Cassie Bjorge was seventeen years old when along with her eighteen year old boyfriend Johnny Rider murdered her Grandparents.
According to court documents Cassandra Bjorge and Johnny Rider planned the double murders for days before the killing actually took place. On the night of the murders they waited for her Grandparents to go to sleep and then they attacked. Johnny Rider attacked the Grandfather and Cassie Bjorge would drag her Grandmother into the bedroom and began to assault her. The elderly couple would have their throats slit.
The teens would then barricade the bedroom and invite friends over for a party. Police believe the two teen killers stayed in the home for days after the murders. On top of the murder of her Grandparents the teen killers had planned to kill Johnny Rider’s mother and sister.
The two teens would both be sentenced to life in prison
Cassie Bjorge 2024 Information
NAME: BJORGE, CASSANDRA
GDC ID: 1002246318
YOB: 2000 RACE: WHITE GENDER: FEMALE HEIGHT: 5’03” WEIGHT: 120 EYE COLOR: BROWN HAIR COLOR: BROWN
MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: ARRENDALE STATE PRISON MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE
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A Georgia teen who allegedly confessed to killing her grandparents with her boyfriend, sealing up their room and then hosting a party for unsuspecting friends, also planned to kill several other people WSB-TV reports.
According to WSB-TV, Cassie Bjorge, 17, and her boyfriend, Johnny Rider, 18, planned the murders of her grandparents for days and thought out details such as caulking the doors shut in the house to keep the odor of death from being detected outside.
Gwinnett County Police Detective Dave Brucz told WSB-TV the teens waited outside Bjorge’s grandparent’s home for the lights to go out, then snuck into the couple’s bedrooms.
“Johnny began to attack the grandfather, Cassie then said she had a surge of energy,” Brucz said in court Wednesday. “She then dragged her grandmother into her grandfather’s bedroom, she was duct taped.”
Investigators say the teens then beat the grandparents, Randall and Wendy Bjorge, before slicing their throats and leaving them for dead.
According to the report, Cassie Bjorge confessed to staying in the home and smoking pot for a few days after the murders. She even invited friends over for a party — friends who had no idea what had happened.
Police say Bjorge confessed that she went as far as pretending to be her grandmother via text message so family wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong.
“She admitted after the murder she was texting family members because they were worried about them, and she was pretending to be Wendy,” Brucz told the courtroom.
WSB-TV reports the teens are not only accused of killing, Bjorge’s grandparents, but they are also of trying to kill Rider’s sister and boyfriend.
“She also said they were planning on killing Johnny’s family and there were plans on killing her mother also,” Brucz also told the courtroom.
Police told WSB-TV that Bjorge believed her grandparents had become too strict.
“She had basically had enough of her grandparents,” Brucz said.
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A 17-year old girl and her boyfriend received life in prison on Friday for the 2017 murder of her grandparents, reports WSB-TV
Cassandra Bjorge and her boyfriend, Johnny Hiro Rider, pleaded guilty to stabbing and bludgeoning Bjorge’s grandparents to death with a tire iron.
In court Monday, Rider asked for forgiveness and described his actions as “evil,” WSB-TV reports.
“I know what I have done is abominable and evil and is deserving of hellfire,” Rider said. “I would like to express my deepest apologies to the Bjorge family. I’m so sorry for the pain and grief I have caused all of you.”
Bjorge did not speak.
According to the station, police say the teens used a tire iron, hammer, baseball bat and butcher knives to kill the couple, then caulked doors inside the home to attempt to keep the smell of the bodies inside. A detective testified last April that Bjorge and Rider stayed in the home smoking pot and partying with friends for several days while Randall and Wendy Bjorge’s bodies laid upstairs.
Gwinnett County Homicide Detective Dave Brucz reportedly testified last year that Bjorge confessed to the crime.
Johnny began to attack the grandfather,” testified Brucz, “Cassie then said that she basically had a surge of energy. She then dragged her grandmother into her grandfather’s bedroom. She was duct-taped.”
Police also reportedly say that Bjorge and Rider planned to kill several other people, including Rider’s family and Bjorge’s mother, but that Rider backed out of the plan. They are, however, accused of trying to kill Rider’s sister and her boyfriend.
Rider’s sister escaped, and that led to the teens’ capture more than a week after the grandparents’ murders.
Maryanne Atkins was sixteen years old when she fatally shot a man in 2016. According to Maryanne Atkins the man she shot and killed raped her when she was sleeping however the prosecutors believe it was a cold blooded murder who would pose with the weapon on Facebook after the murder which was committed when she was sitting in the victims car. This teen killer who had a brutal upbringing would ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to nineteen years in prison
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A 19-year-old Seattle area woman was sentenced Thursday to 19 years and 3 months in prison for the 2016 murder of a man she intended to rob.
