August 28 FLORIDA: Waiting for Justice: Families talk about lost 'possibilities' A member of the Interfraternity Council repaints the names of the murder victims on the wall panel of SW 34th Street that memorializes the victims of the student murders. Today, in the 3rd of a 3-part series, The Sun looks at the impact the student murders had on the Gainesville area, and those on both sides of the argument of whether lengthy stays on death row - like Rolling's - are a good idea. As the years pass, it's impossible for the families of murder victims Christina Powell, Sonja Larson, Christa Hoyt, Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, not to wonder where their loved ones might be today had they lived. "She'd be 33 now," said Ada Larson, Sonja Larson's mother. "I think she'd probably have a career and a couple of little ones. When I see her friends now, it makes me very sad. When you see them with their careers and kids - they've gone on with life." Her daughter and 4 other Gainesville college students were murdered in August 1990 by Danny Rolling. In 1993 Rolling confessed to the killings and the next year was sentenced to death. His sentence has been on appeal ever since - more than 11 years. With the passage of time, the families wonder what might have been. Mario Taboada said he and his wife sometimes discuss what his only sibling would be doing if he hadn't been murdered. "I definitely see him as a father," Taboada said. "Being a Latin family, we're very tight-knit and have a lot of gatherings throughout the year. I have 2 children, 10 and 12, and his kids could have been playing with our kids. "Losing Manny was taking away from my kids," he said. "My children lost that opportunity to have cousins from my side of the family." Manny, who planned to major in architecture, would have been 38 now. Laurie Lahey, 40, said her sister, Tracy Paules, also would have been 38, probably working as a lawyer and maybe having started a family. "She was on a career track in law," said Lahey, a stay-at-home mother who lives near Dallas with her husband, daughter and three sons. "She was about to complete her senior year and was going to go to law school at the University of Florida. "Later in life, I think, she would have been a mom," she said. Lahey said she and her sister were extremely close. Every summer while she was at UF, Tracy went home to Miami and lived with her sister. She said Tracy helped her pick her 13-year-old daughter's name - Taylor - 2 years before she was born. "I really wish Taylor had met her Aunt Tracy," Lahey said. "Every girl needs an adult friend outside of their mom. It pains me very much. It doesn't feel like 15 years. I feel her every day and I ache for her every day." Dianna Hoyt said she thinks a lot these days about what Christa's life would have been like. "She wanted to be a forensic investigator, and she probably would have been in that (line of) work," she said. "I can see her having a young family. I think she would have been a happy person, because she had a lot of fun in life. "All the things that go into a person's life stopped for Christa," Hoyt said. "There were so many possibilities for her." Taboada spoke of the eternal nature of the loss all the victims' families have experienced. In photos he and some of the other families shared, that notion rings especially true. One of the most telling images of time's passage is of the last Thanksgiving Sonja Larson spent with her family. Among those posing with her at the table near the roasted turkey are her father, Jim Larson, who died in 1996, and her sister-in-law, Carla Larson, who was murdered in 1997. Carla Larson, 30-year-old wife of Sonja Larson's brother, Jim, and mother of their young child, was a construction engineer who lived in the College Park area of Orlando. She was kidnapped June 10, 1997, after going to a Publix grocery during her lunch break from a job site near Disney World. Her nude body was found two days later and John Steven Huggins, convicted in 1999 of strangling her, remains on Florida's death row. Other photos testify to the zest for life the families say the victims all had. Sonja beside her little Honda Civic. Sonja with friends from her baseball team. Sonja with her dad. Tracy with her sister, who shares her striking eyes. The sisters and their older brother, Scott Paules. Tracy on a bench outside UF's University Auditorium. Manny in his No. 65 football uniform at Hialeah's American High School. Manny on a tube waterskiing, one of the great joys in his life. Manny and his best friends, Sergio, Marcus and Servando, mugging on Miami Beach - a week before Manny was murdered. Christa grinning broadly in her Alachua County Sheriff's Office Explorer uniform. Christa in blue cap and gown at her high school graduation. Christa in a science lab. (Christina Powell's family has always kept their grief and feelings private, so there are no family photos from them.) Taboada said he regrets the one photo that didn't get taken. He and his mother had visited Manny in Gainesville a month before his brother was killed. Their mother