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The Star's Topeka correspondent TOPEKA - Kansas is one of only four states that offer no concealed weapons permits. Advocates of concealed weapons say they hope election-year politics may change that. As they have for years, pro-gun lawmakers are pushing a bill that would set up a permit process for residents who want to carry a concealed firearm. Similar measures have passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate in recent years, but have always met with a gubernatorial veto. This year, however, is a re-election year for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and proponents of the right-to-carry measure say the...

The husband of a slain Wichita cellist is suing the state, claiming it negligently paroled Reginald Carr, the man who would later murder his wife. Don Walenta filed the lawsuit Monday in Sedgwick County District Court, little more than three weeks after a jury sentenced Reginald Carr and his brother Jonathan to death. The Carrs were convicted of murdering cellist Ann Walenta and four others during a December 2000 crime spree. The complaint says that if the state had not mistakenly released Reginald Carr from parole, he would have been in jail the night Ann Walenta was shot. Walenta's...

State corrections officials figure eight to 12 years could pass before Reginald and Jonathan Carr receive lethal injections for a quadruple murder. In the meantime, the two brothers from Dodge City will live solitary, stark years in the maximum-security unit of El Dorado Correctional Facility. Last week, a Wichita jury sentenced them to die. To many people, their crimes were so cruel and unspeakable, any accommodation for them is too nice. Larry Heyka, father of Brad Heyka, one of four friends found shot to death in a snowy soccer field, would not comment on the prison conditions the Carrs...

Eight times Thursday, the court bailiff repeated the same sentence for Jonathan and Reginald Carr: death. For each of the four people who died kneeling before a pistol on Dec. 15, 2000, each brother received one sentence to die. Jurors wore solemn or pained expressions as bailiff Maria Marquez read their decision, which they returned shortly after 5 p.m., following seven hours of deliberations. One woman in the jury box stiffened her lips and held hands with an alternate juror sitting beside her. The woman who survived the shooting in the snowy soccer field at K-96 and Greenwich Road,...

Reginald and Johnathan Carr were both sentenced to death for four murders in Wichita in December 200.The jury in the Carr capital murder trial, which last week convicted the two men of the murders and a long list of other crimes agreed that both men should be executed for the capital murders.The two will be sentenced by Judge Paul Clark tomorrow on the remaining charges.

Breaking News: [5:45pm] Jury recommends death sentence for each of the Capital Murder charges - After deliberating for the day, the Carr Brothers jury have given their recommendation for sentencing.

Today, Reginald Carr Jr. will spend his 25th birthday waiting for a jury to decide whether he and his younger brother, Jonathan, should die for the murders of four people. As part of the penalty phase of the brothers' trial, jurors heard testimony from witnesses, which lasted a week, followed by Wednesday's closing arguments. The jury decided to begin sentencing deliberations this morning. Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston spoke softly and deliberately as she began her closing for the jury. But her voice rose, cracked and filled with emotion as she talked about the robbery and rape of...

WICHITA -- A clinical psychologist testified that Jonathan Carr told him Tuesday that he had smoked the hallucinogenic drug PCP in the hour before a home invasion that ended with four murders. The comments to psychologist Mark Cunningham came just as testimony resumed in the penalty phase of Carr's capital murder trial in Sedgwick County District Court. Carr and his brother Reginald Carr were convicted last week on murder, robbery and sex crimes charges stemming from a nine-day rampage in December 2000. A total of five people were killed. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Cunningham said Carr also...

Guilty... guilty... guilty... guilty.... Ninety-three times the jury answered the charges against Reginald and Jonathan Carr. The verdicts resolved a weeklong crime spree that had turned nastier than anyone could imagine, culminating with four people shot to death Dec. 15, 2000. One woman survived to tell of a night of terror, rape and robbery that made a city cringe. But the jury couldn't answer a question that still haunted Wichita: What kind of people would do this? This past week, as the Dodge City brothers pleaded for their lives in the penalty phase of their capital murder trial, family...

A neuropsychologist who examined Reginald Carr testified Friday that brain damage, psychological problems, alcohol and drugs all could have come into play the night he and his brother terrorized, robbed, raped and shot five people execution style in a snowy soccer complex Dec 15, 2000. "Reggie's brain is geared for not only bad behavior, but terrible behavior," said Mitchel Woltersdorf, who specializes in brain-disorderpsychology. He testified in the penalty phase of Reginald and Jonathan Carr's trial. They both face the death penalty for the shootings, which left four people dead. A psychologist who examined Jonathan Carr is expected to...

