Posted on 10/10/2002 9:08:59 AM PDT by GaryMontana
Posted on Wed, Oct. 09, 2002
Survivor's testimony horrifies courtroom The woman who survived the quadruple homicide in 2000 takes the stand in the second day of testimony in the Carr brothers trial.
More photos Dave Williams/The Wichita Eagle Crime Scene Investigator Kevin Brasser displays the keys her collected from a victims car during day two of the Jonathan and Reginald Carr trial in Sedgwick County District Court.
Gruesome crime scene photos and chilling testimony Tuesday from the lone survivor of a quadruple homicide nearly two years ago created a disturbing second day of state's testimony in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr.
Jurors left the courtroom of Judge Paul Clark staring at the floor as family and friends of the victims waited silently to be dismissed.
Reginald Carr, one of two brothers facing the death penalty if convicted, looked at faces glaring back at him as court guards marched him back to jail. Jonathan, his younger brother, looked straight ahead.
Prosecutors had spent the first day and a half reconstructing events surrounding the shooting of five people, and the killing of four, in a snow-covered soccer field on Dec. 15, 2000.
Seats that had been full during the first day of testimony emptied at midmorning Tuesday as Wichita police crime scene investigator Kevin Brasser took the stand.
Brasser worked alone in the dark that morning collecting evidence and taking pictures at 29th Street North and Greenwich Road, where the bodies were found. The jury sat expressionless as they looked at Brasser's graphic photos, displayed under repeated defense objections.
But Clark's small court filled again after lunch, when the sole survivor of the attack, a one-time schoolteacher, retold her story. The only vacant seats were the ones next to Jonathan and Reginald Carr's mother.
The state's eyewitness, who testified 18 months ago at a preliminary hearing, once again calmly recounted her nightmare.
She told of two black men armed with guns breaking into the home of her boyfriend, Jason Befort, of then being raped and sodomized and of watching her friends beaten.
She said all the men wanted to know when they burst in around 11 p.m. on Dec. 14, 2000 was: Who has money?
"None of us had any cash on us," she said.
Have any ATM cards?
"We all raised our hands."
How much money do you have in the bank? the attackers asked, she said.
Each had between $200 and $1,500, she recollected. "They were not irrational, they were just shouting and very demanding," she said.
District Attorney Nola Foulston asked what she thought would have happened if they didn't comply with those demands.
"We were under the impression they'd probably shoot us," said the woman.
Since the day of the crime, she has not been identified because of an Eagle policy of not printing the names of sexual assault victims.
She told of assaults and sodomy in detail, as everyone -- including the Carrs -- kept their eyes on the witness stand. The jury watched her intently, looking down to occasionally take notes.
Family members and friends of Befort, Aaron Sander, Heather Muller and Brad Heyka sniffled and tried to hold back tears.
"Oh, God, no," one person whispered as the woman told of one horrific sexual attack on another man that had her fearing for her boyfriend's life.
She said the attackers kept some of them in a bedroom closet while taking one or two out at a time to assault them or give orders at gunpoint.
Just before midnight, the stockier of the two men began taking each of them in Befort's Dodge Dakota to automatic teller machines, forcing them to withdraw money, she said. When it was her turn to drive, she said the man kept fiddling with the radio, trying to find a music station he liked.
"Oh, Christ," someone from the gallery sighed in disbelief.
But en route to and from a Commerce ATM at 21st Street and Webb Road, she said the man told her he wouldn't shoot anyone.
"I said, 'Do you promise?' " she remembered.
"He said, 'Yeah, I'm not gonna shoot you.' "
She said she later told her friends.
"As I got back in the closet I said, 'I think we're gonna be OK.' I said, 'He said he's not going to shoot us.' "
During the hours of agony, the woman learned that Befort had bought an engagement ring for her. One of the intruders found the ring in a popcorn tin.
"Is this the only one?" she remembered the intruder asking, wanting to know if there was any more jewelry.
That's all, Befort told him. She said the bigger man then said something that made her think he had taken back his earlier promise.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you yet," she remembered him saying before he raped her. It was the second time she had been raped that night.
"Were you able to see or look at this individual?" Foulston asked.
"I did," the witness answered.
During the preliminary hearing, the woman positively identified Jonathan Carr, but not Reginald Carr.
On Tuesday, she said she saw both men, but was not asked to identify them.
She saw the second man in the bathroom, as he attacked one of her friends.
"And were you able to get a good look at him?" Foulston asked.
"Yes," she said, "I was."
Her testimony continues this morning.
For your information, I'm from Wichita. Go ahead and take that foot out of your mouth now.
You are the one talking about "blaming the victims", I never mentioned any such words.
You are condemning them for somehow letting themselves be violated. If that's not blaming the victim then what exactly is it?
The rest of your post is just hot air. I'll let you continue to pat yourself on your back as long as it makes you feel good.
