Daniel Pate was seventeen when he was involved in an argument with his uncle that would end in murder. According to authorities Daniel Pate and his uncle Michael Pate where involved in an argument outside of his home. Somewhere along the line Daniel Pate would arm himself and would shoot and kill his uncle while he sat in his vehicle. This teen killer would soon be arrested and would plead to second degree murder and would be sentenced him to twenty five years in prison
Daniel Pate 2023 Information
DC Number:170525
Name:PATE, DANIEL J
Race:WHITE
Sex:MALE
Birth Date:01/27/2000
Initial Receipt Date:07/31/2019
Current Facility:MADISON C.I.
Current Custody:CLOSE
Current Release Date:10/30/2042
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An argument between two Jackson County family members ended in gunfire Monday afternoon, leaving one dead and the other in custody.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office reported Tuesday that Daniel Joseph Pate, 17, fatally shot his uncle Michael Dewitt Pate, 56, Monday afternoon outside the teen’s Cottondale residence. JCSO confirmed Tuesday that Michael Pate, of Fountain, had died of a single gunshot wound.
Daniel Pate is being held at the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) on an open count of murder, and JCSO reported he could be facing additional charges in the case.
The shooting happened about 3:45 p.m. Monday outside a trailer at 3604 Veteran Road, just northwest of Cottondale. JCSO Capt. Scott Edwards said other family members discovered the scene and called authorities after Daniel Pate had fled in Michael Pate’s car. But not long afterward, the teen was in custody.
“A short time later — maybe 20 minutes — we got a call from the suspect,” Edwards said. “He said he was outside a church on Kynesville Highway, he was unarmed and he was waiting for us to arrive.”
The teen was arrested outside the Bethlehem Church, 2300 Bethlehem Road.
Details of what led to the shooting are currently “sketchy,” Edwards said. JCSO reported that the two had been in an argument outside the trailer where the teen lives on the afternoon of the shooting. Michael Pate was inside his vehicle as Daniel Pate stood outside it, and at some point, the teen armed himself and allegedly shot Michael Pate.
Daniel Pate then allegedly moved the victim before fleeing in the car, JCSO reported.
At the time of his arrest, Daniel Pate did not have the firearm on him, officers reported. Its whereabouts remain unclear.
The Office of State Attorney Glenn Hess announces that on July 19, 2019, Daniel Joseph Pate, 17, pleaded guilty to Second Degree Murder with a Firearm, and Battery in a County Jail or Detention Facility. Daniel Pate was sentenced to 25 years in prison, day for day, by Judge James Goodman, Jr., for the murder of his uncle, Michael Dewitt Pate. The investigation revealed that on November 6, 2017, Michael drove to meet with Daniel at his residence. An argument ensued and Daniel pointed a hunting rifle at Michael and shot him in the left eye while Michael sat in his vehicle. After Daniel shot Michael, he removed Michael from the vehicle and left him lying on the ground. Daniel then got into Michael’s vehicle and left the scene. Daniel first called his father who advised him to notify 911 and turn himself in. Daniel then called 911; confessed to the crime and advised that he was standing by at the Bethlehem Baptist Church waiting to turn himself in. Officers arrived on scene and found Daniel sitting in Michael’s vehicle.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant State Attorney, Mark E. Graham, and was investigated by Jeff Snell with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
Daniel Pate More News
A teenager has pleaded guilty to murdering his uncle.
Friday, Daniel Joseph Pate, 17, pleaded guilty to second degree murder with a firearm and battery in a county jail or detention facility.
In November 2017, Michael Pate drove to meet Daniel at his home in Jackson County. They say the men argued and Daniel shot Michael with a hunting rifle while Michael was still in his vehicle. Daniel then moved Michael’s body out of the vehicle and took the car.
Daniel called his father who told him to call 911 and turn himself in. Daniel called and confessed to the crime and turned himself in at the Bethlehem Baptist Church.
