Mary Yoder is a twenty seven year old woman from Indiana who has just plead guilty to the murder of her four year old son Judah Morgan
According to court documents Mary Yoder failed to protect her son from the abuse of her husband Alan Morgan that would ultimately lead to the four year old’s death. Alan Morgan was sentenced last year to seventy years in prison for his role in the horrific case
Police say that Judah Morgan was beaten, bound with duct tape, starved and locked in a dark basement. Mary Yoder would call 911 saying that her husband Alan Morgan had hurt the child. When ambulance attendants showed up they would find the body of Judah Morgan wrapped in a blanket badly bruised and bloodied
Video from inside of the home showed Alan Morgan striking the four year old multiple times on multiple occasions.
Mary Yoder will be sentenced at a later date where she faces decades in prison
Mary Yoder More News
A 27-year-old mother in Indiana will likely spend several decades behind bars for her role in torturing and killing her 4-year-old son, who was starved, beaten, bound with duct tape, and kept in a dark basement before he died last year.
Mary Yoder pleaded guilty Friday to one count of neglect resulting in the death of a dependent and one count of domestic battery to a child, both felonies, in the brutal death of young Judah Morgan, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Yoder admitted to abusing Judah and at least one of her other children, but she also failed to intervene or contact authorities when her husband, 30-year-old Alan Morgan, regularly subjected the child to torturous punishments. Morgan was sentenced to 70 years in prison in December 2022 after pleading to multiple felonies, including murder, in Judah’s death.
In exchange for Yoder pleading guilty, prosecutors dropped additional charges of neglect of a dependent, one of which involved cruel confinement. She had been scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 25.
As part of Mary Yoder’s plea agreement, she admitted that she was aware of the abuse Judah was being subjected to and that the abuse ultimately caused his death, according to a report from the Times of Northwest Indiana.
As Law&Crime previously reported, authorities responding to a 911 call at Yoder and Morgan’s rural home at about 3 a.m. on Oct. 11, 2021, discovered Judah’s bruised and bloodied naked body wrapped in a blanket inside a bedroom. Yoder placed the call and told the dispatcher that Morgan had gotten angry and hurt Judah
Prosecutors at Morgan’s trial last year presented evidence showing that Judah was routinely physically and emotionally abused by his parents. The father regularly beat and punished his son to the point of torture, locking him up in the family’s dark basement, naked, for days at a time over toilet training issues, and withholding food and water from the child. Morgan would also regularly duct tape Judah’s mouth
Surveillance footage from inside of the home showed Morgan on Oct. 7, 2021, punching Judah at least 13 times then picking him up by his neck, dropping him on the floor, and leaving him in the basement without furniture, The Associated Press reported. Video also reportedly showed Morgan punching Judah at least 15 times on Oct. 8.
Judah died from blunt force trauma to the head which caused “massive” bleeding on his brain, an autopsy determined.
“(The child’s injuries) rank up there with one of the worst cases of blunt force trauma to the entire body that (the doctor) had ever seen (in his 28-year career),” court records stated, according to a report from Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN.
Jacob Koch of the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Office told South Bend CBS and Fox affiliate WSBT-TV after Morgan’s sentencing it was one of the most tragic cases he’s had
“I feel for the family and everything they’ve gone through this last year,” he said. “Glad justice was served today.”
Mary Yoder is scheduled to appear for her sentencing hearing before LaPorte County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Alevizos on Nov.1. She is facing a maximum sentence of 40 years for the neglect resulting in death charge and up to six years on the domestic battery charge
According to court documents Facundo Chavez was pulled over on a traffic stop by El Paso County sheriff deputy, Peter Herrera. Chavez would open fire on the Officer striking the Officer several times. Chavez would leave the scene after striking the fallen Officer. Peter Herrera would die from his injuries in hospital
Facundo Chavez was just sentenced to death, August 10 2023
Facundo Chavez Case
An El Paso jury has returned a death penalty sentence for the man convicted of killing El Paso Sheriff Deputy Peter Herrera during a 2019 traffic stop.
Facundo Chavez, 32, will be put to death after a jury of nine women and three men reached the sentencing decision Wednesday. Jurors deliberated for nearly 10 hours over two days.
