Tag: teen killer

Morgan Arnold Teen Killer Murders Father

Morgan Arnold Teen Killer

Morgan Arnold was sent to spend the next three decades in prison for the plot to murder her father in Maryland. According to court documents the teen killer conspired with her much older boyfriend Jason Bulmer to murder her father Dennis Lane. Jason Bulmer would fatally stab the victim and would in the end be sentenced to thirty years in prison. Morgan Arnold would also receive a thirty year prison sentence

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Calling it “one of the most difficult decisions that this court has ever had to make,” a Howard County judge on Wednesday sentenced a teenager who plotted her father’s murder to 30 years in prison.

In sentencing 17-year-old Morgan Lane Arnold, Circuit Judge William Tucker said he had to balance the teen’s age and history of mental problems with evidence that she spent months planning the murder of her father, 58-year old Dennis Lane, and that she manipulated her boyfriend into fatally stabbing him.

“This was a well-thought-out plan,” Tucker said in a courtroom filled with family and friends of the father and daughter. “It’s clear that she was the main culprit.”

Lane was stabbed to death in his Ellicott City home in May 2013. Arnold’s boyfriend at the time, Jason Bulmer, now 22, pleaded guilty in 2014 to killing Lane and received a 30-year sentence.

Lane was a well-known businessman in Howard County who wrote a popular blog and co-hosted a podcast. His friends and family described him as a gregarious man who was devoted to his daughter.

The murder shocked the county, and Tucker said he remembered exactly where he was when the news came out — at a judicial conference on the Eastern Shore. Other officials from Howard County also were there, he recalled.

“Every single one said, ‘Did you hear about Dennis Lane?’” he said.

Tucker gave Arnold a life sentence, suspending all but 30 years. He said he would recommend that she stay at the Patuxent Institution in Jessup. The maximum security prison provides specialized treatment with the help of psychology, social work and other professionals.

County prosecutors sought life imprisonment for Arnold, who was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty in May to first-degree murder.

The prosecution pointed to months of planning. They said Arnold left a door unlocked at the home so Bulmer could sneak in to commit the murder — and that she also wanted him to kill Lane’s girlfriend, Denise Geiger.

Both Arnold and Bulmer were social misfits at Mount Hebron High, according to testimony from witnesses. Their relationship was highlighted throughout court proceedings.

One of Lane’s sisters told the judge Wednesday that her brother had tried to “put the kibosh” on the teenage romance because Bulmer was so much older than Arnold.

“Morgan is smart — smart and cunning,” Kelly Lane said during tearful testimony as she read from a written statement. “Smart and manipulative. She’s not happy unless she is the center of attention and getting her way.”

She suggested it was Arnold that had manipulated Bulmer.

“Jason Bulmer was her first victim,” Kelly Lane said. “His life is ruined.”

Throughout the case, the defense suggested that Arnold feared Bulmer. But Tucker said he read thousands of the couple’s text messages that were entered as evidence, and did not believe that.

“It was Morgan Arnold that was the one that manipulated” Bulmer, the judge said.

Testifying Wednesday, Arnold’s mother, Cindi Arnold, said she noticed a great change in her daughter after she began dating Bulmer. The girl became interested in horror stories and started dressing in black clothing, she said.

Morgan Arnold’s mental and developmental history was a focus of the case. She has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, schizoaffective disorder, attention-deficit disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, according to testimony.

Cindi Arnold told Tucker that her daughter had no history of violence — and said she needs treatment, not incarceration.

“She would carry a mosquito outside rather than kill it,” she said. “That’s the Morgan that I know.”

Cindi Arnold and Dennis Lane, who were never married, shared custody of Arnold and often disagreed on how to raise her, according to testimony.

Defense attorney Joe Murtha argued that Arnold should serve a sentence similar to Bulmer. He urged Tucker to take her young age into consideration — she was 14 at the time of the murder — and said she was “significantly impaired.”

Morgan Arnold, who wore a black dress and gray sweater, declined to address the court before she was sentenced.

“She told me she might pass out because she was feeling so anxious,” Murtha said.

After the hearing, Murtha said he was “relieved for Morgan Arnold that she won’t be incarcerated for the rest of her life.”