wanted a photo of her 2 sons together, but Mario declined. But he retains the memory of that day. "In Gainesville Manny had so much energy and expectations, he was really excited to be there," Taboada said. "He was on cloud nine. He was ready to max those years out." ******************************** What if killings occurred today? It wasn't only college students who were among those shocked and frightened by Danny Rolling's killing spree 15 years ago. Officers and residents in Alachua County had seen crime and violent deaths in the community before, but nothing like the grisly slayings of 5 college students inside their southwest Gainesville apartments. "Absolutely the worst crime scene I've ever seen," was how Alachua County Sheriff's Lt. LeGran Hewitt, recalling the case, described the apartments where Rolling's victims were discovered. One of many officers assigned to a joint task force investigating the killings, Hewitt later would interview Rolling at Florida State Prison near Starke where Rolling first confessed to officers he was the killer. A photo on Hewitt's office wall at the Alachua County Commission building shows him and other officers conducting interviews with Rolling that would become part of the prosecution's evidence. "It's not a case that's going to ever be forgotten, I don't believe, around this place," Hewitt said. More than a decade since the killings, however, Gainesville, its residents and law enforcement have changed. And advances in technology and the impact of 9-11 on the world have changed how the Rolling investigation, and the panic after the murders, would have played out had it happened today. The investigation into the murders never would have taken place the way it did if officers then had the DNA testing and databases now available, Gainesville Police Sgt. Alan Coleman said. "He would have committed the murders, but the year-long investigation into identifying him would never have happened. He would have been identified within a week or two weeks," Coleman said about Rolling. "DNA is so sensitive these days that unless you go in in a spacesuit, it's very difficult to avoid leaving some type of DNA evidence at the crime scene." Investigators did find and collect semen samples from the killer at the student murders' crime scenes, Coleman said. But DNA testing was only in its infancy for local law enforcement at the time. "It was so new, I had never heard of DNA other than seeing something in the paper that something is coming up in law enforcement that may revolutionize law enforcement," Coleman said. Along with other officers, Coleman was thrown into the world of DNA that state Sen. Rod Smith, then the area's chief prosecutor, said would have been an important part of the case against Rolling if he hadn't pleaded guilty to the murders. Coleman was part of a group of officers nicknamed "the Vampire Squad," who were assigned to collect blood samples from potential suspects in the investigation for comparison to the killer's DNA. Marcie Scott, supervisor of the biology/DNA section at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in Jacksonville, said the Rolling investigation probably was one of the first cases where the FDLE handled DNA testing. "DNA was pretty new in 1990 in the United States," Scott said. Now the Jacksonville FDLE lab works with 13 counties in Northeast Florida and typically receives requests for approximately 1,000 examinations a year, ranging from screening for body fluid stains to DNA testing, she said. The speed and sensitivity of DNA testing also has improved since the 1990s, Scott said. The lab now needs smaller samples and can get results faster for officers, especially on cases designated as priority investigations such as the case of the student murders. And, Scott said, the DNA sample from the killer that officers collected from the student murders' crime scenes today could have been run against databases listing DNA results from convicted felons around the country. In the early 1990s, DNA databases were in their infancy. Florida established its database in 1990, but few matches were made because there was little information in the system. Soon after, the FBI created a system in 1992 that linked state databases via computer. "All 50 states are now electronically connected to DNA searches," Scott said. State laws, which vary from state to state, govern who must provide DNA samples for databases. But many states, including Florida, are moving toward requiring that all felons provide samples, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Before the Gainesville murders, Rolling was convicted of robbery and had served prison time in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi in the 1980s. If DNA collection and databases had existed then, Rolling's DNA likely would have been on file and linked to samples found at the crime scenes in Alachua County. Instead, Coleman said, "It was a shot in the dark. No smoking gun led us to Danny Rolling." Shreveport police contacted the Rolling task force in late 1990 and reported he was a suspect in a triple slaying