The same jury convicted Chavez of capital murder of a peace officer on Aug. 3 in connection with the 2019 slaying of Herrera.
Judge Diane Navarrete, who presided over the trial, warned everyone against any outbursts in the courtroom. Spectators remained quiet when the verdict was read aloud.
Chavez had no visible reaction to the jury’s actions.
El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks, who had been in and out of the courtroom throughout the trial, sat at the prosecutor’s table for the verdict.
Herrera was facing either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole
The trial, which began on July 26, is being held in the Criminal District Court 1 at the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse in Downtown El Paso.
Chavez was accused of brutally shooting and beating Herrera during a traffic stop about 1:50 a.m. on March 22, 2019, in the 1000 block of Chicken Ranch Road, near Socorro Road in San Elizario.
Herrera pulled over Chavez and his girlfriend, Arlene Piña, over for two traffic violations. The violations were from failing to dim high-beam headlights and improperly displaying a temporary license plate permit.
Herrera asked Chavez to stop of the vehicle. He got out of the car and immediately pulled out a handgun and shot at Herrera.
Chavez fired about 15 rounds from the handgun at Herrera at point-blank range before the gun then jammed.
Chavez then began beating Herrera with the gun.
The couple fled the scene as Herrera laid mortally wounded and in a pool of his own blood.
Another arrived at the scene and began performing first aid on Herrera to try to stop the bleeding. Herrera was then taken to Del Sol Medical Center.
Herrera died at the hospital two days later.
Chavez and Piña were later found by U.S. Border Patrol agents hiding in a shed on the property of a nearby house, according to testimony.
The graphic videos from Herrera’s body camera and patrol vehicle’s dashboard camera, along with another deputy’s body camera, during the shooting were shown to jurors several times throughout the trial
Chavez took the stand twice during the trial and confessed to the crime during his testimony.
“I shot Deputy Herrera. I beat him with a gun,” Chavez testified.
Piña was originally charged with capital murder. However, the charge was reduced to manslaughter in a plea deal made with former El Paso District Attorney Yvonne Rosales. Piña is serving a 15-year prison sentence.
According to court documents James Barnes would enter the home of Patricia Miller where he would strip naked. Patricia Miller would be tied up, sexually assaulted and murdered. Barnes would set her bed on fire before fleeing
James Barnes would later be arrested and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife and would later confess to the murder of Patricia Miller
Florida is preparing to execute a man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman years earlier — a lethal injection that’s expected to proceed on schedule after he dropped all legal appeals and said he wants to accept his punishment.
James Phillip Barnes, 61, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke. He would be the fifth person put to death in the state this year.
James Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for the killing years earlier of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium in Melbourne, along Florida’s east coast.
James Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded guilty to killing Miller and did not attempt to seek a life sentence rather than the death penalty. Miller, who was 41 when Barnes killed her, had had some unspecified negative interactions with him, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to film director Werner Herzog.
“There were several events that happened (with Miller). I felt terribly humiliated, that’s all I can say,” Barnes said in the interview.
Barnes killed Miller at her home on April 20, 1988. When he pleaded guilty, Barnes told the judge that after breaking into Miller’s unit, “I raped her twice. I tried to strangle her to death. I hit her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her bed on fire,” according to court records.
There was also DNA evidence linking Barnes to Miller’s killing. Barnes pleaded guilty to killing her and was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 2007. He also pleaded guilty to sexual battery, arson, and burglary with an assault and battery.
James Barnes killed his wife in 1997 after she discovered that he was dealing drugs. Her body was found stuffed in a closet after she was strangled, court records show. Barnes has claimed to have killed at least two other people but has never been charged in those cases.
Barnes had been in and out of prison since his teenage years, including convictions for grand theft, forgery, burglary and trafficking in stolen property.
In the Miller case, state lawyers appointed to represent Barnes filed initial appeals, including one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two doctors found that Barnes had symptoms of personality disorder with “borderline antisocial and sociopathic features.” However, they pronounced him competent to understand his legal situation and plead guilty, and his convictions and death sentence were upheld.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in June, a Brevard County judge granted Barnes’ motion to drop all appeals involving mitigating evidence such as his mental condition and said “that he wanted to accept responsibility for his actions and to proceed to execution (his death) without any delay,” court records show.
