It's time to take out the trash.
Posted on 05/06/2003 7:23:14 AM PDT by The Other Harry
Killing details revealed
Two counts dropped in death of 2 hikers
By OLYMPIA MEOLA / Daily Progress staff writer
May 6, 2003
One of two female hikers killed in Shenandoah National Park in 1996 was kept alive longer than her friend and tortured, a U.S. attorney said Monday.
During a pretrial motions hearing for Darrell D. Rice in Charlottesville federal court, U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant said Rice kept Julianne Williams alive after he killed Laura "Lollie" Winans. Hair from one of the women was found on duct tape binding the wrists of the other, Bondurant said. Both were missing clothing.
Authorities do not know how long the women’s killer kept them alive. "We don’t know if it was hours or even a day," Bondurant said.
Also Monday, two murder counts charging Rice, 35, of Maryland, with slaying the women because of their "actual or perceived gender or sexual orientation" were dropped. Rice still faces two murder charges.
The counts would have allowed prosecutors to seek enhanced penalties for Rice if he is convicted. But now that Rice faces the death penalty, Bondurant said, they are no longer needed. "If, for some reason, the jury recommends a lesser murder conviction, then those enhancements would be added again," he said after the hearing.
Defense attorney Frederick T. Heblich said the counts were dropped because there was "no basis for the rules or statutory procedure." Dropping the charges does not necessarily mean prosecutors will abandon the hate-crime theory at trial, Heblich added.
Much of the hearing was closed to the public, per U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon’s order. Attorneys for the Roanoke Times asked the judge to open the hearing to the public, but Moon denied the request, saying "to attach [the evidence] to the defendant at this stage would be so prejudicial to the defendant."
Rice was indicted in the deaths of Williams, 24, of Burlington, Vt., and Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, in April 2002, almost six years after their killings.
The women were reported missing in late May 1996 after they did not return from a five-day backpacking trip. The women’s bodies were found by park rangers at a creek-side campsite on June 1, 1996, "bound and gagged, and with their throats cut," U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has said.
Rice has stated that Winans and Williams "deserved to die because they were lesbian whores," according to court papers.
Rice has been in federal prison since 1998, after being convicted of attempting to abduct a female biker and run her over with his car in Shenandoah National Park. He was sentenced to 11 years.
Contact Olympia Meola at (434) 978-7265 or omeola@dailyprogress.com. Daily Progress staff writer Liesel Nowak and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
Just a very tiny bit of thought in what supplies you bring with you can make so much difference in how successful your outing is.
Huh?
I like to see a creep executed as much as the next fella, and if this guy is found guilty, he should hang.
But to add "enhancements" after a verdict? But this is an awful thing; why is it not double jeopardy? Or am I misreading and misunderstanding it?
This is an interesting insight into the actual application of hate crimes legislation. If the prosecutor does not agree with the jury, he can make the crime "worse" to get the death penalty.
I fail to see how this crime could get much worse. To pretend that it is worse because this guy's motivation for killing these women was that they were lesbians is to demean these women as people. This would be 'group identification' taken to the ultimate extreme.
National forest. It's illegal. (But I agree with you.)
No chit, Cherlok. I've never needed a gun, but on two occasions, if I hadn't had one, I would have needed it. It's amazing how much more reasonable belligerent people get when you introduce them to Mr Glock.
He murdered and tortured two people. He should fry, posthaste. Case closed.
Are you trying to tell me that these 2 women actually preferred to be tortured and die, instead of paying a fine for having a gun in a National park after shooting their attacker?
Maybe/probably you are right(since they did not carry handguns), but why would anyone prefer to die instead of carrying a handgun?
Anyone who would make such a statement and commit such a hideous act deserves the maximum penalty. I tend not to believe in the death penalty--not that some do not deserve it, some certainly do--but because DNA evidence et al. have proven that many are falsely convicted, and therefore raise serious doubts about the government's ability (or that of its agents on juries) to convict the guilty and not the innocent.
All that notwithstanding however:
I agree, if he's found guilty. I'm concerned with the precedent, the ability of prosecutors to go back and "enhance" their case if they do not get the desired verdict. This would establish a horrible precedent.
I certainly do not mean that. However, that is exactly what hate crimes legislation says. It is no longer a slippery slope. We have officially arrived at the place where one group is considered more valuable in the eyes of the law than another. There is more at work here than Justice taking off the blindfold. If one group is more valuable, then another must be less valuable. This is the destruction of the individual and, along with it, individual liberties. Unchecked, it is all downhill from here.
I didn't mean YOU. I was responding to the article and the prosecutor quoted therein. Oops. Sorry, etc.
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