April 2 TEXAS: Slaying of CPS official stuns town Sally Blackwell was a former college cheerleader, a proud single mother, an avid gardener and, as regional director of Texas Child Protective Services, one of the most highly regarded people in town. Michael Buchanek was something of a hometown hero: a 26-year veteran of the Victoria County Sheriff's Department, commander of the SWAT team and one of the first American law enforcement officers to go to Iraq to train security personnel. Blackwell and Buchanek lived two blocks from each other. A welcome sign greets visitors at his front door; a wooden swing hangs from a tree in her front yard. On March 15, her strangulation shook the peaceful neighborhood called Cimarron. 2 police bloodhounds, Quincy and James Bond, were called in to pick up the scent of a nylon rope tied around the neck of Blackwell's body, which had been found in a field near her home. With police officers in tow, the dogs followed the scent. Quincy and James Bond did not stop until they reached Buchanek's home. No arrest has been made in a crime that has stunned this placid town of 60,000 residents, 30 minutes from the Gulf Coast. And authorities insist they are investigating several strong possibilities that are unrelated to Buchanek. One theory is that Blackwell, 53, may have angered someone through her job at an agency that protects children from unfit parents. But the only visible suspect, identified in the media and in a police affidavit, is Buchanek, 52. He has told investigators he used to date Blackwell. The badge was gone, as was the police macho, when Buchanek answered his door last week. He was shirtless, his belt buckle was undone and his lips quivered when he spoke: "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I just don't have anything to say." A dangerous job A 16-year veteran of CPS, Blackwell led a force of 46 caseworkers who investigate reports of child abuse and neglect in the region. "She reiterated that it was really up to us to keep children safe," said Brad Irvin, a friend of Blackwell's who is now a CPS supervisor in nearby Cuero. Her death, Irvin said, has reminded caseworkers just how dangerous their jobs can be: They enter homes -- always unarmed and seldom with a police escort -- to deal with parents accused of being unfit. "We make a lot of people angry," Irvin said. That was never more apparent than on March 8, a week before Blackwell was found dead, when a man and woman walked into the lobby of the CPS office in Victoria, demanding to speak to Blackwell about an "open case" filed against them. When told that she was in a meeting and unavailable, the man raised his voice and said something like "the lawsuit is back on" and "we're going to get her job for this," said Patrick Crimmins, a CPS spokesman in Austin. Blackwell was reportedly upset when told of the outburst. And Crimmins said an e-mail was immediately sent to caseworkers, urging them to take extra precautions as they do their work in a "business of inherent conflict." Local and state law enforcement investigators are trying to learn whether that episode is connected to Blackwell's death. They have also examined the contents of her home computer, a report says, after it was learned she had been dating online. There are a half-dozen "persons of interest" in the investigation, said Victoria County Sheriff T. Michael O'Connor, and no motive or suspect has been firmed up. Officers hope blood and DNA test results will prove vital in identifying the killer, he said. The awkward part of the probe is the sheriff's relationship with Buchanek. "He trained me," O'Connor noted. "I've been under his command." A career officer Buchanek began his police career in 1977 in the small Texas town of Shiner. He became a Victoria County sheriff's deputy in 1980, rising to the rank of captain before he left in January 2004 to train security forces in Iraq. Before his departure, Buchanek was quoted in the Victoria Advocate as saying, "I've had the privilege of being an American police officer for 26 years, and I felt like [going to Iraq] was an opportunity to share with people who have never experienced American criminal justice." Buchanek returned to Victoria in 2005, telling people he had been injured by a bomb, and he was allowed to settle back in as a reserve sheriff's deputy -- a position he held until he was implicated as a potential suspect in Blackwell's death. She was known as highly energetic and always dependable. So on March 14, when Blackwell failed to show up for a 2nd job at a counseling clinic, friends and co-workers began to worry. Then police discovered evidence suggesting that Blackwell had been forced from her home, leaving one of her two dogs trapped in the garage. "This was very unusual as Blackwell treated this dog like a child and ... it was considered one of her 'babies,'" said an affidavit later written by