Sept. 22
NORTH CAROLINA: Authorities Reopen Case Of 20-Year-Old Fayetteville Murders Cumberland County authorities have reopened their investigation into a triple murder 20 years after a man was sentenced to die, then released from death row after a second trial. Cumberland County District Attorney Ed Grannis said he has reopened the investigation into the 1985 murders of Kathryn Eastburn, wife of an Air Force captain and 3 of their 3 children. In 1986, Timothy B. Hennis was convicted and sentenced to die. He spent 2 years on death row, then won a new trial. A jury found him not guilty in 1989. "The matter to which you refer is a pending investigation, and it is a pending matter in my office which I cannot ethically discuss," Grannis said earlier this week. He wouldn't name any suspects or say why the investigation has been revived. Cumberland County Sheriff Moose Butler referred questions to Grannis. Butler told a county commissioners committee this week that a case from the 1980s had recently been solved with DNA evidence, but he wouldn't identify the case. Kathryn Eastburn's husband, Gary, could not be reached for comment, The Fayetteville Observer reported. Hennis, 48, who lives in Washington state, did not respond to a message left Tuesday at his home. Gerald Beaver, one of Hennis' lawyers from the murder trials, said Hennis asked him to tell reporters to stop calling. In May 1985, an intruder raped Kathryn Eastburn, 32, at the family's home near Fort Bragg, then stabbed her and cut her throat. He also cut the throats of Kara, 5, and Erin, 3. The youngest child, 22-month-old Jana, was found unharmed in her crib. Air Force Capt. Gary Eastburn was at squadron officers training school in Alabama at the time. Hennis, who was an Army sergeant, was arrested May 16, 1985, 4 days after the bodies were found. A witness who reported seeing someone in the Eastburn driveway about 3:30 a.m. May 10 picked Hennis out of a photo lineup. Hennis had adopted the Eastburns' dog several days before the murder. In 1986, 1987 and 1988, someone claiming to have committed the crime taunted Hennis, the police and a lawyer with 2 letters and a telephone call. "I did the crime, I murdered the Eastburns. Sorry you're doin' the time. I'll be safely out of North Carolina when you read this. Thanks, Mr. X," one of the letters says. It was postmarked July 8, 1986, in Fayetteville and sent to Hennis while he was on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh. A book about the case, "Innocent Victims," was published in 1993, followed by an ABC miniseries that aired in January 1996. (source: The Associated Press) KENTUCKY: High court stops Death Row inmate from hiring private doctor One of Kentucky's longest-serving death row inmates cannot use taxpayer dollars to hire a doctor to determine if he's mentally retarded and ineligible for lethal injection, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The court, in a 6-1 decision, overturned a Powell County Circuit judge's decision to let attorneys for Karu Gene White spend $5,000 to hire a private psychiatrist. Judge Lewis Paisley ordered the state Finance and Administration Cabinet to pay for White's choice of a psychiatrist. The state appealed, saying White, 48, could use a state psychiatrist for the mental evaluation. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional. Justice J. William Graves said that White was entitled to the testing, but not necessarily by a doctor of his choosing. Paisley didn't consider that a state psychiatrist was available to evaluate White, Graves said. White was sentenced to death in 1980 for the murders of 3 people. Prosecutors said White and two companions robbed a store on Feb. 12, 1979, and bludgeoned to death Charles Gross, 75, his wife Lola Gross, 74, and Sam Chaney, 79, using a wrench, a tire tool and a tree limb. White and his accomplices left with about $7,000 in cash, coins and a pistol. White pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was convicted. (source : Associated Press)