Though unusual, condemned inmates sometimes don’t pursue every legal avenue to avoid execution. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that about 150 such inmates have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional in 1976.
The Florida Supreme Court accepted the Brevard County ruling, noting last week that no other motion seeking a stay of execution for Barnes had been filed in state or federal court.
n the Herzog interview, Barnes said he converted to Islam in prison and wanted to clear his conscience about the Miller case during the holy month of Ramadan.
“They say I’m remorseless. I’m not. There are no more questions on this case. And I’m going to be executed,” Barnes said.
In a recent letter, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops asked DeSantis to grant a stay of execution and commute Barnes’ sentence to life in prison even though Barnes isn’t seeking such relief. The Catholic church opposes the death penalty.
“Mr. Barnes’ willing acceptance of death, the punishment put in place by the justice system, does not absolve the state from bringing it about. Simply put, no one should be executed in our modern penal system, even if they willingly accept it,” the letter said.
A Florida man who recently dropped all legal appeals was executed Thursday for the 1988 murder of a woman who was sexually assaulted, killed with a hammer and then set on fire in her own bed.
James Phillip Barnes, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke.
Lying on a gurney, Barnes appeared to already have his eyes shut when the curtain was opened for witnesses. He didn’t respond when prison officials asked if he had a final statement, and he remained motionless except for breathing for about 10 minutes until that stopped. A doctor then pronounced him dead
The 61-year-old inmate was sentenced to death for the murder of nurse Patricia “Patsy” Miller. It was the fifth execution in Florida this year.
One of the victim’s siblings, Andrew Miller, witnessed the execution and said he came to remember his sister.
“I did not come here to watch someone die. I came here to honor our sister, Patricia Miller,” he told reporters afterward. “No one should live in fear within the safety of their own home. No woman, no child, no animal should have that fear. We did.”
Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for killing Miller years earlier at her condominium in Melbourne on Florida’s east coast.
Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded guilty to killing Miller and did not attempt to seek a life sentence rather than the death penalty
Miller, who was 41 when Barnes killed her on April 20, 1988, had some previous unspecified negative interactions with him, according to a jailhouse interview he gave German film director Werner Herzog.
“There were several events that happened (with Miller). I felt terribly humiliated, that’s all I can say,” Barnes said in the interview.
When he pleaded guilty, Barnes told the judge that after breaking into Miller’s unit, “I raped her twice. I tried to strangle her to death. I hit her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her bed on fire,” according to court records.
There was also DNA evidence linking Barnes to Miller’s killing. After pleading guilty, Barnes was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 2007. He also pleaded guilty to sexual battery, arson, and burglary with an assault and battery.
Barnes killed his wife in 1997 after she discovered that he was dealing drugs. Her body was found stuffed in a closet after she was strangled, court records show. Barnes has claimed to have killed at least two other people but has never been charged in those cases.
Barnes had been in and out of prison since his teenage years, including time served for convictions for grand theft, forgery, burglary and trafficking in stolen property.
In the Miller case, state lawyers appointed to represent Barnes filed initial appeals, including one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two doctors found that Barnes had symptoms of personality disorder with “borderline antisocial and sociopathic features.” However, they pronounced him competent to understand his legal situation and plead guilty, and his convictions and death sentence were upheld.
After DeSantis signed the inmate’s death warrant in June, a Brevard County judge granted Barnes’ motion to drop all appeals involving mitigating evidence such as his mental condition and said “that he wanted to accept responsibility for his actions and to proceed to execution (his death) without any delay,” court records show.
Though unusual, condemned inmates sometimes don’t pursue every legal avenue to avoid execution. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that about 150 such inmates have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional in 1976.
The Florida Supreme Court accepted the Brevard County ruling, noting that no other motion seeking a stay of execution for Barnes had been filed in state or federal court
n the Herzog interview, Barnes said he had converted to Islam in prison and wanted to clear his conscience about the Miller case during the holy month of Ramadan.
