[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., VA., FLA., ILL., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

April 13


TEXAS:

Judge declines to throw out convicted murderer's execution date


A judge declined Wednesday to withdraw an execution date for condemned
murderer Billie Wayne Coble.

Judge George Allen of Wacos 54th State District Court rejected a motion
from Cobles attorney that sought to have the Aug. 31 execution date
withdrawn.

Coble was sentenced to death in the shooting deaths of his estranged wifes
parents, Robert and Zelda Vicha, and her brother, Waco police Sgt. Bobby
Vicha, at their Axtell residences Aug. 29, 1989.

Cobles attorney, Richard Ellis, of Mill Valley, Calif., claimed in the
motion filed this week that Allen had no jurisdiction to set Cobles
execution date because Ellis still intends to ask the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals to reconsider Cobles appeal.

A 3-member panel of the New Orleans-based federal appellate court rejected
a Coble motion for a rehearing last month.

(source: Times-Herald)






NORTH CAROLINA:

State Proposes Using Device, Not Doctors, in Execution


North Carolina officials, who had been ordered by a federal judge to
identify medical personnel to supervise an execution next week, told him
instead yesterday that they had bought and intended to use a device to
monitor the brain waves of the condemned inmate.

A lawyer for the inmate said the state's response to the judge, Malcolm J.
Howard of Federal District Court in Greenville, N.C., amounted to
defiance.

"Judge Howard asked for the identity of qualified, trained medical
personnel," said the lawyer, J. Donald Cowan Jr. "They gave him a
machine."

The dispute arose against the backdrop of two recent judicial decisions
requiring that executions be supervised by medical personnel. The
decisions cited evidence that condemned inmates might have suffered
extreme pain from the chemicals used in lethal injections.

But medical codes of ethics prohibit doctors and other health
professionals from participating in executions.

Officials in California had to call off an execution there because they
could not find doctors willing to participate. Yesterday's filing in North
Carolina suggests similar difficulties.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general declined to comment.

The device described in the filings, a bispectral index monitor, is in any
event not a suitable substitute for medical monitoring, its maker and
prominent anesthesiologists said.

"It's not a stand-alone device," said Dr. Scott D. Kelley, the medical
director of Aspect Medical Systems, which makes the device and said it
inadvertently sold one to a prison hospital in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday.
"It's another information source. It turns brainwaves into clinically
useful information to help anesthesia professionals guide their monitoring
of the patient."

Using only the device to discern the potential suffering of condemned
inmates, Dr. Kelley said, "is taking a leap of faith I simply cannot
endorse."

Dr. Kelley said his company, based in Newton, Mass., took no position on
the death penalty or on executions by lethal injection. But the sale of
the device on Tuesday was, he said, "a regrettable system failure."

"Any use of this technology that is not in a health care facility is
outside the intended use of the technology," he said.

Dr. Orin F. Guidry, the president of the American Society of
Anesthesiologists, said the device, which costs about $5,000, was used by
anesthesiologists only in conjunction with other forms of monitoring.

"One should not depend on a single modality," Dr. Guidry said. "It has to
be integrated into the clinical practice."

The anesthesiologists society opposes the participation of doctors in
executions.

"Physicians are healers, not executioners," the society said in a
statement.

Lawyers for the condemned inmate, Willie Brown Jr., have until Friday to
respond to the state's submission. Judge Howard has said he will enter a
stay of execution if he is not satisfied with the state's response.

Judge Howard's order, issued Friday, was prompted by concerns that the
series of three chemicals used to execute inmates could cause excruciating
pain if the first one, a barbiturate, did not render the inmate
unconscious.

The 2nd chemical paralyzes the subject, suffocating him. The 3rd stops his
heart, delivering severe pain in the process.

Judge Howard had ordered state officials to submit the "plans and
qualifications" of "medical personnel who are qualified to ensure that"
Mr. Brown would become unconscious and remain so.

Should Mr. Brown "exhibit effects of consciousness at any time during the
execution," Judge Howard wrote, "such personnel shall immediately provide
appropriate medical care so as to ensure" that he was "immediately
returned to an unconscious state."

In its filing yesterday, state officials said that the otherwise
unspecified "execution team" would not administer the second or third
chemicals until the monitor showed that Mr. Brown was unconscious.