“There’s a long way to go, and she needs help,” he said outside the courthouse in Ellicott City. “I don’t think she appreciates the gravity of what happened, nor the consequences of her actions, but with help, she will in the future.”

Cindi Arnold declined to comment after the sentencing. So did Geiger and members of Lane’s family.

“It was a tough case,” said prosecutor Doug Nelsen.

“It was a case where there are no winners,” added prosecutor Danielle Duclaux.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ho-arnold-sentencing-20160127-story.html

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Sentencing an Ellicott City teen who plotted her father’s murder was one of the hardest decisions a Howard County judge said he’s had to make.

On Wednesday, 17-year-old Morgan Lane Arnold was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, the state’s attorney’s office reported; her entire sentence was suspended, except for 30 years.

Howard County Circuit Court Judge William V. Tucker said that her sentencing was “one of the most difficult decisions the court has ever had to make,” according to the report. The ruling came after nine hours of hearings that included victim impact statements and testimony from doctors who could not agree on Lane’s mental prognosis.

Arnold pleaded guilty in the murder of her father Dennis Lane, a blogger and commercial real estate broker who was stabbed to death in his Ellicott City home on May 10, 2013.

Lane penned the blog “Tales of Two Cities,” chronicling Ellicott City (where he lived) and Columbia (where he grew up in Bryant Woods).

Police said Arnold, at age 14, and her then boyfriend, Jason Bulmer, who was 19 at the time, plotted for more than two months to kill Lane and his fiancée.

Arnold “thought her father was the bane of her existence,” Tucker said.

Both Arnold and Bulmer have been incarcerated since the crime occurred.

Bulmer was sentenced to 30 years in July 2014, and he said that Arnold told him to kill her father, supported by messages the couple exchanged between January and May.

Judge Tucker reportedly read more than 2,000 pages of their messages, including plans that led up to Lane’s murder at 4:20 a.m. on May 10, 2013.

“It was Morgan Arnold who made this happen,” Tucker reportedly said in court. “It was Morgan Arnold who manipulated Mr. Bulmer.”

Arnold allegedly asked Bulmer to kill Lane’s fiancee, Denise Geiger, as well. Geiger, who was in the home at the time, called 911.

During the two days of testimony preceding Wednesday’s sentencing, the court heard victim impact statements from Geiger and Dennis Lane’s sisters, according to a report from the state’s attorney.

When Arnold is released, she is to be on probation for five years, including no contact with Geiger, Geiger’s daughter, the Lane family and Bulmer.

Before sentencing, there was also testimony from mental and behavioral specialists, who could not reach consensus on Arnold’s mental and emotional conditions. In a previously court-commissioned study of Arnold’s mental health, five experts gave five different diagnoses, from Asperger’s to ADHD to depression.

Said Judge Tucker: “As she gets older, it is my hope that she appreciates what she has lost…”

https://patch.com/maryland/columbia/bloggers-daughter-sentenced-life-his-murder-0

Shalin Alltus Teen Killer Murders Uncle

Shalin Alltus Teen Killer

Shalin Alltus and her boyfriend Parker Bachtold would shoot and kill her uncle in Washington State. According to court documents Shalin Alltus and Parker Bachtold were staying on her uncle’s property and believed that the uncle was trying to end their relationship so they decided to kill him. After shooting the victim the teen killers would flee the property. Shalin Alltus and Parker Bachtold were both convicted of the murder and sentenced to thirty eight years in prison.

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393403 ALLTUS, SHALIN E Washington Corrections Center for Women

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A five-day trial didn’t reveal why two teenagers shot and killed 39-year-old Patrick Alltus at his Riverside home on Sept. 30, 2014.

But an Okanogan County jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that his niece, Shalin E. Alltus, was just as guilty as Parker Bachtold.

Alltus was sentenced in Okanogan County Superior Court to 38 years and four months in prison on Tuesday, after a jury found her guilty Monday of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, two counts of theft of a firearm and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.

At sentencing, defense lawyer Kelly Seago told the judge that Shalin Alltus had been raped and kidnapped at age 13, and that past and family issues should be considered before sentencing, the lawyer said. Seago also accused Patrick Alltus of sexual misconduct with his niece, and said she was too afraid to reveal that relationship to police.