Maryanne Atkins pleaded guilty Dec. 3, 2018 to one count of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree unlawful firearm possession, after she was charged with the murder of Emmanuel Gondo on Feb. 24, 2016. Atkins was 16 years old at the time, Gondo was 21.
In a King County courtroom benches filled with over 40 witnesses including the family and friends of the victim, Emmanuel Gondo, and the 86-year-old former neighbor of Atkins, Cherie Ferguson, who spoke on her behalf. Atkins’ attorney held her trembling hand as the judgment was delivered.
Judge Marshall Ferguson deliberated before the court the defense for Atkins, but ultimately came to the conclusion that her traumatic life as a sexual abuse survivor and neglected child didn’t provide a sufficient enough defense for the crime she committed. He also said the lies and denials she told during trial weighed on his decision.
The defense had argued for a reduced sentence based on the immaturity of the defendant because of her troubled youth, in line with a decision by the Washington Supreme Court that demanded youth be taken into consideration when sentencing.
“When teenagers are backed into a corner, they lie,” he said, but added the “cruelty of the lies she told,” that denigrated Gondo’s character, went beyond anything attributable to youth.
“The unwillingness of the defense to call her out on her lies and manipulation undermine her rehabilitation,” prosecuting attorney Jessica Berliner told the court.
Prosecutors argued that any self-defense was false, and that the robbery which led to the murder was planned, based on messages from Atkins to a friend that Gondo was an “easy lick,” or an easy person to rob. Because of this, they argued, Atkins’ trauma as a child was no excuse for the way she shot Gondo.
Both sides, and the judge, acknowledged promise for Atkins’ rehabilitation. With the prosecutors’ recommended sentence, Atkins would be released from prison in her late 30s, over 20 years since her first day in juvenile detention in 2016.
Gondo’s family’s pastor, George Everett, spoke to the court, telling the judge that the decision made would affect how his community thought of the place they had come to, to escape civil war.
“What will our children learn, from what has happened to one of them,” Everett said. “Will it be maybe because you’re from Africa or you don’t speak the language as much as the people speak it, stuff can be fabricated or your life does not matter.”
The defense argued early during the sentencing that they had provided evidence of juveniles thinking and acting differently than adults, especially when confronted with dangerous situations.
Atkins at one point during the trial accused Gondo of raping her before she shot him, a claim that Mother Jones reported in an article likening the case to the Cyntoia Brown clemency.
Atkins’ attorney Colleen O’Connor alluded to evidence provided during the trial that Atkins’ trauma from childhood affected her thinking and the way she reacted. Two different psychologists interviewed her and both opined that her life with an abusive father, neglectful mother and living on the streets led to her “perception that her life was in danger the night of the murder,” court documents said.
One psychologist said he found Atkins convincing when she told her about Gondo raping her, court documents said.
The defense ultimately withdrew the testimony from the psychologists, and Atkins wrote in a document that she “intentionally” shot Gondo while robbing him.
Cherie Ferguson spoke to the court and confirmed the abuse Atkins received from her father when she was about 10 years old, living in Everett.
“I know the hell she went through,” Cherie Ferguson told SeattlePI. “She was troubled and acted out, and it led to this.
“If she gets that sentence, she’s got a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Atkins was sentenced to spend the next two decades in the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, Washington. She has 30 days from March 21 to appeal the sentence.
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Seattle police say a 16-year-old girl posted photos of herself on Facebook posing with a 9 mm handgun she used to “coldly” kill a man in his car in the Rainier Valley.
Maryanne Marie Atkins has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Emmanuel Gondo on Feb. 23, according to King County prosecutors.
Atkins, who had outstanding warrants and had repeatedly run away from foster placement, apparently killed Gondo after deciding to rob him, charging papers say. She is being held in the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent in lieu of $1 million bail.
Evidence in the case suggests “the defendant coldly shot a man in the head while he was seated in his car and then robbed him of his money and cellphone,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Berliner wrote in charging papers. “She also appears to have taken the firearm she used to kill him and kept it for the following two months. A review of her Facebook messages in the weeks after the murder reflect no concern or remorse for her actions.”
After Gondo failed to pick up his girlfriend from work on Feb. 23 and didn’t respond to phone calls, the woman and her two siblings went looking for him. They found Gondo slumped over the steering wheel of his black Jaguar just before 3 p.m. the next day, near 33rd Avenue South and South Holly Street, say the charges.
Gondo’s brother told detectives that a few days before the shooting a friend had introduced him and his brother to a girl, according to charging documents. That girl brought a friend — Atkins — over to the brother’s apartment on Feb. 22, and the group hung out together that night, say the charges.
The following evening, Feb. 23, the brothers and the two girls were together in Gondo’s car. After Gondo dropped off the other girl and his brother, he was alone with Atkins, charging papers say. He made his last phone call at 10:48 p.m., say the charges.