Should he awaken, the filing said, more barbiturate would be administered
until the monitor again showed unconsciousness.

(source: New York Times)

*******************

Alan Gell charged with statutory rape----Man victimized in tainted murder
trial is accused of 31 sex offenses with girl, 15


Late on Wednesday morning in the Bertie County Courthouse, Alan Gell stood
at the same table where he was twice tried for murder.

District Court Judge Thomas Newbern interrupted the humdrum of traffic
court to explain to Gell that he faced up to life in prison for each of 14
charges of statutory rape, more time for each charge of indecent liberties
with a minor, and still more for possession of cocaine. Gell, dressed in a
mint green shirt and blue jeans, mouthed a few words to his wife, who sat
in the gallery, dressed almost identically to her new husband.

Gell then walked silently in handcuffs to a sheriff's vehicle. He was
taken to the Bertie-Martin Regional Jail and placed in solitary
confinement. That, too, was a familiar place; he had spent two years there
before his 1st murder trial, which landed him on death row, wrongly
convicted.

Gell had been arrested earlier Wednesday and charged with 31 sex offenses
against a minor, a former girlfriend who was 15 at the time. The girl, now
16, is pregnant, perhaps with Gell's child. The girl's father also was
charged with having sex with her -- and with her older sister.

The sex case would, by itself, capture the spotlight in Bertie County,
tucked in the northeast corner of the state. But with Gell's notoriety,
the glare is brighter.

Gell, 31, spent 9 years behind bars, half of it on death row, for the
April 1995 murder of Allen Ray Jenkins, a retired truck driver. He was
awarded a new trial in 2002 because prosecutors withheld evidence showing
he was in jail when the murder occurred. The prosecutors also withheld
tapes of 2 15-year-old girls, their key witnesses, saying they had to make
up a story.

Gell, whose case has been covered extensively in The News & Observer, was
tried again in February 2004 and was quickly acquitted by a Bertie County
jury.

Once freed, Gell crusaded against the death penalty and was a vocal critic
of the criminal justice system. His case led to major changes in state
law, including a mandate for prosecutors to share their investigative
files with defendants before all felony trials.

His case drew statewide and national attention, including appearances on
"Larry King Live" and BBC World Service in December.

Gell became a friend of the girl's family last summer and regularly went
motorcycle riding with the girl's parents.

According to documents filed by the State Bureau of Investigation, Gell
had sex with the girl in his home about once a week from late August until
December. Gell was a frequent visitor at the family's home, and e-mail
messages between Gell and the girl revealed a strong emotional
relationship, the SBI said.

The victim's mother learned in December that her daughter was pregnant.
Gates County Sheriff Edward E. Webb started an investigation focusing on
the girl's father, who was suspected of having sex with the girl and her
sister, who was 16 at the time, for several years.

Gell did not know of the girl's father's alleged sexual abuse of his
daughters, Webb said.

Webb and District Attorney Valerie Asbell declined to say whether Gell or
the girl's father impregnated her. She is about 24 weeks pregnant.

The girl's father was arrested Wednesday afternoon on 21 charges of rape
and indecent liberties and held with bail set at $315,000, according to
Gates Clerk of Court Nell Wiggins. He is charged with having sex with his
2 oldest daughters.

The News & Observer is withholding the identity of the girl and her father
because of the newspaper's policy not to identify victims of sex crimes.

1 drug, 31 sex charges

Gell was charged with 14 counts of statutory rape -- 1 for each sexual
encounter in his home in Lewiston -- and 14 counts of indecent liberties
with a minor. He was also charged with 1 count of cocaine possession, 1
count of sexual exploitation of a minor -- for allegedly photographing
them having sex -- and 2 counts of statutory sex offense. Under North
Carolina law, sex with a minor is rape if the victim is 15 or younger and
the offender is 6 or more years older.

Statutory rape is a difficult charge to defend. Ignorance of the victim's
age or a profession of consent by the victim does not matter.

Interested parties

Just before 9 a.m. Wednesday, a small gaggle of television cameras waited
for Gell outside the Bertie County Sheriff's office. The lead investigator
in the Jenkins murder, SBI Special Agent Dwight Ransome, drove by slowly.

