The 16-year-old outside court. Photo: Vandyke Hepburn

By DENISE MAYCOCK 

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net 

A 16-year-old Bahamian boy was charged with killing a 79-year-old Haitian woman yesterday.

A small crowd gathered outside the courthouse in Jones Town, Eight Mile Rock, as the minor was brought and escorted by officers at about 11am, with a towel over his head.

Magistrate Gwen Claude allowed only the minor’s parents and his attorney Keith Seymour to be permitted inside the courtroom for the proceedings. Neither the press nor any of the victim’s family members were allowed inside.

Reporters were only able to enter the court after the proceedings to be given information from Police Prosecutor 2628 Sergeant Garth McIntosh.

According to the docket, it is alleged that sometime between Friday June 19 and Saturday June 20, the accused by means of unlawful harm intentionally caused the death of Elisia Theoc, of Pinedale, Eight Mile Rock.

Theoc had been reported missing by family members after she did not return home Friday evening. Her body was later discovered Saturday morning in bushes in Pinedale. Her death is the eighth homicide in Grand Bahama, according to Tribune records.

In addition to the murder charge, the juvenile was also charged with housebreaking. It is alleged that on the same date, the accused broke into the home of Keisha Coverley, of Martin Town, Eight Mile Rock and stole a television, Android box, and a black LG DVD player, altogether valued at $400.

All the items were recovered by the police.

The matters were adjourned to August 4, to be heard before a juvenile panel.

Also charged with receiving was a 17-year-old juvenile. It is alleged that the accused on the same date received the stolen items in question. He was granted $1,500 bail and the magistrate imposed a curfew on him. The matter was adjourned to August 4, to be heard before a juvenile panel.

It has been nearly two years since the home of former Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins was the scene of an alleged killing and his brother was charged.

Now, it’s happened again to a local NFL star.

On Monday, the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office announced that Haseez Brown, 33, the brother of former Jets defensive lineman Muhammad Wilkerson, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder and weapons charges.

Brown is the older brother of Wilkerson, Linden Mayor Derek Armstead said Monday.

Prosecutors said Brown fired multiple shots into a vehicle outside his brother’s Bridgewater residence and struck the driver, Roobino Philemon, of West Orange.

According to the prosecutor’s office, Philemon attempted to go to a birthday party at the residence, but was told to leave. As Philemon was sitting in the car, authorities said Brown walked up toward the rear of the vehicle and allegedly fired multiple rounds into the vehicle, striking Philemon once.

This incident comes nearly two years since Jenkins’ brother was involved with a fatal incident at the home the former Giants cornerback’s rented Bergen County.

On June 26, 2018, William H. Jenkins, his brother, was charged with aggravated manslaughter when Roosevelt Rene, a music producer nicknamed “Trypps Beatz”, was found dead at Jenkins’ home.

Police officers found Rene’s body, after receiving a report of “suspicious conditions” at Jenkins’ home.

Rene and Jenkins’ brother had been living in the home while Janoris Jenkins was in Florida.

The homeowners eventually sued Janoris Jenkins for $700,000, claiming the crime devalued their property and that Jenkins and his brother did roughly $300,000 in physical damage to the residence.

Janoris Jenkins had a two-year lease for $66,000 a year or $5,500 a month that expired May 31, 2018, according to court documents cited by NorthJersey.com. He wanted to extend the lease at the time of the alleged killing, the documents said. 

Jenkins spent the following two seasons with the Giants before he was released in December. He signed with the New Orleans Saints.

Wilkerson has been out of the NFL since 2018, when he played one season for the Green Bay Packers. He spent seven years before that with the Jets and was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2015, when he accumulated a career-best 12 sacks.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Follow Matt Lombardo on Twitter and Instagram at @MattLombardoNFL.

EDMONTON — A judge has denied bail to a man accused of killing two Metis hunters northeast of Edmonton.

Jacob Sansom, 39, and Maurice Cardinal, 57, were shot and killed on a rural road near Glendon, Alta., in March.

Anthony Bilodeau, 31, and Roger Bilodeau, 56, both face two counts of second-degree murder.

