Oct. 3
TEXAS:
MAN FOUND VICTIMS ON FATEFUL MORNING
Standing in the spot where he found 4 bodies on a rural Rusk County oil
lease, Arthur Warlick recounted the day he made the gruesome discovery and
expressed sadness that the Kentucky Fried Chicken murders of 1983 remain
unsolved.
Warlick, an oil field pumper for Henderson Clay Oil and Gas Division at
the time, had gone to the location on Walter King Road to check gauges on
an oil tank the company had there.
What he saw as he went into the gate on the isolated property on that
September morning would live with him forever.
"I went out there that Saturday morning to read the measurements and as I
opened the gate, I noticed the people laying in the road. I thought it was
strange, so I drove in a little more and then that is when I knew they
were dead," he said. "They were all dead."
Warlick said he had not heard about the robbery or kidnapping of the 5
people from the KFC eatery in Kilgore the night before and was not
expecting to find the bodies of murder victims when he went to work.
THE MURDERS
On Sept. 23, 1983, unknown suspects made their way into the Kentucky Fried
Chicken restaurant in Kilgore and abducted 5 people.
The suspects then took the five to the rural oil field on Walter King
Road, where they were shot in the head and left for dead.
Warlick discovered the bodies the next day.
Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; David Maxwell, 20;
and Monte Landers, 19, were found shot to death. All five victims were
shot at least twice, execution-style.
The Kilgore Police Department, the Rusk County Sheriff's Office, Gregg
County Sheriff's Office, FBI, Tyler Police Department crime unit, Texas
Department of Public Safety troopers and Texas Rangers all joined in the
investigation, scouring the murder scene and the restaurant for clues.
However, Warlick told the Tyler-Courier-Times--Telegraph in an exclusive
interview Thursday that no members of law enforcement ever interviewed
him.
"When I saw the bodies, I called my supervisor who in turn called the
authorities. I waited until they (officers) arrived on the scene," he
said.
Standing in the drive where four of the bodies were found, Warlick said,
pointing across the road to a large pasture, "Television helicopters were
landing over there and people was walking up and down the road from
everywhere," he said.
The spot Warlick indicated the bodies were found is less than 75 yards
from the blacktop road and in plain view.
He said he has been bothered over the years that no one ever questioned
him about finding the bodies.
"If I was a police officer and you found 5 bodies, then you best believe
that you would be in my office for hours for questioning. I can't believe
they (law enforcement) have never asked me any questions about how I found
them," he said.
Warlick said it was a co-worker who found the 5th victim lying right next
to one of their pickups.
"I didn't find all the bodies that day. A guy I worked with was standing
right here talking to me and looked over and said, 'Oh God, there's
another body,'" he said.
Warlick said that he was expecting to be questioned, but thought it
strange when a Texas Ranger asked a Rusk County sheriff's deputy to just
get his name, phone number and address so Warlick could leave the scene.
2 DECADES LATER
More than 20 years later, Warlick said that going back to the location is
as though time has stood still.
"It's just like it happened yesterday. I can remember it all real clear,
but then how do you forget something like that.
He described the September morning like that of the day of the interview,
a bright, sunny day.
"I haven't been out here in more than 10 years, but I'll never forget what
I saw that day. That house (a new home on the property, which sits less
than 50 yards from where the bodies were found) wasn't there of course,
but everything else is the same. The grass was like it is today. It is
really not that different of a day," he said.
As the shadow of his grizzled cowboy appearance fell over where the bodies
had once lain, Warlick said he felt a spirit of sadness and could not help
thinking how he wished the murders would be solved and someone convicted.
"I just don't understand it. I have always tried to do good and be
straightforward. How could someone do something like this?" he said.
THE CASE NOW
The offices of the Rusk County district attorney and the Texas attorney
general are currently investigating the murders, and grand juries have
heard testimony from those close to the case in the past year.
George Kieny, a former FBI special agent and current Rusk County sheriff's
investigator, has said several suspects have been linked to the crime
scene through DNA and he feels there is enough evidence for indictments,
but prosecutors feel differently and say they are moving with caution.
Warlick said that over the years he has followed the case in newspapers
and on television, and is not surprised it hasn't been solved.
"Well, no one ever talked to me, and I found the bodies. So am I surprised
the case hasn't been solved? No, I am not," he said. "But I do wish they
would solve it, because those families need closure. The victims need
justice."
