February 2021 | Page 43 of 54

Luke Woodham Teen Killer School Shooter

Luke Woodham was sixteen years old when he murdered three people. According to court documents Luke Woodham would stab his mother to death before headed to Pearl High School armed with a rifle. This teen killer would shoot and kill two female students including his ex girlfriend. He would also injure seven other students. This teen killer would be convicted and sentenced to two life terms and seven twenty years terms for the attempted murders.

Luke Woodham 2023 Information

Race: WHITE	Sex: MALE	Date of Birth: 02/05/1981
Height: 6′ 3”	Weight: 290	Complexion: FAIR
Build: EXTRA L	Eye Color: BLUE	Hair Color: BROWN
Entry Date: 06/15/1998	Location: MSP	UNIT: UNIT 30
Location Change Date: 03/01/2018	Number of Sentences: 10	Total Length: LIFE

Luke Woodham Other News

On June 5, 1998, Luke Woodham, a sixteen-year-old high school student, was convicted of stabbing his mother to death and sentenced to life imprisonment. At trial, Luke Woodham testified that he had no recollection of killing his mother. He described his relationship with his mother as devoid of love and essentially nonexistent. He recalled his earliest memories of home life while on the stand. These consisted of his parents fighting and finally divorcing when he was in the sixth grade. Woodham testified that he was often left without adult supervision. He never had any close relationships with his extended family, and he described his childhood as lonely.

¶ 3. At trial, he stated that he had suffered from depression as early as age eight. Classmates picked on him as early as kindergarten; and, according to Luke Woodham, the further he went in school, the more intense the picking, name calling and physical bullying became. In high school, he was indifferent regarding his school work and had to repeat his ninth grade year. He testified that he began to seclude himself from others with the exception of a girlfriend, whom he contended provided him with the love he had waited for all of his life. When the relationship ended, however, he began an emotional downward spiral.

¶ 4. Grant Boyette, an older high school student, befriended Luke Woodham and other unpopular students at school. These students began spending time together-playing video games, reading books and discussing philosophy. At some point, Luke Woodham detailed how the group began dabbling in the occult under the guidance of Boyette. Witnesses testified that Boyette began preaching satanic teachings to the other members of the group, later named “The Kroth.”

¶ 5. At trial, Luke Woodham testified that on the day of his mother’s death, he heard Boyette’s voice in his head directing him to kill his mother. He recalled the following:

I remember I woke up that morning, and I had seen the demons I’d seen all the time when Grant had told me to do something. And he was telling me that I was nothing and that I’d always be nothing; ․ And I remember getting the knife, and I got a pillow. And I walked into my mother’s room. And I remember Grant’s voice and he told me that I had to do all of this.. I remember I just closed my eyes, and I just followed myself. I didn’t want to do any of it ․ I kept hearing his voice. And my eyes were closed. When I opened them, my mother was lying on her bed dead.

¶ 6. Lucas Thompson, a classmate of Luke Woodham, testified that the night prior to the homicide, Woodham told him in a telephone conversation that he was going to kill his mom the next day with a knife. Thompson did not believe him; however, when they spoke again the next morning, Luke Woodham, who was on the other phone line with Boyette, informed Thompson that he had in fact done it.

¶ 7. Woodham’s blood and the blood of his mother were found on a butcher knife removed from the crime scene. Dr. Steven Hayne, the State’s pathologist and author of Mary Woodham’s autopsy, detailed her injuries:

There were multiple types of injuries. Specifically there was evidence of blunt force trauma. There was evidence of multiple slash wounds. There was evidence of multiple stab wounds. In fact a total of seven stab wounds were identified, and eleven slash wounds were noted during the course of the autopsy. In addition, there were superficial injuries consisting of scratches or abrasions located on multiple surfaces of the body. There was also one small cut located over the front of the left arm. And there was also areas of bruising located predominantly over the right side of the face.

He concluded that the ultimate cause of death was attributable to “three stab wounds of the chest, to include a stab wound of the heart, a stab wound of the right lung, a stab wound of the left lung, and the subsequent collection of a large volume of blood bleeding into the chest cavity to a volume of approximately three quarts of blood․”

¶ 8. Shortly after Luke Woodham was taken into custody and mirandized, an investigator observed a large cut on Woodham’s hand and asked him how he had cut his hand. Luke Woodham paused for a moment and responded, “Killing my mom.” A jail administrator testified he also asked Woodham the same question and received the same answer. Investigators obtained written and video recorded statements from Woodham. In their presence, Luke Woodham signed a waiver of rights form, a video release form and a form styled “Voluntary Statement” in which he confessed to killing his mother. In the “Voluntary Statement” Woodham wrote the following:

I woke up this morning, got a butcher knife, and a pillow. I got into my mother’s room at about 5:00 a.m. I put the pillow over her head and stabbed her.

He further explained in a videotaped confession that killing his mother was the only way that he could get the gun and the car.

¶ 9. A jury convicted Luke Woodham of murder on June 5, 1998. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Aggrieved by the jury’s verdict, he has timely filed this appeal.

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Luke Woodham More News

Pearl High School shooter Luke Woodham, who killed three in 1997, is pushing for parole eligibility.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those sentenced as teenagers to mandatory life sentences for murder must be given a chance to argue they should be released from prison.

