Doniphan men accused of killing sex offender, burning his body

9-2-2016 Missouri:

DONIPHAN, Mo. — Two Doniphan men were charged Tuesday night after authorities say they admitted they shot a sex offender to death and burned his body in April.

Matthew Brandon Bruce, 29, and Michael G. “Mick” Harris, 59, were charged Tuesday with the first-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with physical evidence and abandonment of a corpse.

The men are accused of acting together to cause the April 26 death of Jonathan Tarvin.

The 34-year-old was reported missing April 26 by an associate, according to a probable-cause statement filed by Ripley County chief deputy Richie Phillips.

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.

Third suspect faces trial on fatal fire

Posted in Related Deaths

9-29-2014 Ohio:

Two of the three people accused of helping start a house fire that killed two deaf people have been sentenced to prison and a third is now set to go on trial in October.

A Seneca County judge said Charles Schaeffer, 44, Fostoria, will go on trial Oct. 27 on charges that include complicity to aggravated murder and complicity to aggravated arson. His defense lawyer, Mark Klepatz, told the judge that Schaeffer didn’t want to consider a plea deal.

“We are not accepting anything because my client has said from the beginning that he didn’t do it,” Klepatz said.

Authorities said a railroad flare was used to start the May 26 fire in Fostoria. The fire killed 48-year-old Daniel Marker Jr. and 44-year-old Tara Vance, and injured a third person.

A detective said in court this past June that one of the suspects acted out of revenge after accusing Marker, the home’s owner, of sexually abusing a child.

Fostoria police had been looking into the abuse allegations made against Marker, who was a registered sex offender, before the fire, detective Shilo Frankart said.

Inmate to stand trial for murder

7-22-2014 Pennsylvania:

Lawrence Peterson, 44, who is accused of beating his cellmate to death at SCI Houtzdale, had all charges bound over for court following a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge James Hawkins yesterday at the Clearfield County Courthouse.

Peterson is accused of killing William Keitel, 59, in the cell they shared in the F-Block of SCI Houtzdale on Aug. 2, 2013.

Peterson is charged with criminal homicide, murder in the first degree, murder in the third degree, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, and recklessly endangering another person.

Under direct questioning by Clearfield County District Attorney William Shaw Jr., Corrections Officer Duane Hughes testified that on Aug. 2 at approximately 1 p.m. he let Keitel back into his cell after Keitel had finished his shift working in the prison laundry room.

Shortly afterward he heard some inmates yell, "Cell 42, he's killing him." Hughes said he and Sgt. Adam Miles responded to cell 42.

He said it took them about a minute to arrive and through the windows on the cell door, Hughes said he could see Peterson sitting on the lower bunk with Keitel lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Teen Arrested In Uncle’s Death In East Boston Fire

8-2-2011 Massachusetts:

EAST BOSTON (CBS) – Boston police have made an arrest in a fire and murder in East Boston.

Jaime Flores, a Salvadoran national, was living in a basement apartment of a home on Saratoga Street. He died in a fire there Monday morning. His hands had been tied.

Police arrested his nephew, 17-year-old Marco Tulio Flores of East Boston, Tuesday morning and charged him with homicide.

Commissioner Ed Davis told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 that Flores turned himself in to police and confessed.

“We’re still in the process of putting the evidence together. This is very early in the investigation. In a case like this when there’s a homicide within a family, there’s usually a lot going on,” Davis said.

Police investigate possible Providence homicide; man dies weeks after beating

6-15-2014 Rhode Island:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The recent death of a 69-year-old Providence man is being investigated as a possible homicide.

Milton Lyles, who died Thursday, had been found severely beaten on the ground in 300-block of Broad Street on May 19, said Providence Police Maj. David Lapatin. Lyles was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, but never recovered.

The police are searching for several suspects, but Lapatin did not discuss any descriptions of the men. It’s unclear what led to the attack on Lyles, but Lapatin said the older man appeared to be an “innocent party.”

Lyles, who lived nearby on Pine Street, was a registered sex offender with a criminal record in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, according to police and court records.

Bond set for 3 accused in deadly Fostoria house fire

6-5-2014 Ohio:

The City of Fostoria has released the names of two people killed and a third person injured in a weekend fire. The fire on South Poplar Street has since been ruled arson.

Danny Joe Marker, 48 and Tara Lynn Vance, 44, were killed in the fire. Dana Weatherall, 49, was taken to a Toledo hospital by air ambulance. Weatherall's condition is unknown at this time.

Three people are behind bars after being charged with setting the fire. All faced a judge for the first time on Tuesday morning.

Fostoria Police and Fire Division, along with the Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office and Seneca County Prosecutor's Office, determined Monday's house fire on South Poplar Street was the result of arson.

Beach Park man sentenced to 35 years for murder, torture

See Also: Cops: Guilty conscience led to confession in mistaken ID murder

5-15-2014 Illinois:

A Beach Park man will spend 35 years in prison after assisting in the torture and murder of a 27-year-old Waukegan man wrongly accused of sexual assault.

Eric Castillo, 26, of the 38000 block of North Sheridan Road, was found guilty by a jury in February of holding down David Campbell while other people suffocated him with plastic bags and burned him with a blow torch on July 5, 2011.

Castillo must serve 100 percent of the sentence and is not eligible for parole.