police to justify their search of Buchanek's house and car. The next day, in a field, Blackwell's purse was found. It contained her driver's license, cash, credit cards and cellphone. "Judging by the exact location of the purse in the field, in relation to the road, it appeared the purse had been discarded from a moving vehicle," the affidavit said. Then, as panicked family members were printing out missing-person posters, Blackwell's partially clad body was found in the field. Hours before the dogs were called out, a Victoria police detective went to Buchanek's home after being told that Blackwell had gone out with him. "Buchanek advised that the last date that he went on with Blackwell was sometime during the end of December 2005," the affidavit said. That outing was cut short, the report said, when Blackwell began receiving calls from work. The next time Buchanek contacted Blackwell she told him "she had met someone else," according to the affidavit. It said the detective who conducted the interview was "bothered" because Buchanek seemed "emotionless, had no reaction to the disappearance of Blackwell, did not seem concerned and did not offer to assist in anyway." On the trail According to police, Quincy and James Bond, in dog years, are almost as experienced in law enforcement as Buchanek. "Quincy has been trailing since November 1997. She has run 845 felony trails. ... James Bond has been trailing since November 2004. He has run 100 felony trails," the affidavit said. The dogs first sniffed clothing samples from Blackwell's body and the rope wrapped around her neck, and then they nosed around the area where her body was found. "The bloodhounds then began to follow the scent ... directly to the residence of Michael Buchanek," the affidavit said. "The bloodhounds walked up the front walkway ... then alerted on the car in the driveway as well." Residents in the Cimarron subdivision say they can't believe it -- one neighbor dead, another a suspect. "He always seemed like a friendly guy, " said Brian Polzin, who lives next door to Buchanek. "He's always waved." 2 blocks away, at the house next to Blackwell's, Sheila Hoffman said, "There's a sadness in the neighborhood, especially on this end of the block. "I wish it were a nightmare," Hoffman added, fighting back tears. "And I'd wake up. And it was over." (source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram) ************************* Sister says she will fight for brothers life in shaken baby case The sister of a man accused in a shaken baby case said she is going to fight for their brothers life. Manuel Velez, 41, and his girlfriend Acela Rosalba Moreno, 25, are accused of biting, burning, shaking, torturing and killing Moreno's 1-year-old son Angel last year. The couple is charged with capital murder, murder and 1st-degree felony injury to a child. "There is no evidence, and there will not be any evidence that my brother abused her in any way," said Velezs sister, Emma Velez. Prosecutors have not decided if they will ask for the death penalty in the case. Moreno claims Velez was a chronically unemployed alcoholic who abused both her and Angel. Velez's family denies the allegations. According to his family, Velez met Moreno last year while he lived at Emma's apartment located across the street from the Chilton Street home of Moreno's sister, Magnolia Medrano. Emma Velez said Moreno left her husband, Juan Chavez, and moved with her 3 children into her and her brothers crowded 2-bedroom apartment. "He's a happy person," Emma Velez said of her brother. "He always used to cook for all of us." But Emma Velez said the stay was short-lived as Moreno asked Velez to move so she get away from her family across the street. Moreno's sister, Magnolia Medrano, said in a previous interview that Velez got Moreno into drugs and alcohol and took her and the children away from them. Emma Velez said her brother took a temporary construction job in Memphis and sent money to Moreno, who spent it to feed a pre-existing cocaine addiction. Moreno's ex-husband, Juan Chavez, said in a previous interview that he was jailed at the time because of false domestic violence charges dreamed up by his ex-wife and Velez. Court records show Chavez served 200 days for a domestic violence charge. "If anyone abused her, it was him, not my brother," Emma Velez said. Although Child Protective Services investigated their household, Emma Velez said the agency failed to notice developmental abnormalities in Angel. "We told her several times that his head was too large," Emma Velez said. "He didn't act like a 1-year-old child should." Moreno and Velez are expected to appear before Judge Menton Murray with the 103rd state District Court for a Friday morning hearing. Velez remains in custody under $1.1 million in bonds, while Moreno is jailed under $2.1 million in bonds. (source: Brownsville