Posted on 02/04/2005 12:40:06 PM PST by SmithL
The teenager accused of terrorizing two strangers now has been charged with vandalism after ruining a bed sheet he used while apparently trying to hang himself in juvenile jail.
Assistant District Attorney General Steve Sword announced the new charge Thursday against Timothy D. Ison, who authorities allege stole two guns from a friend, shot a Holston Hills man and then tried to set him and his wife on fire.
Ison's defense attorney, Bruce Poston, called the additional misdemeanor charge "almost humorous."
"This is getting like 'Alice in Wonderland,' " Poston said. "I would be embarrassed to bring that charge if I were them. What can I say?"
During a hearing Thursday, Sword told Juvenile Court Judge Carey E. Garrett that Ison caused about $10 worth of damage when he ripped a sheet off a bed at the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center, where he is being held awaiting trial.
That sheet was the same one Ison tied to a door and looped around his neck last week in an apparent suicide attempt, said Richard L. Bean, the center's superintendent. The 14-year-old was not seriously hurt, Bean said, though he was put on suicide watch.
Life got even worse for Ison on Thursday when Sword told the court he would seek an attempted first-degree murder charge, the severest option under the blanket charge of attempted criminal homicide.
"We have been unable to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement," Sword told the judge, who then set the full-blown trial for Feb. 24.
Poston said later that his client was willing to plead guilty to especially aggravated robbery and other lesser charges, but he said prosecutors wanted him to go one step farther.
"The state's insisting we plea to attempted murder. We don't believe the proof shows that at all," Poston said. "Therefore, we're going to have a trial."
Such a plea would not have made Ison's sentence any longer or shorter, Poston said, but that did not matter to him. The boy likely will end up in a mental-health facility.
"It cannot change his sentence, but it's principle," Poston said.
On the evening of Nov. 3, authorities said, Ison made his way into the Holston Hills home of Ted and Judith Cope, which was a short distance from his house.
The boy shot Ted Cope in the side, paused for a marijuana cigarette and doused the couple's home with liquor just before police captured him, authorities said.
Sword argued last month that Ison should be tried as an adult, but Garrett ruled against him after a Knoxville psychiatrist said Ison could be deemed "committable" and needed psychiatric treatment.
Ison's mom, Katrina, who sat between Poston and her bespectacled son during the minutes-long hearing Thursday, had no comment outside the courtroom.
Oh boy, I can't wait until this monster is aged 21 and gets released to kill and maim others. I made this point to someone else yesterday--there are certain psychos out there who have no empathy for other people. You can never implant that empathy, they're hopeless lost causes. Releasing them from custody just leads to more people being hurt or killed by them.
BTTT
They are defective units, that should be returned to their maker.
"They are defective units, that should be returned to their maker."
I've never heard it put quite like that, but I like it!
They used to call these kids incorrigible. Take him off the suicide watch and leave him a nice stout piece of rope in his cell.
Wit a minute - This guy shot someone and them tried to burn them up, only failing in that attempt by the arrival of police? What am I missing here? This sounds like the text book definition of 2 counts of attempted murder and worse. The guy's a psycho so it is probably moot but IMO his Defense Attorney ought to be charged with obstruction of justice. Better yet, give the guy another sheet and look the other way for awhile.
That'll learn him.
Well, you know that the resale value of a bedsheet is significantly reduced once it has been used in a suicide attempt.
Now, if some famous person had attempted suicide with it (Capone, Dillinger), then it would have increased in value and the charge would be moot.
...and disturbin' the peace...
Man. first the sheet incident and then the "the blanket charge of attempted criminal homicide." There will be no cover-up in exposing the black heart of this culprit.
Charge the family for the bullet..
How did we allow these voodoo priests to gain such influence over our legal system?
More to the point, how do we turn it into a 'separation of church & state' case to get rid of the psychos running the asylum?
...This message brought to you by...The Culture of DeathTM.
Better beware...the hysTerrical crowd will be yelling at you that only God has the right to tell us when we are to be returned!
You weren’t far off - he made it to 24 before stabbing someone to death.
http://wate.com/2015/05/03/police-investigate-stabbing-on-a-knox-county-greenway/
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