(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)
********************
Why isn't court's future a campaign issue?
They range in age from 56 to 84. They enjoy lifetime employment. They've
been together longer than any court since 1823. They helped decide the
2000 presidential election.
Still, the future of the U.S. Supreme Court - and the federal judicial
system it represents - hasn't forced more than a whisper in this year's
campaign for the White House.
The next Supreme Court appointments, whether by Republican or Democrat,
are likely to set the course of the court for the next 40 years. And the
absence of debate on that subject has both liberals and conservatives
scratching their heads.
"The Supreme Court is the last active arena where the Democrats have a
shot at maintaining power," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans
for Tax Reform, a conservative lobbying group. "I'm amazed that they
haven't made it a large part of the debate."
Bill Clinton appointed Stephen G. Breyer to the court 10 years ago, the
longest gap between appointments since the James Monroe administration.
And although the eldest justices - Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor
and Chief Justice William Rehnquist - show no signs of leaving, the slim
margins in recent court decisions regarding affirmative action, the death
penalty and the decriminalization of sodomy suggest that only 1 or 2
Supreme Court appointments could tip the court to the right or to the left
for decades.
"I don't think there is any question that the court will be changed in the
next 4 years by 2 or 3 new appointees," said Bruce Fein, former head of
legal policy in the Reagan administration. "And why the presidential
candidates have marginalized it is beyond me."
Peter Montgomery, a spokesman for the People for the American Way, a
lobbying group for liberal causes, says serious concerns about national
security and the war on terrorism have absorbed much of the public
attention to the presidential election.
"There hasn't been a lot of time left over to spend on an issue like the
court," Mr. Montgomery said.
John Podesta, president of the liberal-leaning Center for American
Progress, thinks the prospect of Supreme Court appointments is an issue
that moves religious conservatives.
Because of court influence on such issues as school prayer and gay
marriage, influential religious leaders are urging their congregations to
vote accordingly.
Court appointments are "an issue that's being exploited under the radar in
telephone and direct mail campaigns. People are being told that the courts
are going to ban the Bible if they don't vote," Mr. Podesta said.
Mr. Montgomery agrees. His group has launched a campaign to address the
issue for progressive voters.
"We want them to understand that with 4 more years, the policies of this
administration could be enshrined long after this president is out of
office."
Besides the U.S. Supreme Court, the president is also responsible for
filling the more than 860 federal judgeships as vacancies arise. During
his 2-term presidency, Bill Clinton appointed 352 federal judges. George
W. Bush already has appointed 201 federal judges, more than one of every
five sitting federal judges.
Both sides agree that voters are sometimes slow to understand what is at
stake, regarding issues ranging from property rights to abortion.
"When we have a chance to talk to people about it, and explain what 2, 3
or 4 appointments could mean to basic liberties, people start to
understand how they can be directly affected," said Mr. Montgomery.
"The small businessmen I deal with aren't very focused on issues like the
court," said Mr. Norquist. "But this isn't just about gay rights or
abortion. When they realize that a federal court can take away their back
yard without paying for it, that tends to get their attention."
(source: Dallas Morning News, Sunday Reader)
USA:
Court to weigh teen death penalty
Christopher Simmons kidnapped Shirley Crooks from her Missouri home, bound
her like an animal and drove her to a railroad trestle where he tossed her
over the side to drown in the river below.
For proponents of capital punishment, it's the kind of crime that has
death penalty written all over it. But because Simmons was 17 when he
killed Crooks in 1993, his case has become the nexus for a debate over
executing those who committed their crimes when they were juveniles.
Simmons' case offers the Supreme Court its greatest chance to make a
strong social statement in the 2004-05 term, which begins Monday.
It's a term in which the court is scheduled to wade into squabbles over
such issues as medical marijuana, wine shipments across state lines, and
enforced racial segregation in the nation's prisons.
Before the term ends in July, the justices could decide to settle
arguments over Ten Commandments monuments on public property and the
congressional ban on so-called partial-birth abortion.
The court will begin the term by hearing 2 cases Monday that will clear up
whether a ruling last spring might require the complex federal sentencing
guidelines to be rewritten.