Pate was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
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Daniel Pate is currently incarcerated at the Madison Correctional Institute
Vincent Parker was sixteen years old when he beat his parents to death with a crowbar. According to court documents Vincent Parker was upset with his parents who took away his iPad. Vincent would spray his mother with bear spray before striking her repeatedly with a crowbar and a baseball bat. Vincent would wait for his father to come home and then would stab him and beat him with the crowbar. The teen killer would plead guilty to the double murder and was sentenced to twenty five years in prison
Vincent Parker 2023 Information
Personal Information Vincent Parker
Alias: Not Available
Age/Race/Sex 22/Black/Male
Offender I.D.#1632046
Location Greensville Correctional Center
Release Date 12/05/2036
Vincent Parker Other News
UPDATE: Vincent Parker, the teen who admitted to murdering his parents, learned his fate on Thursday.
He has been sentenced to nearly 25 years. He’ll be in juvenile detention until the age of 21. He will then be transferred to the penitentiary for 21 years and 10 months.
On one of the second degree murder charges, he was sentenced to 40 years. All of this time was suspended on the condition that he stay with the Juvenile Justice system until the age of 21.
On the other murder charge Vincent Parker was also sentenced to 40 years and all but 21 years and 10 months were suspended.
Police say while in court, Parker’s maternal uncle yelled and lunged at him after testimony during the sentencing hearing in Norfolk. The uncle was restrained by deputies and removed from the court room. He was not charged and was released. UPDATE: 10th-grader who admitted to murdering parents because they took away iPod sentenced
Norfolk, Va. – A smart and talented Norview High School 10th-grader admitted in court today he killed his parents a week before Christmas because he was weary of their seemingly routine punishments, “like my dad taking away my iPod and stuff.”
Vincent Parker attacked his mother Carol as she emerged from an upstairs bathroom in their Bland Street home. He admitted to police he doused his mother with pepper spray, stabbed her in the eye, and then beat her in the face and head with a baseball bat and a crowbar “until she stopped breathing.” A medical examiner identified 25 separate smashes and stabs to Carol Parker’s neck, face and head.
When Vincent’s father Wayne Parker came home, Vincent struck him with a crowbar and stabbed him several times. Wayne Parker lived long enough to tell police what happened. After first trying to say his father was the aggressor, Vincent admitted he killed his parents. Vincent was Carol and Wayne’s only child.
“I just remember getting mad,” he told investigators. “It’s all from my dad. All this stuff like my dad taking away my iPod and stuff.”
Those details and statements were included in the prosecutor’s “stipulation of facts” presented to a judge Wednesday. Vincent, who is 16, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in adult court. He’ll return to Norfolk Circuit Court in September to learn his sentence.
Why an honor-roll student with no criminal record snapped so violently over such benign punishments is a mystery to his family.
“He is a smart young man,” said his grandfather, Allen Taylor, father of Carol Taylor. “He is smart in school. I don’t know what happened.”
Defense attorney Emily Munn told the judge a psychiatric evaluation showed Vincent was both sane and intelligent. Even though Vincent is being sentenced as an adult, Munn told the judge she is going to ask the court to consider letting him serve at least part of his sentence in a juvenile facility. He could face decades in prison if he’s sentenced to the maximum for both murders. His grandfather is hoping for a much shorter punishment.
“I want him to get some type of counseling,” he said. “Help him to grow up and be an understanding man. Be sorry for what he did do. I told him to ask God to forgive him for what he did.”
When asked if he forgave his grandson, Taylor said: “Well, yes, I have. Because if I don’t forgive him, who will?
“We had to give it to God,” he said. “He is the only one who can help us now.”
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Vincent Parker is currently incarcerated at the Greensville Correctional Center
James Parker And Robert Tulloch would murder two Dartmouth College professors in 2001. According to court reports sixteen year old James Parker and seventeen year old Robert Tulloch decided they wanted to go to California but they needed money to complete the trip so they decided the house of two Dartmouth College professors would have what they needed.