The younger Bilodeau was denied bail in an Edmonton courtroom on Tuesday.

Members of the Metis Nation of Alberta rallied outside the courthouse prior to the bail hearing, with many holding signs saying “No Justice No Peace” and “Their Lives Matter” with pictures of Sansom and Cardinal.

A statement from the group says both victims were citizens of the Metis Nation.

Family and friends have said the two were hunting to feed their families when they were killed.

RCMP have said a verbal confrontation escalated into a fight between the occupants of two vehicles parked on the road northeast of Edmonton when Sansom and Cardinal were shot.

“Our communities must feel safe as we work to uphold our traditional ways of life, including harvesting,” said a statement Tuesday from the Metis Nation of Alberta.

“The MNA maintains a strong stand against violence and racism in all its ugly forms.”

Sansom’s wife, Sarah Sansom, said in an interview last month that she wasn’t sure if racism played a role in the deaths, adding she couldn’t understand why it happened.

Outside court Tuesday, she said she hasn’t slept in two-and-a-half months but may be able to now.

“I can sleep tonight,” she said of the bail decision.

“My kids don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to be afraid.” (CTV and The Canadian Press)

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2020.

The Canadian Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) — A 19-year-old man charged with the shooting death of one Washburn University football player and the wounding of a second player filed a motion in April seeking to replace his defense attorney.

Francisco A. Mendez is charged with offenses on April 28, 2019, of:
– Premeditated first-degree murder of Dwane Simmons, 23.
– Attempted first-degree murder of Corey Ballentine, who was wounded.
– Three counts of attempted first-degree murder of Channon Ross, Kevin Neal and James Letcher, who were with Simmons and Ballentine.

The five men were Washburn University football players. Of the 12 charges Mendez faces, five are tied to events on April 28, 2019.

Mendez is to appear before Shawnee County District Court Judge Cheryl Rios on Thursday when the judge will hear motions seeking the judge to appoint another defense attorney represent Mendez and to continue the Mendez case.

Mendez earlier has asked the judge to appoint a defense attorney to replace KiAnn Caprice, Mendez’ current attorney. The judge has denied it.

During a phone call played during another hearing, Mendez said Caprice hadn’t filed a lot of motions he wanted her to file, and he intended to fire Caprice in six months.

In a handwritten motion signed by Mendez, he asked the judge to replace Caprice “for failing to provide the defendant ‘effective’ assistance of counsel.”

Three areas “raise major concern,” Mendez wrote.

They are a “significant breakdown” in communication between Mendez and Caprice, including an “irrevocable breakdown” in the attorney-client relationship, Mendez wrote.

She has failed to investigate Mendez’ case in his best interest, Mendez said.

“She has the responsibility to investigate, including interviewing witnesses, testing physical evidence consulting with appropriate experts,” and investigating the credibility of prosecution wigtnesses, Mendez wrote.

Caprice also has failed to file meritorious motions on his behanlf, Mendez wrote.

The shootings occurred outside 1287 S.W. Lane, where Simmons was fatally wounded, and Ballentine suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks. Ballentine played the 2019-2020 season on the New York Giants football team.

Mendez’ nine-day trial has been scheduled to start on July 13, but it’s expected that no jury trials in Shawnee County District Court will be conducted before September 1 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The courthouse re-opened to the public on Monday after it was closed for three months since mid-March.

Of the 12 charges he faces, Mendez also is charged with two counts of two aggravated robberies on April 27, 2019, in what is referred to as the “Central Park robbery.”

Mendez is also charged with five aggravated robberies on April 30, 2019.

According to testimony during Mendez’s preliminary hearing, Ballentine, Simmons and three other members of the WU football team were standing at S.W. 13th and Lane celebrating Ballentine’s good fortune to be drafted into professional football on the New York Giants when Ballentine and Simmons were shot.

Tim Hrenchir @timhrenchir

(Reuters) – The former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd is being represented by a new lawyer in the racially charged case that has sparked protests across the United States over police brutality, according to people involved in the case.