But the Simmons murder case has attracted international attention, with 48
nations and more than a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners filing briefs to
persuade the Supreme Court to eliminate juvenile executions. The case has
captured the imagination of advocacy groups that have worked for years to
scale back the death penalty, as well as prosecutors who fear too many
exceptions are being made to spare violent criminals from death.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruling that wiped out Simmons' death-row
sentence and compared executing juveniles to killing the mentally retarded
will either be seen as bold foreshadowing or activist overstepping.
The high court's decision will reflect, to a large extent, whether the
justices see enough of a societal shift in thinking about capital
punishment to justify adding juveniles to the list of death-penalty
untouchables.
"We don't let (young teens) sit on juries, sign up for military service or
even get tattoos in most states because we don't trust their capacity to
make decisions and we don't trust their judgment," said Marsha Levick,
whose Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia filed a brief supporting
Simmons. "It's incongruous that we put them to death."
Kevin Newsom, Alabama's solicitor general, filed a brief on behalf of six
states that want to preserve the ability to execute older teens. "There
are some 16- or 17-year-olds who can fully appreciate their actions and
their consequences, and states ought to be able to decide for themselves
whether to execute them," he said.
(source: Knight-Ridder News)
*********************
Supreme Court set to clarify confusing opinions
At the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court left for vacation, but left a
little baggage behind. While the justices have been summering, courts and
prosecutors have been simmering over a 5-4 decision that may - or may not
- have ended a 20-year effort to standardize sentencing for federal
crimes. And on Monday, the 1st day of their new term, the justices will
try to clarify their own opinions in Blakely vs. Washington, with an
extraordinary 2-hour afternoon session in addition to their usual morning
work.
The most anticipated argument this session is likely to be a death penalty
case out of Missouri that could result in a ban on executing criminals for
crimes they committed as juveniles. But many legal experts feel that
Monday's arguments on the effects of the Blakely decision may be the most
far-reaching since the 2000 case, Bush vs. Gore.
Although Blakely involved a state kidnapping case in rural Washington,
effects of the unheralded sentencing decision have reverberated through
the federal system.
"I think it's fair to say that it's a tsunami," said Craig Margolis, a
former federal prosecutor now in private practice at Vinson & Elkins.
"It's very possible that 2 decades of sentencing law and sentencing reform
are out the window."
Federal sentencing guidelines were established by Congress in 1984 and
implemented three years later. They've come to involve complicated
formulas that add or remove months from a potential sentence for such
factors as the seriousness of the crime or the demeanor of the defendant.
Bipartisan support
As such, they've attracted the support of conservatives who wanted to make
sentences tougher and liberals who sought relief from judges who dished
out seemingly arbitrary sentences.
"The job of guidelines is to take out the disparity, so sentences wouldn't
vary because of the gender of the defendant or what side of the bed the
judge got out of that morning or what he had for lunch - the really
unfair, disparate sentences," said Susan Klein, a professor at the
University of Texas School of Law.
The guidelines, however, have been less popular with judges themselves,
who see guidelines as an infringement on their judicial responsibilities.
Some complain that the guidelines, which are conceived and implemented by
the 7-member U.S. Sentencing Commission, have become a tool for
congressional micromanagement of the courts.
For instance, its 100 employee staff has been asked by Congress on
occasion to monitor individual judges and their adherence to the
guidelines.
But based on the Blakely decision, at least two federal appeals circuits
have declared federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional - meaning
they cannot be used in those circuits.
At least one circuit has instructed its courts to issue 2 different
sentences - one under the guidelines, another without.
The U.S. 5th Circuit - it includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi - has
decided to proceed as though the guidelines will remain in place.
Ms. Klein thinks there is a slim chance that will happen: "It's very
difficult to distinguish the guidelines for the state of Washington from
the federal guidelines."
"Whether that is good or not, depends on your value system," said
Professor Klein.
"If you have a real faith in the fairness of judges, I guess you'd think
that this is a good thing. I may be in the minority, but I happen to think
not."
The Miller-El case
The Blakely question is only one of the unresolved issues the Supreme
Court has agreed to revisit in coming months.
Among the 49 cases already accepted for argument, for instance, are
several death-penalty cases in which the court will try to clarify earlier
opinions regarding attorney competence, the racial composition of juries
and the appropriateness of execution for juvenile crime.
In a Dallas case already reviewed once by the high court, the justices
will review the 5th Circuit's rejection of claims by convicted killer
Thomas Miller-El that his death sentence was tainted by the fact that no
blacks were allowed to sit on his jury.
