[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., OHIO, IND., S.DAK., COLO., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 2



TEXAS:

Prosecutor declares freed Texas death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown innocent, 
paving way for state compensation----Brown was freed from nearly a decade on 
death row in 2015, but because he was never declared "actually innocent," he 
couldn't get compensation for wrongful imprisonment — until Friday.



Alfred Dewayne Brown spent nearly a decade on Texas’ death row before his 
conviction was thrown out by the courts. But despite being freed in 2015, he 
didn’t qualify for the state payout given to those wrongfully convicted because 
he was never declared “actually innocent.”

On Friday, that changed. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg held a press 
conference announcing that an outside attorney she had assigned to investigate 
the case had found Brown innocent, paving the way for Brown to receive $80,000 
for each year he was wrongfully in prison plus smaller monthly payments over 
the course of his life. She filed an amended motion in the trial court. That 
motion is expected to be approved and clear Brown's last hurdle to get 
compensation.

The appointed attorney, John Raley, is well known for his years-long fight to 
free Texas’ Michael Morton from a 25-year-long wrongful sentence in his wife’s 
murder, a case that led to new legislation requiring prosecutors to share their 
complete investigation with defense attorneys.

“Now there is no evidence sufficient for a reasonable juror to find that he is 
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the legal definition of innocence, 
and Alfred Dewayne Brown is innocent,” Raley said at the press conference.

Brown was released from prison nearly 4 years ago after the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals tossed out his conviction and death sentence in the 2003 
murder of a Houston police officer, Charles Clark, during a botched robbery. 
Phone records found in the prosecution’s possession but not shared with the 
defense at trial supported Brown’s alibi that he was at his girlfriend’s house 
during the crime. But the court tossed the case because of the prosecution’s 
violation, not because of Brown’s innocence.

After the conviction was tossed, then-District Attorney Devon Anderson 
dismissed the case completely, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to retry 
Brown for capital murder. Two other men, including one on death row, had also 
been convicted in the officer’s murder.

But the Texas Comptroller, which handles payments for wrongful incarcerations, 
denied Brown’s request for payment after his case was dismissed. Texas statute 
says a person qualifies for compensation if he is pardoned; if an appellate 
court finds him legally innocent; or if an appellate court tosses the 
conviction, the charges are dismissed and the prosecutor says in an affidavit 
she “believes that the defendant is actually innocent of the crime for which 
the person was sentenced.”

Until Friday, Brown was missing the last piece, the prosecution’s declaration 
of innocence. Ogg said at the conference that she accepted Raley’s 
recommendations that Brown is innocent. A spokesperson for the comptroller 
confirmed Ogg's court filing of his innocence was what Brown needed to qualify 
for compensation. Brown's lawyer, Neal Manne, said the filing and new case 
dismissal needed to be approved by the court, but it was expected to be 
approved with the prosecution and defense on the same side. Then, Brown will 
file a new petition with the comptroller for money.

"[Brown's] really happy," Manne told The Texas Tribune Friday. "It's been a 
long, long road for him, and it feels really good that the district attorney is 
now on his side."

But not everyone believes in Brown’s innocence. Joe Gamaldi, the president of 
the Houston police officer’s union, told the Tribune in January that Brown 
couldn’t touch the high standard of actual innocence “with a 10 foot pole” and 
that he remains the main suspect. Saying he knew what was in Raley's pending 
report, Gamaldi said Ogg went through Raley to “give herself cover from the 
political fallout.”

At the conference, Ogg acknowledged the discontent from the police union, and 
said before the findings were released that she knew there were those who would 
disagree with them.

"That happens every time a district attorney anywhere makes a decision of this 
magnitude about a person's life," she said.

Raley said at the conference that his team spent more than 1,000 hours in 
investigating and compiling his nearly 200-page report on Brown's case. His 
report also recommended further investigation of Dan Rizzo, the trial 
prosecutor in Brown's case who failed to turn over the phone records that led 
to his ultimate release from prison.

The failure to turn over the phone records was said to be "inadvertent," but 
Ogg asked the state bar to investigate Rizzo last year after unearthing an 
email that showed he was told about the corroborating phone records before 
Brown's trial. The state bar ultimately found no cause to issue disciplinary 
sanctions against the attorney, the Houston Chronicle reported.

(source: The Texas Tribune)








GEORGIA:

Jury to hear death penalty case for man accused of killing Central Ga. 
corrections officers----Donnie Rowe faces the death penalty for the 2017 
murders of Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica during an escape attempt.

A hearing earlier this week moves us closer to a trial date for an inmate 
accused of killing 2 Central Georgia corrections officers

. Donnie Rowe faces the death penalty for the 2017 murders of Curtis Billue and 
Christopher Monica during an escape attempt.