A few minutes later, Gell arrived with his lawyer, Thomas Manning of
Raleigh. He was fingerprinted. A magistrate set bail at $322,000.

Gell walked down the street to the courthouse as television crews and
photographers captured every step. He walked with his arm around an aunt
and holding the hand of his wife, Kristin Gell, whom he married Friday in
Maryland. Gell met Kristin, 17, after his release from prison.

The news of Gell's arrest did not surprise the family of Allen Ray
Jenkins, the murder victim.

"I knew he would get in trouble again, beyond a shadow of a doubt," said
David Ray, Jenkins' son. "They were watching him like a hawk and waiting
for him to mess up."

Manning, the lawyer, declined to comment, beyond thanking Asbell, the
district attorney, for letting Gell turn himself in.

"She arranged a surrender rather than having the agents pulling him out of
his house first thing in the morning," Manning said. "This was routine,
not ugly."

*****************************

Prisons offer machine as monitor----Officials hope a judge's order
concerning lethal injection will be satisfied


North Carolina prison officials have proposed using a medical device to
make sure death row inmate Willie Brown Jr. is unconscious and does not
experience pain during his April 21 execution.

The proposal is in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Malcolm
Howard that Brown's execution could go forward only if medically trained
personnel were present to make sure Brown is fully sedated before
paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs are administered.

Brown's attorneys had raised concerns that inmates have been awake and
experiencing pain during executions by lethal injection. They argue that
that violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Prison officials have proposed using a bispectral index monitor, or BIS
monitor, so a doctor and nurse can track Brown's brain waves to determine
his level of consciousness. The machines, which federal authorities
approved in 1996, are used by health professionals to verify surgical
patients have received adequate anesthesia.

State prison officials are proposing something that no other state that
administers the death penalty has done.

"This is more medical technology than has ever been applied to an
execution in any state as far as I know," said Dr. Jonathan Groner, an
Ohio State University surgeon who has written about physician
participation in executions. "It's not enough for the execution to look
like a medical procedure. Now, they want it to look like an intensive care
unit."

One of Brown's attorneys, Don Cowan, said state officials haven't complied
with the judge's order, which clearly asked them to provide qualified
medical personnel during the lethal injection process. Experts have said
only an anesthesiologist or a nurse anesthetist under the supervision of a
doctor could satisfy the judge's request.

"They didn't do that," Cowan said. "They gave him a machine."

Cowan has until 5 p.m. Friday to lodge any objections with the judge about
the state's proposal.

Brown, 61, was sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of a Williamston
convenience store clerk. Brown robbed the Zip Mart, kidnapped Vallerie Ann
Roberson Dixon, took her to a logging road, made her lie down and shot her
six times. He made off with $90.

Howard's April 7 order has thrust North Carolina into the middle of a
national debate about whether medical professionals should be involved in
executions. Two months ago, a federal judge required California officials
to find doctors to ensure that murderer Michael Morales was unconscious
during an execution. No doctors were willing, and Morales has not been
executed.

The American Medical Association and American Nurses Association oppose
their members participating in executions, based on their professional
ethics. State officials acknowledged in court records filed Wednesday that
a doctor and nurse at Raleigh's Central Prison observe a heart monitor
connected to the inmate throughout the execution. (The professional groups
define participation in executions as monitoring vital signs.)

Now the state is proposing that the doctor and nurse observe the inmate's
sedation level with a BIS monitor in a room adjacent to the death chamber.

But the BIS monitor does not have widespread approval within the medical
community.

When told about the state's proposal, Dr. Richard Pollard of Charlotte,
president of the N.C. Society of Anesthesiologists, laughed out loud.

"These monitors cannot guarantee that a patient is asleep," Pollard said.

The company that manufactures the machines isn't pleased that its product
may be used for an execution. Scott Kelley, an anesthesiologist and the
medical director at Aspect Medical Systems in Newton, Mass., says the
company is focused on improving patient care.

"As you might imagine, getting involved in a lethal injection is
diametrically opposed to our mission," Kelley said.

