Tag: stabbing

  • Jury seated in Zarate trial

    Mother of slain Randolph girl to be first to testify in suspect’s trial:

    A jury has been selected in the trial of Jonathan Zarate. The trial, barring any unforeseen circumstances, is scheduled to begin this coming Monday.

  • Zarate can use insanity defense

    Judge rules accused killer Jonathan Zarate can use insanity defense:

    Superior Court Judge Salem Ahto ruled today that Jonathan Zarate’s attorney can, in fact, use the diminished capacity defense in his trial for the murder of Jennifer Parks.

    I was angry about this when I first read the headline but as I read the article and the ensuing comments I began to calm down and realized what this really means.

    If Zarate was convicted without the diminished capacity defense it would have been left way open for appeal.

    It also means that the prosecution can present the evidence that in their opinion that Zarate was faking his ‘mental illness’.

  • Zarate fools shrink

    Psychiatrist: Randolph teen was psychotic when he killed girl next door:

    This is an article about the start of a diminished capacity defense hearing for Jonathan Zarate. I just couldn’t get over the first two paragraphs in the article…

    A psychiatrist testified today that Jonathan Zarate snapped when his teenage neighbor insulted his brother, and that after beating her until she lay motionless, he stabbed her repeatedly because “he felt she was going to get up and hurt him.”

    Clifton psychiatrist Diana Riccioli claims Zarate, 21, was psychotic when he killed 16-year-old Jennifer Parks in his father’s Randolph home on July 30, 2005. Riccioli said Zarate’s irrational thinking took over and he was unable to form an intent to kill her.

    So basically what this quack is saying is that Zarate was not responsible for his actions when he beat, stabbed, dismembered, and tried to dispose of the body of 16-year-old Jennifer Parks back in 2005.

    This comes straight from the ‘You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me’ department.

    I usually don’t hurl insults at people indirectly involved in trials but Ms. Riccioli, you are either the most gullible psychiatrist, the stupidest psychiatrist ever, or you have no soul.

    The prosecution basically said that Zarate is a liar and that he fooled the good doctor into thinking he has a mental illness.

    The hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday with the trial allegedly starting on Thursday.

  • Canadian craigslist murder?

    Police locate 2nd man allegedly lured to Edmonton garage:

    I’m sure a lot of you have heard about the murder of John Brian Altinger. In October he was lured to the garage of Edmonton filmmaker Mark Andrew Twitchell where it’s alleged that Twitchell stabbed Altinger to death.

    The reason the murder made headlines outside of Canada is Twitchell was a fan of the TV show Dexter which focuses on a forensic worker who is also a vigilante serial killer.

    It’s alleged that Altinger was lured to his death under the pretense that he was about to meet a woman.

    What none of the media are telling us is that according to a blogger at Smut and Steff who knew Altinger is that the site he met the ‘woman’ over was craigslist.

    That would make the third confirmed murder where craigslist was involved in some way.

  • Zarate statements admissible

    Judge: Inmate statements allowed in Randolph teen slaying case:

    Superior Court Judge Salem Ahto ruled yesterday that the statements Jonathan Zarate made to other inmates of the Passaic County jail are admissible.

    If you’ll recall Zarate made statements to other inmates allegedly admitting to the murder of Jennifer Parks and bragging about how he was going to beat the charge on an insanity defense. He also asked an inmate who was found not guilty by reason of insanity on how to act insane.

    Some of those inmates sent letters to the prosecutor’s office detailing Zarate’s statements.

    One less hurdle to overcome in putting this scumbag away for life.

  • Zarate asked inmates how to fake insanity

    Inmates: Accused killer asked how to fake insanity:

    According to letters from inmates in the Passaic County Jail accused killer Jonathan Zarate asked them how to fake an insanity plea. These letters were sent to the then Morris County prosecutor in 2007. The letters also said that Zarate bragged about how he was going to beat the murder charge against him by using an insanity defense. One of the inmates he was asking how to be ‘insane’ was a doctor.

    Zarate’s attorney is trying to prevent the inmates from testifying. He’s still trying for the diminished capacity defense even though this happened…

    When questioned, Jonathan Zarate first told police he was dumping garbage in the Passaic River and volunteered to put it back in their Jeep and leave, according to testimony. After admitting Parks’ body was in the trunk, he claimed he “found her like that” when he went outside his home to meet her. When told that explanation was laughable, Zarate confessed, court papers said.

    Again, Zarate and his brother brutally killed Jennifer Parks, dismembered her body, hid it for 24 hours, then tried dumping her body in the Passaic River. Doesn’t sound like diminished capacity to me.

    3+ years and still no trial.

  • Brian Draper’s MySpace revisited

    Maintenance of Convicted Killer Brian Draper’s Myspace Page in Question:

    Not too long ago I posted about the MySpace of convicted killer, lifer, and mutant Brian Draper. Draper is one of the teen killers convicted in the 2006 slashing death of someone whom they called their friend, Cassie Jo Stoddart.

    I theorized that his MySpace was obviously written by either a member of his family or an advocate who believes that teens should never be charged as adults. I came to that hypothesis after I noticed the proper grammar which I doubt Draper has and the fact that prison inmates usually don’t have access to the internet. It seems that one of my readers tipped off the local media to Draper’s MySpace.

