Posted on 04/22/2005 2:50:07 PM PDT by somerville
New Haven, Conn - Serial killer Michael Ross is competent to forgo his death penalty appeals, a judge said Friday, ruling that New England's first execution in 45 years can proceed as scheduled next month.... Ross, who has admitted killing and raping eight young women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980's, is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I'm so sorry for your friend and for your loss. I think I heard about this creep on one of the crime shows on A & E. It may even have been made into a Law & Order.
I noticed the story didn't even name those Ross killed. Was Dzung Tu one of the 8 the story mentioned?
Yes, Dzung was his first murder victim, though previously he had raped many women at Cornell, where he was a student.
I went up to the execution in January with her brother, and when we got there at 1:00 am, everything was set to go- then Ross's got a phone call from a Clinton judge, who yelled at him. They postponed the execution for these recent competency hearings.
Serial killer Ross left trail of victims before Connecticut
By SUSAN HAIGH
Associated Press Writer
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Dzung Ngoc Tu was a 25-year-old graduate student at Cornell University back in May of 1981, studying agricultural economics, when her life was cut short at the hands of classmate Michael Ross, a budding serial killer.
Ross, who eventually admitted raping and murdering Tu, was never prosecuted in the case.
Nearly 24 years later, Ross awaits a death sentence for the murder and rapes of four young women in eastern Connecticut. But he also has admitted killing four other young women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s. Tu was his first known victim.
If the U.S. Supreme Court lifts a stay of execution, his would be the first execution in New England since 1960.
Ross left a trail of victims in New York, North Carolina, Illinois and Ohio before he started killing in eastern Connecticut. Some he raped. Others he attacked and attempted to kill. Besides Tu, he raped and strangled another young woman in New York, 16-year-old Paula Perrera.
The brutal attacks began in Ross' senior year at Cornell and continued in the months following his 1981 graduation when he worked in the agriculture industry. It wasn't until years later that authorities learned that Ross was responsible for the terror.
Tu's body was found in a gorge on the upstate New York campus, days after she was reported missing on May 14, 1981. Michael Malchik, a Connecticut state police investigator at the time, said Cornell authorities initially thought the student may have committed suicide.
Cornell police never linked Ross to the woman's murder, or to a rape and a spate of attempted rapes in 1981, until Malchik arrived in 1987 -- three years after Ross' arrest.
Lan Manh Tu, Dzung Tu's older brother, said he always suspected foul play. He described Dzung Tu as ``a brilliant student'' who spoke Vietnamese, German, French, and eventually English after she moved with her family to Bethesda, Md., from Vietnam at age 13 in 1969.
Dzung Tu, who graduated from Vassar College with a degree in economics, had also worked for the National Institutes of Health helping children with terminal cancer, her brother said.
Ross was not considered a suspect in Perrera's death until years after her 1982 disappearance. Barbara Emery, Perrera's childhood friend, said many people initially suspected Perrera had run away. But after her body was discovered, there was speculation that a family member or boyfriend may have killed her.
Emery said when she first heard of the murders in Connecticut, she began to think Ross may have been her friend's killer.
``I started finding things out that they were really killed the same way,'' Emery said. ``Along the way, I found stuff out.''
Ross picked up Perrera hitchhiking on March 2, 1982. Perrera often hitchhiked in Orange County, N.Y. Perrera, a bubbly girl with a troubled family life, thought of it as an adventure.
``She said, 'I don't get into cars with anyone who looks crazy,''' Emery recalled.
It was not until 2001 that Ross was convicted in Perrera's rape and murder.
``Basically, it doesn't close the case for the family,'' prosecutor John Geidel said in 2001. ``It's something they'll live with for the rest of their lives.''
Before Perrera's killing, Ross served less than six months in jail and several months of psychological counseling for an assault in Ohio. On April 26, 1982, he attacked a 26-year-old, pregnant, off-duty police officer in Licking County, Ohio. Ross knocked on the woman's door and said his car had broken down. She managed to fend him off.
Ross is also known to have attacked a woman pushing a baby carriage in Rolesville, N.C., on Aug. 25, 1981. After threatening to kill the baby, Ross raped and attempted to strangle the woman, leaving her for dead in a soybean field. She survived.
According to news reports, Ross was charged with attempted murder, sexual assault and kidnapping but was never tried.
Shortly afterward, on Sept. 28, 1981, Ross dragged a 15-year-old girl in La Salle City, Ill. into the woods. He gagged her with a sock and wrapped a belt around her neck before being discovered by police. Ross paid a $500 fine and served probation.
Although those crimes aren't sending Ross to Connecticut's death chamber, family members and friends of his out-of-state victims are still keeping a close watch on Ross' possible execution.
``We want him dead,'' Lan Tu said. ``It's a simple answer. As soon as possible.''
So nowhere in the articles does it say HOW LONG this creep was on death row?
It just seems to make more sense to give them a life sentence. Of course, since I am not a family member of the victim my viewpoint is only that these monsters seem to get more notoriety and the family has to go through all these appeals and that's awful
He's been on death row a couple of times. He was given the death sentence back in 1984, but then the Connecticut legislature tried to get rid of it. But now it's back on-- I believe he has been on death row since 1994.
I saw one about him on MSNBC. You would not believe the song and dance by the shrink to excuse this psychopath's behavior (it was his father's fault). And the legal pundits complaining that he spends his days in an 8x10 cell. Oh, the poor thing!
It was obvious why he did these crimes. He enjoyed it. They should have carried out the sentence 20 years ago.
Amen Brother Tu..Amen.
He may be in a cell, but he also has a TV, radio, tons of visitors,including a woman, a fellow Cornell alum, who recently became his "Girlfriend." Ugh.
He has admitted to fantasizing about raping and killing prison nurses and female guards, so they gave him female hormones to reduce his sex drive. Now he looks a little like a woman.
Ohhh!
Sorry for your loss!
Malchik definitely prevented further victims of this animal.
Where's Sister Dontkillem? She was silent about Schiavo but will, I predict, soon make noises about this creep.
Thanks for the link.
Back in January, I talked to some of the groups who were trying to stop the executions- the ACLU, and the United Church of Christ - and none of them knew the names of Ross's victims. I am sure they will be trying their darndest to stop this from going forward but I think they're tapped out. Their arguments were all lame and the Supreme Court shot them down every time. It was an activist judge, a Clinton appointee who made a threatening phone call to Ross's lawyer, that started this latest idiocy. Boy I hope this ends !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.