"Wichita Massacre" murder trial "Ping List"
Posted on 11/03/2002 12:29:26 PM PST by KS Flyover
Kim Parker knew that in a courtroom, no one hears the screams.For the veteran prosecutor, conveying to a jury in a quiet courtroom what she had seen in a snowy soccer field before dawn on Dec 15, 2000, would be her biggest challenge.
Heather Muller must have felt the gun barrel touch her head before someone pulled the trigger. Investigators could tell that just from looking at the wound on the back of her head. She wouldn't be able to tell about that feeling.
No one but one surviving woman would hear Aaron Sander plead: "Oh, God, no.... Please, sir...." before the .380 pistol silenced him.
Only someone who was there early that morning, like Parker, would ever know how it felt to see the bodies of four people who would never reach their 30th birthdays. A high school basketball coach, a student who wanted to be a nun, a prospective priest, and a rising corporate financial officer.
Sure, there would be color pictures to show in court. But capturing the devastation would be nearly impossible.
"This isn't America," one detective remembered thinking that night at the snow-covered soccer complex. This looks like something you'd find in Bosnia or Afghanistan. Not in Wichita.
District Attorney Nola Foulston came to the soccer complex after the phone rang in the middle of the night.
Muller, the student and Sunday school teacher who wanted to be a nun, had worked part time in the law offices of Foulston's husband. Now she was dead. This would be more than just another prosecution.
While Foulston must prosecute cases with professional detachment, disconnecting personal emotions would be difficult.
As the trial approached, there would be no plea bargains. They wouldn't take the death penalty off the table and accept a sentence of life in prison.
The law firm where Ron Evans works in Topeka gets only the worst criminal cases. Clients don't walk into his office. Case files arrive, assigned by a Kansas district court to Evans' office at the Death Penalty Defense Unit, when someone is suspected of doing something so bad the state thinks the action warrants death.
The quadruple homicide on Dec 15, 2000, met two criteria for seeking the death penalty: More than one person had been killed and the deaths had occurred after sexual assaults, according to the woman who survived.
Suspects accused of crimes carrying the possibility of death are entitled to two specially trained lawyers qualified in the complex art of capital litigation.
So when the Carr brothers were charged with capital murder in the quadruple homicide and one other death, Evans got the call to defend Jonathan.
It would be Evans' second death case in a week. He'd already started working on the case of Cornelius Oliver, one of two defendants charged in another quadruple homicide just eight days before -- also in Wichita.
He had come to Kansas from Oklahoma two years before to take over running the Death Penalty Defense Unit. His reasons for defending death penalty suspects are less personal than practical.
The death penalty is expensive, for one. It costs more of taxpayers' money to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life.
Second, Evans just thinks the whole process is unfair. States such as Illinois have proven, through DNA verification, that innocent people get sentenced to die. That state has suspended executions. Others, such Texas, found lawyers who were so inadequate they couldn't represent their clients. Decisions over who faces death, and who will get life in prison, vary from individual prosecutors in each county. Some accept plea bargains for life. Others won't.
Those cases that do go to trial become public events. Typically, they remind Evans of the line in a Bob Dylan song about boxer Ruben "Hurricane" Carter: "The trial was a pig-circus; he never had a chance."
But Evans learned in law school that everyone, no matter how heinous the crime they're accused of, is innocent until proven guilty.
Outside of Evans' office in Topeka, only a handful of lawyers are qualified to defend death penalty cases in Kansas. The court would assign Reginald Carr to Wichita lawyers Jay Greeno and Val Wachtel.
For Greeno and Wachtel, the death penalty is simply immoral. Criminal defense itself is a small part of what Wachtel usually does. The bulk of his work comes in corporate law. But Wachtel says defending capital clients has become a calling. Greeno, meanwhile, would become so involved in Reginald Carr's case that by the time it was over his criminal law practice would have dwindled significantly.