He said that the BIS monitor is intended to be used by anesthesia
professionals who consider the machine's data in conjunction with their
training and other information to determine whether a patient is
adequately anesthetized. The American Association of Anesthesiologists
considers the machine an emerging technology to be used by an
anesthesiologist only on a case-by-case basis.

Other doctors are comfortable with the state's proposal.

"It is my opinion, beyond a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that
the utilization of the BIS monitor ... will prevent the possibility of the
inmate being awake," wrote Dr. Mark Dershwitz, an anesthesiologist at the
University of Massachusetts and the state's expert in the case.

(source for both: The News & Observer)






VIRGINIA:

Defense to begin case in Moussaoui trial


Defense lawyers for Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui face a
daunting task: persuading a jury to spare their client's life after a week
in which the horrors of the terrorist attacks were vividly revisited.

The defense was scheduled to begin its case Thursday morning in
Moussaoui's death-penalty trial. They argue that the jury should spare
Moussaoui's life because of his limited role in the 9/11 attacks, evidence
that he is mentally ill and because his execution would only play into his
dream of martyrdom.

One witness the defense intends to call is would-be shoe bomber Richard
Reid, who is serving a life sentence in Colorado.

Moussaoui testified earlier in the trial that he and Reid were to have
piloted a fifth plane into the White House on Sept. 11, even though
Moussaoui previously had said for years that he was training for a wholly
separate attack on another day.

Defense lawyers have suggested that Moussaoui lied during his testimony to
ensure he would be executed and achieve martyrdom. The court-appointed
defense lawyers - with whom Moussaoui refuses to cooperate - have also
said Moussaoui is merely "an al-Qaida hanger-on" who is seeking to inflate
his stature.

Mental health evidence will include the history of schizophrenia in
Moussaoui's family. A defense expert has said that Moussaoui probably
suffers from schizophrenia, but Moussaoui has refused to cooperated with
defense doctors' evaluations.

Moussaoui has the right to testify again at this stage in the trial.

It is also likely that some family members of Sept. 11 victims will
testify for the defense as the court-appointed lawyers try to counter
those who testified for the government. Some family members have stated
publicly that they do not want Moussaoui to be executed. Trial rules,
however, prohibit witnesses from offering their opinion on whether
Moussaoui should live or die.

The jury that will decide whether Moussaoui is executed or sentenced to
life in prison has already heard from dozens of Sept. 11 family members,
who offered agonizing, emotional testimony about the aftermath of their
loved ones' deaths.

Prosecutors capped their case Wednesday by playing the cockpit voice
recorder from United Flight 93, which crashed in a western Pennsylvania
field after passengers attempted to retake the plane from the hijackers.

The recording had never previously been played publicly.

The 30-minute recording includes the final six minutes, in which
passengers stage their revolt. At 10 a.m., after a series of loud crashes
as passengers apparently try to storm the cockpit, a hijacker asks in
Arabic, "Shall we finish it off?"

The response comes back, "No, not yet."

Then a voice is heard in English: "In the cockpit! If we don't, we die!"

At 10:01 a.m., a hijacker asks again: "Shall we put it down?"

The response this time: "Yes, put it ... down."

At 10:03 a.m., the recording ends, as the plane slams into a Somerset
County field at a speed exceeding 500 miles per hour.

The hijackers planned to crash the plane into the U.S. Capitol, according
to Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. When it crashed, Flight 93
was only 10 to 20 minutes away from reaching Washington, according to the
Sept. 11 Commission.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in connection with
the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate has already declared him
eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at
least one death on Sept. 11.

Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, the
jury ruled that lies told by Moussaoui to federal agents a month before
the attacks kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Wife's stabbing death an accident, suspect testifies----His testimony is
at odds with his videotaped confession played for jurors earlier in the
day.


His voice rising an octave at least, Frederick Addison cried and babbled
incoherently from the witness stand in his first-degree murder trial
Wednesday.

When he calmed down, his story boiled down to this: He stabbed his
estranged wife 43 times -- accidentally.

"How did I do all that?" he asked when a prosecutor showed him a picture
of his wife Cynthia's body with most of the knife wounds clustered around
her heart.

"I loved my wife," he said. "It was really just an accident."