2 years ago, the justices roundly criticized the appeals court for not
considering a documented history of bias against minority jurors in Dallas
as part of Mr. Miller-El's claim. This case reviews the substance of Mr.
Miller-El's appeal (Miller-El v. Dretke, Dec. 6).
The court also will consider the claim of Joe Elton Nixon, who was
convicted of murdering Jeanne Bickner in 1984. Facing substantial evidence
against him, his lawyer scrapped any claims of innocence to focus on
saving his life - first with an offer to plea bargain for life
imprisonment, which prosecutors declined; then by conceding guilt at
trial, hoping to gain jury sympathy.
After being convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Nixon claimed that his
lawyer, in effect, pleaded him guilty without his consent. The Florida
Supreme Court agreed. And the high court now hopes to resolve the gray
line between ineffective defense strategy and inadequate counsel (Florida
v. Nixon, Nov. 2).
The most closely watched death penalty case, however, will be that of
Christopher Simmons, who was 17 years old when he was arrested for the
murder of Shirley Cook.
Last year the Missouri Supreme Court set aside his death sentence for life
imprisonment, citing an evolving national consensus against execution for
juvenile crimes.
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the "evolving standards of
decency" they cited in a decision two years ago to ban the execution of
the mentally retarded extends, as well, to juveniles.
Right to counsel
As always, the court will focus much of its time refining its latest views
on the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.
In Kowalski vs. Tesmer, local lawyers are challenging a Michigan law that,
in effect, denies indigents the right to appointed counsel for an appeal
if they have pleaded guilty, for any reason, to the crime they are
contesting. They claim it violates the Fourteenth Amendment protections of
equal treatment and due process.
In a Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure case from Illinois, a convicted
drug dealer is challenging police use of a drug-sniffing dog following a
routine traffic stop on an interstate highway.
And in an unusual First Amendment case the court will try to decide
whether a government-sponsored television ad campaign ("Beef: It's what's
for dinner!") violates rights to free speech.
Where's the beef, of course?
In Veneman vs. Livestock Marketing, a group of domestic beef producers
have challenged the ads, which are paid for by government assessments on
beef cattle, because they don't distinguish between domestic and imported
beef products.
But in Johnson vs. Gomez the court will decide whether the practice of
segregating prison populations by race - a common practice meant to curb
gang-related violence - violates federal laws against racial
discrimination.
Ashcroft vs. Raich challenges the authority of the federal government to
regulate marijuana in states where its medicinal use is now legal.
And in Tenet vs. Doe, a foreign-born spy for the CIA is suing to regain
his spy-era stipend after losing his outside job.
And with barely half the full slate of an estimated 85 cases accepted, the
court has plenty of room for much-anticipated arguments involving campaign
finance, political gerrymandering and the war on terror.
(source: The Dallas Morning News, Sunday Reader)
ARIZONA:
How do false confessions occur?
Sometimes murder suspects give false confessions and go to prison or are
executed.
Other times, they are exonerated.
Either way, the average citizen is left wondering: How can those who are
innocent admit to crimes they didn't commit?
An answer emerges from the interrogation of Robert Louis Armstrong, a
51-year-old machinist who was charged with murder and targeted for lethal
injection by prosecutors.
After more than a year behind bars, Armstrong was released in August - his
admission of guilt contradicted by an alibi. But, as similar cases are
exposed nationwide by modern crime forensics, the impact reaches beyond a
few defendants. False confessions undermine America's justice system. They
allow real perpetrators to get away with murder, perhaps to kill again.
They squander tax dollars. They leave survivors with empty justice.
All of that happened in the Armstrong case.
According to a 167-page interview transcript, Armstrong didn't have a clue
why Maricopa County sheriff's deputies picked him up June 9, 2003.
He didn't know they were investigating a triple-homicide that occurred 5
years earlier.
He wasn't aware that they already had interviewed an acquaintance, Peggy
Sue Brown, who claimed Armstrong and her ex-boyfriend, David "Red" Majors,
were the killers.
He'd never met Ronald Hutchison, Dewey Peters and Crystal Allison -
victims who were gunned down as they drank beer and enjoyed a bonfire in
the Agua Fria River bottom of west Phoenix.
Armstrong made it clear he wanted to cooperate. Through 31 pages, he
blithely answered questions about his life, voluntarily disclosing his
problems with drugs and alcohol. Then detective Kim Seagraves announced
that witnesses and evidence placed Armstrong in the sandy river wash near
Camelback Road on Easter Sunday, 1998.