The brother told detectives Gondo regularly carried large sums of cash and had $3,000 in $100 bills on him the first night the group had hung out together.
According to the charges, Atkins sent Facebook messages before the shooting, indicating Gondo was “a fat … lick for racks thang and car” — street slang for a robbery (‘lick”) of money (“racks”) and a gun (“thang”). In messages sent after the shooting, Atkins suggested to one friend that what she had done would make the news, say the charges.
On Feb. 27, Atkins posted a photo of herself on Facebook, pointing a gun at the camera, the charges say.
Following Atkins’ arrest last week at a house in Federal Way, police searched the residence and found a 9 mm Smith & Wesson handgun with a wood grip in the room where Atkins had been staying, according to the charges. The gun belonged to Gondo, police say.
A 19-year-old Seattle area woman was sentenced Thursday to 19 years and 3 months in prison for the 2016 murder of a man she intended to rob.
Maryanne Atkins pleaded guilty Dec. 3, 2018 to one count of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree unlawful firearm possession, after she was charged with the murder of Emmanuel Gondo on Feb. 24, 2016. Atkins was 16 years old at the time, Gondo was 21.
In a King County courtroom benches filled with over 40 witnesses including the family and friends of the victim, Emmanuel Gondo, and the 86-year-old former neighbor of Atkins, Cherie Ferguson, who spoke on her behalf. Atkins’ attorney held her trembling hand as the judgment was delivered.
Judge Marshall Ferguson deliberated before the court the defense for Atkins, but ultimately came to the conclusion that her traumatic life as a sexual abuse survivor and neglected child didn’t provide a sufficient enough defense for the crime she committed. He also said the lies and denials she told during trial weighed on his decision.
The defense had argued for a reduced sentence based on the immaturity of the defendant because of her troubled youth, in line with a decision by the Washington Supreme Court that demanded youth be taken into consideration when sentencing.
“When teenagers are backed into a corner, they lie,” he said, but added the “cruelty of the lies she told,” that denigrated Gondo’s character, went beyond anything attributable to youth.
“The unwillingness of the defense to call her out on her lies and manipulation undermine her rehabilitation,” prosecuting attorney Jessica Berliner told the court.
Prosecutors argued that any self-defense was false, and that the robbery which led to the murder was planned, based on messages from Atkins to a friend that Gondo was an “easy lick,” or an easy person to rob. Because of this, they argued, Atkins’ trauma as a child was no excuse for the way she shot Gondo.
Both sides, and the judge, acknowledged promise for Atkins’ rehabilitation. With the prosecutors’ recommended sentence, Atkins would be released from prison in her late 30s, over 20 years since her first day in juvenile detention in 2016.
Gondo’s family’s pastor, George Everett, spoke to the court, telling the judge that the decision made would affect how his community thought of the place they had come to, to escape civil war.
“What will our children learn, from what has happened to one of them,” Everett said. “Will it be maybe because you’re from Africa or you don’t speak the language as much as the people speak it, stuff can be fabricated or your life does not matter.”
The defense argued early during the sentencing that they had provided evidence of juveniles thinking and acting differently than adults, especially when confronted with dangerous situations.
Atkins at one point during the trial accused Gondo of raping her before she shot him, a claim that Mother Jones reported in an article likening the case to the Cyntoia Brown clemency.
Atkins’ attorney Colleen O’Connor alluded to evidence provided during the trial that Atkins’ trauma from childhood affected her thinking and the way she reacted. Two different psychologists interviewed her and both opined that her life with an abusive father, neglectful mother and living on the streets led to her “perception that her life was in danger the night of the murder,” court documents said.
One psychologist said he found Atkins convincing when she told her about Gondo raping her, court documents said.
The defense ultimately withdrew the testimony from the psychologists, and Atkins wrote in a document that she “intentionally” shot Gondo while robbing him.
Cherie Ferguson spoke to the court and confirmed the abuse Atkins received from her father when she was about 10 years old, living in Everett.
“I know the hell she went through,” Cherie Ferguson told SeattlePI. “She was troubled and acted out, and it led to this.
“If she gets that sentence, she’s got a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Atkins was sentenced to spend the next two decades in the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, Washington. She has 30 days from March 21 to appeal the sentence.
Maryanne Atkins is currently incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center For Women
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A Seattle-area teen accused of posing with her victim’s gun after fatally shooting a man in his car has been charged with first-degree murder.
Maryanne Atkins, 16, is accused of killing Emmanuel Gondo, who was found dead in the driver’s seat of a black Jaguar parked in South Seattle.
“The evidence suggests that the defendant coldly shot a man in the head while he was seated in his car and then robbed him of his money and cell phone,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Berliner said in charging papers.