But unlike Evans and co-counsel Mark Manna, Greeno and Wachtel lived in Wichita, where the crimes occurred. Before the trial even started, the lawyers would find themselves accosted in line at the grocery store or at a restaurant. People would swear at their legal assistants in courthouse elevators.
The community perception was that the lawyers were defending the indefensible: Five people brutally killed. Five people raped and sexually tortured for hours before being stripped of everything -- their clothing, their money, their dignity, and for four of those, their lives.
Once the trial began, some 21 months after the crimes, lawyers would become so passionate in their arguments, their debates would sometimes spill out from the courtroom into the hallways leading to Judge Paul Clark's chambers.
But the soft-spoken Clark managed to keep strict order in the court. When lawyers argued too strenuously, Clark would reprimand them with a stern, "Are you through?" Then he'd make his ruling.
After Clark sustained prosecutors' objections to one line of defense questioning, Greeno tried rewording his cross-examination. It didn't work.
"I said 'sustained,' " Clark barked. "That's a legal term for stop what you're doing."
Prosecutors introduced more than 800 exhibits, and Foulston seemed confident most days. She'd walk in imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," jutting her finger in the air and singing, "Stayin' Alive."
After prosecutors spent 3 ½ weeks building their case, the defense took three days. Jonathan Carr's lawyers put on no witnesses. Two experts, on weapons and DNA, that Reginald Carr's lawyers called ended up agreeing with the state. The jury never got to hear three other witnesses. One changed his story before being sworn in; Clark ruled another inadmissible. A third, the common law wife of Reginald Carr who lawyers indicated would testify, was never called.
Throughout the trial, the defense lawyers posted repeated objections, objections that might make a strong appeal and eventually get them what they wanted in the first place: separate trials.
Parker had evidence that connected the Carrs to the crimes, but she wanted to do more. She remembered being at the soccer complex that awful morning. She wanted to put the jury there.
"This is a case about living out your worst nightmare," Parker told the jury.
"They suffered the indignation of the jokes," she added, quoting what the survivor said one of her attackers told her before and after raping her.
"Would you like a drink?" Parker repeated. "Did you like it?" "Maybe if we'd met under other circumstances, we'd have hit it off."
"How degrading is that?" Parker concluded.
She had the courtroom in tears.
Wachtel adopted a calmer approach.
"See, the problem is, when you signed onto this trek, is that you've got to make your decision based on evidence, not emotion," he told the jurors.
Wachtel attacked the DNA evidence and the weapons expert, Gary Miller, who matched the tool marks on the bullets and shells left at three crime scenes to the same gun.
Manna didn't challenge the DNA evidence against Jonathan Carr. He admitted that some evidence pointed squarely at his client. But he urged the jury to look at the lack of evidence against the younger brother at two other crimes. Nothing, Manna said, put Jonathan Carr at the Dec 7 carjacking and robbery of Andrew Schreiber.
That was Reginald Carr, Manna said.
Reginald Carr was the only one identified in the Dec. 11 fatal shooting of Ann Walenta, Manna contended. Manna pointed to Reginald Carr as the leader the night of the quadruple homicide.
"The evidence shows who shot and killed those people," Manna said. "The evidence shows who was directing things that night. One gun, one shooter."
But there was one point no one seemed able to refute. Heather Muller's blood, identified through her distinct DNA, was on both brothers' underwear.
By the time Foulston stood up to close the trial, her tone was almost mocking.
"Reginald and Jonathan Carr must have been the two unluckiest guys in the world," she said.
She gestured to the tables of evidence linking the brothers to the crimes.
"Four people, frozen in time," Foulston said. "Bullets crashed through their brains and froze their hearts on that field of snow. They died at the hands of two brothers, Jonathan and Reginald Carr."
STATE V. CARRS
The crimes;
From Dec 7 to Dec 15, 2000, police say two men, motivated by robbery, stalked people driving newer cars in east Wichita. Five were killed: Ann Walenta, 55; Jason Befort, 26; Aaron Sander, 29; Heather Muller, 25; and Brad Heyka, 27.The trial:
Reginald Carr, 24, and brother Jonathan Carr, 22, both of Dodge City, face 97 criminal counts, including kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder. The state seeks the death penalty.Friday:
The jury deliberated from 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. with few breaks except for lunch and in the afternoon. They asked no questions about the law or the evidence.Monday:
Jury deliberations continue at 8:30 a.m.
