[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., ALA., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 21



PENNSYLVANIA:

For mass murderer Michael Ballard, a case of live or let die?


James Connell, a public defender for mass murderer Michael Eric Ballard, says 
he believes every life is worth living.

Yet, he is willing to help Ballard in his desire to waive his appeals and be 
put to death for massacring 4 people in a Northampton home in 2010.

Marc Bookman, a lawyer who heads a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that fights 
capital punishment, wants to try to save Ballard's life.

Yet, when Bookman filed an appeal on Ballard's behalf this year, he did so 
without having ever met the death-row inmate, who says the petition was done 
without his permission and against his wish to be executed.

Connell and Bookman are both veteran attorneys who have defended many difficult 
cases. But their vastly differing approach to Ballard speaks to the stark 
ethical choices that capital defense lawyers face when the condemned do the 
unexpected and challenge the state to carry out their sentences.

In an interview, Connell said he opposes the death penalty and believes society 
should not kill. But while he would like Ballard to change his mind, Connell 
said he doesn't lose sleep over his role in the case, believing that he and 
Michael Corriere, Ballard's lead attorney at trial, have done the best they 
could by him.

"There's no talking him out of it," Connell said. "I think at this point, if 
the governor signs the warrant, he'll say, 'Kill me tomorrow.'"

It is a difficult position to be in and one that raises weighty questions, 
acknowledged Corriere, Northampton County's former chief public defender. But, 
he said, as long as Ballard is mentally competent to make the decision, as they 
believe he is, they have to honor his desire.

"We have to be respectful of Mr. Ballard too," Corriere said. "That's the job 
of the lawyer, to respect your client's wishes. Because in the end, it's his 
choice."

Corriere and Connell represent one view of the duty of death-penalty attorneys: 
that their sole obligation is to their client, whether they agree with his 
decision or not.

On the other side are those who say that death is different, with neither the 
inmate nor the justice system well-served when a defense lawyer acquiesces to a 
punishment that opponents have long maintained is cruel and unusual.

"Most courts have said it is the defendant's choice: keep fighting or accept 
the death sentence," said Jules Epstein, a Widener University law professor who 
represents death-row inmates. "But there is an argument that the Eighth 
Amendment reflects a societal judgment on who deserves the death penalty. And 
that decision has to be made with a proper proceeding and not by the decision 
of the defendant."

Regardless of where one falls in the debate, there's agreement on one thing:

"This is agonizing stuff you are talking about," said Evan Mandery, a professor 
at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who is a nationally known 
expert on the death penalty. "I've dealt with agonizing stuff, but this is 
unique."

The stakes are extremely high, considering that in the modern era of capital 
punishment, Pennsylvania has only executed inmates when they volunteered for it 
by abandoning their appeals. That's what the 41-year-old Ballard maintains he 
wants, saying he'd rather die than endure decades of legal jockeying from 
solitary confinement.

By Ballard's own admission, 5 people have been murdered at his hands.

The 1st was in 1991 and led to Ballard serving 17 years in state prison. His 
victim, 56-year-old Donald Richard, was stabbed to death after apparently 
making a pass at Ballard while showing him an apartment for rent in Allentown.

Somehow, I suspect the Commonwealth will find numerous reasons not to execute 
Ballard. It will be a very good day if and when it happens, however, I'm not 
holding my breath for it to occur.

Nearly 2 decades later, Ballard went to the Northampton home of a woman he had 
been seeing and knifed to death 3 generations of her family. Slain on June 26, 
2010 were former girlfriend Denise Merhi, 39; her father, Dennis Marsh, 62; her 
grandfather, Alvin Marsh Jr., 87; and Steven Zernhelt, 53, a neighbor who heard 
screams and tried to help.

The state Supreme Court upheld Ballard's death sentence in November, citing 
overwhelming evidence to support it.

It was after that decision that Bookman filed an appeal in Ballard's name, 
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Bookman has since faced 
hard-hitting public criticism, as has the group of lawyers that he indicated 
had asked him to pursue it, the Federal Community Defender Office in 
Philadelphia.

In June, Ballard wrote the nation's justices directly, charging Bookman's 
filing was done behind his back. District Attorney John Morganelli has since 
accused the lawyers of improperly fighting for a cause, and not a client, by 
interjecting themselves where they are not wanted.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court forwarded Ballard's complaint to the state 
Disciplinary Board, which oversees attorney ethics, for investigation. And 
Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano barred either Bookman or the federal 
defenders from appearing in Ballard's case without permission, ruling during a 
court hearing that one of the defenders, Billy Nolas, lacked standing to even 
address the court.

