicted of murder and tampering with evidence earlier in the day, faces 5 years to life in prison.
Defense lawyer Alexander Calhoun asked the jury to consider that Hernandez “is a human being just like the rest of us.”
He noted that Hernandez has two young children who love her. Calhoun did not ask for a specific sentence.
“Only the 12 of you can figure out what the appropriate sentence is,” he said. “I am going to ask you to give her a fair sentence.”
UPDATE 6:02 p.m.
Christy Lynne Espinosa’s parents told a Travis County jury today that their daughter was a compassionate and giving person with a comedic streak whose loss has fractured their family.
“When you have a child, that’s the happiest day of your life and when you lose a child, it’s unbearable,” said her mother, Dianna Espinosa. “If you were having a bad day you no longer were going to have a bad day because of Christy. She wanted to make sure she was going to make your day brighter.”
The testimony of Dianna and Antonio Espinosa came during the sentencing trial for Martha Hernandez, who earlier in the day was convicted of murder and tampering with evidence in Espinosa’s death.
Espinosa, 21, was suffocated after she disappeared from a Mardi Gras celebration on Sixth Street in February 2009. Her body was found burning off rural Imperial Drive in eastern Travis County hours later.
Prosecutors said she was killed by Hernandez, 27, and her husband, Kenneth Hernandez, who will be tried on the same charges next month.
Hernandez could receive life in prison. The jury is expected to begin deliberating a sentence this evening.
The only witness called by Hernandez’s lawyers during the sentencing phase was Francisco Medina, Hernandez’s older brother. Medina, 31, said his sister was the youngest of four children born to their parents in Sabinas, Coahuila, which is about an hour’s drive south of the border at Eagle Pass.
He said their father died when Hernandez was about three years old and he and his sister came to the United States to live with their mother when Hernandez was about 5 years old. Medina said her mother remarried and their stepfather, who worked at a mattress factory and later as a security guard, helped raise them.
Medina said his sister eventually became an American citizen.
Medina said when his sister was about 15 she was raped by a cousin, who fled for Mexico. When she was in ninth grade, he said, Hernandez got pregnant and dropped out of Stephen F. Austin High School.
Medina said the family of four formed a band playing conjunto music and they traveled around Central Texas playing. Medina said his sister, who played drums and bass, quit that band after she married Kenneth Hernandez about five years ago.
On cross-examination, prosecutor John Hunt asked about the rape accusation, noting that the man accused was 18 at the time. Hunt asked Medina whether his sister “stated to the police that they just kind of started liking each other and that she didn’t use the term rape?”
Medina said he did not know.
Update 3:33 p.m. A jury has found Martha Hernandez guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the February 2009 killing of 21-year-old Christy Lynne Espinosa, whose body was found burning in eastern Travis County after she disappeared from a Sixth Street Mardi Gras celebration.
Friends and family of Espinosa, a Crockett High School graduate who worked as a waitress at Applebee’s, wept after the decision was announced.
Hernandez faces up to life in prison at the sentencing phase of the trial, which will begin this afternoon.
Earlier: Prosecutors told a Travis County jury today that the truth will never be known about why 21-year-old Christy Lynne Espinosa was killed and set on fire following a 2009 Mardi Gras celebration on Sixth Street.
“We don’t have to prove why someone did what they did,” Assistant District Attorney Amy Meredith said during closing arguments of Martha Hernandez’s murder and tampering with evidence trial today.
What is clear, Meredith said, is that Hernandez is guilty of murder.
“She is absolutely guilty.”
The jury in state Distict Judge Bob Perkins’ court began deliberating at about noon.
In her argument, Meredith cited the evidence against Hernandez:
Somebody who left with Espinosa the last time she was seen on Sixth Street, who could not be identified, gave Martha Hernandez’s old phone number to Espinosa’s boyfriend.
Hernandez’s military dependant identification was found near Espinosa’s body
Hernandez could not be excluded as a contributor to DNA found on Mardi Gras beads found near Espinosa’s body
Hernandez told police that she put her hand over Espinosa’s mouth attempting to suffocate her while her husband drove them around that night. Hernandez said her husband ultimately killed Espinosa.
Hernandez said she gave her husband, Kenneth Hernandez, a lighter that he used to set Espinosa’s body on fire.
Earlier, prosecutor John Hunt told the jury that under the Texas law of parties, the jury may find Hernandez guilty of either crime if they believe she committed the crimes herself or if she aided or attempted to aid Kenneth Hernandez in the crimes.
If convicted, Hernandez, 27, faces up to life in prison. Her husband, Kenneth Hernandez, 35, is also charged with murder and tampering with evidence and is scheduled for trial next month.
Defense lawyer Alex Calhoun told jurors that if they do not know what happened on Feb. 25, the morning Espinosa’s burning body was found on rural Imperial Drive, then they should acquit Hernandez.
“We don’t know can be reasonable doubt,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun argued that Martha Hernandez was under the control of her husband, who he described as an abusive and manipulative man.
“Control has been a theme that’s run through this case,” he said, describing Kenneth Hernandez as bigger than his wife, athletic and independent.
He also suggested that Martha Hernandez did not plan to kill anyone that night.
“If you are going to go out and you are going to plan to kill someone are you going to give that person’s boyfriend a number that would trace back to you,” he said.
Martha Hernandez told a Travis County sheriff’s detective that the couple ended up leaving the Sixth Street area with Espinosa after meeting her there and returning to their car so Kenneth Hernandez could smoke a cigarette.
They drove around drinking, and Martha Hernandez said at one point her husband said he wanted to have three-way sex with Christy, something Martha Hernandez said she refused to do. After that Kenneth Hernandez began to put his hand up Espinosa’s shirt and told his wife that he had given Espinosa’s Xanax earlier in the evening.
Soon Kenneth Hernandez became concerned that he would get in trouble, Martha Hernandez said, and at one point her husband told her to put her hand over Espinosa’s mouth and nose and stop her breathing. Martha Hernandez said that after she couldn’t follow through on the killing her husband put his hand over Espinosa’s mouth.
Calhoun said Martha Hernandez lacked intent to kill Espinosa, an element required for conviction. He said she was in a daze because of her husband’s abusive behavior and when she realized what she was doing she stopped and took her hands off of Espinosa’s face.
Meredith said the case is not about any domestic problems that may have occurred between Martha and Kenneth Hernandez.
“This is about this defendant and what she did to this victim,” Meredith said. “She committed a heinous, heinous crime … and she needs to be held accountable.”
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November 19, 2010
Witness: Martha Hernandez admitted part in Mardi Gras killing
About a week after Christy Lynne Espinosa’s burning body was found in eastern Travis County in 2009, Rebecca Hernandez asked her sister-in-law Martha Hernandez what happened that night, Rebecca Hernandez testified Friday.
“She was real quiet at first,” Rebecca Hernandez said. “I asked her again: what did you do?”
“I remember her saying she had plastic in the car” and put that plastic over Espinosa’s mouth, Rebecca Hernandez said.
The testimony came in Martha Hernandez’s murder and tampering with evidence trial in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court. Hernandez, 33, faces life in prison. Her husband Kenneth Hernandez - Rebecca Hernandez’s brother - is also charged with murder and tampering with evidence in the case and will be tried next month.
Martha Hernandez’s military dependant identification was found near Espinosa’s body, which was left burning on rural Imperial Drive, near Decker Lake, in the early morning hours of Feb. 25. Several hours earlier Espinosa was partying on Sixth Street during Austin’s 2009 Mardi Gras celebration.
Prosecutors said she met Martha and Kenneth Hernandez on Sixth Street that night.
After the killing Martha Hernandez went to Mexico, where she has family, according to testimony. Rebecca Hernandez said she and her brother drove there to bring her back just over a week after Espinosa was found.
Rebecca Hernandez said before they re-entered the United States the trio got a hotel on the Mexican side of the border near Eagle Pass.
Rebecca Hernandez testified she asked Martha Hernandez what happened while Kenneth Hernandez was taking a shower.
“Did you ever ask her about an identification card?” said Prosecutor Amy Meredith.
“She actually told me that she had an I.D. and it was next to the body,” Rebecca Hernandez said. “That’s how I knew about that I.D..”
Rebecca Hernandez said when the trio crossed the border the next morning they were stopped and Martha Hernandez was arrested. She had been wanted on a previous warrant. Kenneth Hernandez was not arrested until days later.
Before her direct testimony ended, Meredith showed Rebecca Hernandez a copy of the statement she had originally given police and asked her again what Martha Hernandez said about the identification.
“She put the I.D. there so the police would think…it was her (Martha Hernandez) that was dead,” Rebecca Hernandez said. “She wanted police to think it was her so they could leave her alone because they were looking for her for the assault charges.”
On cross-examination, Martha Hernandez’s defense lawyer Alex Calhoun noted that Rebecca Hernandez has previously been convicted of theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
“You never discussed with your brother what happened that night?” Calhoun asked.
“No,” Rebecca Hernandez said.
Calhoun has said that any participation Hernandez had in the crime was because she was under the control of a manipulative Kenneth Hernandez. Martha Hernandez told investigators that her husband was mean to her at times.
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November 18, 2010
Mardi Gras murder defendant: 'I grabbed her and held her mouth and her nose'
A Travis County jury today watched a video recording of Martha Hernandez telling a detective that she put her hands over Christy Lynne Espinosa’s mouth but could not follow through on killing the 21-year-old girl after a 2009 Mardi Gras celebration on Sixth Street.
“I grabbed her and held her mouth and her nose and just grabbed her,” Hernandez said. “I grabbed her. I kept grabbing her and I felt like I couldn’t do it.”
Hernandez said that she tried to cut off Espinosa’s ability to breathe on the orders of her husband, Kenneth Hernandez. When she could not do it, her husband finished the job, Hernandez said.
Martha Hernandez, 27, is on trial for murder and tampering with evidence in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court. Kenneth Hernandez is scheduled for trial next month.
They are both accused of killing Espinosa, a 21-year-old Crockett High School graduate and Applebee’s waitress who disappeared after she was ejected from a downtown club for being too intoxicated on Feb. 25, 2009. Espinosa’s body was found hours later burning on the side of a road in eastern Travis County.
Martha Hernandez, whose military identification was found near the body, went to Mexico after the killing. She was coaxed back to the United States by Kenneth Hernandez and was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a previous criminal allegation.
Martha Hernandez’s lawyers have suggested that Kenneth Hernandez manipulated her into participating in the killing.
On March 7, 10 days after the killing, Martha Hernandez told investigators she knew nothing about Espinosa’s death.
The next day, in Travis County, she told Detective Greg Lawson that she and her husband began driving around and drinking with Espinosa when they met her outside a Sixth Street club. In that interview, which was video recorded and played for jurors, Hernandez said Espinosa died after drinking too much. She said her husband was afraid Espinosa’s death would hurt his Army and health care careers and decided to buy gasoline and set Espinosa’s body on fire.
A day later, detectives returned to visit Hernandez in jail after learning from an autopsy that Espinosa died from suffocation and suffered a bruise on the back of the neck.
More than an hour into that interview, Hernandez asked to speak to Lawson alone.
“Kenny has been pressuring me to have a threesome and I haven’t wanted to,” she said, going on to explain that the pressuring continued while they were driving around and partying with Espinosa.
While Espinosa was mostly passed out from being too drunk, Kenneth Hernandez then began trying to feel Espinosa under her shirt, Martha Hernandez said. Espinosa was in the front passenger seat of a Honda, Kenneth Hernandez was driving and Martha Hernandez was in the back, she said.
