TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: stabbing

  • Jennifer Parks remembered II

    Jennifer Parks remembered II

    Slain Randolph teen leaves legacy:

    Jennifer Parks, the 16-year-old New Jersey girl who was brutally murdered and dismembered by Jonathan Zarate, will be remembered by her high school…

    RANDOLPH — It’s closing in on one year since Laurie Parks’16-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was senselessly murdered.

    Parks, who attended Randolph High School, will be honored on May 13 by her classmates during the Pennies for Jen Memorial Walk, an idea generated by the student council that will raise money for a scholarship and memorial park at the school.

    “I thought it was a great idea,” Laurie Parks said on Thursday.

    “(I’m) really proud of what they’re doing. They’ve done so much for me and my husband.”

    Parks said the scholarship fund already has $900, and that she and her husband, David, will award the scholarship to a student who wants to study editing or journalism in college.

    “That’s what my daughter loved to do,” Parks said. “She wanted to be an editor or in journalism when she graduated.”

    The walk will begin at 9 a.m. at the Randolph High School parking lot and will wind through a nearby trail system that connects the township.

    The event is sponsor- and donation-driven, said Kimberly Standridge, 17, a junior who also is treasurer of the student council’s executive board.

    Proceeds will go toward the scholarship, as well as a memorial garden.

    Standridge said Jennifer Parks’ mother didn’t want the garden to be only about her daughter.

    “She didn’t want the memorial garden just to be for Jen, so it’s going to be dedicated to Jen and other high school students who lost their lives during their high school careers,” Standridge said.

    The walk is open to anyone and donations will be accepted on the day of the event. Standridge hopes the event is held every year.

    I’m working on getting an address to send donations to.

  • Supporters react to Esmie Tseng’s sentence

    Supporters react to Esmie Tseng’s sentence

    Friends stand by Tseng, call sentence poor:

    Some supporters of Esmie Tseng react to her sentencing…

    “Nobody’s really better served by this (sentence),” Horwitz said. “When the judge talks about rehabilitation in the prison system … She needs help (after) years and years of challenges and what many argue to be abuse in the home situation.”

    Another Tseng family friend, Grant Mallett, said his daughter used to play with Esmie. He said Esmie would not be forgotten.

    “We’re committed to stay in touch and help her out as best we can,” Mallett said. “I saw her last week. Her spirits seemed to be quite good, and I was pleased and impressed with how she seems to be doing personally.”

    Horwitz said real friends would not abandon Esmie.

    “Everybody wants to visit her and write her. She has a lot of true friends,” he said. “She’s been in the community since kindergarten and the people who have known her her whole life know that this is a really good kid and a terrible set of circumstances.”

    I am neither a supporter nor detractor of Esmie Tseng, but I can sympathize with Esmie. I really do. I also grew up in a house of abuse, so I know to some extent what she went through.

    However, it doesn’t change the fact that she stabbed her mother with a kitchen knife and when her mother got the knife away from her, Esmie picked up another knife and stabbed her again. I have to agree with what the assistant D.A. said…

    Assistant District Attorney Richard Guinn said the sentence, considering all factors, represented a “fair and just outcome.”

    “We feel for the family, we feel for the dad, we feel for (Esmie) in terms of her situation at home,” Guinn said. “But we are also taking a very strong position here.”

    Guinn said stabbing someone multiple times should draw prison time as opposed to the shorter sentence, perhaps three years, available through the juvenile justice system. With good behavior and considering time already served, Esmie faces about seven years in an adult prison, he said.

    In prison, Esmie could advance herself academically through college classes, Guinn said.

    “It’s up to her what she chooses to make of this time,” he said. “My impression in talking with her attorney is that she has put this chapter of her life behind and is now doing everything she can to make a worthwhile life for herself.”

    I know I said I would never do one again, but I may have a special podcast on this sometime this weekend.

  • Esmie Tseng sentenced

    Esmie Tseng sentenced

    Esmie Tseng sentenced to prison:

    The Overland Park teen-ager who pleaded guilty to killing her mother was sentenced today to eight years and four months in prison.

    Esmie Tseng, 17, declined to say anything during the brief hearing in Johnson County District Court. She had pleaded guilty in March to voluntary manslaughter.

    The sentence imposed by Judge Brenda Cameron was recommended by both sides last month as part of a plea agreement.