But legal ethicists and experts on death-penalty law say that the position 
staked by Ballard's trial attorneys, Connell and Corriere, is also fraught with 
moral quandaries.

Should defense lawyers, whose duty is to help their client, do so when the goal 
is, arguably, state-assisted suicide? If so, how active a role should they 
play? Should they file legal briefs and argue in court on the killer's behalf? 
Or simply agree to do nothing to stop their client from the aim?

Also, what steps should they take to ensure their client is competent to make 
the decision? Is it enough to yourself believe the killer is acting rationally, 
or should you bring in a battery of specialists to conduct tests to also opine 
on whether that is so?

Epstein, the Widener law professor, said he was disappointed that Giordano has 
appointed Corriere and Connell to continue to represent Ballard, though Ballard 
asked for just that at the hearing Aug. 29.

Ballard's next stop in the appeals process, if he chose to pursue it, would be 
a petition for post-conviction relief. Under it, defendants question the 
decisions their trial lawyers made in their case, to argue they didn't receive 
competent representation - as they are constitutionally entitled.

But how can Ballard know if his attorneys made mistakes, when they are the ones 
who continue advising him, Epstein asked. The arrangement, he argued, presents 
a conflict under which Ballard will not receive good advice on his chances to 
overturn his sentence.

"In deciding whether to give up all appeals, someone should be able to advise 
Mr. Ballard of the legal issues that can be raised," Epstein said. "And that 
should be someone who has read his trial transcript, and read his appeals and 
looked for all possible mistakes. His trial lawyers can't be in that position."

Corriere has said that he informed Ballard of his legal options after the state 
Supreme Court upheld his sentence last year. But while Corriere said he 
suggested Ballard should seek a "second opinion" through new counsel and the 
post-conviction process, his client did not want to proceed any further.

Law professors raised other ethical issues that confront Corriere and Connell.

Mandery, of John Jay College, said if he were Ballard's lawyer, he'd have to be 
satisfied his client was making his decision without the influence of 
depression or mental illness. Even then, Mandery said, he would view helping 
Ballard be put to death as "morally complicated."

"I'm not sure I could do that as a lawyer," Mandery said. "I'm not sure I could 
bring myself to do that."

Doris DelTosto Brogan, a legal ethicist at Villanova University, expressed 
similar reservations. Though she labels herself a strong believer in "client 
autonomy" - that is, clients' right to have their lawyers follow their wishes - 
she said death creates a gray area in which she believes an attorney needs to 
probe questions of the inmate's mental health as aggressively as possible.

"The lawyer should absolutely and positively look hard at, and pursue, the 
competency thing," Brogan said.

Ballard's mental balance is being evaluated by a forensic psychologist, though 
at the request of Giordano. A report on Ballard's competency by Dr. Frank 
Dattilio of Salisbury Township is due by Oct. 7. The conclusions will be the 
subject of a hearing Oct. 13 at the courthouse in Easton.

Somehow, I suspect the Commonwealth will find numerous reasons not to execute 
Ballard. It will be a very good day if and when it happens, however, I'm not 
holding my breath for it to occur.

Giordano ordered the work-up over the objections of Ballard, who told him that 
"there's no question of my sanity." Before Ballard's 2011 trial, three doctors 
- including Dattilio - examined him for the defense and determined he was 
competent. Ballard noted those conclusions to Giordano, who asked his attorneys 
to weigh in with their personal views.

"As a lay person, do I think he is?" Corriere replied. "I think he is, yes."

Ballard, for his part, has praised his lawyers. In a death-row interview in 
July with The Morning Call, Ballard said he "absolutely" believes he had a fair 
trial, and that Corriere and Connell "absolutely" served him well during it.

"I don't have any complaints about Mike or Jimmy," Ballard said. "I'm still in 
contact with both of them to this day."

Before Giordano, Ballard apologetically noted that he "screwed up" Connell's 
first name when he wrote the U.S. Supreme Court about Bookman - referring to 
his lawyer as "John" and not James.

"I've been called worse," Connell quipped.