“A review of her Facebook messages in the weeks after the murder reflect no concern or remorse for her actions,” the prosecutor continued. “Instead, she posted pictures of herself wielding a gun that is likely the murder weapon.”
Investigators described Atkins as a chronic runaway. Washington State Patrol issued a missing persons statement describing her as missing from Seattle since Feb. 2. Her listed address is a Department of Social and Health Services office in West Seattle, though she appears to have been living in Burien as recently as December.
Prosecutors claim Atkins, who was arrested Wednesday in Federal Way, planned the robbery ahead of time. Due to the nature of the allegations, Atkins automatically faces prosecution as an adult.
Gondo, 21, was found dead Feb. 24. at 2:45 p.m. near the intersection of 33rd Avenue South and South Holly Street. He had been shot once in the head.
Writing the court, a Seattle police detective said Gondo’s cellphone and gun were missing, as was his wallet. Investigators were told he may have been carrying up to $3,000.
The detective said text messages show Atkins planned to rob Gondo. She said a pistol was found in the Federal Way apartment where Atkins was staying prior to her arrest
Gondo had been out the night before with his brother, according to police statements. He was last seen alone with Atkins shortly before midnight.
The day after the killing, Atkins told a friend she “spazzed” out on Gondo after becoming upset with him. The teen is alleged to have posted a statement on Facebook referring to the killing.
“IM (expletive) TIRED and hot,” she wrote, according to court papers. “You don’t know what I did, you’ll see on news.”
Atkins later posted a picture on Facebook of herself with Gondo’s gun, according to a detective’s statement. She also appeared to have come into a significant amount of money. Before Gondo’s death, she couldn’t afford a hotel room; afterward, she was looking to buy a car
According to charging papers, Atkins denied killing Gondo following her arrest and initially claimed to have only touched a gun during a middle school field trip.
Atkins has been jailed since her arrest. She is expected to be arraigned May 2 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Morgan Arnold was sent to spend the next three decades in prison for the plot to murder her father in Maryland. According to court documents the teen killer conspired with her much older boyfriend Jason Bulmer to murder her father Dennis Lane. Jason Bulmer would fatally stab the victim and would in the end be sentenced to thirty years in prison. Morgan Arnold would also receive a thirty year prison sentence
Calling it “one of the most difficult decisions that this court has ever had to make,” a Howard County judge on Wednesday sentenced a teenager who plotted her father’s murder to 30 years in prison.
In sentencing 17-year-old Morgan Lane Arnold, Circuit Judge William Tucker said he had to balance the teen’s age and history of mental problems with evidence that she spent months planning the murder of her father, 58-year old Dennis Lane, and that she manipulated her boyfriend into fatally stabbing him.
“This was a well-thought-out plan,” Tucker said in a courtroom filled with family and friends of the father and daughter. “It’s clear that she was the main culprit.”
Lane was stabbed to death in his Ellicott City home in May 2013. Arnold’s boyfriend at the time, Jason Bulmer, now 22, pleaded guilty in 2014 to killing Lane and received a 30-year sentence.
Lane was a well-known businessman in Howard County who wrote a popular blog and co-hosted a podcast. His friends and family described him as a gregarious man who was devoted to his daughter.
The murder shocked the county, and Tucker said he remembered exactly where he was when the news came out — at a judicial conference on the Eastern Shore. Other officials from Howard County also were there, he recalled.
“Every single one said, ‘Did you hear about Dennis Lane?’” he said.
Tucker gave Arnold a life sentence, suspending all but 30 years. He said he would recommend that she stay at the Patuxent Institution in Jessup. The maximum security prison provides specialized treatment with the help of psychology, social work and other professionals.
County prosecutors sought life imprisonment for Arnold, who was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty in May to first-degree murder.
The prosecution pointed to months of planning. They said Arnold left a door unlocked at the home so Bulmer could sneak in to commit the murder — and that she also wanted him to kill Lane’s girlfriend, Denise Geiger.
Both Arnold and Bulmer were social misfits at Mount Hebron High, according to testimony from witnesses. Their relationship was highlighted throughout court proceedings.
One of Lane’s sisters told the judge Wednesday that her brother had tried to “put the kibosh” on the teenage romance because Bulmer was so much older than Arnold.
“Morgan is smart — smart and cunning,” Kelly Lane said during tearful testimony as she read from a written statement. “Smart and manipulative. She’s not happy unless she is the center of attention and getting her way.”
She suggested it was Arnold that had manipulated Bulmer.
“Jason Bulmer was her first victim,” Kelly Lane said. “His life is ruined.”
Throughout the case, the defense suggested that Arnold feared Bulmer. But Tucker said he read thousands of the couple’s text messages that were entered as evidence, and did not believe that.
“It was Morgan Arnold that was the one that manipulated” Bulmer, the judge said.