“He’s the one person I had that I loved,” Shalin Alltus told the judge before she was sentenced. “I was very scared to explain the relationship with my uncle because I don’t want him to be seen as a bad guy,” she said, adding, “I just want you to know I never would have wanted this to happen.”

Judge Henry Rawson told her that she had ample opportunity to tell her story — to a State Patrol trooper who stopped them after they fled the murder, to a motel manager in Oregon, or to Bachtold’s parents before her arrest.

The jury found her not guilty of a special finding sought by the prosecutor that the murder was aggravated. For that special finding, the jury would have had to find that the murder was committed in the furtherance or flight from a robbery or burglary.

They deliberated for about four and a half hours.

Bachtold pleaded guilty to the same crimes earlier this month and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Now both 18, Alltus and Bachtold were 16 years old when Patrick Alltus was discovered dead a few days after the killing.

During Alltus’ trial, no clear motive was revealed. But Alltus testified under questioning that she had twice had sex with Bachtold, and that her uncle did not allow them to sleep together.

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A woman who murdered her uncle in Riverside in 2014 must be resentenced, with an appellate court ruling that she was denied a chance to present evidence that might have affected her 38-year-prison term.

After her conviction in 2016, Shalin E. Alltus, now 21, asked Okanogan County Superior Court Judge Henry A. Rawson to order a presentence report and allow her lawyers to investigate mitigating circumstance. Rawson turned her down on all counts, and as a result last week the state Court of Appeals threw out her 38-year sentence.

Rawson should have accepted the request, Appellate Judge Laurel Siddoway wrote for the three-judge panel, in part because Alltus was only 16 at the time of the murder. The issues Alltus sought to raise in a presentence investigation, Siddoway wrote, “were the type of matters our Supreme Court requires sentencing courts to consider when a juvenile is involved.” 

Alltus and her then-boyfriend Parker Bachtold, also 16, shot and killed her uncle Patrick Alltus, 39, in his Riverside home in October 2014. Both had been living on his property, and fled to Oregon after the murder.

Bachtold pleaded guilty to first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, and two counts each of theft of a firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm. At trial Alltus blamed the murder solely on Bachtold, while while Bachtold testified that he and Alltus both shot the victim, with Alltus firing first.

A jury convicted Alltus on all counts, and Rawson sentenced her the following afternoon, turning down her lawyers’ pleas for a delay and presentence investigation. The judge said such report “would add nothing significant” for consideration.

But Alltus’ attorneys said the report would touch on her ongoing psychiatric treatment and counseling, her family history and upbringing, and a rape and kidnapping Alltus experienced at age 13. 

The appellate court said while Rawson’s handling of the sentencing phase did not invalidate Alltus’ conviction, it did require remand for a new sentence, after a presentence report is prepared by qualified investigators with the Department of Corrections.

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The Okanogan County Sheriff’s office is investigating the death of a Riverside man and questioning two teenage suspects arrested in Oregon driving the dead man’s stolen pickup.

The sheriff’s office is investigating the death of Patrick M. Alltus, 39, Riverside, as a possible homicide. On the evening of Sunday, Oct. 5 county deputies responded to a call at 151 Hosheit Road in the Tunk area regarding a death. When they arrived on the scene they contacted a friend of Alltus who said he had found the victim in his residence, according to Sheriff Frank Rogers.

“At this time we are treating it as a murder investigation. We are not putting out what we found at the scene at this time so that investigators have time to process the scene. It is evident that there was a lot of violence at the scene but we are not sure of exact cause of death for Alltus,” said Sheriff Rogers on Monday.

The two 16-year-old teenagers living at the residence were not on the scene and Alltus’ pickup was missing, so authorities listed the pickup as stolen and put out an alert saying the teens were wanted for questioning. The sheriff’s office also warned that the two might be armed with a shotgun and pistol.

The teens were contacted by Oregon authorities on Oct. 1, but were not arrested at that time and it was still being determined where the teens were headed. Oregon authorities notified the Okanogan County Sheriff’s office on Monday, Oct. 6 that they had located the stolen 2004 Ford pickup from the homicide scene and had also located the two missing teenagers, Parker M. Bachtold and Shalin E. Alltus, in Douglas County, Oregon.