Martha Hernandez said she told him to stop and soon after Kenneth Hernandez began to try and put his hand over Espinosa’s mouth.
Then he ordered her “to make her not breathe,” she said.
“ I couldn’t do it,” she said.
Kenneth Hernandez then suffocated Espinosa with his hand while driving, she said.
Kenneth Hernandez told police that his wife killed Espinosa by suffocating her with Saran Wrap because she was jealous that Espinosa had been flirting with him, according to a police affidavit.
That affidavit also quoted Kenneth Hernandez’s sister as saying that Martha Hernandez told her she killed Espinosa to swap identities with her. Martha Hernandez wanted to travel back and forth to visit family in Mexico and couldn’t do it with the outstanding warrant, the sister said, according to the affidavit.
During the third interview with Martha Hernandez, Lawson asked Hernandez to explain why she was afraid of her husband.
She said he has a temper and that he sometimes withholds candy from their young son. He asked if her husband ever beat her up. Martha Hernandez said “no.”
”You obeyed him because you couldn’t have candy at home?” Lawson asked.
Hernandez calmly continued to explain that her husband was not a good person.
Later, Lawson asked Hernandez what she thought about when she returned home and asked if she remembers what Espinosa looked like.
Hernandez said she did not.
“She’s out having a fun time and she ends up with you guys and then she’s on fire,” Lawson said. “What were you thinking when you were taking a shower.”
Hernandez said, “ Like in a way just trying to wash everything. If you take a shower you forget about it. I don’t know. “
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November 17, 2010
Jury hears defendant's interrogation in Mardi Gras murder trial
Ten days after Martha Hernandez’s military dependent identification was found next to 21-year-old Christy Lynne Espinosa’s badly burned body in rural Travis County last year, Hernandez continually denied she had anything to do with the killing during a long interview with sheriff’s office investigators.
An audio recording of that interview, which took place in the Maverick County Jail after Hernandez was arrested on an outstanding warrant trying to re-enter the United States, was played for jurors today at Hernandez’s murder and tampering with evidence trial.
Hernandez, 27, gave two later interviews with investigators, putting herself closer to the crime each time, a prosecutor said during opening statements. She ultimately admitted to trying to suffocate and kill Espinosa, the prosecutor said.
Hernandez’s defense lawyers said during opening statements that she was manipulated by her husband into participating in the crime and later pushed by him into taking responsibility for Espinosa’s death.
Hernandez faces up to life in prison if convicted. Her husband, Kenneth Hernandez also faces a murder charge and will be tried later.
Espinosa disappeared after partying with friends during the 2009 Mardi Gras celebration on Sixth Street. She was suffocated and then set ablaze with gasoline on Imperial Drive, near Decker Lake, according to testimony.
In her initial interview with investigators March 7, 2009, Detective Gregory Lawson and Deputy Wayne Sampson repeatedly tried to convince Hernandez that they had enough evidence against her to convict her of murder.
“All these little pieces of evidence that we have, there’s forensics, there are vehicles, there are computer searches,” Lawson said. “Everything that we’ve been doing, points directly at you.”
“Okay,” Hernandez said.
She later said she went to Sixth Street the night of the killing with some unidentified people, including a friend of a friend who she identified only as “Andrew” and later identified as “Casper” before again saying his name was “Andrew.” She said her purse and the military identification had been previously stolen, although she gave no specifics.
She could not explain how a bouncer at the Ivy Lounge, who had been dating Espinosa, ended up with Kenneth’s old phone number the night of the killing. (Mike Stackable, the bouncer, testified that a woman who left with Espinosa gave him the number so he could reach them later.)
The investigators did most of the talking.
“I’m more interested in whether you know anything about Christy Espinosa and what happened to her as far as her dying and getting gasoline thrown on her and burned,” Lawson said.
“The fact that your ID card was left at the scene of a burning body,” he said. “That your phone number was left with the boyfriend as she left. ‘If you need me, get me at this number. I’m going with my friends over to Fuel.’”
“The fact that your husband was at Fuel. The fact that you were at Ivy Lounge that night. The fact that your cell phone records show all kinds of activity that you’ve been doing.
“Yet all you can do is sit there and tell me no.”
Hernandez said: “Well, because I don’t have anything to do. I mean I don’t know what else to say.”
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November 16, 2010
Trial begins in death of woman picked up on Sixth Street, burned in rural area
When passer-by Louis Greider saw flames shooting about three feet into the air in some grass just off a roadway in eastern Travis County last year, he thought a log was ablaze, he testified today.
But when Austin firefighter Lt. James Rae arrived on the scene on Imperial Drive in the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 2009, he took one look and saw it was a body on fire, Rae told a Travis County jury.
The testimony came at the start of Martha Hernandez’s murder and tampering-with-evidence trial in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court.
Hernandez, 27, is accused of killing 21-year-old Christy Lynne Espinosa after Hernandez and her husband picked Espinosa up at a Sixth Street Mardi Gras celebration.
Hernandez faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder and a maximum of 20 years in prison on the tampering-with-evidence charge.
Kenneth Hernandez is also charged with murder and will be tried at a later date.
Espinosa was a lifelong resident of South Austin who graduated Crockett High School, worked as a waitress at Applebee’s, and had planned to take classes at Austin Community College, her mother, Diana Espinosa, told the jury.
During opening statements, defense lawyer Alexander Calhoun told jurors that at the end of the trial they would have reasonable doubt as to what happened on the day Espinosa was found dead.
“Every case has a theme,” Calhoun said. “In this case it’s control.”
He called Kenneth Hernandez “a man who excels at controlling others” and said that he manipulated Espinosa into the couple’s car, tried to get Martha Hernandez to kill Espinosa and later tried to manipulate Hernandez into assuming responsibility for the killing.
Prosecutor Amy Meredith told the jury that Martha Hernandez is guilty of murder.
She said that at the crime scene investigators found red Gras beads with Martha Hernandez’s DNA on them and a military identification belonging to Martha Hernandez.
Hernandez went to Mexico after Espinosa was found dead, and Meredith told the jury that detectives in the Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not interview her until about two weeks after the killing.
At that interview, Meredith said, Martha Hernandez “completely denied everything.”
“She denied she was with Christy, that she knew who Christy was, that she knew even what happened,” Meredith said.
In another interview the next day, Martha Hernandez “finally admitted she was in the car” and that Christy was in the car and that Kenneth Hernandez was driving, Meredith said.
“She told these detectives that Christy died just sitting there in the car and she didn’t know what happened,” Meredith said.
During a third interview, Meredith said, Martha Hernandez “finally admits a small role in the murder. She admits to putting her hands over Christy’s mouth in an attempt to suffocate and to kill her.”
An autopsy found that Espinosa died from suffocation, Meredith said.
Meredith told jurors that under Texas’ law of parties, jurors find Martha Hernandez guilty of murder if they “believe that this defendant acted either by herself, or that she aided or assisted or attempted to aid in the murder of Christy Lynn Espinosa.”
The jury is not expected to hear from Kenneth Hernandez or to learn about any of the statements that he gave to investigators. Because he is also charged, Kenneth Hernandez would likely invoke his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself. His statements to sheriff’s investigators would therefore be barred from the trial because Martha Hernandez’s lawyers would not be able to cross-examine him.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Kenneth Hernandez told a sheriff’s office detective that he and his wife met Espinosa on Sixth Street and went to a club with her before leaving the area in their white Honda Civic.
Kenneth Hernandez said that his wife became jealous because Espinosa had been flirting with him and that while Espinosa was sitting in the front seat, Martha Hernandez used plastic Saran Wrap to reach from the backseat and suffocated Espinosa, the affidavit said.
The trial is expected to last about a week.
Photo: Jay Janner/American-Statesman
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October 13, 2010
Driver gets 32 years for killing man in wheelchair
Corey Jacob Spears, who while fleeing police in a stolen car last year struck and killed a man in a wheelchair, pleaded guilty in a Travis County courtroom today to murder and aggravated robbery and was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Spears, 21, had been scheduled for a trial next week. He was sentenced by state District Judge Wilford Flowers under the terms of a deal with prosecutors.
“It was a fair plea agreement,” said prosecutor Allison Wetzel. “Both sides had to give up a little bit.”
Spears was convicted in the death of Rickey Lee Townsend, 47, who was struck while waiting at a bus stop along the Interstate 35 frontage road near East 38 ½ street.
Townsend, who had both legs amputated after he was shot in the spine in 1985, had battled depression and alcoholism for years, said his wife, Danielle Dadani.
Dadani, who met Townsend while they were both homeless in Houston seven years before his death, said in an interview last year that before the crash she had kicked Townsend out of a trailer home they had shared near Del Valle because he had been drinking.
Dadani said that Townsend had more than once tried to kill himself but she maintained that Spears needed to be punished for his reckless actions that day.
Dadani said in a phone interview today that she thought the punishment was fair. She said she had been stressed about the scheduled trial and reliving the hardships of her life with Townsend.
“I think (Spears) has got a lot of time to think about the ramifications of what he did,” she said. “I wish nothing but the best for him. This is going to be a very tough learning experience.”
According to a police affidavit, Spears and Vaughn Robichaux robbed a man at a Southeast Austin apartment complex on Sept. 18, 2009, taking his 2002 Buick LeSabre and $650.
Patrol officers spotted Spears later that morning driving the Buick near Airport Boulevard and I-35 and, after securing backup, tried to pull the car over on East 43rd Street, the affidavit said.
With the lights and sirens of the police cars on, Spears accelerated, eventually crashing into Townsend, the affidavit said. Townsend’s wheelchair broke into pieces and he crashed onto the sidewalk.
He died 17 days later of his injuries, Dadani said.
Spears was charged with felony murder, used when someone causes another’s death while committing a felony and an act clearly dangerous to human life. In his case, the felony was evading arrest in a vehicle and the dangerous act was speeding while ignoring traffic signs.
An aggravated robbery case against Robichaux is pending.
Dadani said that Townsend had been on his way to visit her at a convenience store downtown where she worked. After the crash, she said she ended up living in the Salvation Army shelter because she could not pay the rent on the trailer.
She still works at the convenience store and said she recently got her own apartment.
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September 28, 2010
Hernandez sentenced to 35 years for drive-by shooting
A judge today sentenced Daniel Joe Hernandez to 35 years in prison after he was convicted of murder two weeks ago.
On Sept. 17, a Travis County jury found Hernandez guilty of the murder of Francisco “Pancho” Iruegas in an August 2009 drive-by shooting. State District Judge Mike Lynch sentenced Hernandez to 35 years on the murder charge and 15 years for an aggravated assault charge. Lynch ordered that the sentences run concurrently.
The killing took place on Willow Street at Robert T. Martinez Jr. Street in East Austin about 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2009, outside Iruegas’ mother’s house, according to an arrest affidavit. A car pulled up and someone fired on Iruegas and others who were hanging out outside, the affidavit said.
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September 24, 2010
Pflugerville man cleared in fatal shooting outside his front door
A Travis County jury has declined to indict a Pflugerville man who police say fatally shot a 19-year-old who came to his house in July after an altercation at a park that afternoon.
Joseph Ruben Anderson, 32, was originally charged with manslaughter in the death of Daquan Wilson. The grand jury issued a “no bill” in the case late Thursday.
According to a police affidavit, Anderson went to the Windermere Elementary School playground on July 5 after his stepdaughter did not return home. Anderson said that a man with his stepdaughter at the park threatened to kill him and flashed gang signs, the affidavit said.