Armstrong said he had never been to the area and was with his mother in
Portland, Ore., that weekend.
"My investigation clearly shows beyond any reasonable doubt that you were
present when something bad happened," Seagraves said.
"I was? How?" Armstrong asked. " . . . I wasn't there, I swear to God I
wasn't there."
The alibi
Detectives claimed to have rental and work records disproving his alibi.
They said Armstrong's math was wrong - he must have been in Oregon a year
later - in 1999. They said he was in denial, repressing the horror and
guilt.
Seagraves: "Were you so under the influence that perhaps you don't
remember what happened?"
Armstrong: "That must be it...."
Seagraves: "OK, Well, let's start by this. Um, do you have blackouts?"
Armstrong: "Yeah."
Finally, Seagraves told Armstrong he was suspected in a homicide with
Majors.
"A murder?" Armstrong blurted. "He murdered someone when I was with him? I
don't think so. I would have known about that."
Seagraves produced photographs of the victims, who suffered grisly wounds.
"I'm a good citizen," Armstrong pleaded. "I haven't done anything wrong. I
don't go around killing people."
Detectives suggested that Majors was the evil one. Armstrong needed to
confess, they said, or Majors would put the blame on him.
They proposed a "truth verification" exam that would measure micro-tremors
in Armstrong's voice. He agreed to the test, then expressed shock when
detectives announced that he had flunked.
Detectives hammered away until Armstrong allowed that it was possible he
was involved. Then he began to cry. "I swear to God, I don't remember."
The tipster
Investigators had been led to Armstrong by a daisy-chain of events,
beginning with a Silent Witness call about a man named "Red" who mentioned
the killings while playing pool at a Phoenix bar.
Detectives couldn't find Majors, but they located his ex-girlfriend in
jail on a probation violation. Brown, 34, had a history of drug abuse and
was taking medication for bipolar disorder and manic depression.
A videotape of the interview shows that Brown initiated talk of gunplay,
and mentioned the Agua Fria River hangout, before Seagraves explained the
purpose of her questioning. When Seagraves asked, "Do you know what this
is about?" Brown answered, "I think I do. ... When the bodies were found."
She started weeping then asked, "How did you find me?"
Brown spilled her story amid sobs: She went to the riverbed with Armstrong
and Majors. They met some people. There was a dispute, gunfire.
Brown described one of the victims. She mentioned two firearms. She
explained why the killings occurred.
More than a year later, as Seagraves replays the video for a reporter, she
recalls being 100 percent convinced. Yet, somehow, the story fell apart.
Armstrong's defense team obtained Greyhound bus records showing he was in
Oregon during Easter 1998. Confronted with that evidence, Brown admitted
lying. Then she turned on the deputies, claiming in a sworn statement that
she was pressured into a false confession.
"I resisted as long as I could, but this last interrogation tactic,
wherein I became the murderer, scared me so badly that I was willing to
lie to save myself," the statement says. "I was told where it happened,
when it happened, how it happened, weapons involved, a very specific
description.
"I was actually taken to the scene of the homicides, a cross was pointed
out . . . and much other detail was provided to me."
Seagraves, now a sergeant, says Brown was videotaped before detectives
provided details of the crime. She is not apologetic about her work, but
admits bewilderment.
"This is a haunting case," Seagraves says. "As investigators, we want to
do the right thing. We don't want people to come in and give us false
information. ... Even if Peggy were to come clean at this moment, she's
lost all credibility. Did she guess correctly, or did she know?"
Dj vu?
The question has an eerie familiarity.
In 1992, 6 monks, 2 nuns and a helper were massacred at a Buddhist temple
amid the cotton fields west of Phoenix. Weeks into the probe, a young man
named Michael McGraw called police from a Tucson mental hospital to claim
that he and 5 buddies were guilty. Suspects were rounded up and
interrogated for hours. 4 of them confessed and were charged with murder.
In jail, the Tucson men retracted their admissions and claimed they were
coerced. Months passed before investigators ran ballistics tests on a
rifle seized from West Valley teenagers. It was the murder weapon. Search
warrants turned up loot from the temple. 2 local boys, Jonathon Doody and
Alex Garcia, admitted to the slayings.