“Both of the teenagers have been taken into custody at this time for the stolen vehicle. Detectives from Okanogan Sheriff’s Office are en route to Oregon to make contact with law enforcement there. Bachtold and Alltus were located south of Eugene Oregon,” said Rogers.

Okanogan County Deputies and members of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab went to the scene to investigate. The Crime Lab finished processing the crime scene late Monday night. The only information the sheriff’s office is releasing at this time regarding the scene is that the victim was shot several times, according to Rogers.

“Detectives believe that the two teenagers are the suspects in the homicide case and will be trying to determine what happened at the scene and a possible motive,” said Rogers, who added, an autopsy will be scheduled for Patrick Alltus.

Two teens found in Oregon with stolen pickup

Death of Riverside man thought to be homicide

Nathaniel Abraham Teen Killer Murders Man

Nathaniel Abraham Teen Killer

Nathaniel Abraham was just eleven years old when he shot and killed a man. According to court documents Nathaniel Abraham was playing with a gun when he took aim at a man some distance away. The man was struck in the head and died instantly. This teen killer would be sentenced to eight years in youth detention. Since his release Nathaniel Abraham can not stay out of trouble and currently he is back in prison serving a long sentence for drugs

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Earliest Release Date : 2025

Max Release Date: 2059

Michigan Department Of Corrections

Current Facility: Muskegon Correctional Facility

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Nathaniel Abraham hardly presented the image of a deadly killer. Wearing oversized prison garb, the 65-pound boy appeared tearful and bewildered at pre-trial hearings. But prosecutors argued that Nathaniel was exactly the type of juvenile offender the 1996 law had meant to target. Police had previously suspected him in almost two dozen crimes, including burglary and assault. For a variety of reasons, however, the boy had never been formally charged.

Nathaniel Abraham’s case drew the attention of attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who had previously defended “Dr. Death,” Jack Kervorkian. Fieger took on the job pro bono and began a series of motions and appeals that delayed the trial until October 1999.

When the trial finally opened on October 29, prosecutor Lisa Halushka wrote down these words for the jury to read: “I’m gonna shoot somebody.” This, she claimed, was what Nathaniel Abraham had said to his girlfriend days before the killing. As the trial progressed, Halushka called witnesses who supported the idea that Nathaniel’s act had been a premeditated murder. He had stolen the rifle, then practiced target shooting at balloons. He had also fired the gun at a neighbor’s house, barely missing the occupant, just before the fatal shooting. Later, Halushka noted that Nathaniel had told police conflicting stories about the shootings—proof that he knew what he had done, and that it was wrong.

Defense attorney Fieger argued that the shooting was an unfortunate accident. Nathaniel Abraham did fire the gun, yes, but was not trying to hit anyone. Fieger also introduced testimony from an expert marksman. The witness said that it would be almost impossible to deliberately hit a small target from more than 200 feet—the distance Nathaniel was from the victim—using the old, battered rifle the boy had fired.

Fieger also called on child psychologists to describe Nathaniel Abraham’s mental state. The boy, these experts testified, had an IQ of 70, and at the time of the murder, his thought processes were like those of a seven-year-old. Fieger tried to prove that Nathaniel lacked the mental capacity to form the intent to kill. A prosecution psychologist witness, however, testified to rebut this claim.

Outside the courtroom, the trial provoked massive public interest. The CBS television magazine 60 Minutes profiled the case, and Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca admitted the Michigan social system had failed to help Nathaniel in the past, despite his impaired intelligence and previous brushes with the law. Gorcyca said he owed the boy’s mother, Gloria, an apology. An upset Mrs. Abraham replied, “Owe me an apology! To say the system failed but they still want to try my child as an adult? This is ridiculous.”

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Nathaniel Abraham Sent Back To Prison For Selling Drugs

Nathaniel Abraham, who made national news when convicted of murder at the age of 11, is headed back to prison.

Abraham, now 33, of Pontiac was sentenced Tuesday in Oakland County Circuit Court to 6 to 40 years in prison for selling drugs to an undercover police officer in Farmington Hills. He pleaded guilty as charged May 28 to delivery of methamphetamine and heroin, felonies that carry up to 20 years in prison.