The two teen killers went to the Zantop residence posing as students who needed to fill out a questionnaire. Apparently when Mr. Zantop told the students they should have been more prepared angered Tulloch who would stab Mr. Zantop repeatedly when he turned his back. When Mrs. Zantop came to investigate the noise she was attacked by James Parker who would stab her repeatedly. The two teens would take the wallet of Mr. Zantop and flee the premises leaving the sheath to a knife behind.
Turns out that sheath was rare and police were able to find out who bought one recently and from there the two teen killers became suspects and would be arrested a few states away. James Parker would plead guilty to second degree murder and would be sentenced to twenty five years and could be paroled after sixteen years. Robert Tulloch would also plead guilty and be sentenced to life
James Parker And Robert Tulloch 2023 Information
ROBERT WILBERT TULLOCH
Prison Number: 75385
Term ID: 42507
Admission Date: 04/04/2002
Release Date: 3/10/2101
Location NH State Prison for Men
JAMES JENNINGS PARKER
Age: 35
Prison Number 75389
Term ID: 42512
Admission Date: 04/04/2002
Min Release Date: 5/22/2024
Max Release Date 1/24/2100
Location: NH State Prison for Men
James Parker And Robert Tulloch Other News
A Chelsea man who has served 18 years in prison after the 2001 stabbing deaths of two Dartmouth College professors will go before a Grafton County judge on Tuesday and ask to have the remainder of his 25-year sentence suspended.
James Parker, now 34, has served his time inside the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in an “exceptional manner,” including completing a master’s degree and taking on a leadership role that has led to the betterment of the entire prison community, his attorney, Cathy Green, wrote in a September motion to suspend the remaining portion of Parker’s minimum sentence.
“He made a decision that although he could never change what he had done, or diminish the pain that he caused, he would live a life going forward to atone for his actions,” Green wrote. “He chose to educate himself, but more importantly, to dedicate himself to making the prison community a better and more humane place. He provided opportunities for those who sought to spend their time positively, aiding in their rehabilitation and personal growth.”
Because Parker has served two-thirds of his sentence, state law permits him to seek such relief.
But the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office in November objected to Parker’s request, saying he already received the minimum sentence for his role in the “premeditated, brutal deaths” of Half and Susanne Zantop in their Etna home on Jan. 27, 2001.
Parker, who was 16 when he committed the crime, pleaded guilty April 4, 2002, to second-degree murder for the death of Susanne Zantop, and he agreed to testify against Robert Tulloch, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for the killing of Half Zantop.
Tulloch, who was 17 at the time of the murders, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. His sentence will be examined at a three-day hearing in December after the Supreme Court ruled mandatory life sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders.
Currently, Parker’s earliest release date is May 2024.
In the objection, Associate Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin recounted the days leading up to the crimes — Parker and Tulloch were bored with Chelsea and were looking for a way to get money and travel — and the crimes themselves.
“Such extraordinary relief is inappropriate in this case, given the facts of the crime the defendant committed and the lasting impacts,” he wrote. “The Zantops were not killed in self-defense or in the heat of the moment. Instead, their deaths were the results of months of detailed criminal planning that included the purchase of weapons and failed attempts to rob and kill others.”
The then-teenagers selected the Zantop home at random, went to the front door and posed as students conducting a survey before stabbing them both to death and fleeing the state. They were arrested the following month after police traced knife sheaths left behind at the Zantop home.
Parker already has been rewarded for his rehabilitation efforts in prison with a 21-month reduction in his sentence because of earned time credits, Strelzin said.
“What the Zantops experienced has to be worth far more than the few years the defendant has served and should serve in prison for what he willingly did to them,” he wrote.
State law, however, has designed a mechanism to recognize the “extraordinary behavior” of an inmate and reward him or her for it with a sentence reduction, Green wrote.
In addition to his advanced schooling, Parker completed a host of vocational training courses and contributed to life inside prison through his expertise in art, music and theater.
He painted murals that are hung throughout the prison, expanded the theater program through the facilitation of productions and directed choirs while preparing and performing concerts with the prison band.
He coached basketball and helped with other volunteer activities like job fairs, Green wrote.
Richard Bedell, an instructor at New England College, said Parker has “relentless drive and motivation,” settled for nothing “less than excellence” and made himself available to other students who needed help, she wrote.