in Louisiana. Rolling had been arrested in September 1990 for robbing an Ocala Winn-Dixie and was being held at the Marion County jail when investigators in the Gainesville murders began looking at him as a possible suspect. "We started doing the investigation on Danny to see if we could eliminate him," Hewitt said. Using DNA, the pieces began to fall into place in the investigation and Rolling was publicly named as the prime suspect in May 1991. DNA evidence couldn't have stopped the murders, Coleman and Hewitt said. "Danny Rolling was doing the last murder when we were working the 2nd crime scene. We didn't have a sample to give to the lab prior to the last homicide occurring," Hewitt said. But Rolling as a suspect might have been identified sooner, he agreed. And Edward Lewis Humphrey, an early suspect in the slayings, could have been eliminated faster, Coleman said. "If not eliminated, having someone else's DNA other than his would have at least made it highly doubtful as far as him being the perpetrator," Coleman said. A University of Florida freshman in August 1990, Humphrey had stopped taking medicine prescribed for manic depression and began exhibiting bizarre behavior. Questioned by investigators, he seemed to have different personalities and implied he knew about the murders. But it was later determined his mental health issues and lack of medication caused his behavior. The gruesome and sudden nature of the slayings helped suggest to some that, even if Rolling was the killer, he must have had an accomplice and that person could have been Humphrey. Coleman said he never believed Humphrey was linked and, with Rolling's 1994 guilty plea, Humphrey ultimately was exonerated. A quicker resolution to the investigation and naming of a prime suspect probably would have lessened the case's impact on Gainesville, officers said. "I think law enforcement has come a long way, maybe spearheaded in 9-11," said University of Florida Police Chief Linda Stump. "The key is communication and being able to pool resources in times of crisis, whether it be a hurricane or murder or times of crisis." Law enforcement agencies realized there was a need for improving their interaction with other departments after the terrorist attacks, the chief said. Agencies from around the state and inside the county joined forces in the wake of the student murders. But Stump said agencies are more prepared to work together now than before 2000. Linda Gray, who worked as vice president and director of UF's News and Public Affairs during the student murders, said the university developed "an extensive crisis plan" after the slayings. Since then, Gray, now vice president and director of News and Information at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, said she's given her crisis plan to hundreds of people through consulting work she's done. The murders also were a wake-up call for the area, just like the terrorist attacks were for the country. "We learned that no place is safe," Gray said. "Gainesville had not had that kind of dreadful experience before, and I think that's why it hit so hard. It was an end of an innocence for the community." ***************************** Families mixed on attending Rolling's execution At some point the appeals will end. The presumed outcome is that Danny Rolling's death sentence will be upheld, a death warrant will be signed and he will be executed. When it happens, will his victims' families be there? "I have thought about the day he is going to be executed, and whether I wanted to attend," said Tracy Paules' brother, Scott Paules of Great Mills, Md. "And I can't decide one way or another. "It might be somewhat therapeutic, but it would not be closure," said Paules, 43, who retired last year after 26 years in the U.S. Navy and now works for a security firm in Maryland. "I reached my closure when I realized Tracy was not coming back." He added, "If my parents need to be there, then I'll be there." His sister, Laurie Lahey, is more definite. "I'm coming," said Lahey, 40, a mother of 4 who lives near Dallas. "I've predicted from the start that it would be 13 years (until Rolling's sentence is carried out). I don't know why, but I just feel that at the 13-year mark it will end and we'll be done with him. "It's not like you can move on," she said. "It's just another step. I'm still going to ache for her." Dianna Hoyt, Christa Hoyt's stepmother, said her sense is that most of the parents would want to be at Florida State Prison when Rolling is executed. She doesn't know if they'd want to personally witness his death or just stand by outside the prison. "It would be a very difficult thing to watch, because we're not of the same mind as he is," said Hoyt, 61, a pediatric registered nurse at Shands at the University of Florida. "It wouldn't be pleasurable to watch someone die. "I hear people say, 'Why can't you forgive and forget?'" she said. "But I think he is such a malicious person and has devious and devilish things going on in his mind. He can still enjoy their deaths. As long as he is alive he has that memory, and to