That night, Anderson’s step-daughter received calls warning that “they are looking for where you stay” and “they are going to shoot who ever opens the door,” the affidavit said.
Anderson said within 30 minutes, six or seven people parked down his street and began walking toward his door, the affidavit said. One of them was Kenneth Pluet, the man accused of threatening Anderson at the park, the affidavit said.
Anderson told police that after he locked the door he heard people outside say the word “shoot” and someone say “get outta the way,” the affidavit said.
Anderson said he thought the people outside were coming into his home and he emptied 15 rounds from a 9 mm pistol through a window near the front door in an attempt to scare the men away, the affidavit said. Pluet was at the door but was not hit; Wilson died later at Round Rock Medical Center, the affidavit said.
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August 23, 2010
Not guilty verdict in 2007 Austin murder case
A man who had been jailed in a Northeast Austin killing for over a year is free today after a Travis County jury found him not guilty of murder last week.
Joseph Darryl Lee, 44, had been accused of killing Steven Dwayne Talley, 31, in a stabbing on Blessing Avenue in Northeast Austin in 2007.
Austin homicide detectives linked Lee to the killing last year after DNA found on a crack pipe near the scene of Talley’s death matched a DNA profile from Lee in a statewide DNA database, according to court documents.
A woman that was with Lee and Talley that night said the trio had been smoking crack before a confrontation in a car that began when Talley punched Lee in the head.
Lee’s defense lawyer Rhett Braniff said that his client, whose jaw was wired shut at the time, felt that “he was under attack.” Lee stabbed Talley with a kitchen knife in self-defense, Braniff said.
Talley was stabbed in the calf and died from the loss of blood, Braniff said.
Jurors told Braniff that they did not believe that Talley intended to kill Lee, as charged in the indictment, Braniff said.
The trial in state District Judge Wilford Flowers’ 147th District Court ended Thursday evening.
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Emotions raw after plea in West Campus murder case
This story has been changed since originally published with the correct spelling of the first name of Bill Barnett, the father of victim Stacy Barnett.
James Richard “Ricky” Thompson pleaded guilty today to murder in one of two West Campus killings last summer under a deal with prosecutors that earned him a life term in prison and seeks to ensure his cooperation in the prosecution of two co-defendants.
Thompson, 20, had been indicted for capital murder in the killings of John Goosey, 21, and Stacy Barnett, 22, two then-recent University of Texas graduates.
Thompson killed Goosey, his drug supplier, to escape a drug debt, police have said. Barnett was fatally shot at the same time.
“You killed her just because she was there,” Barnett’s sister Cathy said in court. After Thompson was sentenced, Cathy Barnett and her and Stacy’s father, Bill Barnett, addressed Thompson from the witness stand in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court.
Cathy Barnett told Thompson that their parents were eagerly awaiting Stacy’s return to Houston last summer after she graduated with honors from the UT school of architecture. She told Thompson that her sister volunteered often, at the children’s hospital for example, and gave her long hair to cancer patients.
“My sister Stacy, she had a heart, she had a huge one. She couldn’t have been a better person,” Cathy Barnett said. “I have to struggle every day to not cry in front of my 9-month-old son.”
Bill Barnett struggled to get words out through his sobbing while addressing Thompson.
“If you had killed me I wouldn’t have to go to bed every night wondering what her last few seconds were like?” he said.
He asked Thompson if he even knew Stacy. “Did you know she was a poet when you shot her in the face?
“Did you know she was an artist?”
“You know what the funeral director said?” Barnett asked, quivering. “‘We tried our best but it doesn’t look like your daughter anymore.’”
The couple was found dead in their unit at the Preservation Square condominiums at 904 W. 21st St. and had been expected to arrive in Houston that evening to celebrate Goosey’s mother’s birthday.
Police have said that Thompson, 20, owed Goosey nearly $9,000 for marijuana that Goosey had “fronted” him and that Goosey had begun trying to collect the money.
An arrest affidavit for Thompson said that Goosey called him 19 times in the two days leading up to the shooting and told a friend while watching a news report about the killings that he committed the crime.
Thompson’s lawyers said this week that his client had begun using drugs in late junior high and high school and is “devastated” to have been involved in the deaths.
Last week, authorities also charged Samuel Gifford, 19, and Roy Renick, 21, with capital murder in the case.
Arrest affidavits said that Gifford and Renick helped plan the killings, including building a silencer for a .22 caliber handgun that was used. The affidavits said that the three spent two days preparing for the crime and rehearsed by rearranging furniture in one of their homes to replicate that of Goosey’s.
The documents said they also planned for Thompson to keep an “open line” on his cell phone so Gifford, who had driven Thompson to the condo, could hear the crime.
Brand, the prosecutor, told Kocurek that if Thompson fails to cooperate and testify against Gifford and Renick then prosecutors would take him to trial on the capital murder case against Goosey. That charge is punishable by life without the possibility of parole or death.
If Thompson cooperates with prosecutors as promised, then he will return to Travis County from prison and plead guilty to the murder of Goosey and receive a concurrent life term.
Thompson, whose family was in court but declined to comment, will be eligible for parole in about 29 years.
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August 19, 2010
40 years for killer who shot wrong man
An Austin man pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the December killing of a man who apparently was not his intended target.
Louis Alfredo Gonzalez (pictured), 23, fatally shot Juan Carlos Jiminez-Vega, 24, immediately after Jiminez-Vega answered the door at an apartment at 8805 North Plaza, near Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35, a police affidavit said.
But phone messages Gonzalez had left earlier for his girlfriend’s ex-husband — who was also at the North Plaza apartment at the time of the shooting — suggested that was his girlfriend’s ex was his intended target, the affidavit said.
State District Judge Charlie Baird sentenced Gonzalez under the terms of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
A co-defendant, Ernest Alonzo Moreno, has pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery and will be sentenced by Baird on Friday to seven years in prison.
Assistant District Attorney Jim Young said a murder charge is pending against Gonzalez’s girlfriend, Irene Natalia Maldonado.
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April 23, 2010
Probation for woman who killed her ailing husband
Katherine “Kim” Yarbrough, 53, pleaded guilty this month to injury to a disabled individual, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. Prosecutors waived a charge of murder with the plea.
On Friday, State District Judge Bob Perkins agreed to follow the plea deal after reviewing a probation-department report on the case.
Yarbrough, who spent several weeks in the hospital after attempting suicide, said little in court. Outside court she hugged a group of friends who came to lend support. She declined to comment through her lawyer, David Sheppard.
Police say that Yarbrough admitted killing her husband, Lloyd, 62, by injecting his feeding tube with an assortment of crushed prescription pills. She then swallowed some drugs of her own, police have said.
A police officer found them in bed on May 27, 2009, at their home on Meadowview Lane, which is near Lamar and Research boulevards in North Austin.
Lloyd Yarbrough, who suffered from encephalitis, was dead. He had not been able to walk, talk, swallow or perform basic functions, according to Yarbrough’s friends, interviewed by the American-Statesman last year, and entries on her blog.
Those sources depicted a woman who was overwhelmed with depression from caring for her husband. She blogged about her frustrations with outside caregivers and a lack of a support system.
“I wonder if I will ever change Lloyd’s diaper without feeling the pain of what has been lost,” she blogged four days before his death.
Two days before his death, she wrote, “Why should I keep living through all this?”
Outside court, prosecutor Amy Meredith said that considering the facts of the case and Yarbrough’s clean criminal history, District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg did not believe that a prison term was warranted.
Meredith noted that for years when selecting jurors in murder cases, prosecutors had used an example similar to Yarbrough’s — when one spouse kills another to end that spouse’s suffering — as a type of murder case that may warrant a probation sentence.
Until 2007, people convicted of murder who had no previous felony record had been eligible for probation. That is no longer the case.
Under the terms of her probation, Yarbrough must continue seeing a private therapist and perform 400 hours of community service. If she violates the probation, she could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.
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April 13, 2010
Trial starts in '09 double murder near Pflugerville
Elizabeth Nieto had been watching her young son and two of her neighbor’s children in a back bedroom of her family’s trailer home in northern Travis County last year when she heard a pop.
She thought it was a balloon left over from her son’s birthday getting stuck in a ceiling fan, she told a Travis County jury in state District Judge Charlie Baird’s court Tuesday.
The popping was gunshots, and when Nieto emerged from the bedroom she found her husband, Jesus Hernandez Nieto, 30, and another man, later identified as Mikiyas Mekonen, 20, lying in pools of blood.
Earlier, Nieto, 29, had seen her husband and the other man standing near a large amount of marijuana on the kitchen counter, she said.
They both died of their wounds. On Tuesday, Nieto testified at the start of the capital murder trial of the man authorities say did it, Christopher Ryan Robinson, 23.
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, and if Robinson, shown above, is convicted of capital murder he would receive an automatic life sentence. The trial is expected to last several days.
The shooting happened at just after 3 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2009, at the mobile home in the 1300 block of Dessau Road, according to authorities.
Prosecutor Meg McGee told the jury during opening statements that Robinson, who is from Lacy Lakeview, near Waco, shot the men during a drug deal gone bad. Robinson had planned to buy more than 100 pounds of marijuana from Nieto, with Mekonen getting a cut for setting up the deal, McGee said.
McGee said that Robinson had exchanged phone calls with the two men before the shooting and that his girlfriend had driven a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle that matched a description of a car seen leaving the shooting.
Sheriff’s deputies tracked Robinson’s movement based on the cell phone calls he placed that day. The calls trace a route from the Waco area to the area of the shooting and back, McGee said.
When deputies arrived at Robinson’s home in Lacy Lakeview about a month after the killings with search and arrest warrants, Robinson would not immediately come out. When they finally arrested Robinson, Travis County sheriff’s office personnel found a smoking bag in a room near the back of the house. Inside, they found the gun that had been used to shoot Nieto and Mekonen, shoes and clothes that had one of the victim’s DNA on them, McGee said.
During his opening statement, defense lawyer Jon Evans told the jury to take a hard look at the evidence in the case.
“What this case boils down to is, will the state be able to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Christopher Robinson had any part in killing these men?” Evans said. “Specifically, do they have any proof of his specific intent that these men are killed, that they be killed?”
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March 12, 2010
Woman accused of killing sick husband indicted on murder charge
An Austin woman who is accused of killing her ailing husband and then trying to kill herself last year was indicted by a Travis County grand jury Thursday for murder and injury to a disabled individual.
Katherine “Kim” Yarbrough’s friends and entries from her blog depicted a woman who was overwhelmed with depression from caring for her husband Lloyd, who could not walk, talk, swallow and perform basic functions. Lloyd Yarbrough, 62, suffered from encephalitis.
“Why should I try to keep living through this,” she wrote two days before Lloyd’s May 27 death.
Kim Yarbrough also tried to overdose on pills, police said.
According to an arrest affidavit, in the hospital Yarbrough admitted that she caused her husband’s death by injecting his feeding tube with an assortment of prescription pills she had ground up and mixed with water.
The affidavit said that Yarbrough admitted killing her husband “because she was tired of taking care of him.” When an officer asked if her husband wanted to die, Kim Yarbrough said “no,” the affidavit said.
Both charges against Yarbrough are punishable by from five years to life in prison but if she has no previous felony record, she could receive probation.
Yarbrough, 53, is free on bail. When reached by telephone Friday, she said her lawyer has advised her not to comment on the case. Her lawyer could not be reached.