On Oct. 1, 1997, the 16-year-old Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned his mother to death and then entered Pearl High School with a .30/30 rifle. He shot nine classmates, killing two of them.

The school attack, one of the worst in U.S. history at the time, helped inspire other school shootings across the country, culminating in 1999 with the shootings in Colorado at Columbine High School, where students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 and injured 21 others.

In his 1998 trial, the jury rejected Woodham’s insanity defense, convicting him of the three murders.

“I am sorry for the people I killed and hurt,” Woodham told Circuit Judge Samac Richardson. “The reason you see no tears anymore is because I’ve been forgiven by God. If they could have given the death penalty in this case, I deserve it.”

Under Mississippi law, those convicted of murder receive a life sentence, but are eligible for parole.

The judge sentenced Woodham to three consecutive life sentences. The judge also gave seven 20-year sentences for attempted murder.

Prosecutors were unable to prosecute Woodham for capital murder under the law at that time. Lawmakers have since changed the law, making it possible to bring the death penalty against anyone who kills on educational property.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in January built on the 2012 decision that threw out mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles.

Woodham has no parole eligibility date at this time.

In keeping with the 2012 decision, the state Supreme Court ordered a hearing before Richardson on Woodham’s claim.

His attorney, Tom Fortner, wrote that his client’s 140-year sentence for aggravated assault is the equivalent of a life without parole sentence.

Fortner wrote that justices have concluded that such sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.

He suggested that the 140-year sentence be allowed to run concurrently with the life sentences.

“Mr. Woodham will still be serving life sentences and thus will remain in prison unless and until the Parole Board decides that he has earned the privilege of release on parole,” he wrote.

This is not the first time Woodham has pushed for his freedom.

In 2011, he asked then-Gov. Haley Barbour for clemency. Barbour rejected the request.

Seven years earlier, the state Supreme Court denied Woodham’s request for post-conviction relief.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/05/25/luke-woodham-wants-parole/32625191/

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Luke Woodham is currently incarcerated at the Mississippi State Prison

Luke Woodham Release Date

Luke Woodham is serving a life sentence

Amber Wright Teen Killer Seath Jackson Murder

Amber Wright was fifteen years old when she helped murder a teenage boy in Florida. According to court documents Amber Wright was dating a new guy named Michael Bargo and a plan arrived to murder her former boyfriend Seath Jackson. Amber Wright lured the young man to a home where he was brutally murdered and his body would be cut up and burned. Amber Wright and the rest of the group would be arrested and convicted. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Michael Bargo (pictured above) was sentenced to death and remains on Florida death row

Amber Wright 2023 Information

DC Number:	U46099
Name:	WRIGHT, AMBER E
Race:	WHITE
Sex:	FEMALE
Birth Date:	03/29/1996
Initial Receipt Date:	08/23/2012
Current Facility:	HOMESTEAD C.I.
Current Custody:	CLOSE
Current Release Date:	SENTENCED TO LIFE

Amber Wright Other News

Amber Wright will serve life in prison for her role in the 2011 murder of her 15-year-old ex-boyfriend, a judge ruled on Tuesday. Her sentence will be subject to review after 25 years.

“I have not seen or heard anything more despicable than what lead to Seath Jackson’s death,” Circuit Judge Anthony Tatti told Wright before handing down her sentence.

“I cannot imagine a circumstance any worse, and I pray to my God that the reason behind all this is some chemical imbalance or a brain that hasn’t matured. It’s really hard to deal with the notion that such an evil could exist without an explanation,” Tatti continued.

Tatti’s words — and the sentence he selected for the 19-year-old Amber Wright — echoed those of Circuit Judge David Eddy, who first sentenced Wright in 2012 after a joint trial with her teenage brother and co-defendant. Eddy, at the time, called the murder the most heinous he had seen in 15 years as a judge.

The siblings were among five young people who in 2011 lured Seath to a Summerfield home, where they beat him, shot him and burned his body in a backyard fire pit. Law enforcement authorities recovered Seath’s remains days later in paint buckets dumped at a nearby quarry, where two of the five co-defendants had disposed of them the day after the murder.

Assistant State Attorneys Amy Berndt and Robin Arnold cast the murder as an escalation of animosity between Seath and Amber Wright, who had broken up on poor terms, and between Seath and another co-defendant, Michael Bargo, whom Amber dated after the breakup.

An appellate decision brought Wright back to Marion County for a retrial in January, based on an issue with the timing of her Miranda rights. Although her jury in January again found her guilty of first-degree murder, a statute change between her 2012 sentencing and her sentencing Tuesday left open the possibility of a lighter sentence.

While Florida Statute in 2012 mandated life in prison as the minimum sentence for any first-degree murder conviction, even if the defendant was a juvenile at the time of the murder, it today allows for more discretion on the part of judges in cases with juvenile defendants.

Amber was 15 at the time of the murder, the same age as the victim and the youngest of the five co-defendants.

In a letter she read aloud at the hearing, Sonia Jackson, the victim’s mother, said she has thought about the argument that prompted the statute change: that children’s still-developing minds and consciences are fundamentally different than those of adults, suggesting that children should not be subject to the same penalties.

But in Amber’s case, Jackson rejected that argument, emphasizing in her statement what she cast as Wright’s key role in a deliberately planned murder. Jackson asked Tatti to send her to prison with a life sentence.