me that's just horrible." Rolling's death, Hoyt said, "would not atone for Christa's death. But at least that part of it would be done." Sonja Larson's mother, Ada Larson, said she probably wouldn't want to witness the execution. She might stand outside, she said, but even that isn't certain. "I'm not sure why, but I'm not even sure I would go," said Larson, 67, a retired Broward County teacher who has homes in Chagrin Falls, Ohio - where she works part time for a music-educators association - and Deerfield Beach. "But I probably might go and be there outside, just to be with the other families if they go." One person she won't see there is Mario Taboada, Manuel Taboada's brother. "I will not attend," said Taboada, 44, an account executive at a Miami radio station. "It doesn't really resolve anything. "In the news and in more recent cases, I've heard families resort to the word 'closure,'" he said. "There is no such thing. When a family member dies, they die forever and you carry the memories forever. Closure is a false expectation, a false advertisement of reality." His mother, who rarely talks about her son's death, is a deeply religious person who may struggle with the death penalty, Taboada said. "But I don't think she'd be opposed to (Rolling) being executed," he said. "In fact, in his case she may actually prefer execution. I, on the other hand, have always been an advocate of execution . . . But I don't have to be there." **************************** Killer's name not spoken by families They try never to utter his name. Some of the families of Danny Rolling's victims, and their advocates, think speaking his name only dishonors the memory of the slain students. So one of the small ways they honor the victims is by not giving their killer any formal identity. "I call him 'my daughter's killer,'" said Ada Larson, Sonja Larson's mother. "Or 'the murderer.'" Rolling is on Florida's death row, where he was sentenced in 1994 for the August 1990 murders of 5 Gainesville college students. He confessed to the murders in 1993, but has appealed his death sentence to the federal courts. Families and others watch and wait - and avoid speaking his name. "I consciously refer to him only as 'he,'" said Christa Hoyt's stepmother, Dianna Hoyt. "One of the reasons he said he did it was because he wanted to become famous. We don't want any recognition given to him. That is his glory." Laurie Lahey, Tracy Paules' sister, doesn't recoil when someone else uses Rolling's name. But she just calls him "he" or "him." So does Mario Taboada, Manny Taboada's brother. "Sometimes I refer to him as 'the individual,'" Taboada said. Laura Knudson and Sadie Darnell have served as victim advocates for the families since the murders. But they also have become close friends of the families, and they, too, go out of their way to avoid using Rolling's name. "In our society, we romanticize killers, and I don't want to be part of that," said Knudson, a former victim advocate for the State Attorney's Office in Gainesville and now president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of North Central Florida. "'This killer' - that's how I refer to him." "Gutter spit." That's what Darnell calls Rolling. "I won't mention his name now," said Darnell, who was spokeswoman for the Gainesville Police Department during the time of the student murders. "When I was doing press conferences I had to use his name, but I purposely mispronounced it because I had heard he didn't like it when people said his name wrong," she said. "To me it was like a slap in the face to him." She said she used to publicly pronounce it "RA-ling" instead of "ROLL-ing," as Rolling prefers it. "Names are so powerful," Darnell said. "Fame was one of his motivators. We glamorize offenders, and that drives some of them to commit more egregious acts to become famous. "Stop saying their names," she said. "And stop buying books and making movies about them." (source for all: Gainesville Sun) ************************** Man accused of organizing 6 beating deaths wants DNA thrown out The man accused of orchestrating the beating deaths of 6 people over an Xbox video game console is claiming police violated his rights by forcing his mouth open for a DNA swab. Circuit Judge William A. Parsons is considering whether the DNA can be used by prosecutors after attorneys for Troy Victorino, 28, filed a motion to exclude the evidence. Prosecutors said Victorino was cooperative with police and agreed to mouth swabs and fingernail scrapings during his Aug. 7, 2004, interrogation. But during a hearing Friday, Victorino said he never consented to giving a DNA sample. "He forced my mouth open," Victorino said of the investigator. "He took his fingers and jammed them in my jaw line. The pressure he applied with his hand on my face forced my mouth open." Sheriff's investigators said that was untrue. "He just opened his mouth up, and I obtained 2 sterile swabs," Investigator Richard Graves Jr. said. Despite the dispute, Parsons' ruling on the DNA could have little tangible effect because prosecutors can seek a new sample