TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • Pete Solis indicted

    Pete Solis indicted

    Buda Man Indicted In MySpace Sexual Assault:

    (CBS 42) A Buda man accused of sexually assaulting a girl he met on MySpace.com has been indicted.

    Pete Ignacio Solis, 20, is charged with the assault of a 14-year-old girl in May.

    According to police, Solis picked up the girl at Bowie High School and assaulted her in the parking lot of an apartment complex at Westgate and William Cannon.

    If the name Pete Solis sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the alleged perpetrator in the middle of the MySpace lawsuit.

  • They can’t be serious

    They can’t be serious

    Possible Dyleski jurors quizzed on Goth, magic:

    The prosecutor in the Scott Dyleski murder trial asked prospective jurors Friday whether they were familiar with or knew anyone who embraced the Goth culture or the Wicca religious movement, and whether they had read books about psychopaths, serial killers and Jack the Ripper.

    The discussion in Contra Costa Superior Court touched on good and bad witches, black and white magic and “the dark side,” in what could be key elements in the upcoming trial of Dyleski, who has pleaded not guilty to special-circumstances murder and burglary in the Oct. 15 slaying of Pamela Vitale, the wife of lawyer and legal analyst Daniel Horowitz.

    Prosecutor Harold Jewett noted that Dyleski, 17, appeared “neat and tidy” while clad in a blue dress shirt and tie in the Martinez courtroom. Jewett suggested in his questioning to potential jurors that they would hear evidence that the defendant had embraced a different lifestyle before his arrest.

    When a prospective juror told Jewett that he enjoyed role-playing in the form of dressing up like people did during the Renaissance, Jewett asked whether he did that because “you’re visiting the dark side.” The man said no.

    Please tell me that they’re not going with a “satanic ritual” killing prosecution. Welcome to 1985.

    Just stick with the facts and the evidence. That shit may fly in Arkansas, but not in California.

  • McCombs “devastated”

    McCombs “devastated”

    Attorney: McCombs ‘Devastated’ About Glover’s Death:

    You’re kidding me, right?

    RICHMOND, Texas — One of the teens accused of killing Ashton Glover, 16, said he “feels terrible” about what happened, his attorney told KPRC Local 2.

    Matthew McCombs, 18, appeared in Fort Bend County court for an arraignment Tuesday.

    The judge read McCombs his rights and set his bail at $1 million.

    “He’s devastated about this. He’s really sorry for what’s happened in this case. He feels terrible,” said Ira Chenken, McCombs’ attorney. “If any of you are parents, and something like this happened to your child, you could just imagine how devastated the family is.”

    Let me speak for the entire planet when I say Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? You’re devastated? What about the family of the girl whose brain you put a bullet in? How do you think they feel?

    You are a soulless monster, McCombs. I hope you rot in hell.

  • Henderson Jr. to have brain scan

    Manatee murder suspects to undergo brain scans:

    This is a somewhat interesting article about how defense attorneys are trying to use PET scans in order to find a medical defense for their clients. In this case specifically, one Richard Henderson Jr. who as you may recall, slaughtered his entire family on Thanksgiving…

    BRADENTON – Three men, each accused of first-degree murder, received a judge’s consent for brain scans Thursday.

    Manatee County court officials scheduled one hearing on several motions for four men accused in separate, unrelated murder cases – Clifford Davis, 19, Richard Henderson Jr., 20, Darrell Mitchell, 36, and Blaine Ross, 23.

    If convicted, each defendant could be sentenced to death.

    Lawyers for Davis, Henderson, and Mitchell requested the procedure, known as PET scans. Ross has already been tested.

    If any of the defendants are convicted, results from the positron emission tomography scan could be used as evidence during the sentencing phase of a trial, said Assistant Public Defender Carolyn DaSilva, who along with Assistant Public Defender Steven Schaefer is representing the three men.

    “We have to do everything to prepare for the penalty phase,” DaSilva said. “It doesn’t mean we’ll get there.”

    A doctor hired by the defense lawyers said the scans were necessary for him to complete his evaluation of the defendants, according to court records.

    The scan, commonly used to detect cancer and brain and other neurological disorders, has become a popular tool for defense lawyers, said Charles Rose, a professor at the Stetson University law school.

