Taylor Parker has been sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a brutal murder of a woman and her unborn child. According to court documents Taylor Parker would murder Reagan Hancock, 21, and cut the baby out of her uterus. The baby also died. Taylor Parker was convicted of the two murders and after a week sentencing hearing she was officially sentenced to death. Taylor Parker will now join six other women who are currently on death row in Texas
Taylor Parker 2022 Information
Taylor Parker More News
A Bowie County jury Wednesday returned a sentence of death for convicted murderer Taylor Parker.
The jury in New Boston deliberated just over 90 minutes before returning her sentence.
In her closing statement, prosecutor Kelley Crisp brought tears to many eyes sitting in the gallery.
Parker, 29, was charged in the Oct. 9, 2020 death of Reagan Hancock, 21, and cutting her unborn baby from her uterus who also died.
Crisp, without warning, displayed a graphic picture of Hancock brutally murdered and cut open body lying in hers and her baby’s blood while gasps could be heard in the courtroom.
Defense Attorney Jeff Harrelson drove home the point to the jury that Parker was human, she was flawed, but still a human.
The trial and sentencing phase lasted 49 days, including 25 days of testimony, 142 witnesses, some twice, and over 100 pieces of evidence.
Judge John Tidwell order Parker be transferred to death row at the Mountain View Correctional Unit in the small Texas town of Gatesville.
Taylor Parker has been given the death penalty by a Bowie County jury.
Jurors deliberated about an hour and 15 minutes Wednesday before returning with the verdict. Jurors could have given Parker a sentence of life in prison without parole.
On Oct. 3, a jury of six men and six women found Parker, 29, guilty in the October 2020 killing of Reagan Hancock, 21, who was about 35 weeks pregnant, and cutting her baby out of the womb. The baby also died. The punishment phase of the trial began Oct. 12.
Melissa Lucio execution has been delayed by the The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. According to court reports Melissa Lucio was convicted in the murder of her two year old daughter. Prosecutors claimed that Melissa Lucio severely beat the child causing her death however Lucio has always claimed that the little girl fell down a flight of stairs. What complicated the case is that Melissa Lucio would make a full confession to the murder however Lucio would later claim that the confession was forced. Anyway The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled that the execution should be delayed by 120 days so they more closely examine her claims.
Melissa Lucio More News
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered a district court to consider new evidence in the case of Melissa Lucio and the death of her daughter Mariah. Luciois on death row for her daughter’s death and was scheduled to be executed on April 27.
The execution will be halted as the 138th Judicial District Court of Cameron County considers the evidence
In a statement following the announcement, Lucio thanked those who have supported her fight for clemency.
“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”
Lucio was sentenced in 2007 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, one of Lucio’s 14 children.
Her lawyers say new evidence shows that the cause of her daughter’s injuries and subsequent death were caused by a fall down a steep staircase outside their apartment in Harlingen, Texas.
They say Lucio was coerced into a false confession after hours of intense police interrogations.
A supplementary filing submitted by Lucio’s attorneys asserts that the conviction was based on a false confession and false or poor testimony from medical examiners and specialists. They are asking the court to withdraw its order setting Lucio’s execution date.
The filing states that there is “overwhelming evidence that the judgment this Court set for execution on April 27, 2022, represents a miscarriage of justice.”
Lucio had said she is “at peace” regardless of the decision, according to a recently released statement.
“Either way I will get my freedom soon,” the statement read. “I will go home to my family or go to heaven. If I get a new trial, I am ready for the fight. I am not the same person I was in that interrogation room. I would stand up for my rights today. I want other survivors of domestic violence and assault to stand up for their rights too.”
In the days leading up to Lucio’s clemency hearing, political and social justice figures held rallies and prayer vigils to protest her death sentence.
State lawmakers including Reps. Joe Moody, Rafael Anchia, Alex Dominguez, Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and more met with Lucio in early April to join the fight.
“Melissa Lucio checked all the boxes of the ideal culprit, right? She is a little Latina mom with too many children, with a drug addiction,” Sabrina Van Tassel, the director of the documentary “The State of Texas Vs. Melissa,” said at a press conference Sunday.
“After a three-year investigation, I’m here to tell you that she’s not … The world’s not going to be a better place if Melissa Lucio is executed tomorrow,” Van Tessel said.
