From: abemarf@aol.com (Martin F. Abernathy) Newsgroups: alt.mindcontrol,alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.org.cia Subject: MORE Murders And Mayhem... Date: 14 Oct 2002 11:54:31 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 401 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.17.98.30 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1034621671 8254 127.0.0.1 (14 Oct 2002 18:54:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Oct 2002 18:54:31 GMT Path: rsl2.rslnet.net!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: rsl2.rslnet.net alt.mindcontrol:3389 alt.conspiracy:111662 alt.politics.org.cia:3600 The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. May 2, 2002, Thursday, BC cycle SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 340 words HEADLINE: Jury recommends life without parole for Texas man DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY BODY: An Oklahoma County jury is recommending life without the possibility of parole for an Amarillo, Texas, man who said voices told him to kill the mother of his children. The panel of nine women and three men deliberated for more than four hours Wednesday before convicting Nathan Lewis Crowell of first-degree murder. Attorneys for Crowell tried to prove that the 24-year-old was insane when he stabbed Melinda Kay Grayless 11 times with a 3-foot samurai-type sword in a west Oklahoma City motel room on Nov. 24, 2000. One wound went through the heart and another into the jugular vein of the neck of Grayless, who would have turned 21 on Thursday. Crowell testified that he heard voices from the television telling him to kill his girlfriend and infant daughter because they had the plague. As Assistant District Attorney Connie Pope questioned Crowell, she turned on TV monitors in the courtroom and started displaying photographs of Grayless' stab wounds. "All these pictures are talking to you," Pope said. "You don't strike out in anger and kill someone." A defense expert said Crowell was a paranoid schizophrenic, but a prosecution expert said he was a psychopath who was faking the tests. Crowell admitted to investigators and jurors he killed his girlfriend. Jurors had to decide whether the defendant was insane when the stabbing occurred. Grayless and Crowell stopped in Oklahoma City so the victim could deliver their baby daughter. They had been visiting Grayless' family in Terre Haute, Ind., and were on their way home to Amarillo. Grayless was stabbed three days after giving birth. Riley, the infant, and their 12-month-old daughter, Ryann, were in the motel room when their mother was killed. Neither child was hurt. "This really doesn't change anything or make me feel any better," said Sharon Mitchell, the victim's aunt from Amarillo. "The girls - I feel the worse for his girls. They don't have parents." District Judge Virgil Black is scheduled to formally sentence Crowell on Thursday. ===== Copyright 2002 The San Diego Union-Tribune The San Diego Union-Tribune February 6, 2002, Wednesday SECTION: LOCAL;Pg. B-1 LENGTH: 1114 words HEADLINE: Judge to decide if troubled teen should be tried as an adult; Family says juvenile system meets needs BYLINE: Greg Moran; STAFF WRITER BODY: On an April night two years ago, California Highway Patrol Officer Jeffrey Alvarez pulled over a motorist in Lakeside for what he thought was a routine traffic stop. It wasn't. As Alvarez wrote the ticket, an assailant suddenly grabbed him from behind, slit his throat with a knife, then disappeared into the night. Alvarez needed five stitches to close the wound, which barely missed two arteries. It took authorities 24 days to make an arrest. The investigation led them to an apartment across the street from the attack, where 17-year-old Armando Emmanuel Cruz Jr. lived with his family. Once arrested, Cruz readily admitted he attacked Alvarez. He showed investigators a knife and a pair of underpants -- the only clothing he wore as he dashed out of his apartment to attack Alvarez. He gave little reason for the attack, saying he was depressed because he had not been able to talk to people very well and was "fed up." Now, the events on Wintergardens Boulevard that spring night are being played out again in a hearing this week in Superior Court. Prosecutors are trying to persuade a judge to order Cruz to be put on trial as an adult, where he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted murder and assault charges. But Cruz's attorneys say that he suffers from schizophrenia and is better off in the juvenile system, where he can receive treatment until he is released at the age of 25. The hearing began Monday and is expected to conclude today. The Cruz case highlights both the growing problem of mentally ill youths in custody and detention centers and the debate over whether youths charged with violent crimes should be punished as adults or treated in the juvenile system. One national group, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, estimated in a 2000 report that 50 percent to 75 percent of all incarcerated youth nationwide suffer from a mental illness. The group also said that "the juvenile justice system has largely become a warehouse for children suffering from mental illness" because more children are being diagnosed with illnesses and there is a shortage of mental-health services for them. In San Diego, about 20 percent of the youths at Juvenile Hall, which holds a maximum of 537, receive psychotropic medication -- powerful drugs designed to lessen the symptoms of mental illness, according to a report by the county's Juvenile Justice Commission. Dr. Jeffrey Roe, the supervising psychiatrist for the hall who treated Cruz and testified this week, estimated