For detais about the murders see: The Wichita Massacre
Wichita Massacre Trial Threads:
Wichita to revisit brutal slayings as testimony begins - 10/07/2002
Deputy recalls moment of discovering bodies [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/07/2002
WICHITA MASSACRE TRIAL UNDERWAY Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Legal wrangling opens Carr trial [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Carr trial: Survivor describes sexual attacks by armed intruders [Wichita Massacre] Day 2 - 10/09/2002
Witchita Case of Black Racist Crime Survivor's testimony horrifies courtroom Day 2 - 10/10/2002
Woman testifies that Carrs killed her friends in a soccer field [Wichita Massacre Day 3] - 10/10/2002
Prosecutors Downplay Racial Element in Kansas Murder Trial - 10/11/2002
Reginald Carr had $996, victims' credit card, watch [Wichita Massacre Day 4] - 10/11/2002
Wichita Massacre Audio of 911 Call by Female Survivor with Court Room Video Footage From Day 1- 10/11/2002
Victims' belongings linked to defendant [Wichita Massacre Day 5] - 10/12/2002
Trial opens window into night of fear - 10/13/2002
Media Ignore Kansas Interracial Mass Murder - 10/14/2002
AP Finally Reports Wichita Trial... But Mentions "White Supremacist" Support - 10/14/2002
Nosey mom tips off cops (Wichita Massacre) Day 6 - 10/15/2002
'I was afraid,' witness says [Wichita Massacre Day 6] - 10/15/2002
ATM photos shown in Carr trial [Wichita Massacre Day 7] - 10/16/2002
Testimony on cellist slaying fills Carr trial [Wichita Massacre Day 8] - 10/17/2002
Survivor says she caught STD [Wichita Massacre Day 9] - 10/18/2002
Carr trial to focus on guns and DNA [Wichita Massacre Day 10] - 10/19/2002
Luck, vivid memories helped cops [Wichita Massacre] - 10/20/2002
Wichita Massacre -- The Latest in the Black Racist Hate Crime Trial - Carrs linked to crime scene - Day 11 - 10/22/2002
Hate crime reversed - By Armstrong Williams - 10/23/2002
Evidence in Carr trial gruesome, unavoidable [Wichita Massacre Day 12] - 10/23/2002
Jurors view Wichita crime scenes / DNA ties Carrs to victims [Wichita Massacre day 13] - 10/24/2002
State to rest case against the Carrs [Wichita Massacre Day 14] - 10/25/2002
State rests; Carrs begin their side [Wichita Massacre Day 15] - 10/26/2002
DNA lets the dead speak in Carr trial [Wichita Massacre] - 10/27/2002
Carr jurors get break as deliberation rules ironed out [Wichita Massacre] - 10/28/2002
Multiple-killings suspect unlikely to testify [Wichita Massacre] - 10/29/2002
Survivor's police interview rattles Carr trial jurors [Wichita Massacre Day 16] - 10/30/2002
Carrs' defense rests; jury deliberation near [Wichita Massacre Day 17] - 10/31/2002
Deliberations begin in Carr trial - Closing arguments move juror to tears [Wichita Massacre Day 18] - 11/01/2002
Carr jury recesses for weekend [Wichita Massacre] - 11/02/2002
"Wichita Massacre" murder trial "Ping List"
I can save these people a lot of money. I'll do the deed, and only charge on tenth of what they are paying now.
There is something wrong with that statement. How much does a bullet cost?
Hank
WFTR
Bill
A bullet? If we'd use an aluminum baseball bat, we wouldn't have to buy a new one for every execution.
I'm starting to wonder about that little voice.
No, we wouldn't...
The community is perceptive.
He'd drink free in my bar.
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