James Brown, a lieutenant at the prison, called Parker “the most industrious individual I have observed in my 25 years working in this environment,” according to the petition.
Parker has only a few “minor” infractions on his prison record and has participated in mental health treatment and counseling, Green wrote.
Robert Kinscherff, a forensic psychologist, evaluated Parker for his risk for future criminal behavior and ruled that “Jim scores at the very low end for risk of violent behavior and reoffending,” Green wrote.
Killer in Dartmouth professors stabbing case seeks early release from prison
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James Parker Granted Parole
A man sentenced to prison for his role in the murders of two Dartmouth College professors in 2001 has been granted parole.
James Parker, 39, is serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the killings of Half and Susanne Zantop in 2001.
Investigators said Parker, who was 16 at the time, and his friend Robert Tulloch, who was 17, posed as students conducting a survey when they stabbed the Zantops to death.
Parker admitted during Thursday’s hearing he had intended to kill someone that day. He later expressed how he feels now about the killings.
“I think it’s unimaginably horrible,” Parker said. “I’ve gone over it and over it, and just finding an explanation for that. I just don’t know how I could do that.”
Parker said he and Tulloch killed the Zantops as part of a plan to rob them.
“We were attempting to get money to go overseas and live some sort of life of adventure, or whatever,” he said.
He described to the board how he and Tulloch killed the couple.
“During the interview when Mr. Zantop pulled out his wallet, my codefendant and I, he attacked Mr. Zantop, and then when his wife came in, I restrained her, and then I cut her throat and she fell to the floor,” Parker said.
He acknowledged the pain that the Zantops’ loved ones suffered because of what they did.
“I know there’s not an amount of time or things that I can do to change it or alleviate any pain that I’ve caused,” Parker said.
This was his first chance at parole.
In granting parole, the board ordered that Parker have no contact with the victims’ families, that he continue his mental health treatment and that he remain free of any other disciplinary action.
Tulloch, 40, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. He is scheduled for a resentencing hearing in June in light of a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which made it unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life imprisonment without parole.
Gabe Parker was fifteen years old when he brought a gun to school in Kentucky that would leave two fellow students dead. According to prosecutors Gabe Parker entered Marshall County High School shortly before 8 a.m. on Jan. 23 opening fire with a handgun leaving two students dead and fourteen others injured.
This teen killer would be arrested shortly after the shooting and would confess to police he was responsible. At trial Gabe Parker would plead guilty to two counts of murder and eight counts of first degree assault and six counts of second degree assault. Gabe Parker would be sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after twenty years
Gabe Parker 2023 Information
Name:
PARKER, GABRIEL Active Inmate
PID # / DOC #:
511795 / 313745
Institution Start Date:
6/12/2020
Expected Time To Serve (TTS):
LIFE SENTENCE
Classification:
Unassigned
Minimum Expiration of Sentence Date (Good Time Release Date): ?
Gabe Parker, the teenager who opened fire inside a Kentucky school in 2018, killing two students, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of murder and multiple counts of assault.
As part of the plea deal, a judge is expected to sentence him June 12 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Parker had been indicted on two counts of murder and 14 counts of assault after he opened fire with a handgun at Marshall County High School shortly before 8 a.m. on Jan. 23. Bailey Holt and Preston Ryan Cope — both 15-year-old students — died in the attack. He pleaded guilty to eight counts of 1st degree assault and six counts of 2nd degree assault.
Parker, now 18, confessed to police less than an hour after the shooting.
Defense attorney Tom Griffiths said Parker pleaded guilty “not because it was the easy thing to do, but because it was the right thing to do, not just for him but for the victims and the community. He has a lot to atone for and he had to move forward and start to do that.”
Marshall Commonwealth’s Attorney Dennis Foust said Parker was not eligible for life without parole or the death penalty because of his age, 15, at the time of the shooting, so “we got the maximum sentence.”
If convicted at trial, Parker could have been sentenced at most to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
Foust said the families of the Bailey and Preston were in agreement with the plea bargain.