with a court order, which the judge and attorneys agreed is always granted in slaying cases. "What's the big deal?" Parsons asked. "The state can come back and get new DNA." "Right now we're talking about his Fourth Amendment rights were violated on Aug. 7," defense attorney Jeff Dowdy said. Victorino, and 19-year-olds Jerone Hunter, Michael Salas and Robert Anthony Cannon are charged with 6 counts of murder and 8 other felonies for the Aug. 6, 2004, baseball bat beating deaths of 6 friends in a Deltona home. The state is seeking the death penalty at their Jan. 3 trial. Victorino has denied involvement in the slayings, saying he was drunk and passed out a bar when they took place. (source: Associated Press) VERMONT: Man Sentenced to Die Asks Judge for Help Lawyers for the man sentenced to die in Vermont's 1st capital punishment trial in almost 50 years are asking a judge to overturn his death sentence. Donald Fell's attorneys argue that prosecutors behaved improperly during the trial, and they want the judge to commute his sentence to life in prison or order a new sentencing hearing. "The government misrepresented facts to the court, took inconsistent positions about its evidence, and misstated the defendant's constitutional rights to the jury," reads the document filed by lawyer Alexander Bunin. William Darrow, 1 of 2 assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted Fell, declined to comment. Fell, 25, was convicted in June of kidnapping Terry King, 53, as she arrived for work at a Rutland supermarket in 2000, taking her into New York state and bludgeoning her to death as she prayed for her life. The same jury sentenced Fell to die for his crimes last month. Fell agreed in 2001 to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole, but that deal was rejected by then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who insisted on the death penalty. Vermont has no death penalty, but because the killers crossed state lines, U.S. prosecutors brought charges under a federal law that allows the death penalty for a carjacking that results in a death. The trial prompted protests and vigils by death-penalty opponents. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Newspaper: State attorney misrepresented evidence to parole board A top attorney for the state misrepresented evidence before the Ohio Parole Board in arguing against clemency for a death row inmate, a newspaper reported Saturday. John Spirko, 59, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 20 for the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, who was in charge of the post office in Elgin in northwest Ohio. In his presentation to the parole board Tuesday, Senior Deputy Ohio Attorney General Tim Prichard made false statements and mischaracterized evidence regarding what Spirko knew about the murder and his whereabouts on the day of the killing, The Plain Dealer reported. Prichard denied making misstatements and said it was Spirko's lawyers who should be confronted for "flat-out lies" to the board. Spirko insists he's innocent. The parole board will make a recommendation on whether Gov. Bob Taft should change Spirko's sentence to life in prison. A comparison of Prichard's statements to the parole board with the case record shows how he mischaracterized evidence, The Plain Dealer reported. Mottinger was abducted and stabbed nearly 20 times, wrapped in a curtain and dumped in a field. Her body was found 3 weeks later. No physical evidence linked Spirko to Mottinger or to the town of Elgin. Investigators never located the murder weapon or the car used in the crime. But prosecutors have said Spirko convicted himself by telling investigators details of the slaying, including what clothes and jewelry Mottinger was wearing the day she was abducted. On Tuesday, Prichard told the parole board that a description of Mottinger's purse had to have come from Spirko because investigators didn't know what the missing purse looked like. But according to the case record, an investigator was given a very similar description of the purse by Mottinger's husband on the day his wife disappeared, 12 weeks before investigators discussed the purse with Spirko. Spirko and his lawyers have argued that Spirko got some of the details of the killing from extensive media reports. Other details, they say, were suggested or supplied - deliberately or inadvertently - by Spirko's interrogators, principally former Postal Inspector Paul Hartman. Prichard told the parole board that Spirko could not have picked up the detail of Mottinger's body being wrapped in a curtain from media accounts. "That's flat-out false," Prichard told the board. At least 3 times during his presentation, Prichard insisted that this detail had never been reported in a newspaper. But in the 10 days before Spirko came forward to investigators, facts about the curtain were reported at least 3 times in The (Toledo) Blade, The Plain Dealer said. Spirko's lawyers have said he contacted investigators in October 1982 and offered to trade information about the killing so police would go easy on his girlfriend