So has A. Charles Peruto Jr., a Philadelphia lawyer who represented the last 
killer executed in Pennsylvania, "house of horrors" murderer Gary Heidnik, who 
was lethally injected in 1999. Peruto supported Heidnik in his effort to be put 
to death, even as the federal defenders unsuccessfully argued he wasn't 
competent.

In a recent interview, Peruto said Heidnik's decision and his role in it never 
caused him to hesitate.

"It was not only his wish, but I thoroughly explored it to make sure it was his 
wish," Peruto said. "Your oath is to your client."

John Burkoff, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said he has 
friends in the legal community who have quit taking capital cases because of 
the moral difficulty they had in adopting such stances. While lawyers can offer 
advice, in the end it must be the clients who make the final call, Burkoff 
said.

"People are allowed to make their own choices about their lives, even if those 
are stupid ones," Burkoff said. "Essentially, you have a constitutional right 
in the United States to do stupid things."

Morganelli agrees. He maintains that the ethical dilemmas in Ballard's case 
fall only on one side: that of the lawyers who have tried to get involved 
without authorization.

Bookman, executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, 
has declined to comment about Ballard. So have the federal defenders, with 
Nolas and Shawn Nolan, who heads the office's death-penalty unit, not returning 
a further request for comment for this article.

Morganelli is a vocal critic of the federal defenders, who have managed to 
reverse scores of death sentences in Pennsylvania, but have faced scrutiny for 
their sharp-elbowed tactics.

Morganelli has one influential ally in Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald 
Castille, who this month authored a blistering critique of the defenders, 
accusing them of abusing their federal funding to advance a "global agenda" to 
improperly subvert the state's death-penalty law.

Castille's opinion, in a Cumberland County capital case, urged his colleagues 
to ban the federal defenders from appearing in the state court system. He 
charged the office has "secretly managed to assume a monopoly role" in 
death-penalty appeals, despite having never been authorized to do so by the 
Legislature or the judiciary.

Castille also cited "multiple cases" in which the defenders sought to remain in 
a case against their client's wishes. Ballard's made an appearance in a lengthy 
footnote in the 97-page opinion.

"A criminal defendant, like citizens generally, has a right to 
self-representation, even if his lawyers think self-representation is a bad 
idea; and he certainly has the right to refuse the unwanted assistance of 
non-retained, non-appointed, 'volunteer' 'private' federal lawyers pursuing 
their own agenda," Castille wrote.

But in the end, debates over the role of the federal defenders - or any other 
attorney - could prove academic in Ballard's case, if he reverses himself and 
decides he no longer wants to waive his appeals and be executed.

Under state law, Gov. Tom Corbett will sign Ballard's execution warrant by Oct. 
9 and must set an execution date within 60 days of that - sometime early 
December. It's not unheard of for inmates who seek their own deaths to reverse 
themselves as the reality of that decision nears.

Take Martin Appel, who challenged the state to put him to death for murdering 
three people during a 1986 bank robbery in East Allen Township. After changing 
his mind, Appel successfully appealed with the aid of the federal defenders. He 
is now 56 and serving life in prison.

Appel decided to appeal only after then-Gov. Tom Ridge signed his execution 
warrant in 1995.

Northampton County's chief public defender at the time, Brian Monahan, 
remembers flying to Pittsburgh to meet Appel at the request of the case's 
judge, who asked him to find out what the imprisoned killer wanted to do.

In the airport in Philadelphia en route, Monahan and his chief deputy, Dwight 
Danser, bumped into Nolas and another federal defender, who were headed for the 
same flight also to speak to Appel.

Monahan said he was a relatively young man at the time and Danser - a "more 
fatherly" figure - took the lead in talking to Appel, who was separated from 
them by security glass. But by Monahan and Danser's recollections, it wasn't 
the type of dramatic moment that might be captured in Hollywood.

Danser, who had never met the condemned man before, said he merely asked Appel 
if he wanted to appeal.

"He said, 'Would it do any good?'" Danser related. "I said, 'Maybe,' and he 
said, "Yeah, I'll do it then.'"

Monahan said there was no reason to think they could have persuaded Appel if he 
hadn't wanted to do so on his own.

"We're not skilled interrogators," Monahan said. "Hell, I can't even convince 
my kids to do things, let alone criminal defendants."