Testifying Wednesday, Arnold’s mother, Cindi Arnold, said she noticed a great change in her daughter after she began dating Bulmer. The girl became interested in horror stories and started dressing in black clothing, she said.
Morgan Arnold’s mental and developmental history was a focus of the case. She has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, schizoaffective disorder, attention-deficit disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, according to testimony.
Cindi Arnold told Tucker that her daughter had no history of violence — and said she needs treatment, not incarceration.
“She would carry a mosquito outside rather than kill it,” she said. “That’s the Morgan that I know.”
Cindi Arnold and Dennis Lane, who were never married, shared custody of Arnold and often disagreed on how to raise her, according to testimony.
Defense attorney Joe Murtha argued that Arnold should serve a sentence similar to Bulmer. He urged Tucker to take her young age into consideration — she was 14 at the time of the murder — and said she was “significantly impaired.”
Morgan Arnold, who wore a black dress and gray sweater, declined to address the court before she was sentenced.
“She told me she might pass out because she was feeling so anxious,” Murtha said.
After the hearing, Murtha said he was “relieved for Morgan Arnold that she won’t be incarcerated for the rest of her life.”
“There’s a long way to go, and she needs help,” he said outside the courthouse in Ellicott City. “I don’t think she appreciates the gravity of what happened, nor the consequences of her actions, but with help, she will in the future.”
Cindi Arnold declined to comment after the sentencing. So did Geiger and members of Lane’s family.
“It was a tough case,” said prosecutor Doug Nelsen.
“It was a case where there are no winners,” added prosecutor Danielle Duclaux.
Morgan Arnold is currently incarcerated at the Patuxent Institution
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Morgan Arnold current release date is 2044
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Sentencing an Ellicott City teen who plotted her father’s murder was one of the hardest decisions a Howard County judge said he’s had to make.
On Wednesday, 17-year-old Morgan Lane Arnold was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, the state’s attorney’s office reported; her entire sentence was suspended, except for 30 years.
Howard County Circuit Court Judge William V. Tucker said that her sentencing was “one of the most difficult decisions the court has ever had to make,” according to the report. The ruling came after nine hours of hearings that included victim impact statements and testimony from doctors who could not agree on Lane’s mental prognosis.
Arnold pleaded guilty in the murder of her father Dennis Lane, a blogger and commercial real estate broker who was stabbed to death in his Ellicott City home on May 10, 2013.
Lane penned the blog “Tales of Two Cities,” chronicling Ellicott City (where he lived) and Columbia (where he grew up in Bryant Woods).
Arnold “thought her father was the bane of her existence,” Tucker said.
Both Arnold and Bulmer have been incarcerated since the crime occurred.
Bulmer was sentenced to 30 years in July 2014, and he said that Arnold told him to kill her father, supported by messages the couple exchanged between January and May.
Judge Tucker reportedly read more than 2,000 pages of their messages, including plans that led up to Lane’s murder at 4:20 a.m. on May 10, 2013.
“It was Morgan Arnold who made this happen,” Tucker reportedly said in court. “It was Morgan Arnold who manipulated Mr. Bulmer.”
Arnold allegedly asked Bulmer to kill Lane’s fiancee, Denise Geiger, as well. Geiger, who was in the home at the time, called 911.
During the two days of testimony preceding Wednesday’s sentencing, the court heard victim impact statements from Geiger and Dennis Lane’s sisters, according to a report from the state’s attorney.
When Arnold is released, she is to be on probation for five years, including no contact with Geiger, Geiger’s daughter, the Lane family and Bulmer.
Before sentencing, there was also testimony from mental and behavioral specialists, who could not reach consensus on Arnold’s mental and emotional conditions. In a previously court-commissioned study of Arnold’s mental health, five experts gave five different diagnoses, from Asperger’s to ADHD to depression.
Said Judge Tucker: “As she gets older, it is my hope that she appreciates what she has lost…”
Shalin Alltus and her boyfriend Parker Bachtold would shoot and kill her uncle in Washington State. According to court documents Shalin Alltus and Parker Bachtold were staying on her uncle’s property and believed that the uncle was trying to end their relationship so they decided to kill him. After shooting the victim the teen killers would flee the property. Shalin Alltus and Parker Bachtold were both convicted of the murder and sentenced to thirty eight years in prison.
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393403 ALLTUS, SHALIN E Washington Corrections Center for Women
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A five-day trial didn’t reveal why two teenagers shot and killed 39-year-old Patrick Alltus at his Riverside home on Sept. 30, 2014.
But an Okanogan County jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that his niece, Shalin E. Alltus, was just as guilty as Parker Bachtold.
Alltus was sentenced in Okanogan County Superior Court to 38 years and four months in prison on Tuesday, after a jury found her guilty Monday of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, two counts of theft of a firearm and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.