Lucio’s children have also issued a plea to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to grant their mother clemency.
“She’s more worried about her kids than anything,” Bobby Alvarez, Lucio’s son, said in an interview with ABC station KVUE in Austin, Texas.
On Monday, a petition delivery and prayer vigil will be held outside Abbott’s office at the Texas State Capitol, as protesters await action from the state district attorney, the Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles or Abbott.
Celebrity Kim Kardashian has also spoken out against the planned execution online.
“So heartbreaking to read this letter from Melissa Lucio’s children begging for the state not to kill their mother,” she wrote. “There are so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the evidence that was used to convict her.”
If Lucio is executed, she would be the first Latina to be put to death by Texas and the first woman to be executed by the state since 2014.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were two serial killers who would go on a crime spree through six states that included the murder of eight people. Eventually Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would be sentenced to death in three separate States. Alton Coleman would be executed in Ohio and Debra Brown will spend the rest of her life in prison. In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at Alton Coleman and Debra Brown.
Alton Coleman And Debra Brown Early Years
Alton Coleman was born in Illinois on November 6, 1955. Alton Coleman mother worked multiple jobs and Coleman was raised by his grandmother. During his middle school years he would drop out and would be arrested six times for sex related crimes between 1973 and 1983. Ultimately two of the cases would be dropped. Two of the cases he was acquitted. Alton was scheduled to go on trial in Illinois for the sexual assault of a fourteen year old girl when the multi state crime spree began
Debra Brown was born in Illinois on November 11, 1962. She has a borderline intellect and suffered a severe head injury as a child. At the time she met Alton Coleman in 1983 she was engaged to another man however she would leave him to go with Alton. Debra Brown before the crime spree had no criminal record.
Alton Coleman And Debra Brown Murders
The multi state crime spree began in Wisconsin. Alton Coleman had befriended a single mother and soon after her nine year old daughter, Vernita Wheat, went missing on May 29, 1984. A few weeks later the little girls body would be found she had been sexually assaulted, tortured and strangled with a ligature.
Soon after in Gary Indiana Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would abduct two little girls, nine year old Annie and her seven year old niece Tamika Turks, who would be sexually assaulted. Annie would survive the brutal assault however seven year old Tamika would not.
Donna Williams was reported missing the same time as the little girls were abducted. Her body would be found in a river in Detroit Michigan a month later. The woman had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a ligature.
In Michigan Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would break into the home of an elderly couple who were badly beaten and robbed.
In early July 1984 a woman in Ohio family became concerned as she stopped communicating with them. When the family went to her home they would find her body along with her nine year old son hidden in a crawlspace of the home. Both had been strangled with ligatures.
Later that same day Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would force their way into the home of a couple who were brutally beaten and robbed. Oddly Alton and Debra would stay at a local Revered home and attended church services.
The next week Alton and Debra would abduct a fifteen year old girl, Tonnie Storey, whose body would be found eight days later. Police would discover an item stolen earlier in the crime spree under the teenagers body which would lead the FBI to place Alton Coleman on their Top Ten Most Wanted List
A day after the abduction of Tonnie Storey Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would break into another home where the woman was sexually assaulted and beaten to death. The woman’s husband would survive a brutal beating and would contact police. The man would tell police that Alton and Debra came over regarding a camper for sale and soon after the attack began
The vehicle stolen from the couple was found in Kentucky days later where Alton Coleman and Debra Brown kidnapped a college professor and stole his car plus drove back to Ohio with him locked in the trunk. The college professor was later rescued.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would head back to Illinois. Along the way way they would steal yet another vehicle and kill its owner.
Soon after arriving in Illinois Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would be arrested.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown Trials
Due to the fact that the crimes committed by Alton Coleman and Debra Brown covered such a large area it took awhile to plan out the course of action in terms of prosecution. Michigan was ruled out pretty quickly as it did not have the death penalty.
In Ohio Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were convicted of the sexual assaults and murders of Tonnie Storey and Marlene Walters however they were not convicted of the murders of Virginia and Rachelle Temple. The two however were sentenced to death for the murders of Tonnie and Marlene. The pair would later be sentenced to twenty years in Federal Prison for transporting the college professors across state lines.
Alton Coleman Execution
Alton Coleman would be executed in Ohio on April 26, 2002 by lethal injection. For his last meal Alton had filet mignon, fried chicken breasts, salad, sweet potatoes, french fries, collard greens, onion rings, cornbread, broccoli, biscuits and gravy plus a cherry Coke.