“It doesn’t take a fully developed mind to understand right from wrong,” Jackson said. “A 2-year-old learns that hurting others is not acceptable in our society.”

Turning to face Wright, Jackson also echoed words she read at Wright’s original sentencing: “Amber, we hope that guilt eats you inside and out knowing that you caused all this,” she said. “You fed into Bargo’s deranged desires with your lies. All this happened because of you.”

Although Bargo is said to have been the gunman, and is currently serving the most severe sentence, on death row, prosecutors emphasized at trial that Wright’s text messages lured Seath to the home that night. In an interview recorded at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office before her arrest, which the jury heard at trial, Wright said Bargo had pressured her to contact Seath.

Family members and prison ministers who spoke in Amber Wright’s defense acknowledged the Jackson family’s pain, but emphasized that Wright had grown and matured in the five years since Seath’s murder.

“I just hope and pray that you can make the right decision and give her a chance to be the person she could be,” Wright’s mother told Tatti tearfully.

She and two prison ministers said they have already seen changes in Wright since her incarceration, noting that she has since earned her GED and built positive relationships with other inmates.

Amber, who had not spoken at her trial in January, asked Tatti to recognize that she is not the same person she was five years ago. She said she feels guilty and remorseful, and that she finds it difficult to forgive herself, but said she is trying to be a better person.

“I’m not going to say a wonderful person,” she said. “I’m not. I make mistakes. I still do. I just hope one day I’ll be allowed to have that chance to prove myself.

“Not just to you,” she added, “or to anybody else, but to myself as well.”

The current statute on sentencing for defendants who commit serious crimes as children came in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which came down in the weeks before Amber Wright’s trial and sentencing in 2012 and found that mandatory life sentences for juvenile defendants are unconstitutional.

Because Amber and her brother, Kyle Hooper, who was 16-years-old at the time of the murder, were sentenced to life without parole as a mandatory sentence, Hooper has been granted a re-sentencing on appeal. Wright, too, would have received a new sentencing on the same basis had she not been granted a new trial altogether.

The current statute, though, leaves open the possibility of a life sentence for juveniles in cases where a judge finds an intent to kill and considers several additional factors laid out in the statute. Among those factors are the defendant’s age, maturity and intellectual capacity, and the effect of peer pressure on the defendants.

Prosecutors and Junior Barrett, Wright’s attorney, interpreted the factors differently in Wright’s case, with Barrett emphasizing Wright’s age and Berndt emphasizing the gruesome circumstances of the murder.

After hearing all the arguments, Tatti, who said he had never sentenced anyone to life in prison in five years as a judge and did not take the responsibility lightly, sentenced Amber Wright to life in prison with a review after 25 years.

“I hope that what’s responsible for that is some lack of development in your brain, something that you can grow out of,” he told Amber Wright. “That would give me some hope.”

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amber wright 2022 now — Amber Wright 2022

Amber Wright Appeal

Amber Wright was one of five young people charged with Seath Jackson‘s murder. Fifteen-year-old Wright and Jackson had been in a relationship, but broke up acrimoniously. Using text messages, Amber Wright and Charlie Ely lured Jackson to a trailer, where Kyle Hooper, Wright’s brother, along with Michael Bargo, her boyfriend, and Justin Soto, beat and shot Jackson before placing his body in a bag and burning it in a backyard fire pit.² The remains were then shoveled into five-gallon paint buckets and thrown in a rock quarry.

Two days after the murder, Mrs. Tracey Wright, Amber Wright and Hooper’s mother, called Sheriff’s Deputy David Rasnick, telling him that Hooper knew something about Jackson’s disappearance.³ When Deputy Rasnick arrived at the Wright residence, Wright, Hooper, Ely, and Mrs. Wright were all present. Because Hooper became emotional, Deputy Rasnick read him the Miranda warnings. Deputy Rasnick’s supervisor arrived and told him that investigators wanted to interview “the kids” at the station. Deputy Rasnick passed that request on to them, and went next door to find Soto. Deputy Rasnick, Soto, Ely, Wright and Hooper went to the station in Deputy Rasnick’s marked Marion County Sheriff’s Office vehicle, while Mrs. Wright followed behind in her own car. Pursuant to the policies of the sheriff’s office, Deputy Rasnick collected the cell phones of those who rode in his car. No one was handcuffed or expressed any reluctance about going to the sheriff’s office. Instead, the group seemed “nonchalant.” Ely rode in the front, while Hooper, Wright and Soto rode in the back. At the time, Deputy Rasnick regarded Hooper as a “person of interest,” but neither he nor Wright were suspects.

At the sheriff’s office, Amber Wright had three videotaped interviews with Detective Rhonda Stroup. The first interview took place in a “soft room.” Wright and her mother sat together on a large couch, while Detective Stroup sat across from them in a chair. The conversation was calm and patient. Detective Stroup’s questions were factual in nature, and did not accuse or confront either Wright or her mother. During this interview, Wright told Detective Stroup that Jackson “just showed up” at the trailer. Wright claimed that Hooper struck the first blow, frightening her and Ely into hiding in Ely’s room until the next morning. When she woke, the house smelled like bleach.