In part, the prosecution chose not to go to trial because the COVID-19 pandemic would have delayed it until at least 2021 and there were no guarantees it would happen then, Foust said.
“The trade off is in terms of not having to worry about appeals” or when the trial could be held, he said.
In fact, the prosecution could not even work with medical witnesses from Vanderbilt University because of the current pandemic.
Griffiths agreed that avoiding trial was best for everyone involved.
“I don’t think anyone would have been served by this case going to trial when you had someone admitting responsibility and accepting life in prison,” he said.
And Foust said of the victims, “everybody’s going to get a chance to speak at the sentencing and hopefully this will be the first chapter in the beginning of the healing process.”
Griffiths said Parker may or may not speak at his sentencing.
Asked if Parker every told him his reasoning for the shooting, Griffiths said “not that makes any sense to adults. There may be a better answer to that at sentencing, but I can’t promise you that either.”
Parker’s mother, Mary Minyard, released a statement:
“I’ve had more than two years to think about what I want to say at this moment. Two devastatingly long, cruel years to come up with the words, and I find I still don’t have them. Words are inadequate to express how deeply sorry I am for everything that has happened. To every child in the school that day, to every parent and loved one of those children; to the school system and entire community, I’m so sorry. Most especially, my most heartfelt apologies go to those children hurt that day and their families. To the Holt and Cope families, I know there will never be words that I can say to make up for the precious lives you’ve lost, but I hope know how deeply I feel that loss and how truly sorry I am. I can only hope you all find some comfort and light in the days and years ahead.”
In a victory for the prosecution, a Marshall Circuit Court judge has held that alleged teen shooter Gabriel Parker voluntarily confessed to the January 2018 fatal shootings and assaults at Marshall County High School.
Judge Jamie Jameson denied a motion to suppress Parker’s statements, including one in which the county sheriff asked him immediately after the shootings if anyone else was involved and Parker replied, “No, it was me.”
Parker’s public defenders had maintained his Miranda rights were violated and the investigators also violated a law requiring the immediate notification of a juvenile’s parents that they have been arrested.
Jameson noted in his Nov. 10 ruling that sheriff’s investigators did not specifically ask if he wanted to waive his right to maintain his silence, but he said he understood his rights.
He fully confessed to the crimes within five minutes, Jameson said.
The judge said that while Parker’s mother and stepfather were not notified of his arrest for about an hour on Jan. 23, 2018, “Given the chaotic nature of that day, the time frame in which notification occurred was not only legally sufficient, but commendable.”
He said the parents were contacted before Parker was formally charged, and even if the notification law was violated, suppression of his statement is not required unless it was given involuntarily, which Jameson ruled it was not.
Parker was 16 when he allegedly shot and killed students Preston Cope and Bailey Holt and injured 14 others at the school.
His trial on charges of murder and assault will begin June 1 in Christian County, where it was moved on a change of venue. Parker, now 17, has pleaded not guilty.
At a status conference Friday, Jameson set an additional conference for Feb. 14, according to Commonwealth’s Attorney Dennis Foust.
Christine Paolilla was seventeen when she murdered four of her friends. According to court documents Christine Paolilla and Christopher Snider would enter a home and shoot and kill four young people in 2003. This teen killer would not be arrested until 2006 when an anonymous tip would lead to her arrest. Christopher Snider would commit suicide before he could be arrested.
Christine Paolilla 2023 Information
SID Number: 07188577
TDCJ Number: 01529580
Name: PAOLILLA,CHRISTINE MARIE
Race: W
Gender: F
DOB: 1986-03-31
Maximum Sentence Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Current Facility: MOUNTAIN VIEW
Projected Release Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date: 2046-07-22
Offender Visitation Eligible: YES
Christine Paolilla Other News
In the spring of 2003, things were looking up for 17-year-old Christine Paolilla, a shy teenager who had always struggled to fit in. She was friends with two popular girls at school — Rachael Koloroutis and Tiffany Rowell — and she had been voted “Miss Irresistible” by the student body at Clear Lake High School in suburban Houston.