“They say I’m remorseless. I’m not. There are no more questions on this case. And I’m going to be executed,” Barnes said
Robert Bowers the man behind the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left eleven people dead has been sentenced to death in Pennsylvania and will head to Federal death row
According to court documents Robert Bowers would enter the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 and opened fire killing eleven people and leaving six people injured including four police officers who arrived at the mass shooting
Robert Bowers faced more than sixty charges related to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting and the jury would find him guilty on all charges
Now the jury has decided the only appropriate punishment for the mass shooting is the death penalty.
Robert Bowers More News
he gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers will be sentenced to death for perpetrating the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
Robert Bowers spewed hatred of Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three congregations had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, also wounded two worshippers and five responding police officers.
The same federal jury that convicted the 50-year-old Robert Bowers on 63 criminal counts recommended Wednesday that he be put to death for an attack whose impacts continue to reverberate nearly five years later. He showed little reaction as the sentence was announced, briefly acknowledging his legal team and family as he was led from the courtroom. A judge will formally impose the sentence later.
Jurors were unanimous in finding that Bowers’ attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews, and that he chose Tree of Life for its location in one the largest and most historic Jewish communities in the U.S. so that he could “maximize the devastation, amplify the harm of his crimes, and instill fear within the local, national, and international Jewish communities.” They also found that Bowers lacked remorse.
The family of 97-year-old Rose Mallinger, who was killed in the attack, and her daughter, Andrea Wedner, who was shot and wounded, thanked the jurors and said “a measure of justice has been served.”
“Returning a sentence of death is not a decision that comes easy, but we must hold accountable those who wish to commit such terrible acts of antisemitism, hate, and violence,” the family said in a written statement.
The verdict came after a lengthy trial in which jurors heard in chilling detail how Bowers reloaded at least twice, stepped over the bloodied bodies of his victims to look for more people to shoot, and surrendered only when he ran out of ammunition. In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Bowers took — a 97-year-old woman and intellectually disabled brothers among them — and the unrelenting pain of their loss. Survivors testified about their own lasting pain, both physical and emotional.
Through it all, Bowers showed little reaction to the proceeding that would decide his fate — typically looking down at papers or screens at the defense table — though he could be seen conversing at length with his legal team during breaks. He even told a psychiatrist that he thought the trial was helping to spread his antisemitic message.
It was the first federal death sentence imposed during the presidency of Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment. Biden’s Justice Department has placed a moratorium on federal executions and has declined to authorize the death penalty in hundreds of new cases where it could apply. But federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mainly elderly victims and his hate-based targeting of a religious community. Most victims’ families said Bowers should die for his crimes.
Bowers’ lawyers never contested his guilt, focusing their efforts on trying to save his life. They presented evidence of a horrific childhood marked by trauma and neglect. They also claimed Bowers had severe, untreated mental illness, saying he killed out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to cause a genocide of white people. The defense argued that schizophrenia and brain abnormalities made Bowers more susceptible to being influenced by the extremist content he found online.
The prosecution denied mental illness had anything to do with it, saying Bowers knew exactly what he was doing when he violated the sanctity of a house of worship by opening fire on terrified congregants with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, shooting everyone he could find.
The jury sided with prosecutors, specifically rejecting most of the primary defense arguments for a life sentence, including that he has schizophrenia and that his delusions about Jewish people spurred the attack. Jurors did find that his difficult childhood merited consideration, but gave more weight to the severity of the crimes.
Bowers blasted his way into Tree of Life on Oct. 27, 2018, and killed members of the Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life congregations, which shared the synagogue building.
The victims were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.
Bowers, who traded gunfire with responding officers and was shot three times, told police at the scene that “all these Jews need to die,” according to testimony. Ahead of the attack, he posted, liked or shared a stream of virulently antisemitic content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right. He has expressed no remorse for the killings, telling mental health experts he saw himself as a soldier in a race war, took pride in the attack and wished he had shot more people.
In emotional testimony, the victims’ family members described what Bowers took from them. “My world has fallen apart,” Sharyn Stein, Dan Stein’s widow, told the jury.
Survivors and other affected by the attack will have another opportunity to address the court — and Bowers — when he is formally sentenced by the judge.
The synagogue has been closed since the shootings. The Tree of Life congregation is working on an overhauled synagogue complex that would house a sanctuary, museum, memorial and center for fighting antisemitism.