Herald) ******************* City's homicides up nearly 25% in 2006----With 90 so far, year is on pace to be deadliest in more than a decade The number of homicides in Houston rose nearly 25 % during the first 3 months of 2006, compared with the same period last year, despite a multimillion-dollar police effort in the city's most crime-ridden areas. The Houston Police Department investigated 90 homicides through Friday, compared with 73 in the 1st quarter of 2005, police say. That puts the city on track for the deadliest year in more than a decade and would erase the last of the gains made in the 1990s, when the city's homicide tally was cut in half. The carnage this year reflects the same trends that police publicized in 2005 after a bloody Thanksgiving weekend and a spate of homicides involving Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans. Police late in the year increased officer overtime pay to focus on the danger, primarily, in southwest Houston apartment complexes and the increased menace of gang violence. But a Houston Chronicle analysis of 326 homicides that occurred in the city last year shows that those trends were obvious long before the 1st evacuee-related slaying and the year-end spike that prompted Police Chief Harold Hurtt to direct resources and public attention to these problem areas. Hurtt last week admitted that HPD was slow to identify the patterns. But he blamed a staffing shortage that grew worse over the last year and outmoded tools for crime analysis. "We were behind the curve as far as resources," he said. "We need to do a better job of continuously identifying and even forecasting trends. But you need (technology) and you need personnel to be able to respond." One in 3 Houston homicides last year occurred in apartment complexes, the leading location for killings in each month of 2005, according to the newspaper's findings. Specifically in southwest Houston, the Chronicle found, 2 police patrol districts were the most violent in the city, accounting for 1 in 5 homicides last year. Yet those districts had the lowest police presence of any in the city, according to an internal HPD study of manpower distribution. It was not until last month that Hurtt, who has been grappling with a manpower shortage throughout the department because of a large number of retirements, added 20 officers to patrol the southwest's Fondren area. The already high rate of homicides there grew in the final months of last year, at the same time the population in southwest Houston was swelling with Katrina evacuees. The spike in apartment crime helped double the number of homicides in December, compared with 2004. By year's end, police had investigated 336 killings, a 22 percent increase over the previous year. 10 of those homicides occurred prior to 2005, but because they were investigated last year, 336 is the figure reported to the FBI as the city's official homicide total. Evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, who began arriving in Houston after the Aug. 29 landfall, were the victims or suspects in 18 homicides. That was 13 % of the slayings that occurred between September and December. Yet Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia, a former HPD officer, noted that HPD would have seen an increase in homicides without the evacuees. "We would still have 700 to 1,000 officers less than what we should have, would still be dealing with homicide increases, and gangs and apartment complexes would still be issues," he said. 'I lost them both' Those affected by the grim tally, either from living amid the violence or losing someone to it, question why police did not see it coming. Jessie Coleman, a 70-year-old woman who raised seven children on the city's southeast side, lost her grandson and son in unrelated slayings that occurred within a 12-hour period in early October. Her grandson, 22-year-old Jermon Lynch, argued with gang members and was shot in the parking lot of a southwest Houston apartment complex where two other people, including a police officer, were killed last year. The family was grieving Lynch's death at Coleman's home when a 16-year-old neighbor pulled a gun during an argument in the street and killed her son, 42-year-old Robert Coleman. "I lost them both and for no reason," Coleman said. "I got to feeling that no one is safe. When you see that the violence is continuing - something must be done." The Chronicle reviewed records including offense reports, public statements, court documents and property records, to identify trends among the 326 killings that occurred in 2005. The analysis revealed patterns that, according to police, hold true in this year's homicides: - Gang violence increased early in 2005 and contributed to 47 homicides, more than 14 % of the total killings. -Arguments, ranging from conflicts over drugs to petty fights, were the leading cause of homicides. - Men between