But on the afternoon of July 18, 2003, Christine’s life changed forever. Four youths were found shot multiple times at point blank range in a home in the placid Clear Lake neighborhood. Two of the victims were her friends, Koloroutis and Rowell, who had recently graduated. Koloroutis was planning to attend college in the fall.
The police were stunned, and stumped as to who would want the youths dead.
“There was a lot of rage and anger behind these killings and so, therefore, we thought … perhaps there was a personal relationship between the victims in the home and the killer,” Houston Police Sgt. Brian Harris told ABC News.
It would take three years to unravel the mystery. After numerous dead ends, police caught a big break in July 2006, when an anonymous tipster called. The tipster described facts only the killers could have known and gave them two names — a boy, Chris, and a girl: Christine Paolilla.
Christine Paolilla was arrested, tried and convicted of the crime. She is now appealing the conviction. “Chris” was Chris Snider, Christine’s boyfriend in high school, who committed suicide after he learned police were on his trail.
The question that haunted everyone, including the police, was, “Why?” The details didn’t seem to add up. Rachael and Tiffany had befriended Christine Paolilla and offered her advice, including beauty tips. The friends even carried pictures of each other in their wallets.
Why would Christine Paolilla want to kill her friends?
Christine’s parents, Lori Paolilla and stepfather Tom Dick, spoke to “20/20” exclusively about their daughter’s life before July 18, 2003.
Christine Paolilla spent her childhood in suburban Long Island, N.Y. Her mother, Lori Paolilla, told ABC News that the girl was “very outgoing, outspoken, though shy at times… she was the apple of Daddy’s eye.” Christine’s father, Charles Paolilla, was a construction worker and her mother stayed home to raise Christine and her older brother, John.
Christine Paolilla was just 2 years old when tragedy hit. Lori Paolilla described the painful day.
“Her father got up and went to work and never came home,” she said.
Charles Paolilla was killed by falling bricks during construction on a high-rise in New York City.
“I had to go home,” Lori Paolilla told ABC News, “and tell my children that Daddy won’t be coming home anymore.”
A few months later, Christine’s grandfather and great-grandmother also passed away. According to her mother, Christine Paolilla started asking questions: “‘Mommy, I don’t understand … why is it that people I love go away?’”
Her mother says she tried to raise the children on her own, but the pain of losing her husband led her to drug addiction. She eventually lost control of her world and, temporarily, custody of her children. At age 7, Christine Paolilla went to live with her grandparents.
“She didn’t really understand,” Paolilla said. “She would call me on the phone and cry, ‘Mommy, can’t I come home?’”
Psychiatrist Gail Saltz, author of “Anatomy of a Secret Life: The Psychology of Living a Lie,” described the impact such a loss could have on a young girl.
“Losing her father at an early age puts someone a risk,” Saltz told ABC News. “It’s abandonment, a very frightening one … and then, of course, be[ing] essentially abandoned by your mother in the setting of her using drugs, that’s sort of a double whammy because that is losing the most important person in your life. … Hard to not internalize that as a tremendous rejection, … [a] blow to self-esteem and questions of how loveable am I if my mother … is no longer taking care of me.”
Christine Paolilla’s suffering didn’t end there. By the time she was in kindergarten, she was diagnosed with an irreversible hair-loss condition called alopecia.
“She would wake up in the morning and there would be clumps of hair all over her pillow, patches here, patches there,” Paolilla said. “And eventually led to where it affected her eyes so she lost her eyebrows, she lost her eyelashes.”
As a young child, Christine Paolilla wore wigs to hide her affliction from the world.
“That was devastating,” said Paolilla. “She had poor vision so she had what I guess most folks would know as Coke-bottle glasses, and [she] started being ridiculed by young children. … Classmates would come up behind her, pull her wig off her head.
“It was so painful to watch. I can’t even imagine really, truly how she was feeling. As a parent, as a mother the pain of a child, waking up in the morning thinking, ‘What am I going to have to go through today? Who is going to hurt me today?’ It was very difficult for her.”