Johnny Johnson was executed by the State of Missouri for the murder of six year old Casey Williamson
According to court documents Johnny Johnson would lure six year old Casey Williamson from her home and brought her to an abandoned building. When Johnson attempted to sexually assault the child she would scream and Johnson would beat her to death with a brick
Johnny Johnson would be arrested, convicted, sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on August 1 2003
Johnny Johnson lawyers attempted to get his execution stopped due to him being diagnosed with schizophrenia
Johnny Johnson Case
A man who abducted a 6-year-old Missouri girl and beat her to death at an abandoned factory two decades ago was put to death Tuesday evening, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to block the execution over arguments he was mentally incompetent.
Johnny Johnson, 45, received a lethal injection dose of pentobarbital at a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. CDT, authorities said. He was convicted of the July 2002 killing of Casey Williamson in the St. Louis area suburb of Valley Park.
Johnny Johnson, who had schizophrenia, expressed remorse in a brief handwritten statement released by the Department of Corrections hours before being executed
“God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt,” Johnson’s statement said.
As he lay on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnny Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.
Among those witnessing Johnny Johnson’s execution were several members of the girl’s family and the former prosecutor and police investigator who handled his case.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and two other justices dissenting, rejected a late request to stay the execution
In recent appeals, Johnson’s attorneys have said the inmate has had delusions about the devil using his death to bring about the end of the world.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed,” Sotomayor and the other dissenting justices wrote in a statement when the stay was rejected. “There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world.”
Former St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch called the delusions “nonsense” and said Johnson inflicted “unspeakable horrors” upon Casey.
“He’s got some issues — significant issues,” McCulloch said moments before witnessing the execution. But “he knew exactly what he was doing.”
The girl’s disappearance from her hometown of Valley Park on July 26, 2002, had set off a frantic search before her body was found.
Casey’s mother had been best friends in childhood with Johnson’s older sister and even helped babysit him. After Johnny Johnson attended a barbecue the night before the killing, Casey’s family let him sleep on a couch in the home where they also were sleeping.
In the morning, Johnson lured the girl — still in her nightgown — to the abandoned glass factory, even carrying her on his shoulders on the walk to the dilapidated site, according to court documents. When he tried to sexually assault her, Casey screamed and tried to break free. He killed her with a brick and a large rock, then washed off in the nearby Meramec River. Johnson confessed that same day to the crimes, according to authorities.
“It was more violent and brutal than any case I’ve ever seen,” said former St. Louis County homicide investigator Paul Neske, who questioned Johnson at length the day of Casey’s murder and witnessed his execution.
After a search by first responders and volunteers, Casey’s body was found in a pit, buried under rocks and debris, less than a mile (kilometer) from her home.
At Johnson’s trial, defense lawyers presented testimony showing their client — an ex-convict who had been released from a state psychiatric facility six months before the crime — had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication and was acting strangely in the days before the slaying.
In June, the Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal seeking to block the execution on arguments that Johnson’s schizophrenia prevented him from understanding the link between his crime and the punishment. A three-judge federal appeals court panel last week temporary halted execution plans, but the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it. Johnson’s attorneys then filed appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court centered around his competency to be executed.
Gov. Mike Parson on Monday denied a request to reduce Johnson’s sentence to life in prison. The clemency petition by Johnson’s attorneys said Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, opposed the death penalty.
But Casey’s great aunt, Della Steele, wrote an emotional plea to the governor urging the execution be carried out to “send the message that it is not okay to terrorize and murder a child.” Steele said grief from Casey’s death led to destructive effects among other family members.
“He did something horrible. He took a life away from a completely innocent child, and there have to be consequences for that,” Steele said recently, speaking with The Associated Press.
The family has organized community safety fairs in Casey’s memory, including a July 22 event that drew a couple hundred people. The family gave away dozens of child identification kits along with safety tips involving fire, water and bicycles, among other items.
The execution was the 16th in the U.S. this year, including three previously in Missouri, five in Texas, four in Florida, two in Oklahoma and one in Alabama.
“It’s been a difficult day, and a difficult 21 years,” Steele said in a statement after witnessing the execution. “We will continue to honor our sweet Casey’s memory by doing our best to make a difference in the lives of other children.”
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