who was facing charges in an unrelated case. One of the defense lawyers, Thomas Hill, complained that Prichard mischaracterized much of the case during a nearly 3-hour presentation, and the defense was allotted only a few minutes to respond. "The format of the hearing is such that it really allowed the state to make whatever assertions it wanted to make without any meaningful rebuttal," Hill told The Associated Press on Saturday. Hill said the disputes over Prichard's statements illustrate the need for a full evidentiary hearing, which the defense has been seeking since 1996. Spirko's lawyers are to file a brief Monday on their motion for that hearing, and prosecutors will have until Friday to reply. Spirko previously served 12 years in prison for strangling a 73-year-old woman during a robbery in Covington, Ky. He got out 2 weeks before Mottinger disappeared. On Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court denied a request from Spirko's lawyers to delay his execution. Ohio has executed 16 men since it resumed carrying out death sentences in 1999 and plans 3 executions this fall. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: The Night Stalker on Death Row for 20 years----Suspect of 13 murder charges appealed Fear of a serial killer kept many a window shut during the sweltering summer of 1985. The Night Stalker spread fear among Southland residents when he broke into homes then raped, murdered and stole. He drew a pentagram on one victim's leg and left the same mark on a wall. The Stalker slew 13 people, including a Diamond Bar woman and 6 other eastern Los Angeles County residents. 10 other victims survived. His reign of terror ended 20 years ago Wednesday when East Los Angeles residents chased, beat and captured Richard Ramirez after he tried to steal cars. The day before, on Aug. 30, law enforcement officials identified Ramirez as the Night Stalker. "Murder was his primary motive. Everything else was secondary. He was driven to kill," said retired sheriff's Detective Frank Salerno, who was one of the lead investigators in the case. Why? "He would never explain that to us," Salerno said. In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders, 5 attempted killings, rape, oral copulation, sodomy and burglary. He was sentenced to death but is still appealing. Ramirez's lawyer, Geraldine Russell, didn't return phone calls. But she and his other lawyer in the appeal argue Ramirez didn't get a fair trial because he was mentally incompetent and picked bad lawyers. "We say he received effective representation," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. Both sides are waiting for the California Supreme Court to set a date for oral arguments on the appeal, Barankin said. Terror in the Southland The case remains vivid in the minds of many. "He attacked people in their homes at random. He had people in his grip. And he started bouncing around in the county," Salerno said. He pointed out Ramirez was first centralized in the San Gabriel Valley then went to San Fernando Valley, Orange County and San Francisco. "You just didn't know where he would be next," Salerno said. "This guy, his victims were all over the place as far as race and age went. He shot people, stabbed people. He stomped one woman to death." Los Angeles County has not had a serial killer before or since who used methods as diverse and got citizens as frightened, according to sheriff's Lt. Gil Carrillo who was the other lead investigator. Carrillo was the 1st to deduce the slayings could be the work of a serial killer. If his victims were a couple, Salerno said Ramirez would kill the man 1st, usually by shooting them as they slept. He'd deal with the woman next. "Then if she resisted, he'd kill her," Salerno said. The Stalker first struck June 27, 1984, in Eagle Rock when he slashed the throat of 79-year-old Jennie Vincow. Just weeks before he was caught, Ramirez shot 35-year-old Elyas Abowath in Diamond Bar on Aug. 8, 1985. Ramirez is also suspected of the Aug. 17, 1985, killing of Peter Pan in San Francisco but hasn't been tried for that murder. It was a fearful time. Police got more calls about prowlers and suspicious-looking people. Sales of dogs and door locks jumped. Joseph Santoro was then a lieutenant with the Monterey Park Police Department when the Stalker killed three, raped one and abducted a child in that city. "There was a lot of fear in Monterey Park and other cities," he said. But residents weren't the only ones taking precautions. Carrillo, who lived in the San Gabriel Valley, kept a gun in his nightstand. His wife and children stayed with relatives for a while and came back home after Ramirez was caught. Santoro lived in San Gabriel at the time. "I nailed shut all the windows of my home. My family slept in a separate room together. We borrowed money from my mother-in-law to get air conditioning and to keep the door closed," Santoro said. Monterey Park was the first to put together town-hall type meetings, Santoro said. He remembers Monterey Park Chief Jon Elder calling Sheriff Sherman Block on a Sunday morning saying