the ages of 19 and 28 were the most likely to be killed. - Blacks and Hispanics were the victims in 85 % of homicides. - Guns were used in more than 80 % of the slayings. After the homicide rate surged in November and December, Hurtt launched a series of initiatives, including 2 overtime programs, estimated to cost $10.5 million, to target crime hot spots and a program to increase apartment complex security. But residents and community activists, familiar with the tendency for violence in apartments and other pockets of southwest Houston, questioned why the problems did not prompt action sooner. "For some reason, our area has been a stepchild for a long time," said Jim Myers, a Fondren-area community leader. The president of the Houston Police Officers' Union said the department, with ranks depleted by the retirement of some 700 officers, could not have acted sooner. "Some of these trends have been flying under the radar," Hans Marticiuc said. "It certainly is a problem for those that were victims, but even if they had been recognized, we could not have done anything because of manpower." Hurtt added that a lack of crime analysis capabilities meant that HPD did not identify patterns among the homicides "in a timely enough manner to be proactive." To meet that need, Hurtt for the first time has appointed a captain to oversee the analysis of crime statistics. The chief receives updates on crime in the city's police divisions every 5 days - up from 45-day intervals between such briefings when he joined the department. Hurtt said the initiatives and reassigned officers have not had time to have full impact. "There have been too many (homicides)," he said, "but it will take some time for us to see results." Myers, a Fondren-area homeowner for 38 years, knows well the problems in the sprawling apartment complexes that line major thoroughfares in southwest Houston. He has witnessed poor security, gang and drug turf battles and a historic lack of proactive efforts by the city and police. "We have more of these groups of apartments concentrated in our area than any other area of Houston, and their problems are not new," Myers said. "Someone should have seen this coming." Fewer officers Residents for years have protested inadequate police presence in southwest Houston. An HPD study completed last year showed that the southwest and Fondren patrol divisions have fewer than one officer per 1,000 people. In contrast, the south central division, which is south and east of downtown, has nearly 2 officers per 1,000 people. Citywide, Houston averages 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents. Other major U.S. cities have between 2.4 and 4.7 officers per 1,000 people, according to a recent New York Times article. Long before HPD began its publicity campaign, apartments were already the most violent places in the city. For example, 45 % of the homicides in February 2005 occurred in apartment complexes. Among those killed was 27-year-old Kofi Appiah, the stepson of a Ghanaian immigrant who helped run his stepmother's grocery store and planned to follow his cousins into the Navy. On Feb. 7, 2005, Appiah was visiting his girlfriend in a southwest Houston complex when he argued with another man, possibly over her. The suspect, Marvin O'Brien Pierre, has not been captured. He allegedly gained access to the complex, although he did not live there. "There was nothing to stop him, and he has been running away ever since," said Joan Sauceda, who raised Appiah. "That man took Kofi's life and was able to flee with no consequences." After launching two overtime programs to increase patrol in high-crime areas last year, Hurtt on March 15 announced the reassignment of 20 officers to the Fondren division. The division still needs more than 10 officers to bring it up to the city's average for officers per resident, noted City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, who worked to secure the additional officers. HPD also restarted a program known as Blue Star that offers security training to apartment managers. The program, first launched by former Police Chief C.O. Bradford, was suspended because of cutbacks until this year. "We are thankful for the efforts," Myers said. "But the question is, 'Why didn't it happen earlier?' Especially with (Hurricane) Katrina." The evacuee effect The September arrival of tens of thousands of evacuees, and their settlement into vacant apartments in southwest Houston, amplified tensions and violence in the high-crime complexes. The largest concentration of evacuees - some 5,991 people, according to city housing voucher records - landed in ZIP code 77036. The area is at the heart of the Fondren division, which recorded 12 homicides in the 1st 6 months of 2005, most in the city. 10 more homicides were recorded there in the 2nd half of the year. After their arrival, evacuees were suspected in the