Debra Brown Prison
Debra Brown borderline mental intellect has kept her from being executed and Ohio and Indiana no longer include her on their list of death row inmates. As of 2020 Debra Brown is in prison in Ohio
n the words of prosecutors here, Alton Coleman is a “poster child” for capital punishment, a cold-blooded killer whose murder spree in the summer of 1984 terrorized the Midwest, leaving eight people slain and Coleman with death sentences in three states.
But to his defenders, Coleman is exactly the kind of killer who should be spared: a man whose mother left him in a garbage can as an infant and whose grandmother subjected him to physical and sexual abuse–a history that coupled with brain damage prompted one doctor to describe Coleman’s mind as a “damaged container with damaged contents.”
Sitting in one of the low-slung buildings that house Death Row here, his hands and legs shackled with steel chains, Coleman looks back on both sides of his life and views it as something of a waste. His gaze is firm, his words are measured.
“I think I was doomed,” Coleman, now 46, said in an interview at Mansfield Correctional Institution. “Perhaps I should have died at birth.”
Instead, Coleman is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Friday morning. On Wednesday, Gov. Bob Taft denied clemency, saying no court has questioned Coleman’s responsibility for the slaying of the suburban Cincinnati woman–the case leading to Friday’s execution.
But as the execution nears, nagging questions about Coleman’s cases are unresolved, especially in Ohio, suggesting that even death penalty cases where guilt and innocence are clear–and where the crimes are truly horrible–can leave troubling legacies.
Last year, a panel of judges from the federal appeals court in Cincinnati reversed the death sentence in one of Coleman’s cases in Ohio–the murder of teenager Tonnie Storey–because his defense attorneys did no investigation of his upbringing.
That investigation, the appeals court said, would have uncovered a background so horrific that there was a strong likelihood that at least one juror would have been swayed to spare Coleman from a death sentence.
But in his other case–the murder of 44-year-old Marlene Walters, for which he is being executed, and the attempted murder of her husband, Harry–a different panel of judges from the same federal appeals court let the sentence stand, though the attorneys in that case also did no investigation of Coleman’s childhood.
The federal appeals court as a whole has refused to resolve the inconsistency, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to deal with it as well.
“Two different panels coming to contrary conclusions–that has to be resolved one way or the other,” said Dale Baich, a federal public defender in Arizona who has represented Coleman for more than a decade. “It comes down to basic fairness.”
`I wasn’t used to normal’
By virtually all accounts, Coleman’s upbringing was terrible. He never knew his father, and his mother–a drug user and prostitute who was institutionalized several times–abandoned Coleman in a trash can as an infant, court records show.
He was rescued by his grandmother, but under her care he was often neglected and subjected to physical and sexual abuse while living in Waukegan’s depressed and crime-ridden Market Street section of town, court records show. She practiced voodoo and often enlisted Coleman’s help, having him collect dirt from cemeteries and kill small animals for her potions, records show.
“I wasn’t used to normal,” Coleman said. “I didn’t know what normal was.”
Coleman also suffered brain damage–believed to be linked to his mother’s drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy and his childhood head injuries–making it difficult for him to make rational decisions, a condition worsened by his own drug abuse. Thomas Thompson, a New Mexico neuropsychologist hired by Coleman’s attorneys, described Coleman’s brain as a “damaged container with damaged contents.”
Prosecutors dispute Coleman’s claim of brain damage.
In a plea for mercy, Coleman also pointed to prison records that show he has been a model inmate, with no violations in 17 years. Two guards offered sworn affidavits of Coleman’s good behavior behind bars–a prison record that the prosecutors ridiculed as meaningless.
Coleman’s explanation for his murder spree is simple–drugs.
“All I know, I had to get narcotics to keep going,” Coleman said. “My main goal was to use drugs. I had no other destination whatsoever.”
Coleman’s case also has been dogged by charges that Cincinnati prosecutors improperly rejected nine of 12 blacks from the jury pool. The issue has not been addressed by appeals courts because Coleman’s original appeals lawyers did not raise it, and so it was forfeited for future appeals.
Those issues are set against one of the nation’s worst crime sprees, which Coleman undertook with a girlfriend, Debra Brown. She faces a death sentence in Indiana, and long prison terms in Ohio and Illinois.