    Esmie’s mother, 55-year-old Shu Yi Zhang, died after being stabbed to death on Aug. 19.

  • Esmie Tseng not eligible for juvenile detention

    Esmie Tseng not eligible for juvenile detention

    Esmie ineligible for youth prison:

    Supporters of Esmie Tseng, the Kansas girl who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death of her mother, had their hopes raised and summarily dashed last week…

    Supporters of Tseng who lost their fight to have her tried as a juvenile were still lobbying last week for the judge to show mercy.

    They were encouraged briefly when they learned the Kansas Department of Corrections was researching whether state law would allow Tseng to be placed in the state’s juvenile facility for females, in Beloit in north central Kansas. Then they were disappointed to find out Friday that she was not eligible to go there.

    Esmie Tseng agreed to a plea of voluntary manslaughter, an adult charge, and a recommended sentence of 8 years and 4 months. The judge is not bound to follow the agreement.

    Sentencing will take place later this month.

  • Hippies file charges in Dyleski search

    Hippies file charges in Dyleski search

    Dyleski’s roommates file claim against county:

    The residents of the “hippy commune” where the accused killer of Pam Vitale, Scott Dyleski, lived are filing charges against Contra Costa County saying that Contra Costa County Sheriff’s deputies did not have warrants at the time the residence was searched for Dyleski…

    More than 10 sheriff’s deputies burst into the Hunsaker Canyon Road residence of Fred and Kim Curiel on the evening of Oct. 19, 2005, looking for Dyleski, the claim says. Dyleski, now 17, was a suspect in the killing of his neighbor Pamela Vitale four days earlier.

    At least seven other people lived with the Curiels at the time. The deputies began searching the house for Dyelski, pointing their guns and screaming at each of the adults and children, aged 2 to 16, to get down on the floor, the claim says.

    Deputies threatened that if the residents did not cooperate, the deputies would “blow your head off.”

    One deputy pushed Fred Curiel’s face into the ground, breaking his eyeglasses. Another pressed her shoe against the back of Curiel’s 11-year-old daughter to keep her on the floor, the claim says.

    The housemates allege that the deputies entered without an arrest warrant for Dyleski or a search warrant for the home. The deputies presented a search warrant more than one and a half hours later.

    The residents, who seek unspecified damages, say that the experience has left them with nightmares, flashbacks, and other anxieties.

    I seriously doubt that in a high-profile case such as this that law enforcement would not have all their I’s dotted and their T’s crossed. To me, this sounds like just a bunch of hippies lashing out against “the man”.

  • Zarate gets new home

    Zarate gets new home

    Suspect’s transfer called essential:

    Our favorite New Jersey psychopath is in the news again. Jonathan Zarate, accused of the murder and dismemberment of his 16-year-old neighbor Jennifer Parks, is in a new prison.

    He has been transferred out of the Morris County jail and into the Passaic County jail. Like I mentioned before, he was transferred because he is suing the Morris County jail over alleged abuses. What cracks me up, as if any actual humor could be found in this case, it’s his attorney and the things he had to say…

    “Jonathan Zarate is a man with very deep emotional problems,” his lawyer, Anthony Fusco Jr., said Monday. “He was not getting the treatment he needed in the Morris County Jail.”

    Ya think?

    Since his arrest July 31, Zarate has twice been charged with assaulting guards at the Morris County Jail. After the second alleged assault on Dec. 10, Zarate was sent to the Ann Klein Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in West Trenton. He was treated there until Feb. 2, when he was brought back to the jail.

    Fusco said his client’s mental condition has worsened since his return to the Morris County Jail — and Zarate has served notice that he intends to sue the state for depriving him of his proper medical treatment. On Friday, state Superior Court Judge Salem V. Ahto allowed Zarate to be transferred to another jail.

    Well, maybe if he didn’t kill and dismember a 16-year-old girl he wouldn’t be having these problems. It sounds like to me that they’ve been laying the grounds for an insanity defense for some time now.

  • Zarate Sues Jail

    Zarate Sues Jail

    Man charged in teen neighbor’s killing sues jail:

    This is just great, another frivolous lawsuit clogging the courts…

    The Randolph man charged with stabbing and dismembering a teenage neighbor will be moved out of the Morris County jail after having filed a suit against the facility following two fights with correction officers there.