Abraham was also charged as a habitual offender, fourth offense, which can carry up to life in prison.

“Mom, this isn’t bad — he could have received a much higher sentence,” said defense attorney James Galen, trying to comfort Abraham’s mother, Gloria Abraham, outside the courtroom with a dozen other relatives and friends.

“If he does what he is supposed to do, he will be out before too long.”

Galen referred to the sentence, issued by Judge Rae Lee Chabot, as “extraordinarily kind.”

“Under the habitual offender offense, he could have had up to life,” the attorney said. “I think Judge Chabot recognizes he can better himself.”

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2019/06/25/nathaniel-abraham-sent-back-prison-dealing-drugs/1561338001/

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As Nathaniel Abraham’s most recent legal troubles play out in court, the man notorious for being the state’s youngest convicted murderer is being held in isolation at the Oakland County Jail, said his attorney — which he calls “cruel” and unwarranted.

“I think it’s very extreme,” said James Galen, following a court hearing Thursday before Judge Ronda Fowlkes Gross of Pontiac’s 50th district court. “I truly believe it’s in retaliation or retribution for (the incident with deputies that led to his arrest Aug. 6) — and for who he is.”

Abraham, 32, is charged with indecent exposure, alleged by a Pontiac woman Aug. 6, and three felony counts of assaulting a police officer/resisting arrest on Aug. 8 when he was chased down for not appearing in court that day as authorities say he promised to do. One of the assault charges includes causing injury to an officer, punishable by up to four years in prison.

Galen said Thursday that Abraham has been in the jail’s “K-Block” since at least Aug. 20, which he describes as a group of “6-foot by 8-foot cells” each holding one inmate only. “He’s locked in at least 23 hours a day,” Galen said.

What landed Abraham in that section of the jail is unclear, but Galen said he was told by a lieutenant with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office that it was due to an incident at the jail, yet didn’t elaborate. Galen said he has no knowledge of Abraham being given “any tickets” during his most recent incarceration.

Galen raised the jail issue with Gross during Thursday’s hearing, but the judge said it isn’t hers to decide.

“I do not tell Sheriff Bouchard how to run his jail, and I will not tell Sheriff Bouchard how to run his jail,” Gross said.

Galen also asked for a reduction in Abraham’s $25,000 bond — claiming Abraham isn’t a flight risk and poses no danger to others or himself. Gross said she’s taking it “under advisement,” indicating she may consider a change following a preliminary exam next Tuesday.

Testimony will be offered at the Aug. 28 preliminary exam for Gross to determine if Abraham will be bound over to circuit court for the charges of assaulting/resisting police. Galen is building his case on what he says is a misunderstanding by Abraham due to a written notice he received after posting an interim bond for the misdemeanor indecent exposure charge, indicating his next court appearance was Aug. 20. However, an Oakland County sheriff’s deputy visited Abraham at his home on Aug. 7 and explained he was instead required to appear Aug. 8. Abraham failed to show up that morning as he was supposed to, and soon after was spotted walking down a street in Pontiac. That led to him being chased down and resulted in the resisting and assault charges.

Abraham also has a hearing before 50th District Judge Preston Thomas on Aug. 28 for the indecent exposure charge.

At age 11, Abraham shot to death a man outside a Pontiac party store, using a stolen rifle. He was incarcerated until just before his 21st birthday. Less than two years later, he pleaded guilty to drug charges and was imprisoned until June 28, 2017. While in prison, he pleaded guilty to assaulting a prison employee. He was released from parole on June 28 of this year.

https://www.macombdaily.com/news/copscourts/attorney-authorities-retaliating-by-isolating-nathaniel-abraham-at-oakland-county-jail/article_7f7d551f-8ef8-5060-9783-72bed86cd15f.html

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Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay Teen Killers

Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay Teen Killers

Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay were convicted of a triple murder in Washington State. The two Canadian born teens would fatally beat Rafay father, mother and sister. The crime went unsolved for a good amount of time until DNA tied the two teen killers to the triple murder. The two would be convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison however there remains a lot of doubt regarding whether or not their confession was coerced and whether or not they are guilty of this brutal crime

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A teen convinces his best friend to murder his family however years later questions still linger about the case

According to court documents Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns has been friends for years before the murders occurred.  Atif and his family moved to Washington State but kept in close contact with Sebastien.