The ex-officer, Derek Chauvin, is now being defended by Eric Nelson of the Halberg Criminal Defense firm, according to Marsh Halberg, the firm’s chief executive.

Chauvin’s legal representation is being provided by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA) which draws from a panel of about a dozen attorneys, which includes both Nelson and the lawyer he replaced, Tom Kelly of Kelly & Jacobson.

Kelly told Reuters he gave up the case for medical-related reasons. The case was assigned to him by the association, which provides legal services to Minnesota’s police, because he was the on-call attorney at the time of Chauvin’s arrest, Kelly said.

Chauvin, who is white, was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25 after Chauvin pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes during his arrest. A video of the incident sparked a week of sometimes violent protests that have rocked dozens of U.S. cities in the worst civil unrest in decades.

Chauvin is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday.

Nelson has represented many police officers, often in officer-involved shootings, but none of whom have been charged or gone to trial, according to a person familiar with the matter.

He also represented Amy Senser, the wife of former Minnesota Vikings professional football player Joe Senser, who was convicted for the 2011 hit-and-run death of a Minneapolis chef. She was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

The Halberg firm has 10 lawyers and is the Minnesota’s largest firm that does exclusively criminal defense work. Nelson is the managing partner.

The MPPOA provides criminal defense services for its members, which includes Chauvin.

The association’s executive director, Brian Peters, said the change in attorneys was Kelly’s decision. When Kelly left the case, Nelson was next on the panel of attorneys, according to Peters.

Kelly represented Jeronimo Yanez, a police officer in St. Anthony, Minnesota who was acquitted of the 2016 killing Philando Castile during a traffic stop that was recorded by Castile’s girlfriend.

Racism and police brutality in the United States of America took the life of another African-American on Monday. George Floyd, a 46-year-old man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck, while he was handcuffed and lying facedown on the street. In this video, recorded by bystanders, one could hear Floyd repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe,” but the police did not bother. Naturally, a lot of NBA Stars reacted to it.

The police officers had arrested Floyd because he had allegedly committed forgery. All officers on the scene were fired the next day but family members of the victim believe they should be charged for murder. Six years ago, Eric Garner, another African-American man, was killed by the police after being put into a chokehold. Garner too was saying “I can’t breathe,” before he suffocated to his death. His mother said Floyd’s death felt like “deja vu” and it forced her to relive her son’s death.

“I haven’t been the same since I’ve seen it.”

Stephen Jackson shares how he found out his friend, George Floyd, was murdered by Minneapolis Police pic.twitter.com/j8GUjAQuej

— Master (@MasterTes) May 28, 2020

NBA players express anger and call for justice

Former NBA player Stephen Jackson was a close friend of Floyd. They have been friends since they met in the 90s and he called Floyd twin because they looked so similar. While speaking to the Today Show, Jackson revealed how he was devasted when he found out. “I haven’t been the same since I’ve seen it. It shut me down man, I screamed I scared my daughter and I was punching stuff,” Jackson said.

The most heartbreaking thing was when Jackson said how he found out about it. “My girlfriend’s mom sent me the video and I was thinking it’s just another black man getting murdered by the police,” Jackson said. He realized what happened later after receiving messages regarding the murder. Such incidents take place so often that one loses track of it.

Steph Curry wrote a long angry paragraph on Instagram which ended with “George was murdered. George wasn’t human to that cop that slowly and purposefully took his life away.”

As much as you pray for George family, gotta also pray for the police officer(s) who were involved in this evil. As hard as it is, pray for them instead of hate them…Pray that God changes their hearts.

— Michael Porter Jr (@MPJr) May 27, 2020

Michael Porter Jr tweeted in support but faced backlash over it. He might have tweeted it in good faith but Twitter users were upset by the latter half of his tweet.

Reggie Miller, Isaiah Thomas, and Jaylen Brown are few other players who voiced out their opinion on Twitter.

I’m scared for myself and my BLACK kids with SOME of these crazy people and cops… I hope to God they don’t get into some stuff and the cops come and possibly KILL them

— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) May 26, 2020

 

 

 

For many from the Chicago area, Oct. 4, 2007, began with the stunning news that Rhoni Reuter, the longtime pregnant girlfriend of former Chicago Bears player Shaun Gayle, had been murdered.