The so-called Tucson Four were released. Attorney M.E. "Buddy" Rake, who
represented one of those men, now works for Armstrong. "It's kind of dj
vu," he says. "You could change the names and you'd pretty much have the
same case. ... Just an amazing coincidence. And a tragic one."
Phoenix attorney Larry Hammond, who also represented a temple murder
defendant in 1992, said there is one important difference today: Thanks to
DNA evidence, the legal world is aware that false confessions occur with
some frequency, and lead to wrongful convictions.
No one knows how often that happens. But researchers at the Death Penalty
Information Center say nearly one-quarter of all murder suspects
exonerated by genetic tests had confessed to police. And juries convict
defendants who make those admissions 73 percent of the time - even when
incriminating statements are withdrawn and rebutted by evidence.
Richard Ofshke, a University of California at Berkeley sociology professor
and expert witness, says false confessions are a function of psychology.
"Almost all the time, they are caused by police misconduct," he adds,
"where someone is made to believe that if they continue denying
responsibility they will receive the worst possible punishment."
Because the law allows detectives to lie during interrogations, Ofshke
says, they claim proof and witnesses that don't exist. Some suspects,
especially the mentally disabled, become so confused they believe they are
guilty. Others are convinced that they will be put to death or jailed for
life unless they "cooperate."
In the Buddhist temple case, Garcia eventually disclosed that he also
helped kill a woman near Lake Pleasant in 1991. That vindicated yet
another man who was in jail after giving a false confession, 47-year-old
George Peterson.
Peterson collected $1.2 million in damages from Maricopa County for his
false arrest. The Tucson Four got $2.8 million.
All of that occurred as then-Sheriff Tom Agnos was seeking re-election
against a challenger, Joe Arpaio, who criticized the temple murder probe
as "bizarre" and said it rated an F for being mishandled.
After Arpaio won the election, he apologized to the Tucson men and demoted
commanders who were blamed for the mess. "What happened was a sad day for
law enforcement, and we're going to move forward and I hope everyone
learns from it," he said at the time. "My philosophy is: I don't like
confessions.... Make sure you've got corroborating evidence before you
arrest somebody."
Arpaio says the Armstrong case is entirely different - "apples and
oranges" - because deputies had Peggy Sue Brown as an eyewitness.
Hammond disagreed, noting that Michael McGraw also was supposed to be an
eyewitness. "It's disappointing that really obvious lessons have not been
learned," he said.
'I deserve to die'
Most of the tactics used with Armstrong were standard. Seagraves and
Detective Travis Anglin made false claims, offered a hope for leniency,
pitted suspects against one another, employed fear.
"If we didn't make people uncomfortable, we'd never get the truth,"
Seagraves explains. " . . . I know the technique used has been very
successful."
By the end, Armstrong was so confused that he prayed God would help him
remember the crime. Anglin offered a series of scenarios, urging him to
envision the events.
Anglin: "Three people just died in your mind. Tell me what you saw."
Armstrong: "Mmm, what I just saw in my mind is me standing there and
(Majors) shootin' someone and, like you said, I just panicked and started
shootin' everything. And then (inaudible) I said, 'Oh, my God, what have I
done?'"
Anglin: "Which one did you shoot first . . . the boy or the girl?"
Armstrong: "Um, I thought it was a girl."
Anglin: "OK, then you shot the guy? Who did you shoot after the guy?"
Armstrong: (Inaudible.)
Anglin: "Watch it in your mind again, five or six seconds, play it all
over."
Armstrong struggled. Anglin prodded: "Then you shot the girl? If she got
shot last, that would be the way it went."
Armstrong: "Mmm Hhh."
Anglin: "OK. Now, this is the most important question . . . Are you sorry
that it happened?"
Armstrong (sobbing): "I'm sorry . . . I deserve to die."
Detectives demanded a description of the vehicles, the guns, how many
shots were fired. Armstrong had no answers. He said he was still confused.
He wanted a lawyer.
Seagraves said, "All right, um, Bob, you're being charged with, uh, 3
counts of 1st-degree murder. OK?"
Armstrong is free now.
Peggy Sue Brown faces felony counts for obstructing an investigation.
At the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Seagraves and a half-dozen other
deputies are pursuing new suspects: a secret band of West Valley toughs
known for beer bashes, bonfires and violence in the river bottom. No
arrests have been made.
(source: Arizona Republic)