Click here to read a comprehensive account of Kim Yarbrough’s struggles written in June.
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Man gets 30 years in East Riverside murder
An Austin man pleaded guilty in a Travis County court this week to murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the January 2009 killing of Joseph Daniel Russo, 20, who was shot during a fight at the Longhorn Landings Apartments on East Riverside Drive.
Markieh Jaquaan Thompson, 21, was arrested in Corpus Christi several days after the murder. At the time police said the killing occurred during a drunken fight.
Russo, of Copperas Cove, was studying theater arts at Central Texas College in Killeen and wanted to perform on Broadway, his father told the American-Statesman after his death.
Thompson and his friends and Russo and his friends got into a confrontation during an after-hours party in the early morning of Jan. 11, 2009, according to police and court documents.
Russo’s father has said that the initial fight was over whether his son was sitting in someone else’s chair.
The fight spilled into a parking lot where one witness saw a man he knew only as “Kiss” hold a gun to Russo’s head and shoot him, an arrest affidavit said. Police later identified “Kiss” as Thompson by showing witnesses a picture from his Facebook page.
The plea and sentence on Tuesday were part of a plea bargain Thompson struck with prosecutors, according to court files.
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December 22, 2009
Deal for 12 years for man whose murder case hung jury
Ramon Ancira, whose murder trial ended in a hung jury last month after his lawyer argued that Ancira fatally shot a man in defense of his home, pleaded guilty today to murder under a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Following the terms of the deal, state District Judge Wilford Flowers sentenced Ancira, 48, to 12 years in prison in the July 3, 2008, killing of Paul Cabello Dominguez Jr., 34.
The shooting at the Elm Ridge Apartments at 1173 Harvey Street, near Airport Boulevard, came after Dominguez was in a fight with two men, the affidavit said. Neighbors told police that those two men came from apartment #261, which was leased to Ramon Ancira, at right, and his brother James, the affidavit said.
After the altercation, Dominguez threw something at the apartment and then knocked on the door with a rock while yelling, the affidavit said.
Leonard Martinez, Ancira’s defense lawyer, said last month that “my client basically chased after the person who was trying to break into the house and shot him just outside of his own apartment. My client was scared.”
James Ancira was also charged with murder but those charges were dismissed after his brother’s November trial.
In court Tuesday, Dominguez’s sister-in-law told Ancira that Dominguez had five children, ages 11 to 19. “I hope you understand Junior was the victim here, not you,” DawnDee Dominguez said.
Dominguez’s 13-year-old daughter Desiree told Ancira “this experience hurts too much to explain… It’s really stupid to kill someone.
“Paul was getting better. He really was and you just threw it all away.”
Martinez said that prosecutors best plea bargain offer before the trial was 45 years in prison. He will now be eligible for parole after serving half his time.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baugh said prosecutors took into account the hung jury when making the 12-year offer. He said achieving justice in the case meant getting a murder conviction.
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November 25, 2009
Man gets 25 years in tech consutlant's strangulation
Jesus Enrique Maya was charged with capital murder in 2007, accused of luring a technology consultant he met online to a South Austin apartment where, with a teen accomplice, he strangled the man and took his wallet and sports car.
In preparing for trial, prosecutors encountered a problem with the evidence:
When he admitting to murder in juvenile court, David Romero, the teen accomplice, said Maya (at right) put the belt around 40-year-old Michael Gregory Johnston’s neck. But while the belt belonged to Maya, prosecutor Judy Shipway said, the only DNA found on it was Romero’s.
So prosecutors offered Maya — who faced a life sentence — a deal. On Tuesday, the 24-year-old pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for 25 years in prison. He’ll be eligible for parole after serving half of that time.
Maya had also faced several other charges related to accusations that he had sexually assaulted three teenage boys and that he attempted to sexually assault a cellmate in the Travis County jail.
All of the charges were dismissed under the plea bargain except one sexual assault of a child count, to which Maya also pleaded guilty Tuesday and was sentenced to 20 years. That sentence will run concurrently with the murder sentence.
“There was a chance that a jury could find that the defendant was, rather than a party during the murder, that he was involved after the murder,” Shipway said. “It was going to be a challenge proof wise.”
Johnston (at right) was from Minnesota and living in Austin temporarily in 2007. A police affidavit said that in April 2007 he began communicating on the internet with Maya, who used the alias David J. Cortez.
The affidavit laid out the evidence against Maya:
A 15-year-old boy who knew Maya and Romero, who was also 15 at the time,, told investigators that Maya planned to lure Johnston with an online offer of sex with minors. Instead, the pair planned to bind and rob Johnston.
A roommate told investigators that Johnston left their apartment at 10:20 a.m. on April 21. Johnston said he would be back in an hour and left in his blue 2007 Saturn Sky.
Romero’s parents told investigators that at about noon that day they saw Maya driving a blue Saturn in the parking lot of their apartment complex at 815 West Slaughter Lane,near South First Street. Later that day, Maya asked Romero’s mother to buy two large, wheeled plastic containers during a trip to the store. Maya said he wanted them to move his belongings.
About 1 a.m. the following day, a neighbor on her way home saw two males running from an area where Johnston’s body was later found by a man walking his dog. Rivera and Maya were missing. Police said they were found and arrested near Mexico City in June 2007.
Romero, a U.S. citizen, was brought back to the United States soon after his arrest and charged with capital murder. He later pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a 25-year sentence. Before he turns 18 his case will be reviewed to determine if he should be transferred from Texas Youth Commission custody to an adult prison or released.
Maya, a Mexican citizen, was formally extradited to the United States in July 2008. The other case to which Maya pleaded guilty to involved the sexual assault of a 16-year-old victim in 2005. He met that boy, a Lakeway resident, on the internet, an affidavit said.
Maya’s sentence disappointed Johnston’s family, Shipway said.
“I think they understood some of the challenges” with the case, she said. “I can’t say they were thrilled about it.”
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November 23, 2009
Musician sentenced to 32 years for murder
A judge on Monday sentenced an Austin musician to 32 years in prison for the August 2008 murder of Ronnie Whited, who prosecutors say was gunned down with an AK-47-type rifle in a drug dispute in North Austin.
State District Judge Mike Lynch sentenced Fred Ora Ridings III, 35, three days after a Travis County jury convicted Ridings.
Ridings, at right, was described during the trial as a talented musician who played guitar and upright bass, sometimes in bands at clubs on Sixth Street and elsewhere in town. Witnesses did not name the bands.
Blake Sutherland, who played music with Ridings, testified that in early 2008 he changed dramatically, turning from an outgoing and generous person to one who seemed paranoid and spoke incoherently about vampires, intelligence agents and other topics. Ridings’ mother, Virginia Ridings, testified that Ridings suffered memory loss and paranoia beginning about 10 years ago when he was in a car accident.
On August 6, 2008 Ridings gunned down Whited, 37, outside a house on North Meadows Drive, near North Lamar Boulevard and Kramer Lane, where prosecutors said Whited and others used methamphetamine. One witness said that Ridings sometimes used methamphetamine.
Kent Anschutz, Ridings’ defense lawyer, argued that Ridings suffers from mental illness and asked Lynch to consider that in sentencing.
Prosecutor Leslie Booker argued that Ridings is “clearly dangerous” and asked for a 60-year sentence.
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November 20, 2009
Ridings guilty in 2008 murder
Update: Fred Ora Ridings’ punishment hearing will continue Monday at 2 p.m., prosecutor Mark Pryor said.
A Travis County jury today found Fred Ora Ridings III guilty of murder in the Aug. 6, 2008, death of Ronnie Whited, a crime that prosecutors said was drug-related and carried out with an AK-47-type rifle.
State District Judge Mike Lynch scheduled the sentencing portion of Ridings’ trial to begin at 2 p.m. today. Ridings, 35, faces up to life in prison.
Whited was gunned down outside a house on North Meadows Drive, near North Lamar Boulevard and Kramer Lane. Prosecutors said that Whited and others used methamphetamine at that house. Ridings’ was angry that day because he felt that “someone had promised him or owed him drugs,” prosecutor Leslie Booker said during opening statements.
Ridings was found with the murder weapon when police pulled his van over shortly after the nightime shooting, Booker said.
Ridings’ defense lawyer Kent Anschutz suggested that a man with Ridings that night committed the murder.
A firearms expert testified during the trial that the rifle was imported from Romania, Booker said.
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November 6, 2009
Hung jury in apartment complex killing case
This story has been corrected since originally filed.
A Travis County murder trial ended in a hung jury Thursday after a defense lawyer argued that his client shot a man in defense of his home, according to lawyers in the case.
Ramon Ancira, 48, remains in jail accused of murder in the July 3, 2008 fatal shooting of 34-year-ol Paul Cabello Dominguez Jr., also known as Primo, at the Elm Ridge Apartments, 1173 Harvey St., near Airport Boulevard.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baugh declined to say whether prosecutors plan to retry Ancira and declined to comment about the facts of the case.
According to police affidavits, witnesses at the apartments reported that two men — including Ancira’s 39-year-old brother, James, who is also charged with murder — and Dominguez had been in a physical altercation before the shooting. After the altercation, the Ancira brothers retreated into their second-floor apartment, the affidavits said. Dominguez then threw something at the apartment and then knocked on the door with a rock while yelling, the affidavits said.
Leonard Martinez, Ramon Ancira’s defense lawyer, said Thursday that “my client basically chased after the person who was trying to break into the house and shot him just outside of his own apartment,” Martinez said. “My client … was scared.”
Martinez said that Dominguez had previously claimed that he was in a gang and was going to get a gun and Ancira thought Dominguez had a gun before he shot him.
Martinez said that Dominguez was hostile and intoxicated and that police had been called to the apartment complex because he was acting belligerent but did not arrest Dominguez.
James Ancira’s case has not yet gone to trial.
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September 25, 2009
Man indicted for capital murder in West Campus slayings
A 19-year-year old South Austin man has been indicted with capital murder in the July West Campus slayings of a man and his girlfriend.
James Richard Thompson has been in jail on a capital murder charge since days after the July 21 slayings of Jonathan Goosey, 21, and Stacey Barnett, 22.
Capital murder is punishable by either life in prison or the death penalty. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg must now decide whether she is going to seek death.
Austin police have said that Goosey, a University of Texas graduate, sold marijuana in Austin and that Thompson was one of his dealers. Police said Thompson owed Goosey thousands of dollars in the days before the shootings and that he may have killed Goosey to avoid that debt.
Police have said there is no indication that Barnett, who was an aspiring interior designer, had knowledge of Goosey’s drug dealing.
According to a police affidavit, Goosey called Thompson 19 times in the two days leading up to the slayings asking for the money that Thompson owed him.
As a friend of Goosey’s left the condo that Goosey and Barnett shared at 904 West 21st St. on the morning of the killings, he passed a young man walking up the stairs, the affidavit said. Goosey and Barnett died between 10 and 10:15 a.m.
A friend found the bodies at about 5 p.m.
The affidavit said that Thompson, while watching a TV news report about the killings, told a friend that he shot the two.
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August 27, 2009
Man accused of killing LBJ High student indicted for capital murder
This story has been updated from the original version with comments from Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg on whether she would seek the death penalty.
A Travis County grand jury this morning indicted an Austin man for capital murder in the May 31 rape and killing of his neighbor, 17-year-old LBJ High School student Bianca Maldonado.
Areli Carbajal Escobar, 30, has been held in the Travis County jail without bail since his arrest a few days after the killing at the Huntington Meadows apartments in East Austin, where Escobar and Maldonado lived.