Now Reuter’s convicted killer hopes she’ll be granted a new trial and is speaking out about her case for the first time on television.

“I did not [kill Reuter], and I am not capable of doing anything like [that]. I’m a mother myself, that’s unconscionable to me. Absolutely not,” Marni Yang, a 51-year-old mother of three, told ABC’s Juju Chang in a recent interview for “20/20.”

Reuter, 42, was seven months pregnant when she was found dead on the kitchen floor of her apartment in Deerfield, Illinois. There were no signs of robbery or forced entry at the crime scene. Authorities said she had been shot multiple times at point-blank range with a 9mm handgun, with two shots fired directly at her abdomen. To investigators, it suggested that the shooter was aiming not just at Reuter, but also at the unborn child.

Reuter’s killing rocked the quiet, affluent Chicago suburb. It was the first murder Deerfield had seen in 30 years and Gayle had been a safety on the celebrated Chicago Bears team that won the 1985 Super Bowl.

Gayle had been dating Reuter for 18 years while seeing a number of other women at various times over the years as well, including Yang. It was clear to authorities that someone wanted his pregnant girlfriend dead. During her trial, prosecutors argued that Yang’s motive was fueled by jealousy.

Yang, who has long maintained her innocence, was convicted in 2011 of killing Reuter and is currently serving a double life sentence.

Her new defense attorney Jed Stone filed a post-conviction relief petition in October 2019 citing new evidence that he believes will prove Yang was wrongfully convicted. Yang, who has exhausted all her requests to appeal, hired a new legal team led by Stone in this last attempt for a new trial.

The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a motion to dismiss Yang’s petition, describing it as a “skillfully, lawyerly rebranding of the facts and the overwhelming evidence against Marni.”

“It’s not a rebranding of the facts,” Stone told “20/20.” “It’s taking a look at the facts, and putting them in a light of truth.”

Who would kill Rhoni Reuter?

Although Gayle and Reuter were together for almost two decades, they never lived together.

Her family say they were surprised when they learned of Gayle’s non-monogamous relationship with Reuter.

“I wouldn’t think that my sister would have put up with that sort of relationship,” her brother, Thad Reuter, told “20/20” in a 2011 interview.

Her sister-in-law, Anna Reuter, agreed, saying, “She loved Shaun with her whole heart, and I think she expected the same back. I really didn’t see any other people in the picture at all.”

On the day Rhoni Reuter’s body was discovered, Gayle called Deerfield police, saying a reporter had called him asking if he knew anything about being named a suspect in a shooting there. When the officer who took the call confirmed to Gayle that Reuter was the victim, the former NFL player broke down in hysterical sobs.

“Don’t go to her house,” the officer told him, and asked him instead to come to the police station.

When Gayle arrived, Deerfield Deputy Chief Rick Wilk said the former NFL player was “visibly upset,” but it was “a little suspicious” to Wilk that Gayle had called within hours of the murder occurring.

During questioning, Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Detective Scott Frost said Gayle became strangely composed.

“He … was very reserved, very calm.,” Frost said.

Frost said he asked Gayle what he had done in the last 24 hours, and that some of his details on timing seemed to be off.

“We’re having issues with his timeline from… what he did the night before, what time did he go to bed, what time did he leave,” Frost said.

On the morning of the murder, Gayle told police he slept in, worked out with a trainer and then got a haircut mid-morning at a barber about 10 minutes away from Reuter’s apartment.

Frost said Gayle insisted he was innocent. Police asked him about other women with whom he had been involved recently.

“He, kindly enough, gives us a list of a list of almost 18, or 16 different women that he either went on a date with or got a phone number from or was romantically involved with… these are 18 women over a three-year period,” Frost said.

“You have several women that could have been jealous of Rhoni,” Wilk added.

When asked who he believed the killer might be, police said Gayle named Monika Kurowska, whom he had a relationship with a year prior and he said it had ended badly.