This first interview lasted about twenty minutes, but the video recording continued for an additional hour. During that time, Amber Wright and her mother primarily stayed in the soft room, which was unlocked. While Detective Stroup was out of the room, she was, among other things, interviewing Hooper, who confessed to the murder and implicated the others, including Wright. Detective Stroup then returned for a second interview. This time, Wright was moved to a “hard room,” a more traditional police interrogation room. To this point, Wright had not been given the Miranda warnings.

Detective Stroup began the second interview by accusing Amber Wright of lying and stating that the interview was “where the rubber hits the road.” Detective Stroup informed Wright that Hooper had told her “everything,” and if Wright continued to lie, she would be treated “like a piece of garbage.” Detective Stroup indicated that she wanted “mutual respect” and the truth, and when pressed, Wright replied, “I’m gonna tell you the truth.” Notwithstanding Wright’s professed willingness to be truthful, she continued to dissemble, prompting Detective Stroup to tell Wright that she was “done with being lied to” and that further lies would lead to her walking out, which was “not what you want.” Finally, Wright admitted her involvement in Jackson’s murder, largely as described by Hooper, prompted by Detective Stroup’s questions. At the conclusion of the second interview, Detective Stroup asked Wright to confirm that no one had offered her anything in exchange for her statement, no one had threatened to beat her, she understood her rights, and her statements were free and voluntary. To all of this, Wright responded, “yes ma‘am.” Detective Stroup then arrested Amber Wright for murder and handcuffed her.

Shortly after the second interview ended, Detective Stroup realized that no one had Mirandized Wright. As a result, she escorted Amber Wright, in handcuffs, back to the soft room for a third interview. At the start of the third interview, Detective Stroup told Wright that she was giving her “the chance to be the honest one.” Detective Stroup informed Wright that she had not been read her rights, and then presented a Miranda waiver form to Wright, noting, “[T]his is something I have to do, OK?” Detective Stroup read the warnings on the form to Wright, ultimately asking, “Do you understand these rights?” Wright nodded affirmatively. Detective Stroup then asked, “Having these rights in mind, do you want to talk about this? And if [so] put your initials right there.” Wright complied, saying, “Might as well get it all out.” After Wright signed the waiver form, Detective Stroup questioned her calmly, frequently referring to inculpatory information gleaned from their just-completed, un-Mirandized second interview. Wright’s answers were consistent with her statements in the second interview. By the time Detective Stroup read Wright her Miranda rights, Wright had been at the sheriff’s office for more than six hours.⁴

Amber Wright later moved to suppress all of her statements, arguing that they were the product of custodial interrogations, that she had not been Mirandized before the first or second interview, and that the failure to do so tainted the admissions made in the third interview. While the State agreed to the suppression of the second interview, it argued against suppressing the first or third interviews. The State contended that Miranda warnings were not needed for the first interview as it was not the result of a custodial interrogation. It also argued that the Miranda warnings given prior to the third interview cured any taint from the second, un-Mirandized interrogation. Based on the State’s concession, the trial court agreed to suppress Wright’s second interview. Without elaboration, the court denied suppression of the first and third interviews. Wright was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Amber Wright appeals, contending that the admission of her first and third interviews with Detective Stroup violated her constitutional rights against self-incrimination.

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Amber Wright Now

Amber Wright is currently incarcerated at the Homestead Prison in Florida

Amber Wright Release Date

Amber Wright is serving life without parole however since she was a juvenile when the murder occurred she is eligible for review after 25 years

Andrew Wurst Teen Killer School Shooter

Andrew Wurst was responsible for the Parker Middle School dance shooting in Pennsylvania. According to court documents Andrew Wurst would walk into the facility A Nick’s Place, banquet hall, that was hosting a school dance for Parker Middle School. Wurst would open fire killing a man, and wounding three others including a teacher and two student. This teen killer would soon be apprehended, convicted and sentenced to sixty years in prison.

Andrew Wurst 2023 Information

Parole Number:EA5775
Age: 35
Date of Birth: 02/03/1984
Race: WHITE
Height: 5′ 10″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: LIGHT
Current Location: FOREST
Permanent Location: FOREST
Committing County: ERIE

Andrew Wurst Other News

Andrew J. Wurst failed to convince an Erie County judge in 2016 that his sentence for the 1998 fatal shooting of a teacher should be shortened.

He has now taken his efforts to U.S. District Court in Erie, where he is making much the same argument he put forth in his unsuccessful appeal.

In a petition filed last week, Wurst again claimed that his sentence of 30 to 60 years in the death of science teacher John J. Gillette failed to take Wurst’s youth into consideration. Wurst was 14 when he killed Gillette and wounded two students at a middle-school dance near Edinboro on April 24, 1998.

Wurst is asking to be resentenced like Pennsylvania’s “juvenile lifers,” whose mandatory sentences of life without parole for murders committed before they turned 18 were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court five years ago.

“This Court should hold that Mr. Wurst’s sentence is unconstitutionally disproportionate because the sentencing judge failed to consider his youth and associated characteristic in determining the proper sentence,” Wurst wrote in the request, called a petition for habeas corpus.

But unlike the state’s juvenile lifers, Wurst did not receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Wurst will be eligible for parole on April 25, 2028, almost three months after his 44th birthday.

He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and other charges in September 1999, avoiding the possibility of a first-degree murder conviction and a mandatory life sentence without parole.