Two black-faced dummies hanging by nooses in a Wichita front yard -- one resident's statement against two men convicted of a killing spree -- does not constitute a hate crime, police said Friday. "As disturbing as it may be to our community, it does not rise to the level of a crime," Deputy Police Chief Robert Lee said at a news conference. Only hours earlier, about a dozen black activists held another news conference in front of the Sedgwick County Courthouse to demand that authorities investigate the yard display as a racially motivated crime. Especially for black people, they...

WICHITA -- A forensic psychologist testified Thursday that Reginald Carr began having sexual interaction with girls at age 6 and that he was devastated when his father abandoned the family. "Father abandonment, any parent abandonment, is a major risk factor across every study and textbook you wanted to read," psychologist Thomas Reidy said. "In this instance, Mr. Carr had a strong positive feeling about his father." Reidy's testimony came on the third day of the penalty phase of Reginald and Jonathan Carr's capital murder trial. The brothers were convicted Monday on murder, robbery and sex crimes charges stemming from...

Here is a story of two trials and how they were covered in the news. Or not covered. You tell me what it says about the media's twisted values. The first trial was held in Beverly Hills. The accused was Hollywood starlet Winona Ryder, charged with shoplifting at a Saks Fifth Avenue store. A Nexis search turned up more than 500 stories on the trial published over the past week alone. Television, news and radio reporters from around the world breathlessly described Ryder's daily court attire -- her hairbands, her coatdresses, her shoes, her bra straps, her lipstick. We...

Juanita Culver found it hard to believe that the Jonathan Carr she knew could be facing the death penalty for a crime rampage that included multiple rapes, robberies and murders. But District Attorney Nola Foulston wanted to clarify the crimes for the 73-year-old woman from Dodge City, who testified Wednesday in the penalty phase of Jonathan and Reginald Carr's capital murder trial. Foulston showed Culver color crime-scene photos from a soccer field where four people were shot to death on Dec. 15, 2000, and asked: Did that change her mind? "No, it doesn't.... I see that stuff, but it's...

WICHITA -- The mother of two brothers convicted of killing five people pleaded with jurors Tuesday to spare the men's lives, saying her children are pretty good and what happened two years ago was a horrible mistake. "I know other families out there are probably hating me to death. I am sorry for them, but spare my children. I love them just as much as you would love your children. I believe there is good in them. There is just something went wrong along the way," Janice Harding testified. Harding said her job in Dodge City has kept her...

Today, Jonathan and Reginald Carr begin fighting for their lives. A jury Monday found the brothers guilty of killing four Wichita residents on Dec. 15, 2000. Now, the jury must decide whether to sentence the brothers to death. Judge Paul Clark ordered the penalty phase of the trial to begin this morning. "Justice has been served -- and it is long awaited," Chief Deputy District Attorney Kim Parker said. Jurors found Reginald Carr, 24, guilty of all 50 crimes charged against him, including the capital murders of Dec. 15, the first-degree murder of Ann Walenta four days earlier and...

<p>WICHITA, Kan. — Brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr were found guilty Monday of four counts of capital murder for the execution-style killing of four friends two years ago in a snow-covered soccer field.</p> <p>Reginald Carr, 24, and Jonathan Carr, 22, were convicted for the Dec. 15, 2000, deaths of Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka, 27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25.</p>

Just heard, Reginald and Jonathan Carr declared guilty on over 40 counts including Burglary, Rape, Aggaravated Sodomy, and 4 counts of Murder. Nothing Follows.

Kim Parker knew that in a courtroom, no one hears the screams. For the veteran prosecutor, conveying to a jury in a quiet courtroom what she had seen in a snowy soccer field before dawn on Dec 15, 2000, would be her biggest challenge. Heather Muller must have felt the gun barrel touch her head before someone pulled the trigger. Investigators could tell that just from looking at the wound on the back of her head. She wouldn't be able to tell about that feeling. No one but one surviving woman would hear Aaron Sander plead: "Oh, God, no.......

Carr jury recesses for weekendJurors to resume deliberations Monday in trial of brothers accused in killing rampage WICHITA -- Behind the closed doors of a courtroom stacked with evidence, jurors deliberated all day Friday without reaching a verdict in the murder trial of two brothers accused of a nine-day crime rampage that left five people dead. Deliberations were to resume Monday. Jurors must decide on a combined total of 97 counts against Reginald Carr, 24, and Jonathan Carr, 22, that stem from a quadruple killing, a single homicide and a separate robbery. By late afternoon, defense attorneys gathered in the...