“If there is ever a case that cries out for justice, it is this case,” said Ohio’s Hamilton County prosecuting attorney, Mike Allen. “This case cries out for Alton Coleman to pay the ultimate penalty for crimes he committed.”
Said Harry Walters, who was permanently disabled by Coleman’s attack: “It’s time to do it. I sincerely mean it. Execution is the solution.”
Strangled girl was first
The spree began in May 1984 in Kenosha, where Coleman, using the name Robert Knight, befriended Juanita Wheat and earned her trust. Coleman then kidnapped and murdered her 9-year-old daughter, Vernita. Vernita’s body, strangled and bound with wire, was found in an abandoned building in Waukegan.
At the time, he had already served time for rape and deviate sexual assault, had been arrested on other occasions for sex charges, and was facing a current rape charge, records show.
“I want to see something happen to him. I want to see it happen and feel it all,” said Juanita Wheat, now 55 and a nurse’s assistant in Kenosha who plans to travel to Ohio to witness Coleman’s execution.
“Justice is for all,” she added, “and you get what you deserve.”
As police pursued Coleman, he and Brown traveled the Midwest, stealing cars to get from Illinois to Indiana and through Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, leaving dead bodies almost everywhere they stopped.
In Gary, he was convicted of killing Tamika Turks, 7, and in Detroit, Toledo and Indianapolis, he and Brown are believed to have murdered others, though Coleman was not prosecuted.
In Norwood, a working-class suburb of Cincinnati, Coleman and Brown stopped at the Walterses’ home to try to buy a camper that the Ohio couple were selling. Inside, they beat both, tied them up and left them for dead. Marlene Walters suffered some two dozen wounds to her head. Coleman and Brown were arrested a week later as they sat in the bleachers at an Evanston park.
“His alleged tough childhood does not excuse him from suffering the ultimate punishment,” said Allen, the Ohio prosecutor. “Alton Coleman is pure evil.”
Days before his execution, Coleman, bowed his head, said that he was remorseful and that he was preparing himself to die.
“I take responsibility for what I did,” he said. “I’ve messed up terribly in this life.”
Jessica Marie Hann who use to be known as Jason Hann was sentenced to death by the State of California for the murders of his infant daughter and son plus the attempted murder of another child. According to court documents Jessica Marie Hann (Jason Hann) would beat to death his two month old son. Two years later she would beat to death another child, this time a ten month old daughter. The body of the second child would be found in a storage container after Hann failed to pay the rent. When authorities went to arrest Jessica Marie Hann (Jason Hann) and his common law wife Krissy Lynn Werntz who was the mother of the two children they would discover a third infant was showing signs of abuse. The pair would be arrested. Krissy Lynn Werntz would be found guilty to the murder of her daughter and sentenced to a fifteen year prison sentence. Jessica Marie Hann would be sentenced to death.
Jason Michael Hann (Jessica Marie Hann) admits he killed two of his children just weeks after they were born, his attorney said. Their bodies were found in separate storage lockers 1,500 miles apart in 2002.
Already serving up to 30 years in the Vermont prison system for the 1999 death of his son, Hann’s murder trial began Monday in the 2001 killing of his daughter, Montana, who prosecutors say died in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. She was 2½ months old.
Riverside County prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty for Hann by invoking the “special circumstance” of a previous murder conviction. If the jury finds him guilty of first-degree murder with the special circumstance, it will then decide if the death sentence should be imposed. The other option would be life without possibility of parole.
Jason Hann (Jessica Marie Hann), who has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charge, has had severe bipolar disorder since early childhood, his lawyer Brenda Miller said. She asked the jury of nine women and three men at Larson Justice Center in California to consider a second-degree murder charge in light of that information.
Miller compared Hann’s cycles of rage to a swing on a children’s playground — going up and down — and said 10-week-old Montana took the brunt of it one day almost 13 years ago.
“Just as his anxiety and his rage was reaching its peak, Montana began to cry, and her cries got louder and louder, and his rage just exploded,” Miller said, at which point Hann punched the baby with a closed fist.
Jason Hann (Jessica Marie Hann) had been treated several times for bipolar disorder, but he checked himself out of facilities against medical advice and refused to take medication
“Mental illness is no excuse” for what Hann did, Miller said, but she asked the jury to consider the lesser conviction, which carries a sentence of 15 years to life.