On July 12 1994 the two teenagers headed to the Rafay home and Sebastien Burns would murder the entire family with a baseball bat including Rafay father, mother and twenty year old autistic sister.  Atif was suppose to participate in the murders but lost his nerve once they entered the home

According to prosecutors the goal of the triple murders were the half a million insurance policy and the money that would come from selling the family home

Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns were taken into custody and interrogated for three days before they were released

After the interrogation  Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns fled to British Columbia Canada where Burns still lived. The RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were cooperating with the police on the other side of the border would set up a sting where an undercover police officer would pose as a crime boss who would try to get the two to confess to the triple murders.

Nearly nine months after the murders new DNA evidence appeared which according to police tied the two to the murders.  Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns would confess to a murder in order to avoid the death penalty however many believe it was a false confession.

At trial Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns were found guilty of the triple murders and sentenced to ninety nine years in prison.  It took a long time before the two went to trial as they had to be extradited from Canada which has a policy not to extradite if the death penalty was a possible punishment.  Eventually the prosecutor in the case promised the Canadian authorities that the death penalty would not be used.

Since the trial the two have tried repeatedly to get back into court to get their conviction reversed as they have stuck to their innocence.

Atif Rafay uses his time in prison to help other prisoners get their high school diploma.  After spending years in solitary confinement Sebastian Burns has suffered from severe mental health problems

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Atif Rafay, a target of the controversial “Mr.Big” technique and one of Canada’s most famous convicted killers, has said that he felt “extremely” threatened during the undercover operation meant to extract a confession of murder.

In an exclusive interview from prison – his first since his conviction in 2004 — Rafay attacks the Mr. Big process, saying it “essentially makes you try to be as plausible as you can in your false confession, and that plausibility is what convinces a juror or someone else that ‘Oh, it must be true’…despite all the countervailing evidence.”

Rafay told the CBC’s the fifth estate that he is hoping to have his case reopened, on the basis of the Supreme Court ruling, though that seems unlikely, given that previous appeals in the U.S. to overturn his and Sebastian Burns’ convictions, because much of the evidence against them was obtained by such a sting, have been unsuccessful.

He spoke to the fifth estate’s Bob McKeown from the Monroe Correctional Center outside Seattle, Wash.

Rafay and his friend Sebastian Burns were sentenced to 99 years in jail for the 1994 murder of Rafay’s parents and sister at their home in Bellevue, Wash. The family had recently relocated from Vancouver while Rafay completed his freshman year at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

The jury at the men’s six-month trial was told Rafay was motivated by money and planned the killings while Burns carried them out. The two men have spent nearly half their lives in prison serving three consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole.

Illegal in most countries, including the U.S., the Mr. Big tactic had new limits imposed on it last summer by the Supreme Court, which said the operation risked producing unreliable confessions but did not forbid it outright.

In this kind of operation, police get murder suspects to confess by posing as a criminal gang and introducing suspects to a fake crime boss, Mr. Big, who says he can help them – but only if they can prove their bona fides, usually by coughing up information about the crime they had been charged with.

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruling called into question the reliability of confessions obtained during such a sting, and legal experts say dozens of cases of convictions could come under review.

Al Haslett was one of the originators of the technique in the early 1990s. Recently retired from the RCMP, he can now talk about his many cases as Mr. Big, coaxing confessions from murder suspects such as Rafay and Burns.

During the operation, Haslett asked Rafay how it felt to “kill your parents and knock off your sister?”

Rafay claimed that they did it for the family’s insurance money, saying he felt “pretty rotten, but it’s tempered by the fact that I felt it was necessary … to achieve what I wanted to achieve in this life.”

In this week’s fifth estate episode, “Cops, Criminals and Confessions,” Rafay says he was angry when he learned Burns had got him involved with the supposed crime gang that was to somehow influence their case.

“I mean, I didn’t approve of the thing at all from the beginning. It seemed like nothing that I wanted to have much to do with.”

He claims they never intended to do anything violent for the crime boss, but they were willing to say whatever was necessary to get his help.