Deliberations begin in Carr trial Killing spree: Closing arguments that included graphic pictures of shooting victims move juror to tears WICHITA -- After emotional closing arguments from prosecutors, jurors began deliberations late Thursday in the trial of two brothers accused of a nine-day crime spree that left five people dead. One juror was in tears during District Attorney Nola Foulston's fiery oration that included a computer presentation of graphic pictures of four victims lying in the snow-covered soccer field where they died. "You have four people frozen in time -- bullets that thrashed through their brains that drew the...

Carrs' defense rests; jury deliberation near After listening to agonizing details of five killings, repeated rapes and robberies, jurors in the capital murder case of Reginald and Jonathan Carr finally had something to smile about Wednesday. They'll get the case today. "We rest," said Mark Manna, one of Jonathan Carr's lawyers, after introducing his lone piece of evidence: an Amtrak train ticket from Newton to Cleveland, Ohio, for the morning of a quadruple homicide. Manna's minute-long presentation brought smiles from jurors, who'd spent the day listening to a DNA expert testify for Reginald Carr. That witness did little to...

Survivor's police interview rattles Carr trial jurors Jurors who managed restrained reactions through weeks of emotional evidence in the Carr brothers' murder trial appeared to be on the verge of tears Tuesday morning. Some in the jury box clenched their teeth, others wiped their eyes, as the defense took the curious step of replaying the story of the state's star witness -- the survivor of the quadruple homicide. Playing the videotaped interview between the woman and police -- recorded two weeks after the Dec. 15, 2000, killings -- left courtroom onlookers moved and baffled. Reginald Carr's lawyers offered no...

<p>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A judge's decision yesterday to disallow hearsay evidence makes it unlikely that Reginald Carr, one of two brothers accused of a nine-day crime spree that left five persons dead, will testify in his own defense.</p> <p>Reginald Carr's attorney, John Val Wachtel, told District Judge Paul Clark yesterday that his client would testify that Jonathan Carr gave his brother a cell phone before leaving with an unknown man the evening of Dec. 14, 2000.</p>

Carr jurors get break as deliberation rules ironed out While jurors take the day off from testimony, lawyers and the judge will be working today in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr. Testimony has recessed until Tuesday because of scheduling with an out-of-town expert for Reginald Carr's defense. Jonathan Carr's defense doesn't plan to call any witnesses. The state rested its case Friday morning. Prosecutors, the defense and Judge Paul Clark will work today on trying to finalize jury instructions. Before the trial ends, the judge will give jurors printed instructions outlining the laws they must...

DNA lets the dead speak in Carr trial EDITOR'S NOTE: The Carr brothers' capital murder trial is offering, for the first time, a clearer picture of events surrounding a quadruple homicide Dec 15, 2000. In this account, drawn from testimony for the prosecution last week, forensic investigators piece together evidence. Some content is graphic, and reader discretion is advised. Heather Muller can't tell about the horrible last moments of her life. Still, she has become one of the most important witnesses against the men police suspected of raping, robbing and killing her. Muller would give the kind of testimony...

After finishing what appeared to be an overwhelming case Friday morning, prosecutors began dismantling the defense of Reginald Carr. District Attorney Nola Foulston and Chief Deputy Kim Parker turned around the testimony of two defense witnesses on cross-examination and kept another from testifying, sending the jury in the capital murder trial home before lunch. Reginald Carr's defense continues Tuesday, with the scheduled arrival of a DNA expert. Jonathan Carr, Reginald's younger brother and co-defendant, plans on calling no witnesses, his lawyers told Judge Paul Clark. So strong was the state's evidence -- marked by 849 exhibits -- a routine...

State to rest case against the CarrsIt has taken three weeks for prosecutors to present all their evidence in the murder trial. The Sedgwick County District Attorney's office will rest its case this morning against Jonathan and Reginald Carr after providing a mountain of evidence in the capital murder case. Reginald Carr's defense got a head start Thursday and stalled a bit of the state's momentum with lengthy cross-examination focusing on the weakest DNA link to their client. But the sheer weight of evidence surrounding the quadruple homicide on Dec. 15, 2000, is imposing. District Attorney Nola Foulston and Chief...

<p>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Escorted by law-enforcement vehicles, jurors in the capital murder case of Reginald and Jonathan Carr yesterday boarded a city trolley to tour the scenes of a nine-day crime rampage nearly two years ago.</p> <p>In pouring rain, the trolley slowly drove by the house where Ann Walenta was shot, as well as the house where five friends were abducted and the soccer field where they were later shot. They also drove by the house where the sole survivor of the shootings ran for help and the spot where the murder weapon was found at the side of a highway.</p>

Mary Dudley spoke with a soft bedside manner Tuesday as she gave the jury a clinical view of killing in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr. Testimony by Dudley, Sedgwick County's coroner, came with diagrams and color photographs of autopsies to document beatings, rapes and gunshot wounds that left five people dead in December 2000. Such evidence inevitably becomes part of any murder trial, and it can be difficult to watch. A juror fainted in one Wichita murder trial last year, but the Carrs' jurors maintained the stoic demeanor they have shown throughout the past three weeks....