Addison's testimony was in sharp contrast to his videotaped confession
played for jurors just hours before. On the tape, he's seen laughing and
calmly telling detectives how he grabbed a knife from the garage, entered
the house he was barred from under a restraining order and angrily stabbed
Cynthia Addison, a 5th-grade teacher at Brookview Elementary School, to
death.

Prosecutors said the tape shows the killing last May was premeditated
first-degree murder, but Addison and his attorney, Rodney Gregory, tried
to convince the jury he acted in the heat of passion. They are hoping to
limit the jury's verdict to 2nd-degree murder.

Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper scheduled closing arguments this morning.
Addison, 47, faces a mandatory life prison sentence if convicted as
charged. The state isn't seeking the death penalty.

He was the only defense witness in the trial, which began Tuesday. He told
jurors he and his 44-year-old wife were in the bedroom talking calmly
about sex when she pulled the knife from under her pillow. It was a knife
he had told her to keep there for her own protection, he testified.

He said he took the knife from her, opened it and accidentally cut the
mattress with it. Then, he testified, he accidentally cut his wife just
below her left jaw. As he shut his eyes and "fell into her" she collapsed
toward him and they rolled around before falling off the bed. After they
landed on the floor, he said, he noticed the knife sticking out of her.

"I never planned to kill my wife," he testified. Several relatives of
Cynthia Wilkes left the courtroom crying during the testimony.

After the killing, he said he called the man who'd dated his wife and told
him to call police because "I wanted him to have some participation in
this." Then Addison said he wandered aimlessly around the Patton Road
house before throwing the knife in a trash can and burning his bloody
clothes.

In rambling and often conflicting testimony, Addison told the jury he
still loves his wife but they both wanted the divorce. He admitted kicking
Cynthia Wilkes once during an argument, deliberately violating the
restraining order and burning her clothes and pictures before the slaying.

"That's because you were planning on getting rid of her and her memories,"
Assistant State Attorney Pam Johnson said.

"No, ma'am, I was doing something petty," Addison replied.

Addison also admitted lying to detectives about where he disposed of the
knife and said he purposefully exaggerated his story to police.

"I felt real bad what happened, and I wanted all this to be over real
quick," he testified.

"I know I did something bad that night."

(source: The Florida Times-Union)




ILLINOIS:

Jury says LaGrone ineligible for death penalty; judge sentences him to
life in prison


In Bloomington, the jury that convicted Maurice LaGrone Jr. of
first-degree murder did not believe he intentionally drowned his former
girlfriend's 3 children, said jurors who spoke about their decision
Wednesday after finding LaGrone ineligible for the death penalty.

"We didn't believe there was an intent, but he was put in a situation that
got out of hand and didn't save them," said juror Greg Haddock.

Following the jury's decision, DeWitt County Judge Stephen Peters
immediately sentenced LaGrone to life in prison without parole. LaGrone
showed no reaction to the sentence.

The panel of 7 women and 5 men deliberated more than 23 hours over four
days before convicting LaGrone on Tuesday in the deaths of Christopher
Hamm, 6, Austin Brown, 3, and Kyleigh Hamm, 23 months. The children died
after their mother's car sank in Clinton Lake in September 2003. Amanda
Hamm's trial on the same murder counts is pending.

The jury only deliberated about 10 minutes Wednesday before ruling LaGrone
did not meet the legal requirements for the death penalty. Those
requirements included a finding that LaGrone knowingly caused the deaths
of multiple victims who were younger than 12.

Two of the children's fathers, Shane Senters and Greg Hamm, left the
McLean County Law and Justice Center without comment after the jury's
decision. When Greg Hamm's mother, Reta Hamm, was told about the ruling,
she said, "I'm not surprised but it will have to do."

During the hearing on the death penalty issue, LaGrone defense lawyer Tom
Griffith told the jury the term "knowingly" should be a key factor in
their determination. Griffith said a jury question near the end of their
deliberations Tuesday indicated the panel was struggling with some
elements of the murder verdict.

The jury's conclusion, said Griffith, was "he didn't do it intentionally
or knowingly, but he parked a car three feet from the water, things got
away from him and the children ended up dying." Several jurors nodded in
agreement with Griffith's remarks.

The Pantagraph, David Proeber

Greg Haddock, center, and Louis Villafuerte, jurors in the Maurice LaGrone
Jr. murder trial in Bloomington, describe how the jury came to its
conclusion to exclude LaGrone from the death penalty.

