July 30 Idaho case echoes ex-Mainer's trial, execution News accounts of a child molester charged with killing a family in Idaho this month to have sex with their children is similar to a case involving a former Waterville man a decade ago. Earl C. Bramblett, who graduated from Waterville High School in 1961, was put to death in the electric chair in Virginia 2 years ago for similar crimes -- killing an entire family over sex with a little girl. Like Joseph Edward Duncan III, who was arrested July 2 in Idaho, Bramblett had a history of child molestation charges. And like Duncan, Bramblett kept a diary of his thoughts as fantasy built into bloody reality. Duncan, 42, was charged with kidnapping 8-year-old Shasta Groene and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho after killing their mother, her boyfriend and the children's older brother. Shasta told police that Duncan sexually assaulted her and Dylan. She said Duncan showed them the hammer he used to kill the rest of the family. Dylan's body was found July 4 in Montana. Duncan allegedly doused the boy with fuel in an attempt to burn the body. Shasta was found alive with Duncan two days later at a restaurant near her home. Duncan is being held without bond. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death. WATERVILLE MAN ACCUSED Bramblett was convicted of killing a family of 4 in Virginia in the early 1990s after his sexual obsession with a pre-adolescent girl was discovered by her parents. The victims were Blaine Hodges, 41; his wife Teresa, 37; Winter Hodges, 11; and Anah Hodges, 3. The family was murdered in their home in August 1994, after Bramblett was caught with Winter by her mother. Bramblett reportedly was afraid Blaine Hodges would tell police he had molested the girl. After killing the family, Bramblett poured gasoline inside the house and set it on fire. Duncan's victims also were murdered in their own home. Police charge that Duncan stalked them with night-vision binoculars after seeing Shasta in her bathing suit. Bramblett had set up his victims in a more devious way. They befriended him, and he moved in with them. ARREST AND APPEALS Bramblett was arrested in South Carolina in 1996 and returned to Virginia to face murder charges. While always maintaining his innocence, he was found guilty and sentenced to death in November 1997. His lawyers appealed the ruling, saying their client was mentally incompetent to stand trial and belonged in a psychiatric hospital, not on death row in a state prison. "There is only one question remaining," Terry Grimes, one of Bramblett's two court-appointed lawyers, told a Morning Sentinel reporter in 1999. "Do we execute the mentally ill in Roanoke County?" The Virginia Supreme Court later rejected all 13 points of Bramblett's appeal. An execution date was set for December 1998, but was delayed by more appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bramblett's final appeal as well as a requested stay of execution. He was put to death just after 9 p.m. April 9, 2003. Bramblett chose the electric chair over death by lethal injection as an act of defiance, continuing to insist that he was innocent. The century-old electric chair was handmade of oak by Virginia prison inmates. Bramblett made no request for his last meal, opting instead for the same supper the other inmates were having. WATERVILLE REMEMBERED Bramblett was a 3-sport athlete at the old Waterville High School on Gilman Street in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was coached in basketball by the legendary John P. "Swisher" Mitchell. He was a good student at Waterville High School, captain of the track team and a member of the "W" Club, a fellowship of varsity lettermen from all school sports. Bramblett was New England champion in the discus throw in 1961. Known by the nickname "Rufus," Bramblett lived with his parents in a 2nd-floor apartment on Elm Street, near St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church. He later moved to Unity but finished high school in Waterville. Bramblett's high school classmate Robert Byrne, a lawyer in Florida, said his pal was accepted to Colby College, then disappeared without ever attending a class. "I went to Colby and the first few days we looked for him," Byrne said in a telephone interview in 1998. "I've never seen him since that last moment after (high school) graduation. He literally dropped out of sight." In handwritten letters to a Morning Sentinel reporter in 1997 and 1998, Bramblett repeatedly asserted his innocence, and said he longed for the quiet life of central Maine, not the half-life of death row in a Virginia prison. "It's always good to hear from someone from Waterville," he wrote. "Waterville (high school) was a pleasant and enjoyable experience in my life, as Maine was." Bramblett was married on March 14, 1971. He and his wife had two boys, Mike and Doug, to whom he gave a defiant verbal salute of his innocence minutes before his execution. BLOGGING MOLESTATION The similarities between Joseph Duncan and Earl Bramblett do not begin or end with mass murder to cover up the sexual assault of a child. Both had been involved in earlier cases involving sexual abuse of children. Both men kept journals. Duncan was a month shy of his 17th birthday in 1980 when he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint in Washington state. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and was released on parole in July 2000. He moved to North Dakota and again was arrested in July 2004 for allegedly molesting two young boys. He was released on bond, fled the jurisdiction and remained at large until a Denny's waitress in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, recognized Shasta Groene and called police. Duncan called his Internet blog, or cyberjournal, "Blogging the Fifth Nail," a reference to the fifth nail used to crucify Jesus Christ, the nail that legend says was intended to end Christ's suffering on the cross. Bramblett also had a history of child sex abuse; his journal was recorded on tapes that were played at his trial. Bramblett's obsession with children came under scrutiny as early as 1977, when Tammy Akers and Angela Radar, both 14, disappeared from their northwestern Roanoke neighborhood. The girls lived near Bramblett's silkscreen shop. They were never found. Bramblett was suspected in the disappearance, but never was charged. In