Kurowska was a Polish fitness model and personal trainer, whom Gayle said he had dated for several months in 2006.

Gayle said one night Kurowska came to his apartment complex and began ringing his neighbors’ buzzers. He found her outside of his apartment with a bloody hand, and later discovered one of his windows had been broken. Gayle eventually obtained a protective order against her.

In a statement to ABC News, Kurowska said she was upset when she got to Gayle’s home and saw him with another woman. She says she wanted to speak to him, but he wouldn’t open the door. She knocked on his window, and in the heat of her frustration, she said she accidentally broke it. She said she decided to end the relationship and that she never saw Gayle again.

Gayle told police he believed Kurowska was sending harassing letters to various people in his life, including Reuter, her mother and other women he had been seeing. The anonymous letters were written in broken English and claimed Gayle was romancing a number of women at the same time.

When Rhoni Reuter’s mother received one of these letters, she called Gayle. He assured her that her daughter was safe and that the letters were from “a crazed fan,” according to Thad Reuter.

When Rhoni Reuter’s body was found, detectives recovered one of these letters inside her purse.

While being questioned by investigators, Kurowska denied sending the letters and said she was at a training session with a client when Rhoni Reuter was murdered, which checked out.

Police cleared Kurowska as a suspect, and eventually cleared Gayle as well. Soon, they began focusing on another woman Gayle had been casually seeing: Marni Yang.

The mysterious letters

Yang, a divorced mother of three who worked multiple jobs, including as a real estate agent, said she met Gayle at a Bears convention where she was working security. She said the two started seeing each other after he reached out to her about investing in real estate.

When police first called Yang in for questioning regarding the Reuter investigation two months after the murder, she told them she and Gayle had known each other for about six years.

As part of their investigation, the police obtained a warrant to search his house, which included seizing his computer.

After gaining access to his email, investigators told Gayle that they believed Yang had been accessing his email for years, but Yang denies this.

“There is absolutely no way that I would even have had access to anything like that,” she told “20/20.”

Though police said other people they interviewed within her circle told them Yang often bragged about being Gayle’s girlfriend, she denied that was the case.

“I don’t think the word ‘boyfriend’ was ever used, really,” she told “20/20.” “That was not what I referred to him as.”

Investigators suspected that Yang was the one responsible for sending harassing letters to Reuter, her mother and other women in Gayle’s life. They believed she had discovered emails from Kurowska in Gayle’s inbox and copied her pattern of broken English to make it appear as if the letters had come from Kurowska.

During a search of Yang’s house, police said they discovered mailing labels with the addresses of the women in Gayle’s life — the same ones who had received the letters.

Yang denies she had sent the letters and claims instead that she was one of the women who received such a letter.

Police discovered that she had owned a 9mm handgun, which used bullets that matched the caliber of the ones found at the crime scene. Yang had also purchased two volumes of a book with instructions on how to make a homemade silencer and then bought the materials listed in the book at a Home Depot store, according to prosecutors.

Yang told police she didn’t have the gun at the time the murder took place; in her post-conviction relief petition, she claims that her son’s friend has admitted to stealing it from her home during a get-together months before the murder. She told “20/20” the book was part of “a gag gift” for a former police officer she had dated. “Firearms are a hobby of his,” she said.

According to prosecutors, one of the most damning pieces of evidence against Yang was a recorded conversation she had with a close friend, Christi Paschen, who calls herself a professional psychic. Yang has said Paschen was only an acquaintance.

During the conversation, Yang told Paschen, who was secretly working with investigators and wearing a recording device, that she had put on an elaborate disguise and shot Reuter. That disguise, prosecutors say, seemed to match witnesses’ description of the suspect on the day of the murder.

“[Reuter] started screaming … At that point, I realized we are now at the point of no return, OK? … And I just started emptying the clip,” Yang is heard telling Paschen on the recording. “I took maybe one or two steps into the kitchen to finish the job.”

On March 15, 2011, Yang was found guilty of first-degree murder and intentional homicide of an unborn child. She was given a double life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Marni Yang: ‘I knew perfectly well that I was being recorded’

Sitting in Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Illinois, Yang opened up about her case for the first time in front of a TV camera.