Wurst made a similar request that was denied in Erie County Court in the summer of 2016. Erie County Judge William R. Cunningham wrote that Wurst “is not entitled to relief under these (juvenile lifer) cases since he was not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.”

Wurst wrote in the new federal filing that Judge Michael M. Palmisano, who sentenced Wurst, “allowed the crime to overpower all other mitigating evidence of youth.” Cunningham ruled that Palmisano, now retired, took Wurst’s age and other factors into consideration in fashioning the sentence.

Now 33, Wurst is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Forest, near Marienville. He is representing himself in the petition.

The Erie County District Attorney’s Office will have an opportunity to respond to Wurst’s request in federal court.

https://www.goerie.com/news/20171227/andrew-wurst-asks-for-resentencing-in-1998-teacher-killing

Andrew Wurst More News

A 15-year-old Edinboro boy accused of killing a teacher at a junior high school dance last year pleaded guilty to third-degree murder yesterday, sparing himself the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Judge Michael Palmisano sentenced Andrew Wurst to a total of 30 to 60 years in prison on the murder charge and for attempted homicide, assault and weapons charges.

Wurst must serve at least 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.

He would have faced a mandatory life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder for the April 1998 death of teacher John Gillette, 48.

Wurst stood before the judge with closely-cropped hair and wearing green prison overalls, his mother at his side, as District Attorney Joe Conti asked questions to ensure they understood the plea agreement.

Wurst refused to meet the prosecutor’s eyes and answered each question with a near-inaudible “yes” or “no.” His mother, Cathy, also answered quietly. As in previous court appearances, Wurst displayed no emotion and appeared uninterested in the proceeding.

The teen-ager’s attorneys had planned an insanity defense. But they encouraged their client to agree to the guilty plea for fear jurors would not accept that Wurst was mentally ill.

“The only way he would have done better is if the jury would have found him insane, and insanity is a very difficult defense, especially in the tenor of today’s times with these shootings around the country,” defense attorney Philip Friedman said.

If jurors had rejected the insanity defense, Wurst’s attorneys had no other defense to offer, Friedman said.

“There’s just a lot of hostility out there. It’s very difficult for the average jury to excuse people’s behavior for these actions, so we have to take into account that climate when we make a decision like this,” Friedman said.

Gillette was killed when Wurst, then 14, opened fire at a dance for his eighth-grade class from James W. Parker Middle School at a banquet hall in Edinboro. He also wounded two students and held a gun to the principal’s head.

The shooting — which occurred within months of those involving students in Jonesboro, Ark., West Paducah, Ky., and Pearl, Miss. — stunned tiny Edinboro, a town of 7,000 that is home to Edinboro University and serves as a family vacation spot in northwestern Pennsylvania.

After Thursday’s hearing, Conti said the victims had approved of the plea agreement, which he said spared them the hardship of a trial.

Gillette’s wife, Debbie, and the other victims were in court.

None would comment afterward.

Attorney Charles Longo of Cleveland, who represented Debbie Gillette since shortly after the shooting, said she planned to file a civil lawsuit against the Wurst family and a landscaping business owned by the boy’s father, Jerome Wurst.

Longo said the Gillette family was neither happy about nor satisfied by Wurst’s guilty plea. “They’re able to accept it,” he said.

Wurst had been scheduled to go to trial Oct. 25 as an adult on a first-degree murder charge.

Under Pennsylvania law, Wurst could not have been sentenced to death because he was younger than 16 at the time of the shooting. Because of publicity about the case in Erie County, jurors for Wurst’s trial were to have been selected in Washington County, about 140 miles south of Erie.

In April, Palmisano ruled that Wurst should be tried as an adult following days of conflicting testimony from psychiatrists about the boy’s mental state.

“The evidence suggests the defendant made a conscious decision to arm himself with a deadly weapon and ammunition, after which he selected his victims and executed his plan,” the judge wrote at the time.

He added that “the evidence is insufficient to show that if the defendant is truly suffering from mental illness at this stage, he would be ostensibly cured and nondangerous upon his release from a juvenile facility.”

A month before the killing in Edinboro, Wurst told classmates he wanted to kill people and commit suicide.

Another classmate noticed that Wurst was becoming curt and unfriendly in the weeks before the shooting.

Palmisano recommended that Wurst begin his sentence in a separate unit at a state prison for inmates younger than 18 who have been convicted as adults. That unit is part of the state prison at Houtzdale, Clearfield County.

http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19990910teacher1.asp

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Andrew Wurst Now

Andrew Wurst is currently incarcerated at the Forest Facility

Andrew Wurst Release Date

Andrew Wurst first opportunity for release is in 2028

Yukio Yamaji Teen Killer Turned Serial Killer

Yukio Yamaji was a teen killer and serial killer from Japan who would start to murder at sixteen years old. According to court documents when Yukio Yamaji he would fatally beat his mother to death with a metal baseball bat. When arrested he would be sent to prison however would be paroled three years later.

Once released from prison this teen killer would sexually assault and murder two women a couple of years later. For the double murder Yukio Yamaji was sentenced to death and would be executed four years later in 2009

Yukio Yamaji Other News

“Which will come first, my own death or the execution? That’s all I’ve been thinking about. I now have something to take with me to my daughters when it’s my time to go,” says the victims’ father, Kazuo Uehara, 60.

