Posted on 10/15/2002 5:02:26 AM PDT by KS Flyover
'I was afraid,' witness says
Toni Greene, who realized the man police were looking for was asleep on her couch, testifies at the Carr brothers trial. By Ron Sylvester - The Wichita Eagle - Tue, Oct. 15, 2002When Toni Greene heard news reports describing one of the suspects in a quadruple homicide the morning of Dec 15, 2000, the description sounded a lot like the man sleeping on her couch.
His name: Jonathan Carr.
Monday, Greene was on the witness stand pointing out Jonathan Carr and his brother Reginald Carr during their multiple capital murder trial.
"Shock, confusion," is how Greene described her uneasy feelings that morning. She had just made the connection between the man who had been hanging around her daughter, Tronda Adams, about a week and a suspect wanted for kidnapping, raping, robbing, then shooting five people. Four died in a snow-covered soccer field; one survived.
Greene already had been feeling sick enough to leave work as a home health care professional that morning. After returning to her house in the 1500 block of North Pennsylvania Avenue, she had begun cleaning.
She picked up Jonathan Carr's leather jacket and rifled through the pockets. She found a maroon jewelry box containing a diamond ring.
"Just being nosy," Greene testified. "I've got teenage daughters, and they don't tell you everything. You have to investigate."
At first, Greene said she thought the ring was for a girlfriend Jonathan Carr may have been seeing in Cleveland. That's where he said he was supposed to be headed after catching the train in Newton earlier that morning. Instead, he ended up at her house. Greene said the ring couldn't have been for her daughter because Adams and Carr had just met a few days before at Towne East Square.
Greene started getting worried when she heard on the news about five people being shot in a soccer field. Reporters said a surviving woman told police how two men had attacked her and her friends, forcing them at gunpoint to take cash out of ATMs. The reporter said the intruders had also taken a diamond engagement ring, meant as a present to the survivor from her boyfriend, one of the four who died.
Police arrested one suspect, Greene learned, and were looking for another. She heard the suspect could be driving a white Plymouth.
Greene looked out in front of her house. On the street sat a white Plymouth. She grabbed her mobile telephone but didn't want to call police from inside her house.
"I was afraid," she said.
Greene told Adams to grab a niece staying with them and leave. Adams wanted to get her shoes before going out in the snow.
"You can leave without your shoes," Greene remembered telling her daughter. "Let's go."
Dawnyieka Buggs lived across the street. She had returned about 11 a.m. from working the morning as a house manager of a residential care facility for the developmentally disabled. She had noticed the white Plymouth when she warmed up her car for work at 5:20 a.m.
Buggs testified earlier Monday that it seemed odd to her that while her car was frosted over, the Plymouth had clear windows.
The car perturbed Buggs, too, because she had asked her neighbors to keep cars from parking directly across from her driveway. Buggs didn't want to hit a car backing out onto the icy, narrow road.
The Plymouth was still there when Buggs returned from work and laid down to try to take a nap before noon. She said it seemed like she hadn't been there long when Greene banged on the door.
"She was agitated," Buggs said. "She was upset and frightened that this person had been over to her house."
Seeing Greene running across the street caused a commotion with other neighbors. The woman who lived next door to Greene called Buggs to ask what was happening.
By then, Greene was calling 911 on her cell phone.
"The guy you're looking for is at my house," Greene recalled telling the 911 operator.
Buggs told the neighbor she had to go. Buggs called 911, too.
Both women were looking out the front door when they saw Jonathan Carr. He was standing in a T-shirt and jeans on Greene's porch. He shrugged to Adams, who stood on Buggs' porch.
"He was like, 'What's up? When are you coming back?' " Buggs said of Carr's motions.
Buggs and Greene saw him close the door. With sirens approaching in the distance, Jonathan Carr ran out the back door, not even taking time to grab his coat.
Police arrived as he was running across a field. Two officers caught up with him as he tried to hide between the storm door and the front door of a house two blocks away. They arrested him.
In Carr's left front pocket, police found $1,000 and a nickel in cash. In his right pocket, Carr had $160 cash.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
"Wichita Massacre" Posts:
Killing Suspect Just Out of Jail - 01/01/2001
Scott McConnell: "Unfit to Print" - 01/10/2001
THE WICHITA HORROR - 01/13/2001
DA, Public Interest Clash Over Records (Wichita multiple murder) - 01/13/2001
Court seals case files in Wichita quadruple homicides - 01/14/2001
Lawyer asks to close pretrial proceedings (Update on The Wichita Horror) - 01/17/2001
Lawyers brawl over records (Wichita Horror/Quadruple Homicide) - 01/27/2001
BLOODY KANSAS: HATE CRIMES IN WICHITA? - 02/12/2001
Hate Crimes: A One-Way Street? - 03/05/2001
Carrs (Wichita Horror) to have joint preliminary hearing - 04/14/2001
The Wichita Massacre - 07/16/2002 - [Details about the murders]
BLACK RACISM: THE HATE CRIME THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME - 07/16/2002
'Wichita Horror' trial to begin - 09/09/2002
Court TV to air 'Wichita horror' - 09/18/2002
Wichita Massacre Trial Media Blackout - 09/27/2002
Trial Threads:
Wichita to revisit brutal slayings as testimony begins - 10/07/2002
Deputy recalls moment of discovering bodies [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/07/2002
WICHITA MASSACRE TRIAL UNDERWAY Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Legal wrangling opens Carr trial [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Carr trial: Survivor describes sexual attacks by armed intruders [Wichita Massacre] Day 2 - 10/09/2002
Witchita Case of Black Racist Crime Survivor's testimony horrifies courtroom Day 2 - 10/10/2002
Woman testifies that Carrs killed her friends in a soccer field [Wichita Massacre Day 3] - 10/10/2002
Prosecutors Downplay Racial Element in Kansas Murder Trial - 10/11/2002
Reginald Carr had $996, victims' credit card, watch [Wichita Massacre Day 4] - 10/11/2002
Wichita Massacre Audio of 911 Call by Female Survivor with Court Room Video Footage From Day 1- 10/11/2002
Victims' belongings linked to defendant [Wichita Massacre Day 5] - 10/12/2002
Trial opens window into night of fear - 10/13/2002
Media Ignore Kansas Interracial Mass Murder - 10/14/2002
AP Finally Reports Wichita Trial... But Mentions "White Supremacist" Support - 10/14/2002
"Wichita Massacre" murder trial "Ping List".Please let me know if you want on (or off) this list.
Toni Greene identifies a picture of Jonathan Carr, as he appeared when he was arrested, during Monday's testimony in Wichita. Carr and his brother, Reginald, are on trial in Sedgwick County District Court for crimes stemming from a nine-day robbery and killing rampage in December 2000. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The Associated Press
Too bad this case is not making even a blip on the national radar screen. . .has Jesse comented; Al? . . .yet?
. . .indeed. . .and I have read it. Even when one of 'their own' comes out and challenges them on their bias. . .they continue to do what they do best.
No shame; no gain. . .and they continue to lose revenues.
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