they needed to do this, needed to get the information out to the public. "At the time it was very rarely done," Santoro said. They put out how the killer broke in, spread the word that people must be vigilant and the police needed the public's help. They held news briefings with the media every day. Police told residents to call immediately on anything suspicious. More cops patrolled the streets. They used a grant to buy deadbolts that were given to seniors and anybody who wanted one, he said. The department also changed the concept of Neighborhood Watch. Ramirez was hitting in the middle of the night while people slept so they had the Neighborhood Watch do shifts at night. "We would strategically put them in neighborhoods so instead of just seeing the neighbor, they're able to see the entire block," Santoro said. They also had ham radio operators stationed in strategic locations in entrances to residential neighborhoods, Santoro said. Their job was to record license plates. "The next morning, we had a whole shift run the plates in DMV to find out what reason they had in the neighborhood," he said. A former Monrovia police chief, Santoro is now dean of the Rio Hondo College Department of Public Safety, Criminal Justice and Fire Technology. When Ramirez was captured in East L.A. on Aug. 31, residents at first didn't know who they had. They chased him because he was a car thief. Jose Burgoin, 74, was among the residents who caught Ramirez. He remembers he was watering his garden when Ramirez ended up in his Hubbard Street neighborhood. Ramirez tried to steal a Mustang but crashed that into a house. He then went for the Ford Granada occupied by Burgoin's neighbor, Angie De La Torre, and tried to grab her car keys away. Burgoin said he went to his neighbor's rescue. De La Torre's husband, Manuel, hit Ramirez with a metal bar. Ramirez ran, chased by residents. It was the end of the line for the Stalker. As deputies led Ramirez away, he reportedly yelled out in Spanish: "It's me! It's me! It's me! I'm lucky the cops caught me." No closure Vincent Zazzara and his wife, Maxine, fell prey to Ramirez on March 27, 1985. Ramirez shot the 65-year-old Vincent in his West Whittier home then shot and stabbed 44-year-old Maxine. She was the only one of his victims who was mutilated; he gouged her eyes out. Why he did that remains a mystery. "You'd have to ask Richard why. He did say to one surviving victim, "Don't look at me or I'll cut your eyes out,'" Carrillo said. Peter Zazzara, the youngest of Zazzara's children, said he thinks of the case every day since they haven't executed Ramirez. The 44-year-old tries not to think about it as much as he can because he gets upset. When told of the progress of Ramirez's appeal, Zazzara called the whole system "unbelievable." "Until he's dead, there's no closure for me. I'd pull the switch if I can," Peter Zazzara said. "All I can really say is our family will always be tormented by the whole thing." He feels helpless because he said the state isn't doing its job. If the state has the death penalty, he asked why not use it? "My dad was a World War II veteran. The way they honor (him) is by letting a scum live like this in death row," Peter Zazzara said. "I just hope they execute him soon." San Quentin There are 612 death row inmates at San Quentin Prison. Ramirez is housed in the adjustment center along with 83 men condemned to die and 16 inmates placed there for security reasons, said prison spokesman Sgt. Eric Messick. "He's never been a problem to staff," Messick said. "He doesn't socialize. A very quiet guy." In his unit, Ramirez has a chance to go to the prison yard for 90 minutes and gets 3 showers a week. He has no phone privileges. "He goes back and forth. Sometimes he lives on the east block. It's not for disciplinary reasons. I think he prefers living in the adjustment center," Messick said. Meals are brought to the cells. Breakfast at 6 a.m., a bagged lunch around 11 a.m. and dinner at 5 p.m. Death Row inmates cannot have conjugal visits. They're not allowed physical contact with anybody, Messick said. Visitors talk to them by phone behind Plexiglas. Ramirez once asked the 2 lead detectives if they would be at his execution. While Carrillo said he wasn't too happy watching someone die, he'd be there if Ramirez wanted him to. "I told him I was planning on it if it ever happens," Salerno said. "I just wish they'd hurry up with his appeal and they'd execute him. If there's anybody who deserves the death penalty, it's Richard Ramirez." (source: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin) *********************************** Bill Limits Appeals for Death Row Inmates Republican Rep. Dan Lungren of California is sponsoring a bill that would limit federal appeals (search) for death row inmates that would cut the appeals process from 10 years to as few as 2. The average length of time for an inmate to stay on death row in the United States is more than 10 years. In California, it's closer to 20, some say due to the time allowance on appealed decisions that inherently provides an extension. More