(source: Morning Call)

*****************

Hvizda wants out of guilty plea; would face death penalty----James Hvizda pled 
guilty to stabbing his wife to death in the Wawa parking lot in Upper Uwchlan 
Sunday, March 25, 2012


James John Hvizda, the Upper Uwchlan man who authorities say brutally stabbed 
his estranged wife to death in the parking lot of a township Wawa where she 
worked, has asked a state appellate court to allow him to withdraw the guilty 
plea that led to his life sentence in state prison.

Earlier this month, the 2 sides in the case battled before the state Supreme 
Court in Philadelphia over whether Hvizda should be granted that right, 
presenting arguments concerning under what circumstances a criminal defendant 
should be permitted to withdraw such a plea before he or she has been 
sentenced. His attorneys say he should be allowed to; the prosecution adamantly 
states he should not.

But a larger question in Hvizda's case is why he would want to do so in the 
first place.

As noted by Justice Thomas G. Saylor to Hvizda's attorney, Chester County First 
Assistant Public Defender Nathan Schenker, should Hvizda win, he might well 
lose considerably more.

"Your client wants to withdraw his plea, and he will then be subject to the 
death penalty, right?\" Saylor inquired during oral arguments on Sept. 10.

"That's correct," Schenker responded. "So he's going back to subject himself to 
... a capital case?" Saylor asked again, somewhat incredulously, with 
Schenker's same reply.

"That's fine,"said the judge with an air of finality, grimacing a facial shrug 
of his shoulders.

The appellate case that has winded its way through the courts since shortly 
after he pleaded guilty to the 1st-degree murder comes at a time when dramatic 
changes have also occurred in the lives of the 3 young children he shared with 
Kimberly Hvizda, the Daily Local News has learned. They have been split apart 
from one another since August, each now living in different state.

In August 2012, Hvizda, 48, a former minor league baseball player, was 
sentenced to life in prison without parole for the March 21, 2012 stabbing 
death of his wife, 37-year-old Kimberly Hvizda, who was in the process of 
divorcing him. He is currently serving his sentence at the maximum security 
state correctional institution at Greene, near Waynesburg.

In addition to the life term, he also faces 1 to 2 years in prison for 
possession of an instrument of crime.

Hvizda appealed the sentence that was handed down by President Judge James P. 
MacElree II after circuitous set of proceedings that involved him first 
admitting his guilt in the murder in exchange for the prosectuion agreeing not 
to seek the death penalty against him, then asking to withdraw his plea, only 
to eventually be turned down by MacElree because of out-of-court statements he 
made from prison implicating himself - which MacElree found to mean he was not 
serious about asserting his innocence in the 1st-degree murder.

It is the decision by MacElree to refuse his request to withdraw his plea that 
led to Hvizda's appeal, even though at the time of his sentencing he promised 
those in the courtroom that he would not pursue any such course of action.

"I will save everyone's time," he said during the hearing, addressing both his 
family members and friends and those of the victim's. "I cannot offer anything 
else other than to put an end to this today, and no drag anyone back into court 
anymore. I am sorry. That's all I have."

District Attorney Thomas Hogan, whose office filed a lengthy brief in 
opposition to Hvizda's request to withdraw his plea, confirmed last week that 
he would indeed seek the death penalty against Hvizda should the Supreme Court 
vacate his sentence and return the case to county Common Pleas Court for a 
trial. Hogan would prosecute the case himself, with Deputy District Attorney 
Michelle Frei as co-counsel.

Asked whether he was surprised that Hvizda had apparently reversed his promise 
not to appeal the case, Hogan said he was not.

"He promised to love, honor, and cherish (his wife) when he married her, and 
instead he killed her," Hogan said in a telephone interview Friday. "He 
promised to care for an protect his children and instead" he left them 
abandoned. "Am I surprised he's going back on this promise? No, I am not 
surprised. You can never trust a murderer."

Hvizda has already won one round of his appeal. In June 2013, the state 
Superior Court, in a split opinion written by Judge Robert Colville, overturned 
MacElree's decision denying Hvizda's request to withdraw his guilty plea and 
ordered the case sent back to the county for appropriate action.

The DA's office appealed that decision in July 2013, and the state Supreme 
Court accepted it for review, combined with a similar case from Philadelphia.

The arguments hinge on what legal standard should have been applied to Hvizda's 
request - a pre-sentence standard that allows a criminal defendant to assert 
his innocence even after he has entered a guilty plea, or a more stringent 
post-sentence standard, which allows for such a move only if not to do so would 
be of significant prejudice to the defendant.