    We’ve previously reported on a website that supports Torey Adamcik’s innocence called Voices for Torey. Thanks to a viewer, we tracked down a commentary page that negatively outlines the possibility of Brian Draper updating his myspace page from prison.

    Earlier this month, “A Murderer’s Disguise” was posted on the website called The Trenchcoat Chronicles. On it, Trench Reynolds debunks the idea that Draper can access the internet saying, among other things, that the two teenagers have become poster boys for people who believe teens should not be charged as adults. Reynolds simply states that someone else must be maintaining the personal page.

    KPVI then followed up on my assumptions and called the Idaho Department of Corrections. They have confirmed that inmates do not have access to the internet. So is it being maintained by family or an advocate? Is Draper actually in the programs that he claims and is it just for show?

    None of this could have been possible if it wasn’t for the watchful eye of Mr. A who brought my attention to Draper’s MySpace in the first place.

  • Trial date set for Zarate

    Court date set in Randolph killing:

    A trial date has finally been set in the killing and dismemberment of 16-year-old Jennifer Parks. The trial date for Jonathan Zarate has been set for November 12th.

    It’s been over 3 years since Jennifer’s murder. Hopefully, this trial will finally get off the ground.

  • A murderer’s disguise

    Mr. A shot me an e-mail the other day saying that he found the MySpace of Brian Draper. For those of you who don’t know Brian Draper and his cohort Torey Adamcik were two teens sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of 16-year-old Cassie Jo Stoddart.

    Draper is not only a vicious killer but he’s also an admitted mutant, the term I use for ‘fans’ of Columbine.

    I figured that the MySpace was probably a leftover before he went into prison and probably contained the incoherent ramblings of a teenage monster. Imagine my surprise when this is what I stumble on.

    Many things have happened since the last time I updated this page: I have moved to the prison in Boise, Idaho, and I am in a transition stage that may last a couple of weeks. Following the transition I will be moved to a new location in Boise.

    I want you all to know that I am hanging in there. Things get rough from time to time, and I don’t go a week without breaking down at least once. But overall my life is ok. I keep busy by going to religious services, attending educational classes (creative writing, computers), writing, reading and playing a lot of chess. I am also able to play the piano down at the chapel. I play piano for church services, and for an hour a week I can play the piano in solitude. I wrote a song dedicated to everything that has happened, called Sorrows and Sunrises.

    Obviously, this wasn’t written by Draper for a number of reasons. The first being I don’t think Draper could form a coherent sentenced if you spotted him the noun and the verb. Secondly, most prisons don’t allow their inmates to have access to the internet. Lastly, Draper and Adamcik have kind of become the poster boys for the people who believe that teens shouldn’t be charged as adults. For example…

    Currently I am in the appeals process, so that maybe someday I can be released and start redeeming myself on the outside, like I am doing now, on the inside. I am in the STOP program here, which is a program that brings kids into the facility, and inmates speak with them about being a good person and staying out of trouble. I am one of those inmates that speak to the kids.

    If my appeal for reduction of sentencing is thrown out, then I will be content with the life I have. We must think about what we do have, not about what we don’t have. We must set goals and strive to meet them. If I spend the rest of my life locked in a prison, I will rise above that. If God wants me to stay here, then this is where I will stay.

    I will leave you with two good sayings: “I wept because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet.” “Two men looked out through prison bars; one saw mud, the other stars.”

    Thanks again for all your support, I hope and pray you are all doing well.

    I love you all, and thank you for believing in me. Never forget Cassie Jo Stoddart.

    Your friend,

    Brian

    Who I’d like to meet:

    Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Richard Wilbur, and James P. Gills

    First off he gave up any right of talking about Cassie Jo Stoddart, especially after he said this on videotape after her murder.

    “Just killed Cassie, we just left her house, this is not a f***ing joke,” says Brian Draper on the homemade videotape. “I’m shaking,” replies Adamcik.”I stabbed her in the throat and I saw her lifeless body just disappear,” says Draper.

    I highly doubt someone who did this is capable of all these ‘feel good’ statements and if he is going through all these programs I’m sure it’s all for show. I also noticed the lack of negative comments on his MySpace. Brutal killers usually get slammed with ‘see you in hell’ kind of comments which leads me to believe that not only was this crap written by someone else but it’s also being severely moderated.

    Lastly, I doubt the people he wants to meet or Hemingway and Einstein. It’s probably more like Manson, Dahmer, Harris, and Klebold.

    Someone who slashes a girls throat just for the thrills and brags about it on tape isn’t going to change his stripes this quickly let alone ever.

     

  • Odgren trial delayed

    DA appeals ruling in Odgren murder case:

    The trial for John Odgren has been delayed while prosecutors appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts over the tapes of Odgren’s prison phone conversations.

    Odgren is accused in the 2007 stabbing and slashing death of fellow Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High student James Alenson.

    Odgren’s lawyer is trying to use Odgren’s alleged Aspergers as a diminished capacity defense.

    The prosecution states that the tapes will show that Odgren does not communicate like an Asperger’s patient.

    The prison tapes were previously ruled inadmissible.

    No new date has been set for the trial.