Authorities said the five -- including Castillo -- were looking for revenge when they lured Campbell to the Waukegan auto-body shop on Dugdale Street through a fake drug deal.

After Campbell entered the shop's office, Castillo grabbed Campbell and held him while a second assailant hit him in the head with a hammer, authorities said.

The five assailants interrogated, tortured, and eventually killed Campbell in the garage, before dumping his body in the Penny Road Pond in unincorporated Cook County near Barrington, authorities said.

Son Charged With Dismembering Dad Claims Sex Abuse

5-8-2014 Maine:

A Maine man charged with killing and dismembering his father was ordered Thursday to undergo a mental health evaluation at a court appearance that ended with him declaring himself "the Lord, Father of life" and asking the gathered media to follow him on Twitter.

Leroy Smith III, 24, told an investigator he recorded at least some of the crime and posted it on YouTube and Twitter, but removed the postings and deleted the video from his camera and computer, according to court records.

A police affidavit said Smith told an officer he killed his father by stabbing him in the neck then used three knives to chop up his body.

"Leroy Smith III stated that he filleted him and buried him in the woods because his dad sexually assaulted him his whole life," an investigator wrote.

Registered sex offender lives at home where burned body found

5-8-2014 Texas:

The investigation into the death of a man found in a burning storage building behind a home on County Road 495 continued today as detectives try to determine how he died.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said he had not received official word as to the man's identity, but the Tyler Morning Telegraph has learned the person listed at the residence is a 36-year-old registered sex offender, whom authorities have not been able to locate since the fire. The address is 11710 County Road 495.

Smith said Tuesday that his agency had talked to the wife of the person his detectives believed was the victim, and she was in another state but returning home to cooperate in the investigation.

According to records with the Texas Department of Public Safety's Sex Offender Registry, the person shown living at the house is Ryan Thomas Wells, who was convicted in 2007 in Collin County of a sex offense.

Records indicate Wells was convicted on a third-degree felony of online solicitation of a minor with intent to have sexual contact.

The fire was called in Monday night just before midnight and firefighters fighting the fire located a man's body under the debris. An investigator who had been inside the home said there were signs of a struggle and wads of human hair were on the floor in several locations.

Smith said Tuesday that it was unclear if the death was a homicide or suicide. ..Source.. by Kenneth Dean

Daughter: Inmate had more than 100 wounds

4-1-2014 Oklahoma:

A James Crabtree Correctional Center inmate died from more than 100 stab wounds, his daughter said she learned from the funeral home handling his cremation.

Sheryl Coleman viewed her father’s body on Wednesday, the same day an official from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed 61-year-old Timothy Dunivan died from multiple sharp force injuries.

“It was really bad. They tried to piece his face together, but they couldn’t so I only saw one side of him,” Coleman said. “There was only one stab in that one eye, underneath. It looked like they tried to cut his eyes out.”

Dunivan was found dead at the prison in Helena at about 8 a.m. Saturday.

The manner of Dunivan’s death is homicide, said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer with the state medical examiner’s office, said in response to an Open Records Act request seeking autopsy records.
An autopsy report is pending, Elliott said.

Coleman said family members counted approximately 20 stab wounds on Dunivan’s face and learned he had wounds to his hands, arms, shoulders and back.

“The right eye, right in the corner of (his) eye, right in the eyelid, you could see there was a huge stab there,” she said. “And then the chin and the forehead.”

Englewood woman accused of using baseball bat in murder of man she suspected of molesting a child

9-24-2013 Colorado:

An Englewood woman is accused of using a baseball bat to kill a man who she suspected of sexually assaulting a child.

Court records show that Forsythia Eliese Owen, 30, is accused of committing the murder on September 22.

Englewood police identified the murder victim as Denzle Rainey, 42. Officers found him in an alley between the 3600 block of S. Sherman and S. Grant Streets at 1:11 a.m. Sunday.

According to an affidavit obtained by 7NEWS, Owen confessed to officers in the Englewood Police Department's recorded interview room. She told the officers that the child, whose name is redacted from the document, said Rainey "had touched and sexually abused her."

The officers asked if Owen was responsible for Rainey's death.

"Owen stood up and said she killed him," the affidavit says. "Owen swung her hands back and forth and demonstrated how she struck Rainey over and over again because of what he did to [name redacted]."

Rainey suffered lacerations to his head and a skull fracture. Both arms, six ribs and his left hand were broken. His liver was also lacerated.

Registered sex offender beaten to death in Reservoir Hill

9-3-2013 Maryland:

Man beaten with traffic cone, witness says

BALTIMORE —The Labor Day weekend in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill ended with the beating of a 52-year-old man on the street in full daylight. The man -- who the 11 News I-Team has learned is a registered sex offender -- later died.

A witness said an orange traffic cone was used as a weapon. The attackers seemed to be carrying out instant street justice with the target claiming he'd done nothing wrong, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said..

Police responded quickly to the scene around 7:30 p.m. Monday in the 800 block of Lennox Street. Witnesses said they watched a group of people who were 16-24 years old chase down the man as he walked down the street.

Another witness, who chose not to give his name, had just returned to the neighborhood from a Labor Day cookout. He said the man was being accused of something by his attackers.

"A couple of guys was (sic) walking beside him, and they were asking him questions. I couldn't hear what they were asking him at first, and he was saying, 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it.' And the guy said, 'Yeah you did,'" the witness told 11 News.