deaths of eight fellow New Orleanians. They were the victims of unknown or non-evacuee suspects in 6 killings and they are suspected in the killings of 4 people who were not evacuees. Police attributed a significant portion of the violence to rivalries between groups from different public housing projects in New Orleans and also found that several killings occurred during robberies. "We saw a rise in incidents around the time that people were receiving FEMA money," homicide Sgt. Brian Harris said. "Among the evacuees are a group of very dangerous people who have been in and out of the Louisiana justice system and who now are our problem. We are sending the message that you do go to jail in Houston and stay in jail." 3 of the 5 homicides recorded last year in Pasadena, Harris County's 2nd-largest city, involved Katrina evacuees. 2 were killed during an apparent robbery while others are suspects in the slaying of a Pasadena woman who police said had befriended them. "It's hard to say where our homicide rate went last year," said Pasadena Police Department spokesman Vance Mitchell. "Without the Katrina factor it would have been down." The Harris County Sheriff's Department has reported no killings involving evacuees and recorded a 10 % increase in homicides in 2005, when it investigated 67 killings. Another factor driving the homicide increase in Houston was gang violence, which began its spike in the first quarter of 2005, when homicide investigators tallied 13 homicides, compared with 4 in the 1st quarter of the previous year. Increase in gang activity The numbers represent an increase in activity by gangs concentrated in southwest Houston. By year's end, police considered 47 homicides to be gang-related - they occurred primarily in apartment complexes. In 2004, HPD identified 29 homicides as gang-related, while 21 were counted in 2003, according to Dale Brown, HPD's homicide captain. "Some of those numbers are low because we have not historically asked the gang question," Brown said. "But even so, it was apparent in 2005 that these groups of people were becoming increasingly violent." Through March 21 this year, HPD had investigated 8 homicides that appear to be gang related. Police have identified MS-13 and La Tercera Crips, both of which have been the targets of large-scale investigations, as major contributors to the rise in gang violence. But other organizations, such as Southwest Cholos and La Primera, also have played a role, police said. Hurtt and Brown responded in December by creating the homicide gang squad, a group of officers within HPD's homicide division who focus on tracking and linking gang violence. At the same time, though, HPD's homicide and other investigative divisions have been hard hit by retirements. Homicide has lost 18 detectives in the past 2 years. "When your investigative divisions are as thin as your street ranks, or more, then your ability to spot and react to trends is diminished," Garcia said. Arguments were by far the leading cause of Houston homicides last year, and the trend continues this year. While some arguments stemmed from gang clashes or drug turf wars, a notable number were prompted by arguments that could be considered petty - a trend that police departments across the country also have cited. In January, a man was beaten to death with a tire iron after he threw a beer can at someone in the parking lot of a southwest Houston apartment complex. In April, two people were shot to death during an argument about an overturned bicycle at a northside burger stand. In July, a bar manager was slain when he could not pay the promised $125 reward for the return of his lost cell phone. "People seem to be resorting to violence in increasing numbers to solve some of their disputes," Brown said. "The idea that disputes could not be resolved in another manner is occurring at a higher rate over previous years and it's continuing this year." Sauceda, whose stepson was fatally shot, possibly over a girl, feels the nature of violence in Houston has changed during her 30 years here. "How can you kill someone over something so small?" she asked. "When people are willing to kill over such things, of course there is going to be terrible violence." (source: Houston Chronicle) FLORIDA: Web of Scandal Ensnares Florida Prison System----Reports of misconduct have roiled the agency in recent years. And details continue to unfold. Florida's Department of Corrections, the nation's 3rd-largest with 128 prisons and other facilities housing more than 85,000 inmates, is in the throes of a multifaceted scandal that shows no sign of stopping. A new interim chief appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush has been firing wardens and probing cases of possible corruption and cronyism among prison personnel, while state and federal agents have been investigating reports of a prison-based steroid ring, theft of state property and misuse of inmate labor. 