He had been arrested on the capital murder charge. The indictment means that if he’s convicted, he could receive a mandatory life sentence or the death penalty.
Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said she has not made a decision about whether to seek the death penalty against Escobar.
Lehmberg said that like her predecessor Ronnie Earle did in capital murder cases, she would convene a panel of her top deputies to review the case, meet with the victim’s family and consider whether the death penalty would be appropriate.
Lehmberg said she would then review the recommendations of her staff and make the final decision. She said that the staff review of the case would likely happen within a month.
“It’s a horrible, horrible crime,” she said of Maldonado’s killing. “I am always particularly concerned when someone is killed at home.
“I will review it and take all the kinds of things you take into consideration: how dangerous the defendant is, the nature of the crime, whether life without parole is adequate protection for to the community and the people employed by the prison system.”
Escobar’s defense lawyer Steve Brittain said: “This type of crime is totally inconsistent with anything that anybody would know or believe about this individual. There’s no motive indicated. He doesn’t have a history of psychopathy.”
Police have said that Escobar attacked Maldonado when she was alone in her family’s apartment with her 1-year-old son, minutes after her mother and sister left at 3 a.m. to deliver newspapers.
Escobar did not know Maldonado, but without forcing entry, got into her apartment and stabbed and sexually assaulted her, police have said.
Sometime during the attack, Escobar’s girlfriend, Zoe Lopez, who had been sleeping with him in his apartment, realized Escobar had left his apartment and she began calling Escobar, police said. At about 4:15 a.m., on Lopez’s fourth call to Escobar, the line connected and Lopez heard a woman moaning and screaming for about 10 minutes, police said.
Later that morning, Escobar arrived at his mother’s house with a bloody shirt, police said.
Maldonado has been remembered as a solid student who took advanced placement courses and made a B average despite having a baby as a teenager.
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July 16, 2009
Victim's father: Man to plead guilty in teen's murder
A 20-year-old man is expected to plead guilty to murder Friday in the 2008 South Austin shooting death of his girlfriend, Amanda Rae Brown, 18, according to Brown’s father.
Leonard Brown of Houston said today that prosecutors have informed him by phone that they have struck a plea deal with Bryan James Morris that calls for Morris to plead guilty in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence. Morris’ lawyer, Jon Evans, could not be reached this morning for comment.
“At least we finally get him to make an admission,” Brown said.
Travis County Assistant District Attorney Prosecutors Darla Davis declined to comment on the plea negotiations but confirmed that the case is on the docket in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court Friday.
Brown was fatally shot in the head on April 7, 2008, at about 1 a.m. in the 5800 block of Libyan Drive, near Stassney Lane and South First Street, police have said.
Morris told police he had been playing with his gun, which he said he assumed was not loaded, when the weapon fired and shot Brown in the head, police have said.
He was initially charged with manslaughter but a grand jury upped the charge to murder.
Leonard Brown said he was happy with the outcome, which likely means that Morris, who is in jail, must serve 10 years before he is eligible for parole.
“We said our prayers and I have to be willing to accept whatever was given back to me,” he said.
Brown, who said he is haunted that his daughter overcame three heart surgeries by age 4 only to be killed by a gunshot, remembers her as a loving person. He hopes the shooting serves as a wakeup call to young women to evaluate the company they keep.
“She loved everybody. She had so many friends, and she was just, you know, a genuine, genuine, truly caring, loving person,” he said. “She didn’t have any hurtful part in her.”
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June 8, 2009
Restaurant owner acquitted in slaying
A Travis County jury today found an Austin restaurant owner not guilty of murder in a 2008 fatal shooting at his home, according to Pat McNelis, one of the man’s defense lawyers.
Efrain Arrellano, 44, had been accused of killing Jorge Zarco Fajuardo, 29, on Feb. 9, 2008. Arrellano’s lawyers, McNelis and Leonard Martinez, argued that it was self-defense.
McNelis said that three brothers, including Fajuardo, were drinking that night at Arrellano’s house on Quail Meadow Drive, near Rundberg Lane and North Lamar Boulevard. They got into an argument about a fourth brother and two of the brothers left while one stayed, he said. When the two brothers returned to Arrellano’s house an altercation began in which the brothers assaulted Arrellano, McNelis said.
That’s when Arrellano shot at them, McNelis said. Prosecutors argued that Arellano shot without provocation.
Arrellano left for his native Mexico after the shooting but returned to the United States when he learned there was a murder warrant for him, McNelis said. He has lived in the United States for 25 years and is the owner of Taco More on Rundberg.
“My client,” McNelis said, “is a real good guy.”
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June 5, 2009
Castillo guilty in double kitchen knife murder
A Travis County jury today took just over an hour to find Adam Lee Castillo guilty of capital murder in the 2007 slayings of two men at a North Austin apartment complex, according to prosecutor Steven Brand.
Castillo, a former culinary student, used high-dollar chef’s knives to fatally stab and cut John Chris Quinones, 27, and Carlos William Caudillo, 30.
The killings happened after a tattoo session went bad in Caudillo and Quinones’ apartment at the Venterra at Bradford Pointe complex on Metric Boulevard.
Castillo testified that he acted in self defense.
Caudillo’s sister, who was also Quinones’ girlfriend, walked in on the attack and told the jury that Castillo threatened her life before she called 911.
Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, and state District Judge Brenda Kennedy sentenced Castillo, 33, to an automatic life sentence.
To read a story on the case from today’s Statesman click here.
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June 4, 2009
Defendant says killings were in self-defense
Adam Lee Castillo, on trial for capital murder, told a Travis County jury today that the 2007 confrontation during which he killed two people started when one of them pressed too hard when darkening a tattoo on Castillo’s arm.
Castillo testified that when Carlos William Caudillo pressed too hard on his arm he said: “I thought you were a professional, I thought you knew how to do tattoos without hurting somebody?”
Castillo said Caudillo slapped him after those comments and he returned that slap with four to Caudillo’s head and they began to fight. John Chris Quinones jumped in, Castillo said. Both men ended up dead from stab wounds
Castillo said he thought that Caudillo had stabbed him during the fight and grabbed his knife out of self-defense. He said he thought Quinones was going for a knife.
Under questioning from his lawyer, Russ Hunt Jr., Castillo said repeatedly that he was in fear of his life and acted out of self-defense.
Prosecutors said that Castillo committed murder when he repeatedly stabbed the men with high-dollar kitchen knives that Castillo had from culinary school.
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty; Castillo will receive an automatic life sentence with the chance of parole if convicted. Prosecutors will cross-examine Castillo this afternoon in state District Judge Brenda Kennedy’s court.
Part of the scuffle was witnessed by Caudillo’s sister Corrine Caudillo, who called 911 when she saw Castillo stabbing her brother. Corrine Caudillo was Quinones’ boyfriend.
The stabbing happened in Corrine Caudillo’s apartment at the Venterra at Bradford Pointe apartment complex in North Austin, where Castillo also lived.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Steven Brand asked Castillo how much he had drunk prior to the confrontation and whether he was intoxicated. Castillo said he had finished three 40-ounce Schlitz Blue Bull malt liquor cans and that he was “buzzed” but not drunk.
Brand asked Castillo about previous crimes he committed in his hometown of Saginaw, Mich. In 1993, when Castillo was 16, he shot at somebody five times in a drive-by shooting, Brand said.
In another, which occurred in 1996 when Castillo was 20, Castillo pulled a 15-year-old out of a car and punched, kicked and stomped his head on the street, Brand said. Castillo said the teen had spit on him.
When Brand asked Castillo if he had a bad temper, Castillo said ‘no.’ Brand then played a recording of Castillo talking to his grandmother, presumably recorded during a jail visit.
“You know me, I’m real hot-headed sometimes. I’ve got a bad temper,” Castillo said. “When something happens to me I want to do something back.”
Later, Brand asked Castillo how many times he stabbed Caudillo.
“I have no recollection of stabbing Carlos,” he said. “I have no recollection of sticking a knife in anybody. Period.”
Brand showed Castillo autopsy pictures of the gashes on Quinones’ face and neck.
“You did that?” Brand asked.
“That would have happened in the struggle,” Castillo said. “The guy was coming at me.
“I did not sit there and cut off chunks of his face. He was my friend,” Castillo said.
Brand asked Castillo if he remembered stabbing the men in the head, the intestines, the forearm. Castillo said he couldn’t.
Then he took a handful of autopsy pictures, showing the holes in Caudillo’s and Quinones’s bodies, and flashed them before Castillo.
“You can remember how much you drank,” Brand said, his voice cracking with emotion, “but all these pictures, all these pictures, all these pictures, this is what you don’t remember.”
“I can’t,” Castillo said.
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May 8, 2009
Vietnam veteran gets 25 years in killing of homeless man
A judge in Travis County today sentenced an Austin man to 25 years in prison for murder in an October 2006 stabbing at a hangout for transients near the intersection of Northland Drive and MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1),
State District Judge Jim Coronado handed down the sentenced after earlier in the week finding Jerel Bigbee, 60, guilty in the killing of 53-year-old Frank Ellison Black Jr. Prosecutor Amy Casner said that Black was homeless.
Bigbee served in the Marines during Vietnam and has been living on and off the streets, battling alcoholism and psychiatric issues, during recent decades, said his lawyer, Craig Sandling. Bigbee had been living with his brother at the time of the attack.
Sandling argued during the trial that Bigbee stabbed Black after Black attacked him with a crate. Prosecutor Amy Casner said witnesses described it as an unprovoked attack.
Sandling said both men were drunk. Black had a .345 blood/alcohol content, Sandling said.
Bigbee, who waived trial by jury, faced up to life in prison.
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April 20, 2009
Convicted of murder, man gets 8-year sentence
After a Travis County jury late Friday found Luis Sanchez Vallejo guilty of murder in a 1997 Northeast Austin shooting, state District Judge Charlie Baird sentenced Vallejo to 8 years in prison.
The verdict came after the jury spent much of Friday deliberating. Vallejo’s lawyer had said that his client shot Armando Padilla Ramirez, 27, in self-defense.
As is his right under Texas law, Vallejo, 60, opted to have Baird assess his sentence. He faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors said that on Jan. 19, 1997, Vallejo was outside his family’s apartment on Bennett Avenue, near St. John’s Avenue and Interstate 35, when he fired a handgun into Ramirez’s truck. Two other men in the truck also were shot.
Prosecutors believe he fled to his native Mexico after the shooting but at some point he returned to the Austin area. Acting on a tip, the U.S. Marshal Service-led Lone Star Fugitive Task arrested him last year.
Vallejo’s lawyer, Jorge Pineda, told the jury that Vallejo and Ramirez had once worked together and suggested the bad blood between them happened because Ramirez had not paid Vallejo for painting jobs they did together.
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April 14, 2009
Jury hears self defense claim in 1997 shooting
Luis Sanchez Vallejo’s lawyer told a Travis County jury today that Vallejo feared for his life when he fired into a truck in Northeast Austin in 1997, killing one man and injuring two others.
Earlier on Jan. 19, 1997, defense lawyer Jorge Pineda told the jury, Vallejo had been threatened by the man he later shot dead — Armando Padilla Ramirez, 27.
Prosecutors said it was murder.
Vallejo, 60, faces life in prison if convicted. The trial in state District Judge Charlie Baird’s court, which began Tuesday, is expected to last about a week.