    The procedure, which costs about $2,000-$3,000, involves injecting a person with a radioactive substance containing glucose, and using a machine shaped like a doughnut to scan and detect the body’s reaction to the substance, according to medical experts.

    In patients with certain brain disorders, the machine tracks the spot and the rate at which the glucose metabolizes, said Dr. Eric Cotton, a radiologist at National PET Scan in St. Petersburg, which is where Davis, Henderson and Mitchell will be tested.

    The information, which the center sends to an expert in California to be interpreted, could be used to support diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and tumors, Cotton said.

    How ironic would it be if they found a tumor in Henderson? Then they’d have to race to execute him before the tumor got him?

  • More on the Red Lake lawsuit

    More on the Red Lake lawsuit

    ‘No amount of money will bring them back’:

    Some more interesting lawyer-related details about the Red Lake lawsuit…

    The deal ends the district’s financial liability for the shootings because state law caps legal claims against school districts at $1 million.

    But families and survivors could sue other parties. Attorneys representing the 27 people involved in the school settlement said they are looking at their options.

    “Our investigation into the circumstances of the shooting continues as we speak,” said Minneapolis attorney Philip Sieff, who represented 14 people in the settlement. “This is the end of the families’ claims against the Red Lake School District but not the end of their claims in general over the shooting.”

    Who the hell else can they possibly sue? Jeff Weise’s father is dead, and his mother is severely disabled. The Jourdain’s? The gun manufacturers?

    The settlement includes families of the five students killed and the seven students injured, and one student who was in the line of fire. It also includes five surviving school workers, the families of the two slain school employees and a relative of the grandfather’s companion.

    I can see a settlement for those who died or were wounded, but there seems to be a lot of extraneous people involved in this lawsuit.

    The Ambulance Chasers are killing personal responsibility in this country.

  • Red Lake lawsuit settled

    Red Lake lawsuit settled

    Families settle lawsuit over Red Lake shootings:

    MINNEAPOLIS – Families of victims in last year’s shootings on the Red Lake Indian Reservation have settled a lawsuit against the school district for $1 million.

    The settlement was to be distributed among 21 families of shooting victims.

    In Philip Sieff, an attorney for the victims’ families, called the settlement “best for everyone because it provides these highly deserving families some compensation for their losses and allows the School District to return all of its focus to education.”

    Personally, I don’t see why the school district was sued. They had metal detectors and they had an armed security guard. Granted, neither of those steps stopped Jeff Weise, but what else was the school supposed to do? Not only that, but now you’re taking money away from the school that’s supposed to educate your children.

    What does this accomplish?

  • Morbid Curiosity II

    Morbid Curiosity II

    Ashton Glover Killed for Morbid Curiosity?:

    This is another great article from the fine folks at Crime Library. Check out the details of Ashton Glover’s murder by Matt McCombs…

    SUGAR LAND, Tx. (Crime Library) Matthew McCombs, 18, Ashton Glover’s former classmate told police that he and neighbor Sean Brown, also 18, went riding with Sugar Land, Texas, 16-year-old teenager Ashton Glover July 7. After getting out of the car, and without any warning or provocation, McCombs pulled out a rare revolver that he had stolen and shot Ashton in the head, killing her. The two men then left Ashton’s body where she lay and went for some breakfast. After their breakfast, McCombs and Brown went back to the field and buried Ashton’s body. Then went home to sleep.

    Why did McCombs do this? “Morbid curiosity” is what he told the police.

    This story, first reported by Eric Hanson in the Houston Chronicle, suggests that prosecutors may not be treating this as a capital case. Perhaps because they have not yet been made aware of things that McCombs had published that put his killing of Ashton Glover in a new light.

    In an earlier Crime Library story on this case, Steve Huff pointed out that McCombs had put on his MySpace pages that when he grew up, he wanted to be a “killer,” and that his goal this year “was not to get caught.”

    So, he steals a revolver a few weeks ago from a friend in Kerrville, takes the loaded pistol with him on this ride with unsuspecting Ashton, and once they are miles away in a rural construction site where the shot won’t be heard, he pulls out the gun and executes his first kill.

    Sounds like premeditation to me.

    Not only that, but shouldn’t the cold-blooded way that McCombs killed her carry any weight towards the charges?

    Personally, I hope he gets a date with the needle.