a drunken moment at a party years later, Bramblett lamented having "hurt Tammy," according to testimony at his trial. Tammy's oldest sister testified that Bramblett had begun molesting her little sister when the girl was just 9. Again in 1984, Bramblett was arrested and charged with molesting a 10-year-old girl, but later was acquitted. Several women testified at his murder trial that they had sex with Bramblett when they were young teens, but the judge did not let the jury hear the testimony. Duncan's murder trial has yet to be scheduled, but authorities say his Internet blog entries will be used against him, just as Bramblett's audio tapes were used to convict him of murder. The words contained in the blogs and on the cassette tapes, authorities say, are telegraphed messages from the psychic battlefield of right and wrong. In a blog entry posted just days before the Idaho murders and child kidnappings, Duncan wrote that he no longer could determine right from wrong. "The demons have taken over," he wrote. "God has shown me the right choice, but my demons have me tied to a spit and the fire has already been lit." (source: Kennebec Journal) OHIO: Woman was killed while on 911 call----Brimfield evidence unfolds in bid to keep family from court Kent State University student Sarah Positano, the 3rd and final victim in the Brimfield Township triple murders, was killed while talking to a hostage negotiator during a 911 call from her Ranfield Road apartment, evidence now shows. Some of the circumstances surrounding Positano's death were explained for the 1st time Friday during a Portage County court hearing for the defendant, James E. Trimble, who is scheduled to stand trial in September. Lawyers for Trimble reviewed the circumstances of Positano's death as part of a defense motion to remove family members and friends of the victims from the courtroom when certain graphic evidence is heard by the jury. Common Pleas Judge John A. Enlow, who is handling the case, did not rule on the motion, but he was left to ponder the remarks of Trimble's lawyer, Portage County public defender Dennis Day Lager. "Specifically," Lager said, "there is going to be a 911 tape played... with respect to the conversation of Sarah Positano, the 911 operator and the hostage negotiator, which is going to be very volatile for family and friends. "You're going to hear Miss Positano shot, and you're going to hear her die," he said, "and that is certainly going to provoke uncontrollable emotional outbursts." Lager said he was making the request to limit the prejudicial impact of crime-scene and autopsy evidence on the jury. He also asked the judge to send family members and friends of the victims to another room in the Portage County Courthouse, where they could see and hear all crime-scene evidence on closed-circuit television, without the jury seated in front of them. Trimble, 45, could face the death penalty for the slayings of his girlfriend, Renee L. Bauer, 42; her 7-year-old son, Dakota, and Positano, 22, whom he had taken hostage after the 2 other shootings at his Sandy Lake Road residence on the night of Jan. 21. He was arrested by officers from the Metro SWAT team inside Positano's apartment the next morning, after a lengthy standoff with dozens of township, county and state law enforcement officers. According to court documents filed in the case, Positano was on the phone with a 911 operator on both Jan. 21 and 22. But it was not explained in Friday's hearing whether she was talking continuously on those days or whether she had made separate calls. The Beacon Journal has filed a lawsuit against Brimfield Township police seeking a detailed accounting of the time of events surrounding all 3 shootings, as well as the tapes of Positano's 911 call and another emergency call to township police made by Trimble's brother in Florida. The lawsuit, primarily based on the state's public records laws, is pending in Ohio's 11th District Court of Appeals in Warren. In response to Lager's motion, Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci also spoke, saying family members and friends of the victims have told him they want to be in court, with the jury, when crime-scene evidence is heard. "They all wish to be present," Vigluicci said. "Certainly, they will be cautioned... as to any outbursts in court, but it is their absolute right to be inside the courtroom at that time." In support of his argument, the prosecutor cited Ohio Supreme Court decisions permitting family members and friends of victims to be inside the courtroom when graphic evidenceis shown. Trimble, who is being held in the Portage County jail without bond, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 19. Enlow said he intends to rule on Friday's motions some time next week. (source: Beacon Journal) NEW JERSEY: DNA Helps Vacate Old Murder Conviction A court on Friday used new DNA tests of hair to overturn the conviction of a man who has spent 18 years behind bars for a rape and murder he says he did not commit. The ruling by Judge Thomas S. Smith did not exonerate Larry Leroy Peterson, however, and the original charges stand. The judge set bail at $200,000 and said the case would soon be in a jury's hands. Defense lawyer Vanessa Potkin, a staff attorney for the Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, said about 30 hairs found at the crime scene were tested for DNA, and none placed Peterson there. Neither do microscopic examinations of 130 additional hairs that were not DNA tested. Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said he still believes Peterson, now 54, raped and killed 25-year-old Jacqueline Harrison in Pemberton Township in 1987. Bernardi said the state still has five witnesses who say Harrison told them about the killing. "The bottom line is, witnesses lie. DNA doesn't," Potkin said. Smith's ruling marked the first time a New Jersey court had overturned a conviction because of DNA evidence. A trial date could be set at a Sept. 19 hearing. The case has drawn interest from anti-death penalty activists because it originally was charged as a capital case. But the jury that convicted Peterson could not agree that a death sentence was appropriate. About 20 of Harrison's relatives attended Friday's court proceedings. Other than one woman who said the family supported the prosecutor, they declined to comment. (source: The Associated Press)