    Authorities had not yet determined where Jonathan Zarate will be sent but said it will most likely be the Essex County Jail.

    For those of you who may have forgotten, 18-year-old Zarate, is accused of having ambushed 16-year-old Jennifer Parks in Zarate’s home and stabbing her, bludgeoning her, and dismembering her body, then trying to dump her body into the Passaic River in New Jersey.

    Let me give you a quote from prison officials when he originally attacked a guard…

    Jonathan Zarate, 18, of Randolph, allegedly punched a 26-year-old corrections officer three times in the face and head as he was being escorted back to his cell after a shower Thursday at 8:30 a.m., Warden Frank Corrente said.

    “This was unprovoked. He has issues with authority and has been a management issue since his arrival,” Corrente said of Zarate. “He shows violent behavior.”

    It would be a travesty if this lawsuit ever saw the light of day. Then again, this is New Jersey we’re talking about. He’ll probably be awarded a settlement.

  • Esmie’s abuse

    Esmie’s abuse

    Teenager pleads guilty in mother’s stabbing death:

    This is just another story about Esmie Tseng’s plea, but I finally get to hear what kind of abuse Esmie went through…

    In Esmie Tseng’s world, a test score of 96 might have gotten the 16-year-old grounded.

    Her mother expected more. Always more. And when the Overland Park girl fell short, she often was punished in ‘unfair and cruel’ ways, Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison said Monday.

    Sometimes, he said, Esmie’s mother tried to teach her a lesson by humiliating her: She made her daughter take off all her clothes.

    But Esmie also was under a lot of pressure, primarily from her mother, to perform at unrealistically high levels, Morrison said. Slight transgressions often resulted in punishments such as not being able to go outside for extended periods of time, he said, or not being able to do the kinds of things that teens like to do.

    “She lived in a highly structured environment,” Morrison said.

    “It was not uncommon for her to be ordered to take her clothes off as a way to humiliate her, if that gives you a flavor of what was going on.”

    I feel bad for Esmie. I really do. That’s not sarcasm. Mental abuse like that from a parent is one of the worst tortures that a teenager can go through. However, that abuse did not warrant the violent response that Esmie gave…

    Assistant District Attorney John Fritz said that Esmie had stabbed her mother with a knife. When her mother took away the knife, Esmie grabbed another and stabbed her multiple times. Esmie did not call for help, he said.

    The way Esmie’s mother treated her would have been grounds to call social services, not a multiple stabbing with two different knives.

    Also, did Esmie’s father know that this treatment was going on?

    Now that I know a little more about the events leading up to the murder of Shu Yi Zhang, I can offer an opinion on the sentencing.

    I think the suggested eight years and four months is very reasonable for the offense and what led up to it. As I said, I feel bad for Esmie, but stabbing her mother to death was a severe over-reaction, and she needs to be punished.

    She will still have much of her life ahead of her when she gets out.

  • Esmie Tseng pleads guilty

    Esmie Tseng pleads guilty

    Esmie Tseng pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter:

    In a shocking turn of events, shocking to me anyway, Esmie Tseng, the 16-year-old Kansas teen accused of stabbing her mother to death, has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter…

    Esmie Tseng, 16, pleaded guilty to the charge after agreeing to have her case moved to adult court. Sentencing was set for May 3.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to recommend a sentence of 100 months in prison, or about 8 years and four months. The defense agreed it would not ask for probation.

    I’m curious as to why she pleaded guilty to an adult charge when so many people thought she should be tried as a juvenile?

  • Dyleski facing life

    Dyleski facing life

    Dyleski could serve life without parole:

    Contra Costa County prosecutors have filed a special circumstance allegation against 17-year-old murder defendant Scott Dyleski, subjecting him to a life term without the possibility of parole if he is convicted.

    Prosecutors allege that Dyleski committed murder during a residential burglary.

    In court documents filed Wednesday, deputy district attorney Harold Jewett said Dyleski entered the home of Pamela Vitale with the intention of stealing, counterfeiting or fraudulently using access card information.

    Dyleski is accused of killing Vitale on Oct. 15, 2005. Vitale’s husband Daniel Horowitz found her stabbed and bludgeoned to death that evening.

    Dyleski cannot get the death penalty due to his age. Which is more consideration than Pam Vitale got.