5 veteran Corrections officers have been fired for their part in a drunken brawl that followed a banquet, or for allegedly lying about what happened. "The absence of integrity, the brutality displayed and unleashed on others, and the dearth of leadership was totally unacceptable," said interim Corrections Secretary James R. McDonough, a war veteran and former Florida drug czar. Last month, McDonough fired four wardens, three assistant wardens and 2 regional directors, saying they did "not have my trust and confidence to lead department personnel in the way they deserve to be led." Then, state Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist said that under McDonough's predecessor, a former minor league baseball player had been placed in a no-show job in a prison library so he could help prison guards win a softball tournament. "It is disturbing that a state agency would place so much importance on a team sport that it would stoop to committing crimes," Crist told reporters. The ringer, Mark Guerra, has agreed to reimburse the state $1,400 and complete 50 hours of community service, Crist said. For Ron McAndrew, a retired warden, the shake-up in the department where he worked for 23 years has come none too soon. "In the '90s, we stood on our head, did everything possible to get rid of our 'Cool Hand Luke' image," McAndrew said. But in recent years, he said, conditions in Florida prisons have often come to resemble a sinister amalgam of the classic Paul Newman movie about the brutal treatment of convicts and the juvenile high jinks of National Lampoon's "Animal House." "Wild and crazy things were happening," said McAndrew, who keeps informed through e-mail contacts with hundreds of department employees and retirees. "One warden took his prison softball team to Las Vegas, gave them $35,000 and said: 'Have a good time, boys. You've earned it.' " On Feb. 10, Bush forced James V. Crosby Jr. to resign as Corrections secretary. Crosby, a former prison guard who rose through the ranks, had become chief in January 2003. He had helped organize campaign rallies for Bush and was supposed to have settled down a department roiled by the four-year tenure of Michael W. Moore. Bush, who as recently as last fall had praised Crosby as a "good leader," didn't give a reason for forcing the resignation, but the governor said, "As the details come out, it'll be clear that it was the appropriate thing to do." McDonough told state legislators he was examining the propriety of two multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts awarded to a Tallahassee company to provide inmates with prescription drugs. He also said he had frozen more than 50 employee club funds, opened by prison wardens, that weren't under department oversight. The accounts might hold more than $1.5 million, he said. Though the funds were intended to pay for morale-boosting events such as family picnics, McDonough said, they were used to pay for employee softball teams, the teams' hotel bills and other activities "only a few could partake in." Under Crosby, a network of "good old boys" from rural northeastern Florida - where many of the state's largest prisons are - came to dominate the department, McAndrew said. "It was run as a fiefdom," he said. Sometimes, he said, wardens and other department officials covered up for "goon squads," groups of prison guards said to have beaten and terrorized inmates to keep them in line. Harry K. Singletary Jr., state Corrections secretary from 1991 to 1999, said the department had been sullied by "a tragedy of epic proportions." "There are so many good Corrections employees and families that deserve better and are now stigmatized by these crooks and rascals," he said in an e-mail. Other states would do well to follow Florida's example and look more closely at what goes on inside their prison systems, said Alexander Busansky, executive director of the privately funded Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons. To have an effective prison system, Busansky said, "you need to recruit the best people, give them the tools they need and hold them accountable." He added: "In Florida, you had a breakdown of all of the elements you need to run any successful business or agency." The commission has held hearings in several U.S. cities on violence, rape and other abuse in America's prisons and jails. Last April, McAndrew told the panel that as outgoing warden at Florida State Prison, he had warned his successor, Crosby, that a goon squad was giving "chronic" beatings to inmates. Instead of disciplining one suspected squad member, McAndrew said, Crosby promoted him. The guard was later charged and acquitted with two colleagues in the fatal 1999 beating of death row inmate Frank Valdes, who was removed from his cell with 22 broken ribs and other and internal injuries. Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute, a not-for-profit public interest law firm, said that prison visits, letters from inmates and official records obtained in lawsuits indicated that under Crosby, treatment of inmates in Florida prisons became more brutal. Berg said pepper spray had been used on prisoners confined to their cells. "It might be purely to punish them for talking to an inmate in an adjoining cell," he said, "or looking out the window." (source: Los Angeles Times) WYOMING: Yellowbear found guilty of murder charges In Thermopolis, a jury on Saturday found Andrew Yellowbear Jr. guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of his 22-month-old daughter. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday and returned the verdict at about 2 p.m. Saturday, said Linda Harris, clerk of the 5th Judicial District Court. The jury will meet again Monday to consider whether to impose the death penalty against Yellowbear, Harris said. "I'm extremely gratified by the jury's verdict, but cannot comment further until the case is completed," Fremont County prosecuting attorney Ed Newell told the Casper Star-Tribune about an hour after the jury of 8 women and 4 men reached a verdict. Relatives of young Marcela Hope Yellowbear, who died in July 2004, could not be reached to comment. A call to the home of Ruby Blackburn, Marcela's great-grandmother, was not returned. Relatives who were at the home said they did not want to comment until a later date. Marcela Yellowbear was pronounced dead at a Riverton emergency room in July 2004 after her mother, Macalia Blackburn, took her in with a variety of injuries including broken bones, severe burns and cuts and bruises to most of her body. While Yellowbear told investigators that Blackburn perpetrated the abuse against the girl, Blackburn said Yellowbear did it. Blackburn initially was charged with Marcela's murder, but pleaded guilty to being an accessory in exchange for her cooperation in the case against Yellowbear. During Yellowbear's 2-week trial, a pathologist testifying for the defense said Marcela didn't die from the prolonged abuse, but suffocated when she was hanged from a closet rod by looping a strap through 2 front belt loops in her suspenders. In a videotape played for jurors, Yellowbear told detectives that he had left home for about an hour, then returned and found Blackburn playing solitaire in the kitchen. He said on the tape that he found his daughter unconscious and suspended in the bedroom closet. He said he took her down and tried to revive her but couldn't. Yellowbear throughout the video mentioned different acts of abuse he said Blackburn told him she'd committed. Yellowbear, however, said he never saw Blackburn abuse Marcela. Blackburn testified that she saw Yellowbear commit horrible abuse, saying he once held a lighter to Marcela's foot, among other things. Before trial, prosecutors had offered Yellowbear the opportunity to plead guilty to 2nd-degree murder, which is punishable by 20 years to life in prison. Yellowbear refused. "I choose to go to trial on this matter," Yellowbear said weeks before trial. "I didn't do anything to my daughter. I think the record shows that." Newell filed documents in court in April 2005 saying Yellowbear should face the death penalty for the girl's death. Among factors that indicated the death penalty was appropriate, Newell stated that the girl's death was "especially atrocious or cruel, being unnecessarily torturous to the victim." Newell noted that Marcela was under the age of 17, and stated she was, "especially vulnerable due to physical disability. The trial was held in Hot Springs County. Yellowbear is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, and his attorneys argued that it would be difficult to find an unbiased jury in Fremont County, where Yellowbear would face anti-Indian bias from whites and intertribal bias from Eastern Shoshone. The 2 tribes share the Wind River Indian Reservation. (source : Casper Star Tribune) LOUISIANA: Serial killer book tries to fill in blanks I'VE BEEN WATCHING YOU: THE SOUTH LOUISIANA SERIAL KILLER----By Susan Mustafa and special prosecutor Tony Clayton with Sue Israel Authorhouse, $28.99 hardcover, $19.99 paperback In Baton Rouge, in the early 2000s, the murders of beautiful, white, affluent women were making headlines. On television and in newspapers, barely a day went by without a mention of the search for the man responsible. In grocery stores and family gatherings, the conversation was the same: Who was responsible? How was the killer finding his victims? Why were women letting him in their homes? How did he get away without being noticed? I've Been Watching You: The South Louisiana Serial Killer, purports to answer these questions while telling the story of the victims and the man ultimately convicted of 2 of the murders, Derrick Todd Lee. Mustafa