Vallejo was charged shortly after the shooting on Bennett Avenue, near St. Johns Avenue and Interstate 35, but prosecutors believe he had fled to his native Mexico. At some point he returned to the Austin area, where, acting on a tip, the U.S. Marshal Service-led Lone Star Fugitive Task arrested him last year.
Pineda, Vallejo’s lawyer, said Vallejo and Ramirez had once been friends and had worked together, including doing painting jobs. When Ramirez did not pay Vallejo his portion of some of those painting jobs, Vallejo confronted Ramirez and took an air compressor from Ramirez, Pineda said.
The feud spanned some tense months, Pineda said, because the men lived very close to each other and their families were close. Pineda said that on Jan. 19, 1997, Ramirez drove by Vallejo’s house on Bennett Avenue and announced in Spanish: “Tonight you will pay.”
When Vallejo returned that evening, Ramirez thought he was going to follow through, and fired a gun at Ramirez while Ramirez sat in the driver’s seat of his truck, Pineda said. Two other men, including one in the passenger’s seat of the truck, were shot as well.
Pineda did not tell the jury whether Ramirez did anything during the confrontation to make Vallejo fearful.
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March 10, 2009
Man killed ex-roomate in self-defense, attorney says
Carmelo Trejo fatally stabbed his ex-roommate Marciano Flores Ramirez in 2007 in self-defense, defense attorney Bradley Urrutia said during opening statements in an Austin courtroom Tuesday.
Trejo, 40, is accused of killing the 29-year-old in a Southeast Austin apartment complex at 1700 Burton Drive, where Ramirez lived with his cousin, Reymundo Flores Ramirez, and two other men. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors told the jury of six men and six women that Trejo and Marciano Ramirez stayed up drinking into the early morning of Dec. 30, 2007. The two got into a verbal altercation and Trejo stabbed Ramirez numerous times with a knife, including once in Ramirez’s head.
Trejo and Ramirez were known to be friends and even lived together for a brief time, Reymundo Ramirez testified.
When questioned by prosecutors, Ramirez testified that he was awakened by screaming in the small apartment, and when he went into the living room, he saw Trejo standing over his cousin and stabbing him. Ramirez said he pulled Trejo away from his cousin and Trejo ran out of the door.
Reymundo Ramirez’s testimony wavered from the story he told detectives in several ways, defense attorneys said, including when he told police he could not see if Trejo had a knife.
“Before (Reymundo) went to sleep that night, everything seemed fine,” said Assistant District Attorney Leslie Booker during opening statements. “But he was startled out of sleep when he heard his cousin screaming.”
Trejo was apprehended in the 2200 block of East Riverside Drive near Club Carnival later that day. He has remained in the Travis County Jail since his arrest, with bail set at $250,000.
“This isn’t a ‘who-done-it.’ This isn’t about my client killing. This case is about self-defense,” Urrutia said during opening statements.
Urrutia said Marciano Ramirez became agitated and angered during the verbal argument. He said Ramirez went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and threatened Trejo. Ramirez kept swinging the knife at Trejo, stabbing him once, and Trejo was forced to defend himself, Urrutia said.
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March 3, 2009
Caldwell County man gets life for 2007 murder
A Caldwell County jury sentenced a man to life in prison today for beating his uncle to death in a dispute over $40.
Caldwell County District Attorney Trey Hicks said the jury took 15 minutes Monday to convict Wesley Lee Hill, 50, in the murder of his uncle, 77-year-old Johnny Riles, in December 2007.
According to witness testimony, Hill entered his uncle’s home without knocking and assaulted him with a shotgun barrel. Police and paramedics discovered Riles lying on his bedroom floor, barely breathing and with multiple injuries across his back, face and the back of his head. Riles died before he could be taken by helicopter to a hospital in Austin, Hicks said.
When police arrived, Hill admitted to beating Riles to death because his uncle wouldn’t pay him $40 that was owed to him, Hicks said.
Defense attorneys for Hill said he killed Riles in self-defense, but prosecutors said the severity of Riles’ injuries — including 22 rib fractures and a broken leg — indicated otherwise.
Hill received the harshest punishment available, life in prison, and a $10,000 fine, Hicks said.
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February 20, 2009
Decades for murder defendants
After striking plea bargains with prosecutors, two 17-year-old capital murder defendants were sentenced to decades in prison Friday for their roles in a December 2007 killing at a North Austin apartment complex.
State District Judge Bob Perkins sentenced Rashad Dukes to 25 years in prison for murder and aggravated robbery and Michael Jamerson to 23 years for murder.
The capital murder charges, which carry a sentence of life in prison or death, were dropped, said prosecutor Amy Meredith.
Jamerson and Maxwell both testified in the December 2007 trial of co-defendant Terrell D. Maxwell, an 18-year-old former gang member convicted of fatally shooting Fernando Santander, 31, during a robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison.
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January 22, 2009
Probation revoked in 2005 drive-by shooting
A man who when he was a juvenile was sentenced to probation for his role in the fatal 2005 drive-by shooting of an Austin High School student was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime Thursday.
State District Judge Bob Perkins ordered the probation of 20-year-old Humberto Ruiz revoked because Ruiz was recently convicted of driving while intoxicated.
Ruiz’s lawyer, Jon Evans, said that about 50 family members and friends of slain 16-year-old Christopher “Woody” Briseno were in the courtroom for a hearing on the case.
While prosecutors asked Perkins to send Ruiz to prison, Evans argued that his client deserved another chance.
Briseno and his cousin, Adam “A.J.” Cantu, had just stepped off the school bus at the corner of Haskell and Chicon streets on Sept. 23, 2005, when they were each shot multiple times in a barrage of bullets. Authorities have called the incident gang-related.
Cantu was injured in the shooting. Briseno died.
A Travis County jury in 2006 sentenced the shooter, Manuel Cortez, to 99 years in prison. A judge sentenced the driver, Alan Ruiz, 21, to 40 years in prison.
Humberto Ruiz is Alan Ruiz’s younger brother. He and his younger sister each were sentenced to 10 years probation in juvenile court. Under the state’s determinate sentencing law, their probation was transferred to the adult system when they became legal adults.
According to Evans and trial testimony, Humberto and Pamela Ruiz went to Austin High as well and complained to their older brother that Briseno and Cantu had been bothering them and identified the men and what school bus they were riding.
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Austin man gets 50 years for girlfriend's murder
After a day-long hearing at which lawyers for a murder defendant argued he committed the crime under the influence of sudden passion and therefore deserved a lighter sentence, state District Judge Charlie Baird rejected the argument and sentenced Jorge Enrique Ramirez to 50 years in prison.
Ramirez had previously pleaded guilty to murder in the July fatal stabbing of his girlfriend Carmen Perez in the couple’s apartment at the Fairway Apartments, 6118 Fairway Street in Southeast Austin. Perez, 48, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ramirez had fled the complex on foot, but was brought back by one of the victim’s family members, who had found him at a nearby gas station, police said. Several of the victim’s family members, who also lived at the complex, rushed at him as he was being detained by police.
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January 16, 2009
Man gets 20 years for SE Austin manslaughter
A Travis County jury today sentenced a 22-year-old Southeast Austin drug dealer and father to 20 years in prison for the drug-related killing of his drug customer last year.
Humberto Zuniga was acquitted this week of murder but convicted of manslaughter in the September 2007 fatal shooting of Jesse Savage, 25.
Zuniga believed that Savage had stolen drugs from him and confronted him in the University Heights Apartments at 2101 Burton Drive, according to police.
Zuniga’s lawyer, Leonard Martinez, conceded that Zuniga had a gun and was angry about the drugs, but argued to the jury that the gun went off unintentionally during a struggle.
Murder is punishable by up to life in prison; 20 years is the maximum for manslaughter.
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January 15, 2009
Murder charge dismissed against man with baseball bat attacker
Travis County prosecutors have dismissed a murder charge against a man who had been accused of being an accomplice in the baseball bat killing of an Austin man in June 2007.
Prosecutors say they did not have enough evidence against Jose Luis Flores, 31, to try him for murder. Court documents filed last month say the dismissal is “pending further investigation.”
In November, a Travis County jury convicted 30-year-old Carlo Comparan in the killing of Michael Riojas and sentenced him to 60 years in prison.
Riojas, an art student in Los Angeles who was in Austin visiting his friends and family during a semester break, had been walking home from a bar on Interstate 35 near Howard Lane after 2 a.m. when Comparan attacked him at random, according to court documents and testimony at Comparan’s trial. Riojas died three months after the attack at the age of 27.
Flores testified against Comparan at the trial. He was granted “use immunity,” meaning that what he said from the witness stand could not be used against him at his own trial.
Prosecutor Karen Sage said the charge was not dismissed as a reward for the testimony.
“The evidence presented at the trial of Carlo Comparan did not implicate Flores in the murder of Michael Riojas,” Sage said. “At the time the state does not have any evidence to prove that Jose Flores actually participated in the assault that led to the death of Michael Riojas.”
Riojas’ case went cold until two months after he died, when Comparan’s girlfriend, Patricia Trevino, called police, according to a police affidavit.
She eventually told Travis County sheriff’s Detective Scott Crowe that she was with Comparan and his cousin Flores the night Riojas was attacked, according to the police affidavit.
Trevino told Crowe that after the trio left a pool hall that night, Comparan saw Riojas walking on the frontage road and pulled into a gas station, according to a police affidavit.
“We’re gonna drop him,” Trevino recalled Comparan saying in Spanish, according to the affidavit.
Comparan, armed with the bat, and Flores got out and walked toward Riojas, said Trevino, who said she soon heard the sound of the bat striking Riojas, the affidavit said.
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December 12, 2008
Teen gets life sentence in parking lot murder
An 18-year-old accused gang member will spend the rest of his life in prison after a Travis County jury late Thursday found him guilty of capital murder in a December 2007 killing at a North Austin apartment complex.
Terrell D. Maxwell, at right top, was one of three young men who set out to rob someone December 15, 2007 and in an apartment complex on Rutland Drive encountered Fernando Santander, 31, returning from an area nightclub, according to a police affidavit.
Maxwell shot Santander, at right bottom, in the head while Santander sat inside his white Ford van, leaving the Mexico City native who worked for a remodeling company slumped over the steering wheel, the affidavit said.
The jury reached its verdict after three days of testimony in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court. Maxwell was not eligible for the death penalty because of his age at the time of the offense so automatically received a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Capital murder charges are pending against Maxwell’s co-defendants — Michael Jamerson and Rashad Dukes.
Maxwell has a criminal record that includes theft, burglary, robbery and weapons possession that dates back to April 2004, when he was 13, according to court filings by prosecutors. In October 2004 he was in a gang-related fight at Dobie Middle School and was later suspended from Lanier High School for gang violence, prosecutor Amy Meredith wrote.
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December 1, 2008
Woman gets 25 years in Festival Beach murder
After pleading guilty today to murdering her former lover under the Interstate 35 bridge at Lady Bird Lake, a 46-year-old woman was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to prosecutor Beth Payan.
State District Judge Mike Lynch sentenced Mercedes Moza, a native of Honduras, according to the terms of a plea bargain she reached with prosecutors, Payan said.
Moza admitted to killing Jorge Avalos, who was found dead inside his pickup in the parking area near Festival Beach on March 16, 2000.
The investigation turned to Moza after police found an invoice addressed to her in Avalos’ truck, according to a police affidavit. Her estranged husband later told police that his .38-caliber handgun and some ammunition were missing and the bullets were later found to be the same kind used to kill Avalos, the affidavit said.