  • Love letter from Hell

    Love letter from Hell

    Dylan Klebold in Love:

    When the Columbine documents were released, the mutant reaction was one of apathy. Most of the reactions went along the lines of “Well it’s bad that Eric Harris was a racist and a homophobe but look at how cute Dylan Klebold was for writing love letters”. I think this article has a much more realistic perspective…

    We don’t know whether Klebold ever summoned the nerve to deliver the love letter. We just know that, mixed in with the grotesque torments that impelled Klebold and Harris to slaughter their schoolmates, there dwelt (within Klebold, at least; experts now believe Harris was more clearly psychopathic) recognizably human torments more typical of the adolescent male. To some, this may make Klebold seem more sympathetic. To me, it makes the very notion of love, or at least teenage infatuation, seem much darker and creepier. This is not to say that I would recommend that school officials across the country mobilize en masse to expel all young swains who declare their love to unsuspecting schoolgirls. (The high schools would be emptied within a week.) Judging from the text of Klebold’s letter, it shouldn’t be as difficult as many suppose to spot the distinct warning signs that a young man is seriously deranged. Still, I’m not sure I’ll ever think the same way about what it means to have a secret admirer.

    Even monsters are capable of love, but it never stops them from killing the villagers.

  • Immunity granted

    Immunity granted

    Kerns case will go to trial in fall:

    I’m still not holding my breath on that one, but in other news, Farley and Sullivan have been granted immunity in the trial of Tobin Kerns…

    A single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court ruled last week to enact immunity for two key witnesses in Kerns upcoming trial, bringing an end to another legal stalemate that had kept the case from moving forward.

    Kerns, 18, and Joseph Nee, 20, both former Marshfield High School students, are facing trial separately for their alleged involvement in staging a Columbine-like attack on the high school in 2004. Kerns, was arrested in September of that year after Nee and two other MHS students – Joseph Sullivan and Daniel Farely – informed he school resource officer about the plot. A few weeks later, Nee was also arrested after Farley and Sullivan implicated him in the planned attack on the school.

    Kerns and Nee were both charged with promotion of anarchy, conspiracy to commit murder and threatened use of a deadly weapon after police found materials at Kerns’ home outlining a planned attack on Marshfield High School. Police found a binder and evidence that Kerns’ computer had been used to look at Web sites like the Anarchist’s Cookbook, which explains how to make explosives. Nee had been staying with the Kerns family for a few weeks earlier in the spring, and Kerns father, Ben has argued that the materials in the binder belonged to him, not his son.

    Kerns’ trial was set to start in March, but things came to a standstill when Farley and Sullivan sought immunity under the Fifth Amendment out of fear they might incriminate themselves through their testimonies.

    The Plymouth County District Attorney’s office then sought to enact immunity in the Nee trial in hopes of carrying immunity over into the Kerns trial.

    While immunity was granted to both witnesses in Superior Court, Judge Louis Coffin said in April he was unsure if he had the authority to grant immunity in Juvenile Court, citing a ruling in Commonwealth vs. Russ, a 2001 case that set a precedent against enacting immunity in juvenile cases. Assistant District Attorney John McLaughlin then brought the matter before a single Supreme Judicial Court Justice in Boston.

    If this helps Tobin get exonerated, then I’m all for it, but I can’t shake the feeling that two people who were complicit in the plot are getting away.

  • Zero Day

    Zero Day

    Last night, I watched the movie Zero Day. For those of you who haven’t heard of Zero Day, it’s about a fictitious school shooting filmed from the point of view of the shooters much like what Harris and Klebold did with their basement tapes.

    As far as movies about school shootings go, Zero Day is the best. It is much more interesting than the crap fest that is Elephant, and much more realistic than Home Room. In my opinion, the director tried to make it like Columbine without it actually being Columbine.

    What at first I didn’t like about the movie turns out makes the movie better and more disturbing. In the actual basement tapes, you can see the anger and hatred in Harris and Klebold. In Zero Day, the actors were much more subdued about the whole thing.

    My only complaint about the film isn’t with the film itself, it’s the fact that the mutants look at this as almost a “fan film” when I’m pretty sure that this was not the film’s intent.

    Anyway, I won’t spoil any more of it, but I highly recommend that anybody, especially those with kids still in school, to watch this movie.