is the former managing editor of City Social Magazine in Baton Rouge. Clayton is the prosecutor who got a conviction in the 2nd-degree murder trial of Lee in the stabbing death of Geralyn DeSoto, a 21-year-old LSU graduate who lived in Addis. Israel worked as editorial director for City Social and now works for a state agency that is helping to bring Louisianas tourism industry back after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When writing the book, all 3 relied on their experiences living in the Baton Rouge area during the hunt for the serial killer. For anyone new to Baton Rouge, I've Been Watching You offers a way to become familiar with the terror inflicted on the city by Lee. Lee, a 36-year-old husband and father, now sits on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Besides a life sentence in DeSotos death, Lee was convicted in Baton Rouge of the murder of Charlotte Murray Pace, also an LSU graduate. Lee received the death penalty in Pace's murder. In all, he has been linked by DNA evidence to the deaths of 7 women, 6 of them white women who lived in the Baton Rouge area, and a black woman who lived in Lafayette. For a long time during the investigation into the women's deaths, investigators believed the perpetrator was a white man. I've Been Watching You describes how investigators didnt believe Lee was the killer and failed to take seriously tips to the Multi-Agency Homicide Task Force because Lee was black. While I've Been Watching You is an interesting read, it tends to stray from its claim of being nonfiction.Using the clues left behind during the struggles between Lee and his victims, the authors try to recreate what happened at each of the crime scenes. Prosecutors use that technique when examining the evidence and trying to piece together events to prove their case to a jury. What is misleading, however, is when the authors present their assumptions as fact. For instance, in the chapter describing DeSoto's murder, the authors describe their version of how Lee entered her home. They suspect Lee knocked and DeSoto answered without hesitation, but no one knows for sure. The book provides details about Lee's life growing up in St. Francisville and an explanation, although speculative, of why he turned to a life of violence. It provides new excerpts from DeSoto's diary describing the relationship between her and an abusive husband. The book also contains written exchanges between Pace and her mother that pull at the heartstrings. In addition to chapters on each of the victims linked to Lee through DNA evidence, I've Been Watching You includes chapters on the deaths of 10 other women whom the authors believe Lee killed. In the opening chapter describing the murder of Connie Warner, the authors write: "It would be 11 years before her family would get some inkling as to who had committed this despicable act. 11 years of wondering. "But someone did know, and after he had dumped Connie's body by the lake, he felt the satisfaction that comes with power, the power to hold a human life in his hands, the power to make another human being succumb to his whims. He had held the light-skinned woman, had felt her hair, had run his fingers along her cheekbones as she begged for mercy. He had made her his. His appetite had been appeased." In this passage and many more, not enough is done to distinguish the facts of the cases from tantalizing details added by the authors for effect. Although a suspect, Lee has never been charged with Warner's murder. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 washed away all physical evidence from her body. The book also fails to give credit where credit is due. Becky Chustz, the assistant district attorney who responded to the scene of DeSoto's murder, worked for months with detectives in West Baton Rouge Parish gathering evidence and preparing the case against Lee. Chustz gets barely a mention. When reading the chapters of I've Been Watching You, only someone familiar with court proceedings would know that Clayton did not single-handedly prosecute Lee. The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office secured the death penalty for Lee. As for new information about the crimes, the book falls short of its promises. Those who followed the news media closely during the hunt for Lee and his subsequent trials may be disappointed as they make their way through I've Been Watching You. Much of the information has already been released to the public, and the book fails to provide much in the way of new insight about this cold-blooded killer. The book is available at local bookstores and online at http://www.barnesandnoble.com, http://www.amazon.com and http://www.authorhouse.com. (source: The Advocate)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., WYO., LA.
Rick Halperin Sun, 2 Apr 2006 18:27:39 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