At sentencing, defense lawyer Kelly Seago told the judge that Shalin Alltus had been raped and kidnapped at age 13, and that past and family issues should be considered before sentencing, the lawyer said. Seago also accused Patrick Alltus of sexual misconduct with his niece, and said she was too afraid to reveal that relationship to police.
“He’s the one person I had that I loved,” Shalin Alltus told the judge before she was sentenced. “I was very scared to explain the relationship with my uncle because I don’t want him to be seen as a bad guy,” she said, adding, “I just want you to know I never would have wanted this to happen.”
Judge Henry Rawson told her that she had ample opportunity to tell her story — to a State Patrol trooper who stopped them after they fled the murder, to a motel manager in Oregon, or to Bachtold’s parents before her arrest.
The jury found her not guilty of a special finding sought by the prosecutor that the murder was aggravated. For that special finding, the jury would have had to find that the murder was committed in the furtherance or flight from a robbery or burglary.
They deliberated for about four and a half hours.
Bachtold pleaded guilty to the same crimes earlier this month and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Now both 18, Alltus and Bachtold were 16 years old when Patrick Alltus was discovered dead a few days after the killing.
During Alltus’ trial, no clear motive was revealed. But Alltus testified under questioning that she had twice had sex with Bachtold, and that her uncle did not allow them to sleep together.
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A woman who murdered her uncle in Riverside in 2014 must be resentenced, with an appellate court ruling that she was denied a chance to present evidence that might have affected her 38-year-prison term.
After her conviction in 2016, Shalin E. Alltus, now 21, asked Okanogan County Superior Court Judge Henry A. Rawson to order a presentence report and allow her lawyers to investigate mitigating circumstance. Rawson turned her down on all counts, and as a result last week the state Court of Appeals threw out her 38-year sentence.
Rawson should have accepted the request, Appellate Judge Laurel Siddoway wrote for the three-judge panel, in part because Alltus was only 16 at the time of the murder. The issues Alltus sought to raise in a presentence investigation, Siddoway wrote, “were the type of matters our Supreme Court requires sentencing courts to consider when a juvenile is involved.”
Alltus and her then-boyfriend Parker Bachtold, also 16, shot and killed her uncle Patrick Alltus, 39, in his Riverside home in October 2014. Both had been living on his property, and fled to Oregon after the murder.
Bachtold pleaded guilty to first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, and two counts each of theft of a firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm. At trial Alltus blamed the murder solely on Bachtold, while while Bachtold testified that he and Alltus both shot the victim, with Alltus firing first.
A jury convicted Alltus on all counts, and Rawson sentenced her the following afternoon, turning down her lawyers’ pleas for a delay and presentence investigation. The judge said such report “would add nothing significant” for consideration.
But Alltus’ attorneys said the report would touch on her ongoing psychiatric treatment and counseling, her family history and upbringing, and a rape and kidnapping Alltus experienced at age 13.
The appellate court said while Rawson’s handling of the sentencing phase did not invalidate Alltus’ conviction, it did require remand for a new sentence, after a presentence report is prepared by qualified investigators with the Department of Corrections.
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The Okanogan County Sheriff’s office is investigating the death of a Riverside man and questioning two teenage suspects arrested in Oregon driving the dead man’s stolen pickup.
The sheriff’s office is investigating the death of Patrick M. Alltus, 39, Riverside, as a possible homicide. On the evening of Sunday, Oct. 5 county deputies responded to a call at 151 Hosheit Road in the Tunk area regarding a death. When they arrived on the scene they contacted a friend of Alltus who said he had found the victim in his residence, according to Sheriff Frank Rogers.
“At this time we are treating it as a murder investigation. We are not putting out what we found at the scene at this time so that investigators have time to process the scene. It is evident that there was a lot of violence at the scene but we are not sure of exact cause of death for Alltus,” said Sheriff Rogers on Monday.
The two 16-year-old teenagers living at the residence were not on the scene and Alltus’ pickup was missing, so authorities listed the pickup as stolen and put out an alert saying the teens were wanted for questioning. The sheriff’s office also warned that the two might be armed with a shotgun and pistol.
The teens were contacted by Oregon authorities on Oct. 1, but were not arrested at that time and it was still being determined where the teens were headed. Oregon authorities notified the Okanogan County Sheriff’s office on Monday, Oct. 6 that they had located the stolen 2004 Ford pickup from the homicide scene and had also located the two missing teenagers, Parker M. Bachtold and Shalin E. Alltus, in Douglas County, Oregon.
“Both of the teenagers have been taken into custody at this time for the stolen vehicle. Detectives from Okanogan Sheriff’s Office are en route to Oregon to make contact with law enforcement there. Bachtold and Alltus were located south of Eugene Oregon,” said Rogers.