as many as 40 percent of the youths in the four juvenile detention facilities in the county receive mental health treatment. The statistics come as no surprise to Karen Luton, executive director of the Mental Health Association of San Diego County. "Our juvenile justice system nationwide is full of kids who need mental-health services," she said. "Their crimes are often a symptom of untreated mental illness. The problem is, if we try them as adults and send them to jails, will they get that help they need?" Yolanda Cruz remembers her son Armando as a cheerful and well-behaved boy. But she noticed troubling changes as he headed into adolescence. Court records indicate that he began drinking and using drugs at age 12 and that he has been arrested for drug possession and burglary. When he was 14, he began seeing a parade of psychiatrists and psychologists, but his behavior did not improve. In 1997, one doctor said Cruz was depressed and a substance abuser. In September 1997, after Cruz was arrested for burglarizing a neighbor's garage, another doctor also chalked up his problems to substance abuse. But the same doctor also said, "The likelihood of this being a burgeoning schizophrenic process must be considered." When Cruz suffered a mental break and was hospitalized in early 1998, a doctor concluded that he had schizophrenia form disorder. By this time he was hearing voices and having hallucinations and was convinced that the government was out to get him, according to court records and his attorney, Todd Williams. In late 1999, another doctor concluded he suffered from "schizophrenia, paranoid type." But his treatment was intermittent and not always effective, according to court records and his mother, as doctors struggled to help him. When he was sent to Juvenile Hall in April 2000 after the assault, he was put on a new medication regime. In the nearly two years since he has been in custody -- and away from drugs and alcohol -- he has received B+ grades in school. His IQ, previously described as borderline retarded level, has gone up 15 points, Williams said. Cruz's improvement over the past months shows the juvenile system is the best place for him, Williams argues. "The adult system is penal in nature, it's punishment-oriented," he said. "But we don't punish kids or the mentally ill for something that isn't their fault." But prosecutor Minaz Bhayani doesn't see it that way. "Everything to me points to him having this psychotic history because of his severe abuse of drugs and alcohol," he said. Cruz's stints in the juvenile system did little to rehabilitate him, and he has run out of chances, he said. He contends the attack on Alvarez was "predatory and dangerous. His goal was to kill this officer. There's no doubt about that," Bhayani said. Because of the seriousness of the act, Cruz's case initially was filed in adult court under a recent legal change that allows prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults in certain cases. That change was made under Proposition 21, which was passed in March 2000. But when an appeals court ruled in February 2001 that part of the law was unconstitutional -- a ruling now under review by the state Supreme Court -- the case was refiled in Juvenile Court. There, prosecutors decided to get the case to adult court under pre-Proposition 21 rules in which a judge holds a hearing to decide where a juvenile's case will be heard. Bhayani is concerned that if Cruz is kept in the juvenile system, he can be held only until age 25. "Let's say they lock him up and treat him until then," he said. "There is no cure for schizophrenia. When he gets out at age 25, and when he doesn't show up for whatever treatment he needs, how reasonably sure are they the community will be protected?" Yolanda Cruz said her son needs to get the help that she has sought for him over the past few years. The treatment he has received has come through the juvenile court system -- a telling irony, she said. "Why does a kid have to commit a crime to get help?" she asked. Greg Moran: (619) 542-4586; greg.moran@uniontrib.com When Cruz suffered a mental break and was hospitalized in early 1998, a doctor concluded that he had schizophrenia form disorder. By this time he was hearing voices and having hallucinations and was convinced that the government was out to get him, according to court records and his attorney, Todd Williams. ====== Copyright 1999 The Press Enterprise Co. THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE (RIVERSIDE, CA.) March 24, 1999, Wednesday , CORONA-NORCO; HEMET-SAN JACINTO; SOUTHWEST; MORENO VALLEY; RIVERSIDE SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B01 LENGTH: 510 words HEADLINE: Jury fails to decide on sanity in murder; A second sanity trial is planned for the 24-year-old man who killed his mother in Coronita. BYLINE: Mike Kataoka and C.J. Schexnayder, The Press-Enterprise BODY: RIVERSIDE Riverside County Superior Court jurors who needed less than a day two weeks ago to find a Corona man guilty of murdering his mother returned Tuesday, unable to decide whether he was sane when he did it. The jury of eight women and four men spent parts of four days since last week deliberating on the sanity of William Mills Jr. before deadlocking 10-2, the majority finding him insane. Mills' second-degree murder conviction stands. But the sanity issue, to determine whether he should be imprisoned or committed to a mental hospital, will have to be retried before another jury. Mills, 24, beat and strangled his mother on Jan. 24, 1997, in the bedroom of her Coronita home. Shirley Mills, 59, was a former assistant superintendent with the Corona-Norco Unified School District. In her 10 years with the district she