Police later learned that just before the shooting, Moza told a friend that she had been having sex with Avalos in public places and that it made her feel used, the affidavit said.
In 2006, authorities arrested Moza in Virginia after tracking her through one of her children. Immigration authorities have placed a “hold” on Moza, which means that when she completes her sentence they will take her into their custody and likely initiate deportation proceedings or a criminal immigration case.
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November 21, 2008
Man gets 60 years for baseball bat murder
A Travis County jury has sentenced Carlo Comparan to 60 years in prison for murder in the June 2007 baseball bat attack of a man who was walking home from a bar on the Interstate 35 frontage road.
Michael Riojas, an art student who was in Austin visiting his friends and family during a semester break, died three months after the attack at the age of 27. Riojas had been walking home from a bar on the highway near Howard Lane after 2 a.m. when Comparan, 30, and another man attacked him at random, according to court documents and testimony at Comparan’s trial this week in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court.
Comparan’s lawyer’s suggested that his co-defendant, Jose Flores, caused the injuries that killed Riojas. A murder charge against Flores, who testified against Comparan, is pending.
In October 2007, four months after the attack, Comparan’s girlfriend approached police about the attack and eventually led them to Comparan.
Comparan will be eligible for parole after serving half his sentence.
Read more about his trial here.
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November 20, 2008
Man guilty of murder in random baseball bat attack
UPDATE: A Travis County jury has found Carlo Ramon Comparan guilty of murder in the June 2007 baseball bat attack of Michael Riojas, state District Judge Julie Kocurek said. The jury deliberated for about four hours. The sentencing phase of the trial will begin this afternoon, Kocurek said. Comparan, 30, faces up to life in prison.
EARLIER:
A Travis County jury began deliberating this morning in the murder case of Carlo Ramon Comparan, accused of randomly attacking a man with a baseball bat as the man walked home from a bar last year.
Michael Riojas, 27, suffered serious brain injury in the June 20, 2007, attack and died of complications from his injury about three months later.
Comparan, 30, pleaded not guilty during the trial in state District Judge Julie Kocurek’s court. His lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, suggested to the jury that a co-defendant, Jose Flores, caused the injuries that killed Riojas.
But prosecutors told the jury the evidence is clear that it was Comparan who used a wooden Louisville Slugger bat to hit Riojas while he walked on the Interstate 35 frontage road. With little physical evidence tying Comparan to the killing, their case was based on the statements of two people with Comparan that night — Flores and Camparan’s girlfriend, Patricia Trevino.
Riojas spent the night drinking with friends at Merkaba Lounge & Grill, on the I-35 south frontage between Wells Branch Parkway and Howard Lane, according to court documents.
He left the bar when it closed about 2 a.m. and while walking to his father’s house nearby he called his girlfriend in California, a police affidavit said.
During that conversation, Riojas’ girlfriend, Shelby Kirby, said she told Riojas that she was afraid that he was alone, prosecutor Karen Sage said during closing arguments.
“Michael tells Shelby … ‘I am not alone,’” Sage recalled. “’There is somebody right there.”
Then, according to Sage, Riojas then said something like “Good day to you, sir.”
At that point Comparan attacked Riojas with the bat, Sage argued.
She noted that Flores, 31, testified he saw one swing. Later, Sage noted, Comparan told Flores that he hit Riojas twice. Flores testified that Comparan was high on cocaine at the time.
At about 7:30 a.m., employees of a nearby business — Andy Howard’s Pest Control — found Riojas. He had removed his T-shirt and used it in an attempt to stop the bleeding from the back of his head.
Flores is also charged with murder but under a deal with prosecutors, his testimony during Comparan’s trial may not be used at his own trial.
The case was cold until October 2007, a month after Riojas died, when Trevino called 311 and reported to have information on Riojas’ death. She eventually told Travis County Sheriff’s Office Detective Scott Crowe that she was with Comparan, her boyfriend, and Flores the night Riojas was attacked, according to a police affidavit.
Trevino told Crowe that after the trio left a pool hall that night, Comparan pulled into a Valero gas station after seeing Riojas walking on the frontage road, according to a police affidavit.
Comparan, who had a baseball bat, and Flores got out and walked towards Riojas, said Trevino, who soon heard Comparan and Flores yelling at Riojas and then heard the sound of a bat striking Riojas, the affidavit said.
Trevino told Crowe that during the drive to Flores’ house after the attack, Comparan stated that he hit Riojas with a bat and then Comparan broke Riojas’ cell phone and threw it out the window.
Trevino was called to testify but told the jury she did not recall much from that night. The jury, though, learned of her previous statements.
During closing arguments, Sage said that taking Riojas’ phone sealed his fate, noting medical testimony that his injury may not have been fatal if medical aide was immediately administered.
“He could have pressed redial and asked Shelby to call 911,” Sage said. “And there would have been an ambulance there in a minute. “
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October 31, 2008
Northwest Travis man gets 43 years in wife's murder
A jury today sentenced Ralph Waylan Langley to 43 years in prison for the February murder of his estranged wife at her home near Leander in Northwest Travis County.
The same jury on Thursday had found Langley guilty of killing Lori Langley in her home on Joyce Drive.
Travis County District Attorney’s office trial chief Buddy Meyer said the prison term corresponds with the age of Lori Langley, 43, who died after she was shot once in the head and once in the side on Feb. 1.
The couple’s son, who was 19 at the time and lived with his father, told investigators that his father left after arguing with his mother on the telephone and saying “that he was going to kill his mother,” according to a police affidavit.
Ralph Langley, at right, returned 15 minutes later with a pistol and said he had done it, according to the affidavit.
Joyce Drive, where Lori Langley lived, is about 1 1/2 miles from Juniper Trail, where Ralph Langley lived with the couple’s son. Both are near where Travis County meets Burnet and Williamson counties.
After he returned to his home Langley called sheriff’s deputies and reported the shooting, the affidavit said. Langley said during the 911 call that he shot his wife with a 9 mm pistol which was later found in his home, the affidavit said.
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October 13, 2008
Busy month ahead for Travis County courts
It’s Columbus Day and the U.S. district judges in Austin have closed the federal courthouse on Eighth Street for the day but it is business as usual in county and state courts in Austin.
This is a busy time of year for the felony criminal dockets, as judges try to set major cases for trial before the winter holidays.
A quick Travis County docket review shows that five murder cases are set for trial in the next month — and that does not include what will be a high-profile manslaughter trial of Kurtiss Colvin set for jury selection Thursday and opening arguments in a week.
Colvin, a 22-year-old boxer and former McCallum High School track star shown at right, is accused of striking 40-year-old house painter David Morales in the head on June 19, 2007, and recklessly causing his death.
The incident happened at the Booker T. Washington housing complex in East Austin during the city’s Juneteenth celebration. Witnesses said that Morales was killed after he rushed to the defense of his co-worker Victor Medel, who struck a young boy with his car.
The Colvin case is set for jury selection in state District Judge Wilford Flowers’ 147th district court Thursday. Opening statements will begin Oct. 20.
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October 10, 2008
Homicide detectives criticize prosecutors' handling of capital murder cases
A day after a murder victim’s family members got physically hostile in court when a plea bargain sentence of 25 years was announced for her killer, an Austin homicide detective and sergeant say they, like the family, are upset with prosecutors’ handling of the case.
Homicide Sgt. Hector Reveles and Detective Richard Faithful are unhappy that prosecutors did not seek a longer prison term and did not tell them about the plea bargain offers to Larry Alexander and a co-defendant before they were made, as is customary.
“We could have gotten so much more on this guy and he deserved a whole lot more,” Reveles said. “Any time you reach into a car and try to grab someone’s purse for money and they resist and you shoot them and kill them, it really deserves so much more time.”
Alexander, 22, pleaded guilty to murder in the July 2007 fatal shooting of 21-year-old Priscilla Calderon in the parking lot of an East Riverside area apartment complex. A co-defendant, 25-year-old Paul Villareal, last week pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in exchange for a 17-year sentence.
Prosecutor Bill Bishop said he regrets that he did not contact detectives prior to making the deals. But he said he is confident the deals were appropriate given the evidence and prosecutors’ experience with jury verdicts in similar cases.
Faithful, the lead detective, said he learned during his investigation that Calderon had asked Villareal, whom he described as a family friend, to sell her some cocaine that Calderon would then re-sell at a profit. Villareal then recruited Alexander, who he knew from time they had previously spent together in the Travis County Jail, to rip Calderon off by selling her fake cocaine, Faithful said.
On July 18, 2007, when Alexander met Calderon and a car full of her friends at the Wal-Mart on Ben White Boulevard, she realized the cocaine was fake and called off the deal, Faithful said. But Alexander, at VIllareal’s suggestion, followed Calderon and her friends to the Longhorn Station Apartments on Willow Creek Drive and approached the car while Calderon was waiting inside with a friend, Faithful said.
Alexander had a gun and demanded Calderon’s purse, Faithful said. When she refused to give it to him, Alexander opened her door and tried to take the purse, assuming that the drug-buy money was inside, Faithful said. Then Calderon started to hit Alexander, Faithful said.
“Basically Larry was getting his butt kicked,” Faithful said. “He got (angry) and backed up and shot her. “
Alexander and Villareal were initially charged with capital murder for killing someone intentionally during a robbery, a charge punishable by either life in prison or the death penalty.
“The suspect just simply tried to grab her purse and when she resisted he shot and killed her,” Reveles said. “That by state law is clearly capital murder. This was a strong case, this was not a weak case.”
Bishop, though, said that there was evidence that the two were struggling over the gun when it went off. That would make it difficult to prove that Alexander acted intentionally in killing Calderon, he said.
Under a life sentence for capital murder, a defendant is eligible for parole after serving 40 years. Alexander and Villareal will be eligible for parole after serving half of their sentences — 12 1/2 and 8 1/2 years respectively.
Bishop said Thursday that he anticipated that a jury weighing the case would likely have factored in that Calderon put herself in the situation by setting up a drug deal, and that might have precluded a capital murder guilty verdict and led to a sentence lighter than the maximum for murder.
Bishop said that Calderon’s family stopped communicating with prosecutors this year when prosecutors informed them they would not seek the death penalty in the case.
When prosecutors’ plea bargain offer of 25 years was announced in state District Judge Wilford Flowers’ court Thursday, some of the 25 to 30 members of Calderon’s family started yelling and at least two tried to get past the courtroom rail towards the judge’s bench, according to lawyers in the case.
Sheriff’s deputies, who provide courthouse security, used pepper spray to clear the room and physically restrained several family members. Some of them were wearing shirts that said “R.I.P. Miss Troubles,” which was Calderon’s nickname, said defense lawyer Bill Hines.
Julia Calderon, 19, and Santos Calderon, 23, were arrested for hindering a courtroom proceeding by disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Their relation to the victim is unclear.
Reveles said that while homicide detectives and prosecutors have sometimes disagreed about cases over the years, “this is not an ongoing pattern.”
District Attorney’s Office Trial Chief Buddy Meyer said: “We have a good working relationship with the police and the homicide detectives. That’s important to us. I’ve talked to Hector (Reveles) about this and we are going to continue working with them as we have over the years and have an open discussion.”
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October 9, 2008
Two arrested, pepper spray deployed in courtroom
Chaos broke out in a Travis County courtroom today as family members of a murder victim tried to push past the bar and towards the judge’s bench, possibly unhappy with the sentence reached under a plea bargain in the case, according to prosecutor Bill Bishop.