Okanogan County Deputies and members of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab went to the scene to investigate. The Crime Lab finished processing the crime scene late Monday night. The only information the sheriff’s office is releasing at this time regarding the scene is that the victim was shot several times, according to Rogers.
“Detectives believe that the two teenagers are the suspects in the homicide case and will be trying to determine what happened at the scene and a possible motive,” said Rogers, who added, an autopsy will be scheduled for Patrick Alltus.
Kristel Maestas was sixteen when she took part in a kidnapping and murder in Florida. According to court documents Kristel, fifteen year old Renee Lincks and seventeen year old Ronald Bell Jr would kidnap a man who allegedly made a pass at one of the girls. The trio would bring the man to a remote location where he was beaten with a bat, tied to a tree and set on fire. The trio came back the next day to find the man still alive so they slit his throat. This teen killer would be convicted of all charges and sentenced to life in prison
Long years of torment torment for the family of Cordell Richards ended Monday when Ronald Bell and Kristel Maestas were each resentenced to life in prison for his 1999 kidnap and murder.
In issuing his ruling, Circuit Court Judge William Stone notified both defendants that he had considered all the relevant factors in each of their cases, including their youth at the time and “all evidence relating to the offense.”
A former airman, the 31-year-old Richards had been missing for just over a month when, on March 4, 1999, a 12-year-old boy playing on an undeveloped lot in the Parish Pointe subdivision discovered his badly decomposed body.
Richards’ remains were found chained to a tree and burned. Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore would later tell a jury that just enough of the man’s fingerprints remained to allow for identification. Investigators learned that he had been horribly tortured for a full day before his death.
The resentencing of the pair, who killed Richards when Bell was 17 and Maestas 16, was ordered following a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court originally published on June 23, 2012. Justices ruled at that time that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles were unconstitutional.
“The only thing I can say is my family and I are still just in shock we had to go through this in court, Reanna Richards, Richards daughter, said after Monday’s hearing. “I thank God the judge found the wisdom to rule the way he did.”
Both Bell and Maestas, who are now in their 30s and have spent more than half of their lives in prison, appeared in court for their sentencing.
Bell showed no emotion as Stone re-sentenced not only to life in prison for one count of first degree murder, but also to a consecutive live sentence for kidnapping with a weapon.
Maestas, however, openly wept during the proceedings. She will serve life in prison for the killing of Richards and 30 years consecutive to that for her role in the kidnapping, Stone said.
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Ronald Lee Bell, Jr., was found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and armed kidnaping with a weapon. Bell was seventeen years and ten months of age at the time that these crimes were committed. He lived with his parents and was a high school senior. The victim of both crimes was Cordell Richards and the crimes occurred on February 2 and 3, 1999. The testimony at trial detailed the following sequence of events.
On March 4, 1999, Richards’ decomposing body was found in a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac in an undeveloped portion of a housing subdivision in Okaloosa County. Richards’ remains, which were partially skeletonized and burned, were tied to a tree with a chain and a rope.
Dr. Michael Berkland, the medical examiner, inspected the remains at the scene and then performed the autopsy. Dr. Berkland found that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and that there were multiple fractures to the head, which were the result of blunt force trauma. He also found injury to the victim’s shoulder blade, sternum, ribs, arm and wrist. Based upon the burn patterns, Dr. Berkland concluded that the burning occurred post-mortem. Dr. Berkland also concluded that the manner of death was homicidal violence with combined features of blunt force trauma to the head, body, and upper extremities, and probable chop injury to the left neck.
Kimberly Maestas, Renee Lincks, and Bell were all charged with the murder of Richards.1 Maestas and Lincks testified against Bell, and the testimony regarding the events leading up to the homicide of Richards came primarily from them.2 At the time of the homicide, Bell, who was seventeen, and Maestas, who was sixteen, had been dating for a few months. Maestas had been “kicked out” of her parents’ home. Maestas and Bell met Richards through a newspaper listing advertising a place to live, and Maestas moved into the extra bedroom in Richards’ apartment. Richards was thirty-one years of age.
Maestas testified that after she moved into Richards’ apartment, Richards made inappropriate sexual advances. Richards would come into Maestas’s room wearing only bikini underwear. One time Richards propositioned her for sex. Maestas testified that when she said “no,” Richards grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the wall. She started to cry and asked him not to do that. Richards pushed her against the wall a second time and she hit her head. Maestas testified that Bell found out about Richards’ attack when he saw the bruises on Maestas’s back.
Lincks, who was fifteen, was a friend of Maestas, and came to the apartment to spend the night with her. That night, Richards asked Maestas and Lincks if they wanted to sleep with him in his bed. This made Maestas and Lincks uncomfortable, and so Lincks called a friend, who took them to Bell’s house. Bell later took Maestas and Lincks back to Richards’ apartment and left a baseball bat with them in case something happened. Later, Richards called Maestas and Lincks from his bedroom telephone and made statements that upset them, so they paged Bell and he came to the apartment to help them.