If you are at all interested, what you are doing is known as "downward social comparason." You have chosen a group, criticized them and thereby boosted your own ego in the process. Your outspokenness about how "stupid" these victims are and how you would kill anyone who tried to make you do this thirty times over is merely ego-boosting. It speaks volumes on how low your self-image is, but that's the extent of the relevance of your comments.
You need to learn to spell W I C H I T A.
The trash that committed this crime needs to be put down like the animals they are ...black , white , brown or yellow........hang the SOB's in public as a warning to all who think that what they did was kewl......regardless of all gankin gankin, bling bling bullsh*t excuses they and their supporters come up with.......then feed their carcasses to the pigs and serve the bacon at the next socialist demonrat whine convention on a cracker (ooops).
Stay Safe & Regards from the Panhandle :o)
As for those saying that it was 5 to 2 and that they should have defended themselves, easy for you to say SITTING BEHIND YOUR KEYBOARD!! Just think how the survivor would feel if she read you words. Do you think a day does not go by that she does not think about what they should of/could of/would of done differently?!? The victims were all locked in the closet and then brought out one or two at a time for the SCUM brothers to perform their sick, demented sexually perverse activities. Whenever they refused to coroporate they were beat with a golf club or the gun, had the gun held to their head, or were the girls were threatened with even worse, etc.
I do not sleep as well at night knowing the evil of these crimes. I pray that the survivor will one day know peace again, although I doubt that is possible.
"Hate-crime" legislation needs to be overturned.
Mainstream media needs to be raked over the coals and publicly discredited for their abominable double standard in reporting.
The Carr brothers, and all other brutal, cold-blooded murderers and rapists -- regardless of color -- need to be put down quickly, just like must be done with the rabid animals such barbarians more closely resemble.
It seems you're the one in need of some education on Kansas history. When Wyatt Earp came in from Witchita [sic] he drew a line bisecting town. Only a part of the town was restricted from possessing handguns. It was the "red light district" where cowboys (not residents of the town) were not allowed to carry guns.
Additionally, Wyatt Earp's parents never had a homestead anywhere in Kansas. He was born in Illinois, lived at one time or another in Kentucky, Iowa, California and Missouri, but never in Kansas. I happen to be quite familiar with the area between Newton and Wichita, and I've never heard of any such Earp homestead.
You're not too bright, are you?
If you are quite familiar with the area, then you should have pointed out that I meant to say the Masterson homestead. The Mastersons and Earps were friends, and we certainly were their neighbors. I might have misspoke, I meant to say the Masterson homestead, his parents, I was thinking of, instead of the Earp parents. I really dont care if it was the Earps or the Masterson family that we lived next to. I do know it was the parents of either Masterson or Earp, and it was just a few directly north of Wichita, before you get into Newton. I saw where they lived, and where we lived. I am sure if you check with the local genealogical society out there, they can tell you exactly where their old homestead was.
Furthermore, of course he was not "born" in Kansas, I did not say that, we were all born elsewhere, Illinois, Missouri, etc, and not in Kansas, and we all moved there to Kansas in the 1860's and 1870's.
My family left when Kansas got too liberal, apparently you are not too bright to not have known I meant to say Masterson, and you are also not to bright to live in a state that is against allowing its citizens carrying guns to protect themselves against criminals like the ones in this story.
Kansas is YOUR state, YOU should learn its history - the rest of us dont really give much thought about Kansas anymore.
Yes, indeed, isn't it odd. My, my. I wonder why that is? It's as if any voice raised is soon silenced.
I'm sure it's because the torture/rape/murders of four white suburbanites by two inner-city animals is ecliped by far more important news. Like Rosie O'Donnell's new weight-loss program or Demi Moore's breast implants.
Oh, and George Bush's poor handling of the economy.
By being armed themselves, by taking all precautions possible to prevent armed thugs from taking them by surprise, by having themselves mentally and physically prepared to fight back with their bare hands if necessary, and by be adamant about not being a victim.
I'm fortunate in that I'm much larger (6-3, 260) and stronger than most people, but I don't take it for granted. The surest way to be attacked, whether as a person or a nation, is to relax and think you're so strong no one in their right mind will take you on. Someone always will. Therefore, you have to be of the mindset that you'd rather die than be victimized. You have to be tough, and unfortunately most Americans these days are not even close.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Speaking of bright, you apparently aren't bright enough to check people's profiles. I do not now live in Kansas either.
Incidentally, if you are so apothetic regarding what goes on in Kansas, why do you follow the news there and post so extensively your incredibly shallow opinions of the goings-on in Kansas?
To what state did your family flee, by the way?
Yes, ma'am! You fight with whatever you can get your hands on, even if it's just your fingernails, fists, feet, teeth, whatever. Even if it's a foregone conclusion that you'll lose, you never give up. It's also a good idea to have God in your corner, but judging from your profile page, you already do.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
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