MacElree, in his decision, decided that Hvizda was simply trying to manipulate 
the court system by withdrawing his plea, and that he did not truly want to 
assert his innocence. The judge found this after being shown a series of 
transcriptions of telephone conversations Hvizda had from Chester County Prison 
with friends and family, in which he admitted he killed his wife, and gloated 
about how easy he had it in the county prison.

In Colville's ruling, he said that MacElree's reasoning had been "flawed."

In appealing the decision, Chief Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Casenta 
argued that the courts had been using the wrong standard for plea withdrawals 
all along, and that MacElree???s decision was correct.

"There is a difference between the Commonwealth challenging a defendant???s 
claim of innocence .. by attempting to demonstrate that the defendant is in 
fact not innocent ... and the Commonwealth challenging the credibility of a 
defendant's claim of innocence by printing evidence that the claim of innocence 
is not so he can defend himself against the charges but is for some other 
reason such as gamesmanship and manipulation," Casenta wrote.

Schenker, in his argument before the court on Sept. 10, agreed that MacElree 
had some discretion in whether or not to accept the withdrawal motion, but said 
the judge should have questioned Hvizda on his assertion of innocence, rather 
than simply use the prosecution's evidence concerning the phone calls. "The 
court heard that evidence in a vacuum," he said.

It is not known when the Supreme Court will rule on the appeal.

Meanwhile, the three Hvizda children who were left motherless with Kimberly 
Hvizda's murder have been relocated from the the Uwchlan home of a family who 
was friends with the victim.

Steven and Kim Fuimano were already parents of 6 children when they agreed to 
take the 3 Hvizda children into their home in March 2012, and were granted 
custody later that year.

At Hvizda's sentencing hearing, the couple spoke about how they hoped to "love 
and care" for the children and not to let their mother's memory die. A bank 
account was created in the children's name to raise funds for their future, and 
organizations from Wawa to the Malvern Preparatory School to the local chapter 
of Mothers of Multiple dedicated efforts to providing for the family 
financially to help cover the costs of raising the children.

But in July, the children - ages 8, 6, and 4, - were moved from the Fuimano's 
home and placed in custody with a distant relative of Kimberly Hvizda's in 
Georgia. Later, 2 of the children came back to Chester County, where 1 now 
lives. The 3rd child was then taken in by another family member in Alabama.

Attorney Francis C. Miller of West Chester handled the transfer of custody from 
the Fuimano's to the other families, He also served as Kimberly Hvizda???s 
attorney during her divorce proceedings before her death.

"After discussing the situation with all the parties, it was determined that 
the children's interests would be best served by a change in their 
circumstances," he said of the move. "Other family members and friends stepped 
in and are doing everything in their power to help meet the children's needs as 
they go through this horrible time."

Steve Fuimano, who owns a local contracting firm, was contacted Wednesday abut 
the matter. He acknowledged that there had been a change in the children's 
circumstances, but refused to discuss details of the change, except to say that 
it was not a financial decision.

"I am a millionaire. I never needed the money (raised for the children). I 
don't feel comfortable talking about this," he said before hanging up.

(source: Daily Local News)






ALABAMA:

Lawyer handles back-to-back capital murder cases


It's a busy September for Susan James.

The prominent Montgomery lawyer just wrapped up a weeklong capital murder trial 
in Wetumpka. On Sept. 22, she is set to represent Auburn mass shooting suspect 
Desmonte Leonard in his capital murder trial.

High-profile cases are nothing new for James, a former federal prison guard. 
She has been involved in dozens of capital murder cases. Former Gov. Don 
Siegelman hired her when he was facing federal public corruption charges.

Earlier this month, she had to balance defending one client with a death 
penalty case looming in 2 weeks.

James was lead attorney in Stalandus Slaughter's capital murder trial in Elmore 
County. The jury convicted the 29-year-old Eclectic man on two counts of 
capital murder and one count of assault.

"It's obviously not the best of situations, but you deal with it," she said 
after court recessed one day in Wetumpka. "Both of these cases have been set 
and then continued several times. It just worked out to where they both were on 
the docket to go this month.

"Stalandus has obviously been the priority. We have other attorneys on 
Desmonte's case, so they have been working on that case, getting ready. After 
Stalandus' case is over, I'll begin getting ready for Desmonte's trial."

