Victim or vigilante? Summations offer differing views of 'Lady Vengeance'

9-30-2009 New York:

QUEENS -- Either Brigitte Harris was trying to stop a sexually abusive "monster" when she strangled and mutilated her father, or she was a vigilante, seeking revenge with malicious intent.

The defense and prosecution offered those differing views to the jury at Ms. Harris' murder trial at state Supreme Court in Queens this morning. Jurors will now have to decide if Ms. Harris, 28, is guilty of second-degree murder -- a charge that carries a minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison -- or a lesser charge of first- or second-degree manslaughter.

Both sides agree on one thing: Ms. Harris killed and dismembered her father, 55-year-old St. George resident Eric Goodridge, on July 28, 2007. He was found in her Far Rockaway apartment handcuffed and beaten, with his genitals cut off and a towel stuffed in his mouth.

In an emotional, hour-long summation, defense attorney Arthur Aidala told a captivated jury that Ms. Harris had no choice.

Prosecutor: Boy, 6 (Son of a former sex offender), Begged Killers To 'let Me Go!'

9-30-2009 Georgia:

Prosecutor: Slain 6-year-old Boy Begged Captors To 'let Me Go!' Before He Was Strangled

A 6-year-old boy (Son of a former sex offender) pleaded with his captors _ a man and his adult son _ as they stripped and sexually assaulted the child inside a mobile home before strangling him, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

The comments were made during opening arguments in the trial of David Edenfield, 61, who faces the death penalty if convicted of the March 2007 slaying of Christopher Michael Barrios. The boy was missing for a week before police found his naked body dumped off a road and wrapped in trash bags.

Prosecutor John B. Johnson told jurors in his opening statement that they would learn the details of what happened to the boy "in the most horrible two hours of his life" from a taped confession Edenfield made to police.

Johnson said Edenfield and his son, 34-year-old George Edenfield, lured the boy into their trailer across the street from the home of Christopher's grandmother, stripped the boy naked and took turns molesting him.

"You will hear him say this from his own mouth," Johnson said of David Edenfield. "Christopher Barrios didn't want to be there. He said, 'Let me go! Please don't do this! I'm going to tell my parents!'"

Father gets 35-80 year prison term for murdering 15-year-old son

4-15-2010 Michigan:

Jamar Pinkney Sr. was sentenced this morning serve a 35- to 80-year prison term for murdering his son because he believed the boy had molested his half sister.

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan also ordered Pinkney to serve an addition two years for using a firearm in a felony.

Pinkey, 38, was convicted last week for the fatal shooting of his son, Jamar Jr., in November.

The elder Pinkney beat and stripped the 15-year-old boy naked and forced outside his Highland Park home into a vacant lot where he shot his son in the face at point-blank range.

Court upholds killing by Columbus police of suspected serial rapist

See earlier story: Coroner: Suspected Rapist Died From Gunshot Wounds "80 bullets fired by police, 23 hit him"

4-21-15 Ohio:

Suspected serial rapist Abram Bynum died on a Far East Side freeway in 2009 during 20 seconds of Columbus police gunfire.

The four-year legal fight that followed between Bynum’s mother and the city now might be over after a decision favorable to the city was filed last week by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court found that Bynum’s rights were not violated and that the police officers were on firm legal ground when they killed him, reversing a decision that had been issued 18 months earlier by U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley.

Attorneys for Columbus had asked Marbley for a summary judgment that would end the case, arguing that the incontrovertible facts demanded that it be decided in the city’s favor.

Marbley instead found that Kathryn Pollard raised enough questions of fact that a jury might conclude that police acted recklessly and excessively when they fired 80 rounds at her son, striking him 23 times.

Suspect in 2009 beating confirmed dead

7-2-2013 Oklahoma:

Remains found last year are wanted man’s

Muskogee County sheriff’s investigators have closed the case on a man wanted for the brutal beating of his grandfather.

Skeletal remains found in December proved to be those of the suspect in the case, Timothy Curtis Peterson (33) of Oktaha, Sheriff Charles Pearson said. When and how Peterson died has not been determined, he said.

Peterson’s skull and several bones were found in December in a wooded area near Quinton in Pittsburg County on private property, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

The remains were believed to have been there between two and five years. Peterson would be 34 if he were alive.

Peterson was wanted by the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department for assault and by the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force for failing to register as a sex offender, Pearson said. A $2,500 reward had been offered for his arrest.