Investigators in Arkansas, where Montana’s remains were found, determined she died while her parents lived in Desert Hot Springs, and her body was wrapped inside garbage bags and placed in a “blue Tupperware-type container,” deputy Riverside County district attorney Lisa DiMaria said. Then the couple, who DiMaria said lived a “transient, gypsy-style life” beginning in 1998, left for Arkansas. They rented a storage locker, where they kept a trailer containing Montana’s body. A year after Montana died, her parents had stopped paying for the locker and the contents were auctioned off. The buyer called police after finding the body.
An all-points-bulletin found Jason Hann (Jessica Marie Hann) and the children’s mother, Krissy Lynn Werntz, in a Motel 6 in Portland, Maine, with a 1-month old son, named Jason, who was found to have numerous broken ribs, bleeding under his skull and other internal injuries, according to the prosecution. The state placed this child with foster parents, who eventually adopted him.
Witness Jennifer Bloom, an employee of Maine’s Department of Human Services, testified she and a colleague were sent to check on the new baby’s welfare, and Hann admitted to being involved with the deaths of his two other children.
“He said he was responsible for both deaths. He didn’t provide a lot of detail. He said, ‘I fell and blacked out with the baby,'” Bloom said. She added Hann said he felt guilty about the deaths, and felt he had to keep moving to evade police
The body of the couple’s first child, who also was named Jason, was found similarly wrapped in trash bags inside a rubber container, in a storage locker in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. He was 6 weeks old when he died.
Jason Hann (Jessica Marie Hann) was extradited to California in 2009 to be tried for Montana’s death, and it took four years for the death-penalty case to make its way through the system and into opening arguments.
DiMaria explained to the jury the two boys would be referred to as “Jason One” and “Jason Two” during the course of the trial to differentiate between them, though the surviving boy also may be called by his adoptive name, Michael.
Almost all witnesses are being flown in from out of state, due to the couple’s frequent relocations.
Testimony is expected to end next week.
Werntz, Montana’s mother, is facing a murder charge and was originally scheduled to be tried at the same time as Hann, but family medical problems have postponed her trial, DiMaria said.
Documents just filed in Marin County, California show Jason Michael Hann is now known as Jessica Marie Hann, and is now a female “to match my gender identity.”
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Health Care Communications Chief Liz Gransee said as of February 2019, “10 patients statewide have been approved for gender-affirming surgery.” Due to HIPPA guidelines, she could not comment on specific inmates.
Hann’s changing mugshots reflect his transition from male to female, the gender now indicated on her birth certificate.
“Senate Bill 310 allows a state prisoner or county jail inmate the right to petition a court to obtain a name or gender change,” said CDCR Deputy Press Secretary Terry Thornton. “SB 310 requires CDCR to use the new name of the person who obtains a name change and to list the prior name only as an alias. CDCR updated Hann’s records and made notification to the victim on file on Feb. 14.”
On Feb. 21, 2014, an Indio judge sentenced then 40 year old Jason Hann to death for killing his 10 month old daughter, named Montana, in 2001. At the time, Hann and Montana’s mother, Krissy Lynn Werntz, now 39, were living in Desert Hot Springs.
Montana’s body was found in a Tupperware container wrapped in a plastic trash bag in an abandoned storage trailer the couple had left in Arkansas. The couple was arrested in Portland, Maine, where they were living with another son, who was suffering from life threatening injuries. That son was taken into foster care and later adopted.
The couple’s arrest led authorities to find the body of a second infant in a trailer in Arizona. Authorities determined that 2 month old boy had been killed before their daughter Montana, at some point when the couple was living in Vermont.
Hann was convicted 1st in Vermont, and extradited to Indio, where a jury recommended the death penalty.
“These kids never had a chance at life so it was more than deserved, and I think he tried to cover up the crime as well,” said alternate juror Bob Price.
“The Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution requires that prisons provide medically necessary treatment for inmates’ medical needs, ” said Thornton. California was the 1st state to pay for prisoner’s sex reassignment surgery.
Hann in still in custody at San Quentin, which is a male-only facility, and she is allowed personal property items in accordance with her gender identity, such as a bra, hair rollers, or makeup.
Werntz was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for her role in Montana’s death. She is housed at Chowchilla, but some part of her case is being heard Friday in Indio.