On June 9, 2012, Leonard allegedly shot and killed 3 people, including 2 former 
Auburn University football players, and injured 3 others at a party at an 
apartment complex in Auburn. Killed were Ladarious Phillips and Ed Christian, 
the former players, and DeMario Pitts.

James became a little more involved with the Leonard case than is typical. 
Leonard was the subject of an intense regional manhunt, and a $50,000 reward 
had been offered for his capture. His mother came to James' law office and said 
her son wanted to turn himself in to her.

"I thought he was going to come to my office, but we found out he was 2 hours 
away, and we had to go get him," James said.

She wouldn't disclose the location where she and her son, Garrett Saucer, also 
an attorney, picked up Leonard. But she did admit the trip in her car back to 
Montgomery to turn him over to U.S. Marshals went through Lee County.

"I mean there were billboards up all over the state with Desmonte's picture on 
them, and he looked just like that picture," she said.

As they neared the federal courthouse in Montgomery, she called the marshals on 
her cell phone to ask how they wanted to handle things. She was shocked to see 
snipers on the roof of the federal courthouse as they drove up.

"We walked inside and two marshals met us in full military gear, complete with 
assault rifles," she said. "It went well; no trouble. I told them that 
Desmonte's mother wanted to see him before he was taken into custody, and they 
granted that request."

When the Lee County Circuit Court asked her to represent Leonard, she took the 
case on one condition - that she could have Jeff Duffey as co-counsel. The 2 
have teamed up on cases before.

"So Jeff has been doing all the heavy lifting this week," she said in the 
Wetumpka courtroom. "But in the past, it has fallen to me some weeks. We're 
used to it. Really, cases like Stalandus and Desmonte, we've been working on 
them for months and months.

"Most of the effort is scheduling experts and witnesses, and reviewing things 
over and over again."

(source: Associated Press)






ARIZONA:

Not guilty plea offered in girl's death: Suspect in 8-year-old's slaying 
arraigned on murder and kidnapping charges


Amid heavy security, a Bullhead City man pleaded not guilty Friday to four 
felony charges stemming from the death of an 8-year-old girl.

Justin James Rector was escorted into Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen's 
courtroom surrounded by a dozen guards for his arraignment. Rector pleaded not 
guilty to 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and abandonment of a dead 
body. Rector also told the judge that he was homeless.

Jantzen told Rector, 26, that if he is convicted of the murder charge, he faces 
life in prison with or without parole after 35 years. He also may face the 
death penalty. Deputy Mohave County Attorney Greg McPhillips has not decided 
whether to seek the death penalty against Rector, waiting until DNA results 
come back from FBI labs. That could take several more weeks.

The kidnapping and child abuse charges are punishable by 13 to 27 years in 
prison. Mohave County currently does not have any other defendant facing the 
death penalty.

At McPhillips' request, the judge also ordered Rector to be held without bond 
pending a future hearing to set a bond. Jantzen also set Rector???s next 
hearing for Oct. 28. A hearing to argue whether television cameras will be 
allowed in court during the process of the case is set for Sept. 30.

The parents of Isabella Grogan-Cannella reported her missing from her Lakeside 
Drive home in the early morning of Sept. 2. Her body, naked from the waist 
down, was found the next afternoon in a shallow grave in a wash about a 
half-mile from her home. According to the medical examiner's office, the cause 
of Grogan-Cannella's death was asphyxiation by strangulation.

Grogan-Cannella's mother and several others left the home and went to Walmart 
shortly before midnight Sept. 1, leaving Grogan-Cannella and her sister with 
Rector downstairs. The girl's stepgrandmother was upstairs. The girl's 
10-year-old sister called her mom around 11:45 p.m. Sept. 1 to say that her 
sister was missing. Grogan-Cannella's mother and the others returned to the 
home and, after searching the house for the girl, called Bullhead City police 
around 1:18 a.m. Sept. 2.

Someone matching Rector's description was seen leaving the area of the shallow 
grave. Shoeprints found near the girl's body allegedly matched Rector???s 
shoes, which was taped up with duct tape to cover a hole.

Police located Rector in the early morning hours of Sept. 2 near Walmart after 
he allegedly shoplifted clothes from the department store. Police recovered 
Rector's shoes, which he had tried to hide at the store, and a shirt, which was 
found along Highway 95. He reportedly told detectives that he had been smoking 
methamphetamine throughout the day of the murder.

(source: Mohave Daily News)