“I feel like prior to this, I don’t think it would have mattered,” she told “20/20.” “I feel like there is a time. That time is now.”

The crux of Yang’s defense is that she now claims that she knew Paschen was wired and falsely confessed to the murder on purpose in order to protect her son, whom she believed police were investigating as the murder suspect.

“I knew perfectly well that I was being recorded,” Yang said. “I saw the wire.”

Her attorney Jed Stone claims there are recorded phone calls between Yang and her parents that took place before her conversation with Paschen, in which Yang told them she planned to make up a story about the murder and “let the attorneys sort it out with police.”

“It was a rash and ill-conceived decision to protect my children,” Yang said. “I lied.”

In its motion to dismiss Yang’s post-conviction relief petition, the state says that three months after the murder, when police interrogated Yang over a number of days, they told her repeatedly that her son was not a suspect.

During her trial, prosecutors pointed to a surveillance video from a gas station in Reuter’s neighborhood that showed a car driving near the scene around the time of the murder, which they said matched the description of the one Yang had rented that same week.

Yang’s defense team argued in its post-conviction relief petition that the prosecutors got the make and model of the car wrong.

In response, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office says Yang’s defense team made similar arguments at trial, which the jury rejected.

Yang, an aspiring fitness model, now claims she had car trouble that day and that she had rented the car for a photoshoot. However, when asked about it during her interview with “20/20”, she couldn’t remember the name of the photographer with whom she was working.

Her defense team also claims that ballistics evidence proves the person who shot Reuter was much taller than Yang, who is only 5 feet tall.

“I think the strongest piece of evidence that we have is the scientific evidence of the bullet trajectories, showing that Marni Yang, because of her height, could not have fired the bullets that killed Rhoni Reuter,” Stone told “20/20.”

In response, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office says that the conclusion that the shooter was someone taller than Yang is flawed. They said the defense relied on the medical examiner’s report, which stated that a particular wound was going downward. However, when the medical examiner testified at trial, he said that after examining the tissue he determined that wound was actually going upward.

The state also argues that many of the statements that Yang’s defense team filed as part of the petition were not notarized or were not sworn to, and therefore those claims should be dismissed.

The petition filed by Yang’s legal team includes a number of allegations from her children about the investigation and the case against their mother, including that police forced two of her children to sign written statements they knew to be false.

Yang’s children, Emily, Andrew and Brandon Yang, were home alone when police showed up with a search warrant at their house three months after the murder. Just 16 years old at the time, Emily and Andrew said they were brought to different police stations and questioned separately without a parent or attorney present.

“The only way that I got out of that situation was to write down a statement … that my mother wasn’t home the morning of the murder… but she was home that morning,” Andrew Yang said, adding that he “had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized” after the ordeal.

At trial, Emily Yang testified that her mother told her she had sent those harassing letters so that all the women Gayle was involved with could find out about each other. But she now says that police told her to write that in her statement.

“I didn’t know anything and they wouldn’t accept that. And … the mental frustration, it really broke me,” Emily Yang said. “And it got to the point where I started banging my head on the table.”

The State’s Attorney’s Office denies the children’s statements were coerced. They said when Emily Yang testified she never said her statement to the police was a lie.

Yang’s children are standing by their mother now in support of her defense.

“I would just say to her that … no matter… everything that she’s been through, [she can] be proud that she’s raised … a really good young man,” Andrew Yang told “20/20.”

“I’m hoping that we can all get through this together,” Emily Yang added.

Marni Yang’s father, Larry Merar, has paid around $1 million for her defense. It’s money that Stone acknowledged could have gone to help support Merar’s grandchildren while their mother is in prison, but more so, he added, “it bothers me greatly that Larry Merar can’t do this for 9,000 other people… in America’s prisons and jails who are innocent.”

Although a judge ruled in December 2019 that her petition can move forward, the next step in the proceedings for Marni Yang’s case has been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. A few weeks ago, she cited the health crisis in a new petition for clemency, which is scheduled to be heard in July.

this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.