Reginald and Jonathan Carr's final attack began on the evening of Dec. 14, when the two brothers burst into a Wichita, Kan., home and pulled out their guns. Several days earlier, the Carr brothers had taken a man hostage at gunpoint, robbing him of $800 before leaving him stranded on a dirt rode. A few days after that, they discharged a bullet into the skull of a 55-year-old female cellist, as she parked her car outside of her home. Then, on Dec. 14, the Carr brothers took five Wichita residents - three men, two women - hostage. The brothers...

Luck, vivid memories helped cops By Ron Sylvester - The Wichita Eagle - Sun, Oct. 20, 2002 Police say they sometimes rely on dumb luck and dumb mistakes to solve crimes. They had a little of both Dec 15, 2000, when a woman showed up naked on a doorstep and said she and four friends had been terrorized and then shot on a soccer field. First, she lived to tell. Then, as television stations broadcast news of a second quadruple homicide in eight days, Wichitans took it personally. They watched for stolen vehicles and suspects they had heard about....

Carr trial to focus on guns and DNAProsecutors spend Friday laying the foundation to tie the Carr brothers to a handgun and five deaths. By Ron Sylvester - The Wichita Eagle - Sat, Oct. 19, 2002 The jury in the murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr should hear lab tests about guns and DNA when testimony resumes Monday. Prosecutors spent most of Friday laying legal foundation for those reports, which are expected to tie a gun to three incidents committed in December 2000 that left five people dead. DNA evidence, prosecutors hope, will prove the presence of one...

Survivor says she caught STD By Roxana Hegeman - The Associated Press - 10/18/2002 WICHITA -- A woman who survived a rape and shooting surprised prosecutors Thursday by telling them she had contracted the same sexually transmitted disease a detective just testified one of the suspects had. The woman alerted prosecutors after she watched live televised coverage of a police detective telling jurors that Reginald Carr had a sexually transmitted disease. The woman said that about two months after the attacks her doctor told her she had the same condition, District Attorney Nola Foulston said. Outside the jury's presence,...

Testimony on cellist slaying fills Carr trial By Ron Sylvester - The Wichita Eagle - Thu, Oct. 17, 2002 Anna Kelley said she initially dismissed her teenage daughter's claim that she had heard three gunshots outside their house on a quiet cul-de-sac in east Wichita. "That's not really the kind of thing that happened around here," Kelley testified Wednesday in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr. Kelley told of the night her neighbor Ann Walenta suffered gunshot wounds that would later prove fatal. The Carr brothers are charged with Walenta's death, one of more than 100...

ATM photos shown in Carr trial By Roxana Hegeman - The Associated Press - 10/16/2002 WICHITA -- Family members cried and held hands in court Tuesday as prosecutors showed jurors surveillance photos from automated teller machines where their loved ones were forced to make withdrawals before they were killed. Detective Jimmie Merrick, a financial crimes investigator with the Wichita Police Department, outlined for jurors the numerous withdrawals and attempted withdrawals from the accounts of Aaron Sander, Brad Heyka, Jason Befort and a woman who survived the shootings. Merrick testified that a total of $1,830 was taken from the four....

'I was afraid,' witness saysToni 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, 2002 When 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...

<p>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Toni Greene told jurors yesterday that she was just being a nosey mother when she went through the jacket pockets of a young man her teenage daughter had met at the mall days earlier.</p> <p>She found a diamond engagement ring in the pocket of Jonathan Carr's leather jacket. He was sleeping on her living room couch at the time.</p>

<p>WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- The grim details of how two brothers allegedly committed a nine-day crime rampage that left five people dead are being closely monitored by a community that is still shaken nearly two years after the slayings and more than a month into the brothers' murder trial.</p>

(CNSNews.com) - The Wichita, Kan., trial of two brothers charged with murdering five people and wounding a sixth in a December 2000 crime spree has local residents and prominent black leaders wondering why the national media have been relatively silent in the matter. Because the suspects, Jonathan and Reginald Carr, are black and their victims white, many observers in Wichita expected the brothers to be charged with hate crimes, which presumably would have sparked national news coverage. It didn't happen and some are raising the specter of a racial double standard by the national media, based on the lack of...