“I didn’t want to become a hit man for him…I wanted to indicate to them that this is not something that I’m ever going to do – and yet at the same time I’m not ever going to rat you out, I’m not going to do anything to compromise your organization.”

In the fifth estate episode, Haslett is asked whether he believes Rafay and Burns could have felt threatened into making their confessions.

Of Burns, Haslett says, “I would never have said I’m ever going to do him any physical harm. If he had that perception, that is something that his imagination could’ve worked [up].”

Asked if he did, indeed, feel threatened, Rafay said, “Yeah actually, extremely so. Really, it was all a dream world created out of movies.

“It would seem very possible after watching Goodfellas that Mr. Big would simply kill me because I was potentially a threat to him. That seemed completely convincing – in a way that would only be convincing to an 18-year-old kid.”

Defence counsel Marie Henein argues in the fifth estate piece that threats of one kind or another are the very essence of the Mr. Big sting.

“When you say it’s imagination, they’re not making it up. It’s because they’re told, ‘You know who you’re sitting with? You’re sitting with somebody that kills people. So you might want to play ball.'”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/atif-rafay-family-killer-targeted-in-mr-big-sting-wants-case-reopened-1.2912885

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Atif Rafay is incarcerated within the Washington State Department Of Corrections

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Sebastian Burns is serving life without parole

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Atif Rafay is serving life without parole

John Hovey Teen Killer Murders Parents

John Hovey Teen Killer

John Hovey was sixteen when he murdered his parents. According to court documents John Hovey would sneak into his parents bedroom and would open fire killing his parents. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison however he was not done killing yet. This teen killer thought a paraplegic inmate was telling on him so he stabbed the inmate over two hundred times and would receive yet another life sentence.

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Last Name: HOVEY
First Name: JOHN
Middle Name: RAYMOND
NMCD#: 34833
Offender#: 10056
Offender Status: INMATE
Facility/Region:NMCD CUSTODY

MURDER 1ST DEGREE (D-202-CR-38516)GUILTY PLEA
CON MURDER 1ST DEGREE (D-1314-CR-98-00179)GUILTY-JURY
MURDER 1ST DEGREE (D-1314-CR-98-00179)GUILTY-JURY
TAMPERING W/EVIDENCE (D-1314-CR-98-00179)GUILTY-JURY

MURDER, FIRST DEGREE (CR 38516) Release Date: 99999999

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As troubled kids go, Johnny Hovey was one of the worst.

So troubled that his mother confided in friends and relatives and a probation officer that she wondered whether he was possessed by the devil, that she thought his hobby of making lifelike corpses and other gruesome props was disturbing, that she feared one day he would kill her.

That last concern proved prophetic.

Before dawn on June 19, 1984, at the family home on Valley Park SW, the 16-year-old Hovey crept into his parents’ bedroom clad only in underwear and his thick, oversized glasses and opened fire.

His father, Raymond Hovey, 36, was shot twice. It took five shots and several hours to kill his mother.

“My son, John Hovey, shot us,” Nancy Hovey, 37, told the first Albuquerque police officer to arrive. “Get him before I die.”

The case of Johnny Hovey was extensively covered by the local news media, the photo of the skinny kid with bushy hair and big glasses a near-constant presence on the front pages for months.

Hovey, as the testimony goes, had a knack for making grotesque mannequins and bloody props, including a decomposing, bloody-eyed corpse he named Susan and rolled about the house in his grandmother’s wheelchair.

His mother had gotten rid of the props. That, one relative testified, was something Johnny Hovey could not forgive.

He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in June 1986. A month later, he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

Court records show that Hovey was initially transferred to an Oregon prison, then returned. He had also been transferred and returned more than once to a Florida prison (a location he fought hard to be removed from, according to court documents) and one in Washington.

In 1997, an escape plan he is accused of masterminding while incarcerated in New Mexico was thwarted. In 1998, he was accused of stabbing a paraplegic inmate 230 times in New Mexico, and in 2000 he was given an additional life sentence plus 16 years.

That’s the last the public heard about Hovey.

Earlier this month, Roman Garcia of Omnibus Investigations of Santa Fe contacted me about the Hovey case. He had been the initial defense investigator for Hovey, he said, and while cleaning out files, he had come across a document he thought Hovey might want. He didn’t specify what the document was.