Travis County sheriff’s deputies, who provide courtroom security, used pepper spray during the melee in the 147th District Court that Bishop estimated lasted about five minutes. A sheriff’s office spokesman said two people were arrested for hindering a courtroom proceeding by disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
It happened just as state District Judge Wilford Flowers was sentencing defendant Larry Alexander to 25 years in prison. Earlier in the hearing, Alexander, 22, pleaded guilty to murder in the July 2007 fatal shooting of 21-year-old Priscilla Calderon. The shooting happened last year during a drug deal gone bad in the parking lot of the Longhorn Station Apartments near East Riverside Drive, according to court documents and Bishop.
Bishop said that Alexander shot Calderon while trying to rob her. Another man, who was in on the robbery but was not present during the shooting, Paul Villareal, 25, pleaded guilty last week to aggravated robbery and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Alexander and Villareal were originally charged with capital murder. Bishop said that Calderon’s family was unhappy this year when he informed them that District Attorney Ronnie Earle had decided to waive the death penalty.
Bishop said he explained that juries have traditionally been hesitant to convict someone of capital murder in similar cases. Capital murder is punishable by death or life in prison without parole.
“It (the plea bargain) does not condone the behavior, but certainly she (Calderon) put herself in a place that she should not have been in,” Bishop said.
After the meeting, Bishop said, Calderon’s family stopped communicating with prosecutors, who continued to leave case updates on a family member’s voicemail.
About 25 members of Calderon’s family were in court Thursday, Bishop said.
“There was a lot of yelling coming from many of the people,” Bishop said. “I only saw two or three who were actually were trying to physically get past the bar.”
Roger Wade, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said that Julia Calderon, 19, and Santos Calderon, 23, were arrested. He did not know their relation to the victim.
“We try to take into consideration everybody’s feelings. We understand that emotions run high in the victims’ family as well as the defendant’s family in these sentencing hearings,” he said. “When they make the first move to try to cause harm against someone in the courtroom, we need to take action, and that’s what we did.”
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September 30, 2008
Trial averted in 1993 kitchen knife murder
A man pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to eight years in prison this month in the 1993 kitchen knife stabbing of his East Austin housemate.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that they struck the deal with Bobby Lewis Ingram — who had been scheduled to go to trial this week — because two key witnesses have died and they were afraid DNA evidence would have been questioned. The sentence is much shorter than the decades in prison most murder defendants receive in Travis County.
Ingram, now 63, was renting a room from James Ernest Hamilton in a house on East 11th Street when he called police there on Sept. 4, 1993, according to a police affidavit.
Police found Hamilton dead in his bedroom with a large kitchen knife sticking out of his chest, the affidavit said. Ingram told police that he had been out the night before and returned home to find Hamilton dead, the affidavit said.
While details of Ingram’s story about the night before changed while he was talking to police and was contradicted by an acquaintance, police did not charge Ingram in 1993.
In 1996, a woman told police that Ingram employed her as a prostitute on the morning Hamilton was killed, the affidavit said. The woman, Eva Samilpa, said that at one point Ingram left his bedroom and went to ask Hamilton for $40 to pay her fee, the affidavit said. At that point, Samilpa found a large kitchen knife under Ingram’s pillow, the affidavit said. When Ingram returned to the room, he told Samilpa to leave, the affidavit said.
Samilpa is now dead, said prosecutor Amy Casner. Casner said another witness who was with Ingram the morning Hamilton was killed also is dead. Finally, she said, prosecutors were concerned that Hamilton could raise reasonable doubt about why Ingram’s DNA was found under Hamilton’s fingernails.
Casner said that prosecutors believe the DNA — which was identified in 2005, a year before Ingram was charged with murder — came during a struggle between the two men, before Ingram killed Hamilton.
But because the men lived together, Casner said she was afraid prosecutors could not disprove that the DNA did get on Hamilton’s fingernails a different way.
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August 28, 2008
Man guilty of murder in '07 killing
A Travis County jury this morning convicted a 33-year-old man of murdering his neighbor during a fight at a North Austin apartment complex last year.
With the verdict, the jury rejected Carlos Molina’s contention that he acted in self-defense when he fatally stabbed 30-year-old Daniel Delira.
The jury began deliberating Molina’s sentence this afternoon. Prosecutors asked for a sentence between 40 and 50 years. Molina’s lawyer, Carlos Barrera, asked the jury for a sentence under 20 years.
“This is a tragedy that happened and it happened very quickly,” Molina told the jury. “He did not mean to kill that man. … He did not want to kill that man.”
Visiting state District Judge Fred Moore told the jury that if they find the killing happened under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, then they should sentence Molina from two to 20 years. If they don’t, then the jury could sentence Molina from five to 99 years in prison, or life.
According to lawyers, both men were intoxicated when the incident occurred.
Barrera said that Molina is a native of Guatemala. Prosecutor Steven Brand said that Delira was from Mexico and had worked for years at a radiator repair shop.
The stabbing occurred Aug. 5, 2007, at the Wildflower apartment complex at 8912 N. Lamar Blvd.
According to a police affidavit, witnesses said they saw Molina fighting with Delira on the bottom floor of the complex. Molina went to his apartment, returned with a kitchen knife and then stabbed Delira, according to the affidavit.
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August 26, 2008
Sandra Bullock not chosen for Travis murder trial jury
Sandra Bullock played a fiery liberal law student who assisted the defense in the murder case at the center of the 1996 feature movie “A Time to Kill.”
On Monday the part-time Austinite had a chance to serve on a jury in a real murder case in Travis County when she was called to the downtown Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center for jury duty.
Bullock, 44, was not chosen to hear the murder trial of Carlos Molina, which got underway with opening statements today. The state utilized one of its peremptory challenges to keep Bullock from the jury. Each side is allotted a certain number of such strikes and may use them to eliminate potential jurors for any reason, with the exception of race or gender.
Prosecutor Steven Brand declined to talk about why Bullock was not chosen. He said he was worried that speaking about such matters during the trial could taint the jury.
Brand did say that the millionaire movie star did not try to dodge jury service and actively participated in jury selection.
“She gave smart, intelligent responses,” to lawyers’ questions, Brand said. “
Molina, 33, is accused of fatally stabbing Daniel Delira, 30, last year at the Wildflower Apartments in North Austin.
Witnesses told police that they saw Molina fighting with Delira on the bottom floor of the complex, according to a police affidavit. Molina went to his apartment, returned with a kitchen knife and then stabbed Delira, the affidavit said.
This was not Bullock’s first interaction with the justice system in Travis County. In 2004, a jury awarded the actress an estimated $7 million in a lawsuit against local homebuilder Benny Daneshjou, whom Bullock accused of shoddy construction while building her a home overlooking Lake Austin.
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June 25, 2008
Baird gives murder defendant max - 20 years
State District Judge Charlie Baird late Tuesday sentenced an Austin man to 20 years in prison for a 2006 murder in North Austin, the maximum sentenced possible under a plea agreement.
Michael Elijae Robinson last week pleaded guilty to murdering Riley Stevenson on Christmas Eve 2006, but struck an agreement with prosecutors stipulating that the killing happened under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from adequate cause. That knocked the crime down from a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison to a second-degree felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years. The exact sentence was left up to Baird under the deal.
Robinson was 21 when he shot Stevenson, 23, in a breezeway at the Quail Ridge Apartments near Interstate 35 and Wells Branch Parkway, according to a police affidavit.
The affidavit said the men argued over Robinson’s girlfriend, who told police that Stevenson had lunged at her, then punched Robinson three times before Robinson shot him.
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June 23, 2008
Murder sentencing hearing expected to take days
A sentencing hearing began Monday in the Travis County murder case of Michael Robinson, who on Friday admitted that he committed murder in a Christmas Eve 2006 confrontation over a woman.
Robinson was 21 when he shot Riley Stevenson, 23, in a breezeway at the Quail Ridge Apartments near Interstate 35 and Wells Branch Parkway in North Austin, according to a police affidavit.
The affidavit said the men argued over Robinson’s girlfriend, who told police that Stevenson had lunged at her, then punched Robinson three times before Robinson shot him.
Robinson had been scheduled for a jury trial but struck a deal with prosecutors Friday. Under that deal, Robinson admitted to committing murder under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from adequate cause, according to state District Judge Charlie Baird. Murder is a first-degree felony in Texas punishable by up to life in prison but when it occurs under the influence of sudden passion, the charge is knocked down to a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.
Baird said in an email that the sentencing hearing could last until Wednesday. The length comes because prosecutors, despite the plea, are presenting much of their case to Baird, including mundane testimony about evidence gathered at the scene.
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June 18, 2008
Man gets 40 years for fatally stabbing Austin mother at homeless camp
A homeless man who fatally stabbed a woman at an East Riverside drive transient camp last year was sentenced to 40 years in prison Wednesday by state District Judge Wilford Flowers.
The day before a Travis County jury convicted Roger Howard Andrews, a 57-year-old Vietnam War veteran, of murdering Tammy McCurley Simpson in a wooded area near Faro Drive on May 12, 2007.
“Her life was taken from her at 39-years-old,” Simpson’s 21-year-old daughter, Heather Compton, told Andrews after the verdict was read. “She was loved by many…I hate you for what you did.”
According to prosecutors and testimony, Simpson and Andrews had been drinking the day before with Brad Miller, another homeless man, and the trio retreated together to sleep at a camp in the woods.
Miller testifed that he passed out and the next day awoke and saw Simpson dead in his tent. Andrews was arrested later in the day and told police he killed Simpson. During his trial, Andrews testified he stabbed Simpson after she threatened Miller with a bottle, said Andrews’s lawyer John Butler.
Outside court Tuesday Miller recalled Simpson as a sweet woman with a drug addiction. He said that Andrews, who he has known for decades, would act unpredictably at times and sometimes get violent. Simpson and Andrews had bad blood, Miller said, but appeared to be getting along the day she was stabbed.
Simpson’s family said she has always been a ”free spirit” and was homeless by choice. Her daughter, who said Simpson had three children ages 19 to 23, said she saw her mother often.
Simpson’s brother, Brian McCurley, said he had tried to take his sister in a few years ago but she resisted. They worried about her every day, they said.
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June 17, 2008
Trial in homeless camp killing opens
At the start of a Travis County murder trial this morning a prosecutor and defense lawyer agreed: Roger Howard Andrews fatally stabbed a woman at a homeless persons’ camp off East Riverside Drive last year.
Defense lawyer John Butler said Andrews will “tell you what he did.” But Butler told the jury that he does not believe the jury will hear evidence that “he intended her to die or that he did what he did knowing it would cause her death,” as charged in the indictment. Butler said during a break that Howard contends he stabbed Tammy McCurley Simpson to keep her from attacking another homeless man, who had been sleeping.
The trial is expected to last only a few days.
Prosecutor Bill Bishop said that Andrews, 57, stabbed Simpson, 39, in the woods south of East Riverside near Faro Drive on May 12, 2007. The two, who were homeless, had been drinking with Brad Miller, another homeless man, the night before. They retreated together to sleep at a camp in the woods, he said. The next morning, the Miller awoke to hear “Simpson dying” and Andrews leaving the scene, Bishop said.
Bishop said Simpson died of a stab wound to the upper chest/neck area. Andrews, who was arrested hours after Simpson’s body was found, said in a written statement that he killed Simpson, Bishop said.
Murder is a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.
Butler said that Andrews is a veteran of the Vietnam War who has been homeless for decades.
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