Uehara, still coping with his health after suffering a stroke last year, heard from the media that the execution had taken place. Yukio Yamaji, 25, one of the youngest to be handed the death penalty in postwar Japan, was executed on July 28 at the Osaka Detention Center.

In 2000, Yamaji had killed his mother with a metal baseball bat at the age of 16. Shortly after being released in 2004, in the following year he raped and stabbed to death two sisters sharing an apartment – Asuka Uehara, 27, and her sister Chihiro, 19.

The man admitted to the slaying of the sisters and asked for the death penalty, making freakish comments in court such as “Killing humans is the same as breaking something.”

Akira Hashiguchi, his attorney at the time, expressed his disappointment in being unable to find any sign of remorse in the man. The death row inmate had long been uncommunicative, but the final time he met Yamaji, he was certain the man was suffering “incarceration fatigue,” having lost considerable weight and asking to be executed as soon as possible.

Without family or friends, he had no last words, and remained silent all the way to the execution chamber. In the absence of any clarification as to his motive for the killings, the murder remains a mystery.

https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/silent-execution-of-osaka-sisters-killer

Yukio Yamaji More News

A 22-year-old man charged with murdering two sisters and torching their dwelling pleaded guilty Monday, saying he has no plan to contest the charges by prosecutors, who claim he killed for pleasure.

Yukio Yamaji, unemployed with no fixed address, told his first trial session at the Osaka District Court, “The facts read (by prosecutors) are correct.”

According to the prosecutors, Yamaji, who in 2000 murdered his mother, broke into a condominium in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, in the early hours of Nov. 17 and fatally stabbed Asuka Uehara, 27, and Chihiro Uehara, 19.

The women were found with deep stab wounds to their chests and faces.

After killing them, Yamaji stole 5,000 yen and set the condo on fire before fleeing, the prosecutors said.

The victims did not know Yamaji.

Yamaji’s lawyers tried to seek leniency by denying part of the prosecutors’ claims, saying he had no intention of stealing money.

They also demanded a psychological analysis be conducted on him.

Before Yamaji was served an arrest warrant on the murder charge in December, he had been detained for trespassing in a building adjacent to the women’s condominium earlier the same month.

During a police investigation, Yamaji, who killed his mother in 2000 when he was a minor, told investigators he killed the sisters because he “could not forget the feelings” he experienced when he killed his 50-year-old mother.

“I wanted to see human blood,” Yamaji was quoted as saying by an investigation source.

Earlier, Yamaji told the investigators about the knife he used in the murders and they found it at a Shinto shrine a few hundred meters from the building.

Yamaji was institutionalized after beating his mother to death with a baseball bat in August 2000 in the city of Yamaguchi when he was 16.

The Yamaguchi family court had sent him to a reform center for minors after concluding the attack on his mother was not deliberately planned and “it is possible to correct” him “although he does not have a deep sense of guilt.” He was released from the reform center in October 2003.

During Monday’s court session, Yamaji did not make specific comments on his motive.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2006/05/02/national/man-pleads-guilty-to-murdering-sisters/#.XiSXT47YrnE

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Yukio Yamaji Execution

Yukio Yamaji was executed in 2009

Graham Young Teen Killer Fatal Poison

Graham Young started to kill people when he was fifteen. Graham attempted to poison his entire family when he was fifteen causing the death of his stepmother. For that they sent him to a psychiatric facility where he was released nine years later even though he had caused the death of a fellow inmate and sickened many others. Once released to society it did not take Graham Young to begin again and it is believed he poisoned at least seventy people none proved to be fatal. However Graham would start using Thallium and people began to die. Eventually Graham Young would tell a coworker if police were looking for Thallium poisoning they could wrap up a lot of unsolved homicides. This teen killer would soon be arrested and convicted on multiple murders. Graham Young would die in prison at the age of 42.

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Graham Young was born September 7, 1947 outside of London, England. At the age of 14, in 1961, Graham began testing out poisons on his family, eventually his stepmother would die. Graham was put into a criminal mental hospital after confessing to the poisonings of his family, but was released after nine years.

Upon beginning a new job, Graham began poisoning again until being caught and convicted. Early Crimes and Incarceration Graham Frederick Young was born in Neasden, North London, on September 7, 1947, to Fred and Bessie Young. His mother developed pleurisy during pregnancy, and died of tuberculosis three months after her son’s birth. Fred Young was devastated by her death, and the infant was put into the care of his aunt Winnie, while his elder sister, Winifred, was taken in by her grandparents.

The young Graham spent the first two years of his life with his aunt and her husband, Jack, and became very close to them. When his father remarried in 1950, and reunited the family again in St. Albans, with his new wife, Molly, Graham showed visible signs of distress at being separated from his aunt. He went on to become a rather peculiar child, solitary in his habits, and made no effort to socialize with others his own age.

When Graham Young was old enough to read, he favored sensationalist nonfiction accounts of murders, and Dr. Crippen, the infamous poisoner, was a particular favorite. By the time he reached his teens he had developed an unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler, and took to wearing swastikas, extolling the virtues of a “misunderstood” Hitler to anyone who would listen. He also read widely on the occult, claiming knowledge of Wiccans and local covens, and trying to involve local children in bizarre occult ceremonies, which involved sacrificing a cat on one occasion. The subsequent disappearance of a number of local cats, around the same time, may have pointed to a more regular occurrence of these sacrificial ceremonies.