When Bell entered the apartment, he confronted Richards about his behavior towards Maestas and Lincks. Bell and Richards started pushing one another. Bell placed Richards in a choke hold and Richards lost consciousness. Bell told Lincks to get the bat and she gave it to Maestas. Maestas hit Richards in the legs with the bat. Bell told Lincks to get a rope from his car 3 and a blanket from Richards’ bed. Richards was tied with the rope, rolled in the blanket and placed in Bell’s car. Bell then drove to a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Kristel Maestas held the flashlight while Bell and Lincks carried Richards into the woods. At some point they stopped, and Bell told Maestas to shine the flashlight in Richards’ face while Lincks asked Richards for his PIN numbers. Bell then told Maestas to hit Richards with the baseball bat, which she did, and Richards asked Bell not to kill him. Lincks also hit Richards with the baseball bat. According to Maestas and Lincks, Bell told them that they were not hitting Richards hard enough and so Bell hit Richards very hard and said, “Look, I’m Babe Ruth.” They then carried Richards deeper into the woods and tied and chained him to a tree. Maestas testified that Bell poured lighter fluid on Richards and set Richards on fire while he was still alive and groaning.
Bell returned to the scene a few more times. He first returned later that day with Kristel Maestas and Lincks to make sure that Richards was dead. Bell and Lincks went into the woods while Maestas waited at the car. Bell and Lincks could hear Richards yelling for help. When Bell and Lincks returned to the car, Lincks told Maestas that Bell had tried to break Richards’ neck. They left the scene and drove to a Target store where they bought a meat cleaver and duct tape and then returned to Richards’ location. Bell and Lincks went back into the woods, where Bell cut Richards’ throat. The two then returned to Maestas five or ten minutes later. Bell went back to the body again after he and Lincks decided that Bell had not cut Richards’ throat enough.
That night, a friend of Bell’s came over and helped to forge checks on Richards’ account. A few days later, they pawned Richards’ television and violin. About a week after that, Bell, Maestas and Maestas’s fourteen-year-old sister went to Richards’ location again. Richards was dead at this time. Bell poured gasoline on the body and started a fire.
On February 13, 1999, the police went to Richards’ apartment to check on Richards’ whereabouts after one of Richards’ friends told the police that he had been unable to contact Richards. The officers tried to get the attention of anyone who might be in the apartment by pounding on the doors and windows. When no one responded, one of the officers entered the apartment through a window. One of the bedroom doors was secured with a deadbolt lock and a towel was stuffed underneath the door. The officers knocked on the bedroom door and Bell opened it. Kristel Maestas was in a sleeping bag on the floor. Bell and Maestas appeared to be just waking up. They denied knowing anything about Richards’ whereabouts.
After the State presented its case, Bell waived his right to present evidence and his right to testify. The jury thereafter found Bell guilty of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and armed kidnaping with a weapon
Three teenagers charged with murdering a man by burning him alive and then slashing his throat while he was tied to a tree will be prosecuted as adults, a grand jury has decided.
The panel indicted the young man and two young women on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping Thursday in the death of Persian Gulf War veteran Cordell Richards, 31, of Fort Walton Beach.
Okaloosa County sheriff’s investigators said the apparent motive was revenge for alleged sexual advances the victim made toward one of the girls.
Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore said prosecutors haven’t decided whether to seek the death penalty against Ronald Bell Jr., 18, of Mary Esther, and his girlfriend, Kristel Maestas, 17, of Fort Walton Beach. The only other penalty for first-degree murder is life in prison without parole.
The third defendant, Renee Lincks, 16, of Fort Walton Beach, was 15 when Richards was killed in late January or early February. The Florida Supreme court has ruled that a person cannot be executed for a crime committed when 15 or younger.
The three teens were removed from a juvenile detention facility in Pensacola and taken to the Okaloosa County Jail in Crestview after being indicted.
A fourth teen, April Maestas, the 14-year-old sister of Kristel Maestas, remained at the juvenile facility under a charge of accessory after the fact to murder.
She is accused of helping her sister and Bell try to destroy evidence by burning the body a second time about two weeks after the killing in an empty lot. The body wasn’t found until about a month after the murder.
No decision has been made on whether April Maestas will be tried as an adult. If so, she could get a sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Deputies said Kristel Maestas, who was renting a room in Richards’ apartment, and Lincks lured the victim into a compromising situation so Bell could knock him out by striking him in the head with a flashlight.
Richards was taken to an isolated area where he was beaten with bats and sticks and set on fire. His throat was slashed once the fire was out to make sure he died, investigators said.
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