In asking for a death sentence, Special Prosecutor Roger Simpson said
LaGrone qualified for death because of the brutal nature of the crime.

"While death was quiet - no one could hear it - it was brutal," said
Simpson, adding the couple had an obligation to protect the 3 children.

But Haddock said the jury's decision against a death sentence was an easy
one for the panel.

"It was a pretty simple decision for us. By deciding there was no intent,
it was pretty clear it's not a death penalty situation," he said.

A death penalty opposition group was present for the jury's ruling and
charged afterwards that the state's decision to seek the death penalty was
based on money.

"It's pretty evident the decision by DeWitt County authorities to make
this a capital case was based strictly on finances," said Chuck
Hutchcraft, statewide organizer for the Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty in Illinois. Taxpayers have paid more than $1.3 million for the
Hamm and LaGrone legal cases so far, he said, from the state Capital
Litigation Trust Fund, which is set up to help counties pay the costs of
death penalty cases.

Simpson, who spoke to the media for the first time Wednesday since the
trial began about five weeks ago, denied either the LaGrone or the pending
Hamm case has been elevated to capital status to help out DeWitt County
financially. Standing with DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey, Simpson
said he was pleased with the conviction and accepted the death penalty
decision.

"That's their call," Simpson said. "I have no quarrel with that at all."

LaGrone defense attorney Jeff Justice said an appeal is a certainty, based
upon what the defense considers a serious error on the judge's part to
deny the jury involuntary manslaughter as a verdict option.

"I think the jury was left with no other choice. I'm convinced the jury
was not going to let Maurice go home," Justice said.

Defense lawyers said LaGrone was "very stoic - he's accepted the verdict
and focusing on what comes next," said Justice. LaGrone will leave the
McLean County jail for a Department of Corrections entry facility, he
said.

(source: Herald & Review)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Elderly suspect cuts deal; death penalty off the table


The 72-year-old Moore Township woman charged with bludgeoning her elderly
neighbor to death with a claw hammer during a robbery last year reached a
deal that will spare her the death penalty and a trial.

Kathy MacClellan is expected to plead guilty April 24 before Northampton
County Judge Emil Giordano, but neither defense attorneys nor prosecutors
would disclose terms of the negotiated deal Wednesday.

"It's not appropriate for me to say anything before a plea is entered,"
said Assistant District Attorney Jay Jenkins.

Defense attorney Anthony Martino also declined to specify the terms but
said the death penalty is off the table.

MacClellan is charged with criminal homicide, robbery and related crimes.

District Attorney John Morganelli was unavailable for comment on the
decision to drop the death penalty, and First Deputy District Attorney
Terry Houck declined to comment.

Morganelli took considerable heat from both foreign and domestic critics
last year for not ruling out the death penalty against the elderly
MacClellan. Among the most outspoken critics was Amnesty International,
which launched a letter-writing campaign to Morganelli's office in an
effort to change his mind.

If the plea bargain falls through, MacClellan could be the oldest woman in
the country to be tried in a capital murder case since the death penalty
was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

MacClellan became eligible for the death penalty because the victim,
84-year-old Marguerite "Tuddy" Eyer, was tortured during the attack and
was killed during the commission of another felony, a robbery.

Police said MacClellan walked to Eyer's home on Springridge Drive in the
quiet Hickory Hills development off Route 512 on Feb. 7, 2005, and beat
Eyer to death with a claw hammer. A neighbor responded to Eyer's
activation of a medical alert device and found her bloodied and beaten on
the floor.

Police said Eyer was beaten so badly that one of her fingers was nearly
severed, and her arm was so severely broken it was bent behind her
shoulder blade. Despite her injuries, the retired widow was able to use
her dying breath to identify MacClellan as her attacker.

State police searched MacClellan's home the following day and found a bag
containing a bloody hammer in a rear bedroom, authorities said.

Investigators also found Eyer's wallet, driver's license and checkbook in
the bedroom.

Both MacClellan and Eyer had ties to Warren County. Eyer worked as a
school secretary for 30 years in Belvidere, and MacClellan used to live in
Hackettstown.

(source: Express-Times)