Trial opens window into night of fear BY RON SYLVESTER - The Wichita Eagle - Sun, Oct. 13, 2002 "Potential homicide... multiple victims... 37th and Greenwich Road.... " Deputy Matthew Lynch was halfway through his shift on the overnight road patrol when he heard that dispatch at 2:44 a.m. He was on Webb Road, just minutes away. Lynch saw nothing as he drove south on Greenwich Road. He continued until he saw a Honda Civic in a field at the end of a median at 29th Street North. He stepped out of his Sedgwick County sheriffs' patrol car into...

Victims' belongings linked to defendantAlso on Friday, a former WSU baseball player recounts being carjacked a week before the killings. BY RON SYLVESTER - The Wichita Eagle - Sat, Oct. 12, 2002 Crime scene investigators accustomed to scouring for spots, hairs and fingerprints found a mass of property belonging to the four homicide victims inside the Wichita apartment where police arrested Reginald Carr. What the investigators searched, wrapped and logged as evidence suggests greed as a motive in the shooting deaths of four people in a snowy soccer field earlier that morning, Dec 15, 2000. The property, some of...

Reginald Carr had $996, victims' credit card, watchOfficers recount arrest BY HURST LAVIANA - The Wichita Eagle - Fri, Oct. 11, 2002 Reginald Carr made a dash for the balcony door when he heard a knock from police officers who were tracking down a suspect in the execution-style murders of four Wichitans, a Sedgwick County jury was told Thursday. But when Carr was greeted outside by half a dozen other officers with guns drawn, he ducked back inside, only to be overwhelmed by officers who were storming the apartment. A description of the arrest came during the fourth day...

Woman testifies that Carrs killed her friends in a soccer fieldAn inexpensive hair clip may have deflected the bullet that was intended to kill her. Thu, Oct. 10, 2002 - BY RON SYLVESTER - The Wichita Eagle A 25-cent plastic hair clip may be responsible for pulling together the capital murder case against Jonathan and Reginald Carr. The hair clip helped save the life of a woman who on Wednesday identified the Carr brothers as the men who raped and robbed her and four friends before shooting them and leaving them for dead in a snowy soccer field. Investigators...

Carr trial: Survivor describes sexual attacks by armed intruders By Roxana Hegeman - The Associated Press 11:45 p.m. 10/8/2002 WICHITA -- Her voice steady, the sole survivor of a quadruple homicide graphically described for jurors Tuesday the sexual attacks she and her four friends endured the last night they spent together. Defendants Reginald and Jonathan Carr stared at the woman as she recounted in detail how the five friends were forced by armed intruders to have sex while the intruders watched, and how she herself was raped. The Carr brothers are on trial in Sedgwick County District Court charged...

Legal wrangling opens Carr trial A lawyer for Reginald Carr suggests that Jonathan Carr and an unknown man committed the crimes. Jonathan Carr's lawyer requests a mistrial and is denied.BY RON SYLVESTER - The Wichita Eagle - Tue, Oct. 08, 2002 A call for a mistrial Monday highlighted the first day of testimony in the murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr.Val Wachtel, lawyer for Reginald Carr, drew objections from prosecutors and from Jonathan Carr's lawyer when he suggested in his opening statement that Jonathan Carr and another man were responsible for four of the murders the brothers are...

<p>After two years, two brothers accused of a week-long rampage of murder, rape and robbery in the American heartland will have their reckoning in a Kansas criminal court. The trial began Monday.</p> <p>In all, Reginald Carr, 24, and Jonathan Carr, 22, face 58 charges each. Of the six people they are accused of trying to kill, only one survived. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.</p>

Posted on Mon, Oct. 07, 2002 Deputy recalls moment of discovering bodies Jurors showed no emotion today as they passed a photo of the quadruple homicide crime scene at an east-side soccer complex nearly two years ago.But Sedgwick County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Lynch's voice cracked as he fought back tears while recalling when he arrived to find the four bodies in the early morning hours of Dec. 15,2000.It was part of the first day's evidence in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr, the Dodge City brothers charged with dozens of crimes including capital murder.The state spent...

<p>For nearly two years, residents of Wichita, Kan., have tried to push from their minds the image of a young woman, naked and bleeding from a head wound, running for her life across a frozen soccer field.</p> <p>But beginning today, the memories of "the Wichita horror" will be impossible to escape when testimony begins in the multiple-murder trial of Reginald and Jonathan Carr.</p>

<p>A notorious murder case that some observers say has been ignored because the victims are not minorities finally comes to court — and television. The "Wichita horror" trial will be broadcast by Court TV once jury selection is complete late this week.</p>