Saltz said the hair loss would have been a major psychological obstacle.
“Psychologically, to a young person, this is going to take a huge toll,” Saltz said. “Hair is hugely important to girls, to women, it’s a symbol of femininity, it’s a symbol of feminine power … alopecia is a pretty devastating condition.”
Christine’s early teen years were a struggle. But eventually she was able to forge new friendships that helped her feel like she belonged.
Lori Paolilla recalled her daughter’s joy at having made new high school friends.
“‘Mom,’ she said, ‘I made two new friends who are the sweetest girls I ever met,’” Paolilla said. “I said ‘who are they?’ She said, ‘Rachael and Tiffany.’ … She couldn’t speak highly enough about them. How much fun they were. How loving they were, how they had so much fun … Every minute they spent together was lively and fun, and they laughed all the time and I saw such a change in her personality.”
Tiffany and Rachael were a year ahead of Christine Paolilla in school. “She genuinely seemed very happy when she started to hang around with those girls,” said Paolilla.
Rachael was beautiful and popular and may have helped Christine feel like a normal teenager. The intensity of the relationship was understandable, said Saltz. “That relationship would be extra important, full of longings,” she said.
Rachael’s father wasn’t surprised she took Christine Paolilla under her wing.
“Rachael was the kind of person that always looked out for the underdog, always tried to help others,” George Koloroutis told ABC News. “And because of this affliction that Paolilla had … Rachael really felt sorry for her.”
Paolilla said one sign that Christine Paolilla trusted her new friends was that she “felt OK without the wig on with them, which is not something that she did with many of her friends.”
Christine also had a friend her parents did not approve of: Chris Snider. Christine briefly met Snider in school, when she was in the eighth grade. He was about two years older and didn’t look like her other friends.
He had “body piercings, spiked hair, chains hanging from his jeans … there was something in his eyes and every time I saw him it made me very uncomfortable,” said Lori Paolilla, adding said Snider did jail time for armed robbery, and when he got out he went straight to Christine Paolilla, now 16. Christine felt bad for him because nobody wanted to be his friend and she thought she could help him, said Paolilla.
Christine and Chris began dating. According to Christine’s mother and stepfather, Snider started isolating Christine from her family and friends. Paolilla said Snider emotionally abused Christine Paolilla, even showing up at school one day and pulling her wig off to embarrass her in front of her classmates. Despite it all, Christine appeared to cling to the relationship.
“Typically in an abusive relationship,” said Saltz, “the abuser wants to isolate, dominate. … And he would be jealous of, and potentially want to get rid of anybody else in her life.” It is not uncommon, according to the psychiatrist, for a woman who has been bullied to fall in love with her abuser.
Dick said Snider had some sort of hold on Christine Paolilla. “We did everything in our power to get him away from her, but you know she’s 16, 17 years old. There’s only so much you can do.” He said they tried grounding Christine and taking away car privileges, but “[Snider] had some sort of mental control over her that we couldn’t break.”
Christine’s parents were additionally concerned about Snider’s drug use. The parents consulted with attorneys and police officers, they said, and even tried to get a restraining order and have Snider arrested, to no avail. “We talked to her about it until we were blue in the face,” said Dick. “She just felt she was going be able to fix him, no matter what he did.”
Saltz tied the relationship to Christine’s early loss of her father. “[I]f you lost a father very early in life, you may be susceptible to making a man that comes along in your life overly important,” she said. “So important that you would potentially do anything for him.”
Paolilla and Dick said Christine Paolilla was deeply disturbed about the murder of Rachael and Tiffany.
“She came home to tell us … she was very upset … she cried most of the night,” said Paolilla, adding that Christine Paolilla was too upset to attend the girls’ funerals.
The details of the July 2003 murder remain sketchy. On the afternoon of the murders, a neighbor saw a “male” and “female” dressed in black, walking up to the house. Using the neighbor’s descriptions, Houston Police Department forensic sketch artist Lois Gibson created composite sketches of the suspects. The sketches were eventually released, and may have led to tipsters calling in.