He tried to locate Hovey on the state Department of Corrections website but found nothing. A Department of Corrections employee he spoke with told him she could find no record of Hovey’s ever having been in the New Mexico prison system.

“I reminded her the he got escape charges, filed a tort claim against (the prison warden), had habeas actions and even killed another prisoner while incarcerated,” Garcia said in an email. “Her refrain: ‘Oh, really? He was never here.’ ”

It’s as if Hovey had never existed.

It may seem that way to the public when an inmate is transferred out of or into New Mexico to serve out a prison sentence through an interstate compact.

“It can be difficult for not only the survivor but the family of the inmate in that often they are not sure when or where an inmate might be taken out of state,” said Joan Shirley, victim advocate for the Resource Center for Victims of Violent Death.

Currently, 76 inmates convicted in New Mexico are incarcerated out of state, while 83 inmates from out of state are serving their time in New Mexico facilities, said Alex Tomlin, public affairs director for the Department of Corrections.

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A man serving three consecutive life sentences for murder asked a judge Monday to bring him back to New Mexico from a Florida prison where he says he’s been treated inhumanely.

John Hovey, 34, was sentenced to life in prison by a Valencia County jury in July, 2000, for killing a fellow inmate, Tim Lucero, at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas. Testimony at Hovey’s trial revealed Hovey and another inmate stabbed Lucero over 230 times while Lucero was sitting in his wheelchair in his prison cell.

Hovey, who, at the time of Lucero’s murder, was serving two life sentences for killing his parents in Albuquerque almost 20 years ago,, testified Monday he was not receiving proper psychological treatment in the Florida prison system.

District Court Judge John Pope didn’t make a decision Monday as to whether he’ll bring Hovey back to New Mexico. After hearing Hovey testify about Florida’s alleged prison conditions, Pope said he would take the matter under advisement for 10 days.

“Mr. Hovey isn’t my concern,” Pope said. “I have no sympathy for him. He does not have a right to say where he’s going, but I do want to make sure he’s not subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t want an inmate or guard killed because he (Hovey) gets depressed.”

Hovey, who didn’t testify at his own trial, took the stand and described the lack of medical and psychological treatment he’s received after his 2000 conviction. He testified he has been transported 11 different times to several New Mexico prisons as well as several prisons in Texas and Arizona and three prisons in Florida.

Hovey said he’s being housed in “close management” (solitary confinement) and only gets to see a doctor once a month for two or three minutes at a time. He said he isn’t offered psychological treatment in the Florida prison because he’s from New Mexico.

“All the time I was there, I was only treated twice,” Hovey said. He also testified that, because he is in “close management,” he’s not allowed his eye glasses, letters, books or attorney/client interaction and is kept in an unventilated cell without air conditioning. He also testified he’s not allowed an am/fm radio or television set and is only allowed one hour of recreation per week.

“I was never given a reason why I was sent to Florida,” Hovey said. “They (corrections officials) told me different lies. They first said New Mexico sent me to Florida for my own protection, and then they said I was a threat to New Mexico.

“This has messed me up quite a bit,” Hovey said. “I’m worse than I was before.”

Under cross examination, Hovey told Deputy District Attorney Ron Lopez that he was wrongfully convicted of killing his parents in 1984. He told Lopez he didn’t remember killing Lucero but said, after his trial in 2000, “I have no doubt I was involved.”

“I don’t agree I’m still a high security risk,” Hovey said. “I feel I’m more of a threat to myself.”

Lopez believes that the only reason Hovey wants to return to New Mexico is that if he kills again in Florida, he would be more likely to be sentenced to death.

“He shouldn’t be allowed to dictate to the state of Florida how he should be treated,” Lopez said. “He’s just not happy about being in Florida.”

Hovey’s attorney, Kari Converse, told Pope that her client’s constitutional rights are being violated in the Florida prison system. She said her client is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

Lopez told Pope that, if he allows Hovey to come back to New Mexico because he doesn’t like how he’s being treated, the court will be inundated with requests from everyone in prison who wants to come back to New Mexico.

https://news-bulletin.com/hovey-wants-to-return-to-nm-prison/

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