Hann’s attorney did not return a call for comment.
Lorraine Hunter is currently on California Death Row for the murder of her husband in order to collect the insurance money. According to court documents Lorraine Hunter took out two additional insurance policies worth over three quarters of a million dollars in the weeks preceding the murder.
On the night of the murder Lorraine Hunter and her daughter Briuana Hunter, who was fifteen at the time, went with the victim to his semi truck where he would be shot twice in the head and twice in the back. Initially police believed the murder was related to a robbery however they would soon figure out the awful truth.
A death sentence was handed down Friday, Dec. 8, for a Moreno Valley woman who fatally shot her 56-year-old husband to collect more than $1 million in life insurance proceeds.
A Riverside jury in August convicted 62-year-old Lorraine Alison Hunter of murder in the slaying of Albert Thomas in 2009 and ultimately recommended that she be put to death.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mac Fisher agreed with the jury’s recommendation, rejecting a defense plea for Hunter’s sentence to be reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Along with first-degree murder, jurors in her two-month trial found true special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and killing for financial gain.
The prosecution’s key witness was Hunter’s now-23-year-old daughter, Briuana Lashanae Hunter, who confessed to plotting with her mother to kill Thomas.
Briuana Hunter pleaded guilty last year to three counts of attempted murder and one count of voluntary manslaughter. She’s slated to be sentenced Wednesday to 18 years, nine months in state prison.
The young woman, who’s being held without bail at the Indio Jail, testified that her stepfather was a “calm, quiet person,” who was “never overly aggressive” in the seven years that she and her mother lived with him in Moreno Valley.
The witness stated that he held down two jobs — one as a short-haul trucker and another as a clerk at a Moreno Valley Auto Zone.
According to Hunter, her mother frequently argued with Thomas about not having enough money to spend. Deputy District Attorney Will Robinson described the elder Hunter as “money hungry” and not interested in holding down a job to contribute to the household
Briuana Hunter said she aided her mother in filling out at least three life insurance applications, naming her stepfather as the insured party and Lorraine Hunter as the principal beneficiary. The woman forged Thomas’ name on each application.
Hunter took out a $750,000 policy, as well as a $10,000 policy, Robinson said. A third policy apparently lapsed before Thomas was killed.
Thomas additionally had a $450,000 policy through the trucking company for which he worked, according to court papers.
In the two months before he was killed, Lorraine Hunter planned to shoot Thomas three other times — twice on walks through their neighborhood in the area of Day Street and Eucalyptus Avenue, and another time outside the victim’s workplace — but each time, the presence of too many witnesses foiled the plots.
Briuana Hunter admitted being there on each occasion, knowing beforehand what her mother had planned.
On the evening of Nov. 3, 2009, Thomas and the defendants left their apartment and strolled to his big rig, where he wanted to grab a sweatshirt that he had bought for Briuana Hunter, who was 15 at the time, according to trial testimony.
The three of them climbed into his truck, and Thomas ducked into the rear sleeper compartment to find the shirt, while Lorraine Hunter and her daughter sat in the front seat. Robinson said Lorraine Hunter pulled a small-caliber handgun she’d stolen from a member of her church and shot the victim point-blank in the back of the head twice, then shot him twice in the upper back as he knelt in the compartment. Sheriff’s deputies found him dead in a kneeling position.
Hunter and her daughter fled the scene with the help of a relative, and the case went cold for two years, until the same relative confessed everything she knew to investigators after being arrested herself for an unrelated offense.
Robinson theorized during Hunter’s penalty trial that she was a sociopath with blood on her hands when she married Thomas.
The prosecutor argued to jurors that she had masterminded, and probably carried out, the slaying of her previous husband, Allen Brown, who was gunned down in what appeared to be a random act of violence in Inglewood in 1996. The circumstances were eerily similar to Thomas’ death, with Brown shot in the back, and like Thomas, the victim was a truck driver.
No charges were ever filed in the case, which remains unsolved.
This is the second death sentence in Riverside in one week. On Dec. 1, San Jacinto gang member Raymond Alex Barrera received a death sentence for three slayings in 2013.
Lorraine Hunter is currently incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility the home of California Death Row For Women
Why Is Lorraine Hunter On Death Row
Lorraine Hunter was convicted of the murder of her husband in order to collect the insurance money
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