also worked as a psychologist and a teacher. Deputy District Attorney Tim Schaaf told the jury last week that while Mills suffered from severe mental problems, it was not enough to absolve him from the slaying of his mother. . Talking with jurors Tuesday, Schaaf found that the first vote was 7-5 in favor of an insanity finding but, as deliberations continued, the gap widened. "There were some strong emotions involved (in the jury room)," the prosecutor said. Defense attorney James Ashworth had told jurors that the overwhelming evidence of long-term mental illness was the only way to explain the murder. "If there is no rational reason (for the murder) we have to start looking at irrational reasons," Ashworth said last week before the case was returned to the jury. "And that is that he was not legally sane. " Riverside County Superior Court Judge Robert Spitzer and the attorneys expect to agree on the sanity phase retrial date when they return to court on April 9. Schaaf hopes to have the retrial under way in 60 days. Since his arrest, Mills has told doctors he is a werewolf, that there are messages to him in television broadcasts, and that he believes he is in the University of Texas Vampire School. He also has attempted suicide twice since then, once by putting his head in the cell toilet and repeatedly flushing it. During the sanity phase three psychologists testified that Mills suffered from various mental problems, including bi-polar disorder, paranoid delusions, schizophrenia and drug-induced psychosis. He told several psychologists that he believed the government had put a computer chip in his mother's brain that controlled her and made her work all the time. Mills told doctors that on the night he killed her, he saw the words "kill me" on a box of cigarettes on his mother's bed stand. He thought it was a plea from her and he strangled her. "He believed his mother was transmitting messages telepathically to kill her thereby releasing her from control of the microchip in her brain," wrote Dr. Michael Cummings in his forensic psychological evaluation of Mills conducted a year and a half after the incident." ==== Copyright 2000 Paddock Publications, Inc. Chicago Daily Herald July 19, 2000, Wednesday, Fox Valley,DuPage,Lake SECTION: News; Pg. 6 LENGTH: 559 words HEADLINE: Bensenville man who shot officers wants release from mental hospital BYLINE: Christy Gutowski Daily Herald Legal Affairs Writer BODY: Gerald Lukowski believes "psychic gremlins" implanted pictures in his brain predicting President Clinton's death in a fiery helicopter crash. The former Bensenville man also still is convinced the CIA was behind the 25-hour standoff he had in 1994 with police in which he wounded four officers, causing permanent injury to one. A psychiatrist testified Tuesday those delusions and others are reason enough to keep Lukowski under close watch at the Elgin Mental Health Center. Lukowski is asking DuPage Circuit Judge Robert Anderson to either release him or, at least, let him go unsupervised on the center's grounds and take supervised trips outside the facility. Lukowski has been at the state-run mental facility since he was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity in 1996. Dr. Henry Lehmeyer said Lukowski still is a paranoid schizophrenic. His antisocial behavior has improved, but his delusional thoughts have worsened in the past two years. During Tuesday's hearing Lukowski scrawled a sign on a piece of paper and held it up for the gallery to see. He spelled Lehmeyer's name as "LIEMEYER," insinuating the doctor wasn't telling the truth. Lehmeyer said it was a threatening gesture, reinforcing the mental patient's tendencies toward impulsive behavior. "It concerns me a great deal if he would ever be able to live in an open society," Lehmeyer testified. The court hearing continues next week, when Lukowski and an Elgin Mental Health Center official will testify. Prosecutors Dave Bayer and Paul Marchese said the center also is opposed to giving Lukowski more liberal privileges. Lukowski, 33, was charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery of a police officer following the stand-off at his apartment on Nov. 8, 1994. Police went to his home after a neighbor reported a disturbance. Lukowski refused to come out and fired off about 60 shots before surrendering. Wood Dale Sgt. Terry Baney and three other officers were shot while trying to warn off a motorist who had driven into the line of fire. The other officers received minor injuries, while Baney permanently lost vision in his left eye. A shotgun pellet remains in his eye, lodged next to his optic nerve, inches away from having killed him. Baney, who now serves an administrative role supervising the department's civilian workers, attended Tuesday's court hearing. "I thing the public will be better off wherever he's placed, as long as it's not out in society," Baney said. "My personal feeling is that he's mentally ill but not insane. To this day, that's my belief." But DuPage Public Defender Stephen Baker won the oft- unsuccessful insanity defense after proving Lukowski's mental condition made it impossible for him to control his actions. After the shooting, Lukowski claimed he was the anti-Christ and the president of European nations, and that he was framed for the 1993 Brown's Chicken massacre in Palatine. He also said the CIA, Secret Service and FBI were out to kill him, and that he could talk to newscaster Dan Rather through the television. And he sent love letters to female television reporters. Baker pointed out Tuesday that Lukowski has not physically fought with anyone and is active in Alcoholics Anonymous and other substance-abuse services at the mental health facility.