Academically, Graham Young only interests were chemistry, forensic science and toxicology, but the limited school coverage of these subjects forced him to advance his studies through extra-curricular reading. His father encouraged him, buying Young a chemistry set, which absorbed his attention for hours at a time. By the age of 13, Young’s comprehensive knowledge of toxicology enabled him to convince local chemists that he was, in fact, 17, and he procured a dangerous quantity of the poisons antimony, digitalis and arsenic for ‘study’ purposes, as well as quantities of the heavy metal, thallium. Keen to put his knowledge of poisons to the test, his first victim was fellow science pupil, Christopher Williams, who suffered an extended period of vomiting, painful cramps and headaches, due to the judicious administration, by Graham, of a cocktail of poisons that left medical experts baffled. Williams was lucky to survive, probably because Young couldn’t fully satisfy his scientific curiosity. Monitoring the illness of his victim when he was sick at home was not feasible. So he decided to focus on a group to whom he had unlimited access—his own family.

When the family began to show intermittent signs of poisoning during the early part of 1961, Graham Young’s father initially suspected that Young might be inadvertently harming the family by the careless use of his chemistry set at home, but Young denied the accusation. The potential for deliberate poisoning was never considered, especially as Young had also been ill on a number of occasions. It remains unclear whether this was by design (to avoid detection), thorough scientific interest in his own reaction, or just carelessness of exactly which teacups he had poisoned. When Graham Young’s elder sister, Winifred, was found by doctors to have been poisoned by belladonna in November 1961, Young’s father again suspected him, but took no action. Molly Young, his stepmother, became the concerted focus of Young’s attentions, gradually becoming more ill until finally, on April 21, 1962, she was found by her husband writhing in agony, in the back garden of their home, with Young looking on in fascination. She was rushed to hospital, where she died later that night. Her cause of death was determined as a prolapse of a spinal bone and she was cremated (not surprisingly at Graham Young’s suggestion), with no further action taken at the time. It was later discovered that she had developed a tolerance to the antimony with which Young was slowly poisoning her, and he switched to thallium the night before her death to speed up the process. There were even reports of further nausea and vomiting attacks at her funeral: clearly the death of his stepmother had not dulled Young’s scientific curiosity.

Following Molly’s death, Fred Young’s attacks of vomiting and cramping became more frequent and increasingly severe, and he was also admitted to hospital, where he was diagnosed with antimony poisoning. He was lucky to have survived his son’s experimentation, but could not countenance his son’s responsibility: that role fell to Young’s school chemistry teacher, who contacted the police when he discovered poisons, and copious material about poisoners, in Young’s school desk. Young was sent to a police psychiatrist, where his encyclopedic knowledge of poisons soon became apparent, and Young was arrested on May 23, 1962.

He admitted poisoning of his father, sister, and school friend, Williams, but no murder charges were brought against him for the murder of his stepmother, as any evidence had been destroyed at the time of her cremation. Still only 14, he was committed to Broadmoor maximum security hospital, the youngest inmate since 1885, for a minimum period of 15 years. Incarceration barely dampened his enthusiasm for experimentation, and within weeks the death of an inmate, John Berridge, by cyanide poisoning, had prison authorities baffled. Graham Young claimed to have extracted cyanide from laurel bush leaves, but his confession was not taken seriously, and Berridge’s death was recorded as suicide.

On other occasions staff and inmates’ drinks were found to have been tampered with, including the introduction of an abrasive sodium compound, commonly called sugar soap, used for preparing painted walls, into a tea urn that could have caused mass poisoning had it not been discovered. Graham Young continued to read widely about poisoning, although he began to keep his obsession increasingly well hidden, when authorities made it clear that appearing less obsessed would speed up his release. By the late 1960’s Young’s doctors seemed oblivious to his continued fatal fascination and recommended, in June 1970, that he be released as he had been ‘cured’.

Graham Young celebrated by informing a psychiatric nurse that he intended to kill one person for every year he had been in Broadmoor; the comment was recorded on his file but, amazingly, never influenced the decision to release him.

Later Crimes: When Graham Young was released on February 4, 1971, now aged 23, he went to stay in a hostel but had contact with his sister, Winifred, who had moved to Hemel Hempstead following her marriage. Despite having been poisoned by him, she was more forgiving than her father, who initially wanted nothing to do with his son. She was concerned about his fixation with his crimes: he took great delight in visiting the scenes of his past crimes, thriving on the reaction of his old neighbors in Neasden when they recognized who he was. He made trips to London, where he stocked up on the antimony, thallium, and other poisons required for his experiments, and a fellow hostel resident, 34-year old Trevor Sparkes, was soon exhibiting the familiar cramps and sickness associated with any proximity to Young.

Another man Graham Young befriended experienced such agony that he took his own life, although no connection to Young was established at the time. Young found work as a store man at John Hadland Laboratories, a photographic supply firm in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where his new employers were aware of his Broadmoor stay, but not his history as a poisoner. They might have had some reservations, given the easy availability of poisons such as thallium, routinely used in photographic processes, but he had, in any case, already secured his poison supplies from unsuspecting London pharmacists. Graham Young willingness to make tea and coffee for his co-workers raised no concerns, therefore, and when Young’s boss, 59-year-old Bob Egle, began to experience severe cramps and dizziness, it was attributed to a virus known locally as the bovingdon bug, which had afflicted a number of local schoolchildren.