than 600 inmates are waiting on death row in California. Under the proposed bill, if states can show they are providing adequate legal council to convicts during the state appeals process, federal courts will be forced to fast-track those cases. Lungren said he hopes to block otherwise baseless delays by desparate inmates and activist, anti-capital punishment judges. "There's just no reason for that length of a delay in that kind of case where you know you've got the right guy," Kent Scheidegger, of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which advocates reduced rights for convicted criminals, told FOX News. "The federal courts would have deadlines that they would have to meet to get these cases processed. Presently they can sit on these cases forever, and in many cases have sat on them for many, many years," he said. Others defend the system, admitting it can be slow, but that it plays a critical part in making sure justice is served. FOX News Legal Analyst Jim Hammer cites the number of cases where death row inmates have been freed as justification for the long process. "While states have done a lot now to increase legal representation to men on death row, we see every week in the newspaper men convicted of murder being released because of DNA [evidence]," he said. Since 1973, 121 people have been released from death row in the United States after being exonerated. This bill would still allow death row inmates their federal appeals, but only based on newly-discovered evidence, like DNA, that shows actual innocence. (source: Fox News) ********************************* Prosecutors seek death penalty for crash A man accused of driving his sports utility vehicle onto railroad tracks, causing a 3-way train crash in Southern California, may face the death penalty. 26-year-old Juan Manuel Alvarez has been charged with 11 counts of murder and arson for the Jan. 26 Metrolink crash. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty, reported the Los Angeles Times Saturday. Alvarez said the incident -- in which a commuter train struck Alvarez's SUV, derailed and slammed into another commuter train and a freight train -- was an aborted suicide attempt and that it was not his intention to hurt anyone. Eric Chase, Alvarez's attorney, said prosecutors would have a hard time getting the death penalty. "There's no evidence he intended or wanted anybody to die, and that's just not appropriate with the death penalty in my opinion," Chase said. Police said Alvarez's actions were deliberate and did not match the behavior of someone trying to commit suicide -- he told police he wanted to be hit by a train but he then changed his mind and left his vehicle. (source: United Press International) ************************** The New Language for Jurors in California: Plain English Californians have a knack for mangling the English language - you know, like, chill, dude - but they are suddenly sounding more like its guardians. At least in the halls of justice. "Willfully false" is now simply "lied." "Innocent misrecollection" is the plainer "honestly forget." After spending eight years rewriting more than seven decades of tangled legalese, the Judicial Council of California has approved 2,048 pages of new criminal jury instructions intended to make "plain language" the norm in courtrooms. The changes not only wipe out many Middle English words and obscure legal phrases, but also usher the instructions into the 21st century by way of present-day cultural sensibilities, albeit with a California twist. An admonition not to discuss a trial with "spiritual advisers or therapists" may puzzle jurors in other states but is considered long overdue here. The change was prompted by a case in which jurors said they did not understand that keeping quiet applied to "confidential relationships." "Well, this is California," said Ronald M. George, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of California and the main instigator behind the exhaustive revisions approved at a meeting here on Friday. "I suppose you could add gurus and others, too." An instruction on setting aside "any bias or prejudice" lists the familiar - gender, race, religion - but also provides a fill-in-the-blank option for customized bigotries. "Insert any other impermissible bias as appropriate," it says. The revisions are part of a push to make the jury experience more bearable in California, which has a judicial system that state officials say is 2nd in size worldwide only to the United States federal system. "Although the primary motivation is to improve service for jurors," the judge said, "I think this will have the incidental benefit to improve the administration of justice by not having juries ask so many questions of trial judges." Even ordinary topics, like the weather, have been used to explain the arcane. An instruction on circumstantial evidence uses the example of someone who enters a building "wearing a raincoat covered with drops of water." That evidence, the instruction says, "may support a conclusion that it was raining outside." (source: New York Times)