But the most revealing piece of evidence as to what happened in the house that day came from Christine’s videotaped interrogation after she was arrested in 2006. She told police that Snider had a gun and forced her to take a second gun but that she never willfully fired it. Instead, she said, Snider put his hand on hers and caused her to fire the gun.
She said Snider later beat a severely wounded Rachael to death. According to Christine Paolilla, Snider threatened to do the same thing to her and her family if she told anyone. She went to work at Walgreen’s less than 30 minutes after the murders, instead of calling police.
A man Christine later married, Justin Rott, told police a different story. He said Christine Paolilla admitted to going to the house to participate in a drug heist, and when Snider started shooting she didn’t hesitate to join in. Rott said Christine told him that it was her, not Snider, who beat Rachael to death with a gun.
When the police finally caught up with Christine Paolilla in July 2006, she was high on heroin, living in a hotel room strewn with used needles. She and Rott had been holed up in the room for over eight months.
In September 2008, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Christine Paolilla is serving her time at women’s penitentiary in Gatesville, Texas. Though she is not eligible for parole until 2046, she filed an appeal right after she was convicted.
“The statements she (Paolilla) made shouldn’t have been submitted to the jury because she was under severe heroin withdrawal during the time of her interrogation by police,” said Allen Isbell, Paolilla’s lawyer.
Isbell also questions Christine’s sentencing.
Though Christine Paolilla was 17 years-old at the time of the murders, she was automatically sentenced to life in prison. Isbell argued before a Houston appeals court last December that “a mandatory life sentences in a murder case is unconstitutional for a defendant under 18 years of age.”
The court has yet to rule on the appeal.
Meanwhile, the question still lingers: Why would Christine Paolilla kill her friends?
“I think there’s a chance she thought they were pitying her … but still envied them, because they didn’t have to work so hard to be nice, to be accepted,” Saltz said. “That’s going to create some intense envy and jealousy, bring out the aggression, and the … wish to punish them for what they have.”
Houston Police Sgt. Brian Harris said in an interview with Deborah Roberts that he believes Christine Paolilla still does not “own” the crime.
“For her to truly come to grips with what she had done,” he said, “she has to acknowledge that there’s a darkness in her soul.”
Lori Paolilla now lives with the anguish of a mother whose daughter struggled with, and ultimately succumbed to, the harshness of the world around her.
“We represent parents who have teenage children… young adult children who are living in a world that was much different from when I grew up,” Paolilla said. “Keep them away from the ones that you know in your heart are going to be the ones that can break them and weaken them and take them down.”
Christine Paolilla Videos
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Christine Paolilla More News
Christine Paolilla always felt like an outsider.
By the time she entered high school, Christine had suffered the sudden death of her father and was diagnosed with alopecia—an irreversible disease that caused her to lose her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes.
Kids were cruel, calling her a clown due to her heavy makeup and unflattering wigs. But when popular classmates Tiffany Rowell and Rachael Koloroutis befriended Christine, things started looking up.
Christine’s happiness with her newfound friendship makes what happened next all the more shocking:
On July 18, 2003, Christine and her boyfriend Christopher Snider went to Tiffany’s home in Clear Lake City, Texas, and murdered Tiffany, Rachael, and two other friends in cold blood. Why would a young girl-who had already experienced such a deep loss-commit such a brutal act? Especially upon the two people she seemingly cared about most
The discovery of the crime scene was just as shocking. From multiple gun shot wounds to Rachael’s head being smashed in by the butt of a pistol, police were left wondering: Who would ruthlessly kill four innocent teenagers in broad daylight?
Investigative journalist and true-crime expert M. William Phelps dives into the shocking mass murder in his book Never Seen Them Again by interviewing the victims’—and killers’—friends and family members, combing through trial transcripts and other reports. The result is an extremely detailed—yet compulsively readable—account of the lead up to the crime and its aftermath.
Christine Paolilla is currently incarcerated at the Mountainview Unit in Texas
Christine Paolilla Release Date
Christine Paolilla is serving a life sentence however is eligible for parole in 2047
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