Other Hadland workers complained of similar cramps, but none were ever as severe as Egle’s who, curiously, seemed to recover when off work ill, but instantly became sicker than ever on his return to work. He was eventually admitted to hospital where he died, in agony, on July 7, 1971. His cause of death was recorded as pneumonia. In September 1971, 60-year-old Fred Biggs began to suffer similar symptoms to Egle, and general absenteeism at Hadland increased dramatically, with employees suffering a variety of unusual and debilitating ailments, including the usual cramps, hair loss and sexual dysfunction.

Various sources were considered, including water contamination, radioactive fallout and leakage of the chemicals used at the firm itself, but no real progress was made towards the cause. Biggs was eventually admitted to the London Hospital for Nervous Diseases, but took a long time to die, a cause of some frustration to Young, who recorded his displeasure in his diary. BHe eventually succumbed, on November 19, 1971, in excruciating pain. This second death raised great concern within the firm.

By this stage about 70 employees had recorded similar symptoms and there were fears for personal safety. The doctor on site tried to reassure staff, by insisting that health and safety rules were being strictly adhered to, and was taken aback when Graham Young challenged him in front of colleagues, quizzing him on why thallium poisoning had not been considered as a cause, considering that it was used in the photographic process. The doctor was surprised at Young’s in-depth toxicological knowledge, and brought it to the attention of the management, who in turn alerted the police.

Subsequent forensic enquiries revealed the thallium poisoning—the first recorded case of deliberate poisoning by this heavy metal ever recorded. Young’s poison conviction was soon unearthed, as were his collection of poisons, and meticulous diaries recording explicit dosages administered to individuals, and their reactions to the dosage over time. Trial and Aftermath Graham Young was arrested in Sheerness, Kent, on November 21, 1971, where he had been visiting his father. A quantity of thallium was found on his person. Under interrogation, he admitted verbally to the poisonings, but refused to sign a written admission of guilt. He clearly relished the notoriety that his day in court would afford him.

Graham Young’s trial commenced on June 19, 1972, at St Albans Crown Court, and he was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and two counts of administering poison. Young pleaded not guilty, and seemed confident that he would be acquitted, as his previous conviction could not be entered into evidence, and he felt it would be impossible to identify him as the only person with the means to poison Egle and Biggs. Graham Young was delighted at the media hype that surrounded his trial, and did his best to appear sinister, in an attempt to unnerve the jury and assembled gallery, but was reportedly less than thrilled with the sobriquet “The Teacup Poisoner,” which he felt too parochial, belittling his skill and knowledge. He thought “World Poisoner” more appropriate. Young had not reckoned with the advances made in forensic science in the decade since the death of his stepmother, however, and the effect that the reading of tracts of his diary, in which he cold-bloodedly lists the effects of his poisons, would have on the jury:

Graham Young was found guilty on all charges on June 29, 1972, receiving four life sentences. When the jury were apprised of his previous conviction, and his release as a “cured” mental patient only months before the crimes took place, they recommended an urgent review of the law regarding the public sale of poisons. The Home Secretary also announced an immediate review of the control, treatment, assessment and release of mentally unstable prisoners, despite the fact that Young had been regarded as legally sane during his trial.

The Aarvold Report, published in January 1973, led to the reform of the way these prisoners were monitored upon release, and resulted in the creation of the Advisory Board for Restricted Patients. When asked whether he felt any remorse over his sadistic killings, Graham Young is said to have replied: “What I feel is the emptiness of my soul.” Young was incarcerated at the maximum-security Parkhurst prison, on the Isle of Wight, the home of Britain’s most serious criminals, usually reserved for those with severe mental conditions.

Here Graham Young befriended Moor’s Murderer, Ian Brady, who became infatuated with the 24-year old Young, although the attraction was not reciprocated. Brady described Young as genuinely asexual, excited only by power, clinical experimentation, observation and death. They spent considerable time together, playing chess and bonding over their fascination with Nazi Germany; Young regularly sported a Hitler moustache. Young was thrilled when a waxwork of himself was added to the Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, alongside his boyhood hero, Dr. Crippen.

Graham Young died in his cell at Parkhurst on August 1, 1990, aged 42. The official cause of death was heart failure, although there remains conjecture that fellow inmates, who, with the exception of Brady, were always extremely wary of Young, may have poisoned him or, alternately, that he grew tired of prison life and poisoned himself, in one final gesture of control.

Graham Young’s worldwide notoriety brought the effectiveness of thallium as a deadly poison into focus for the first time: it was used extensively as a coating on U.S. missiles fired during the first Gulf War, to devastating effect. In 1995, a black comedy about Young’s life, entitled The Young Poisoner’s Handbook was released in cinemas.

In November 2005 a 16-year old Japanese schoolgirl was arrested for poisoning her mother with thallium. She claimed to be fascinated by Graham Young, having seen the 1995 film, and kept an online blog, similar to Young’s diary, recording dosage and reactions. Her mother remains in a coma.

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Graham Young died in prison in 1990