Ocmulgee District Attorney Stephen Bradley says that during a hearing earlier 
this week in Eatonton, Judge Brenda Trammell ruled that a jury from Grady 
County would hear the case.

Right now, they must still decide if jurors will hear the case down in Cairo, 
or if they'll be brought up to Eatonton.

Bradley says the different parties in the case were agreeable to a November 
trial date, but that hasn't been decided yet either. We expect to learn more 
during a hearing in March.

The death penalty trial for inmate Ricky Dubose, who is also accused of 
murdering the officers during the escape with Rowe, is scheduled to begin on 
September 30.

The escape ended with a nationwide manhunt that ended days later with the men 
getting caught in Tennessee.

(source: WMAZ news)








OHIO:

Jesse Hanes arraigned in death penalty case for Ted Timmons murder



Jesse Hanes was back in Ross County Friday where he was arraigned on capital 
murder charges in the 2016 shooting death of Theodore "Ted" Timmons.

Hanes, wearing orange prison garb and closely shorn hair, was heavily guarded 
by Ross County sheriff's deputies and members of the state prison's special 
response team as he pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment before Ross 
County Common Pleas Judge Mike Ater.

Hanes, 41, is facing three counts of aggravated murder and one count each of 
aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and having weapons while under 
disability. Hanes has been serving a sentence of life without parole for 
killing a New Mexico police officer while officials say he was on the run after 
Timmons' murder.

His co-defendant in the Timmons case, 39-year-old James D. Nelson II, was 
arraigned on similar charges in January where he also pleaded not guilty.

The pair are accused of breaking into Timmons' Londonderry home the evening of 
July 24, 2016, or early the morning of July 25. In an attempt to obtain a 
combination to Timmons' safe. Ross County Prosecutor Jeff Marks said they 
fatally shot Timmons, 62, with Hanes firing three-to-four times and Nelson 
2-to-3 times.

Soon after Timmons' death, a local woman - Whitney Kuhn - was arrested and 
sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of complicity to aggravated burglary 
and aggravated robbery. Kuhn's attorney previously said she had known Timmons 
and while she aided in the robbery and burglary, did not know of any intent to 
kill him.

Meanwhile, Hanes and Nelson were located in New Mexico on Aug. 12, 2016, after 
a violent crime spree. After being pulled over by Hatch, New Mexico police 
officer José Ismael Chavez, Hanes reached across the passenger seat and shot 
Chavez in the neck, according to reports from the Gazette's sister paper the 
Las Cruces Sun News. Chavez later died from his injuries at the hospital.

He fled the scene with Nelson and a hitchhiker still in the car until stopping 
in Rincon where they argued and Hanes shot himself in the groin. Hanes fled 
again, this time leaving his passengers behind, attempted to carjack a couple 
and then successfully carjacked a man who he shot after the man refused to get 
in the car with him, the Las Cruces Sun News reported. The man survived his 
injuries.

Hanes ultimately was captured after crashing in the midst of a high-speed 
pursuit.

He was charged with state and federal crimes in connection to the shooting and 
carjacking. Hanes had been offered a global plea deal which would have taken 
the death penalty off the table in Ohio but he rejected it in March 2017, 
telling the court "The plea was offered without them knowing my side of the 
story."

Later that year, Hanes pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder in the officer's 
death and to federal firearms and carjacking charges. He was sentenced to life 
without parole in both cases and has been serving his sentence at a federal 
prison in Kentucky.

Nelson was convicted of trafficking charges in New Mexico and sentenced to 3 
years in prison. While he's on parole in the case, he is being held in the Ross 
County Jail on a $2 million bond.

Hanes, who is under the oversight of the state prison while back in Ohio, is 
next set to appear in court on April 8 for a pretrial hearing. Despite Hanes' 
life sentences, Judge Ater did set a $1 million bond in the case.

(source: Chillicothe Gazette)

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

Serial killer confesses to 2 more slayings



Shawn Grate, who already sits on death row, confessed to 2 more killings 
Friday.

Last May, the 43-year-old Ashland resident admitted to the slayings of 
Greenwich resident Stacey Stanley, 43, and Elizabeth Griffith, 29. As a result, 
Grate received the death penalty.

Now the convicted murderer has added 2 more confirmed victims to his list.

During his change-of-plea hearing Friday in Richland County Common Pleas Court, 
Grate admitted Rebekah Leicy and Candice Cunningham died at his hand from 
strangulation, according to the Mansfield News Journal. Both women were from 
Richland County.

Leicy’s body was found in a wooded area of Ashland County in 2015. The crime is 
suspected to have occurred between Jan. 1 and Feb. 6, 2015, at 32 N. Walnut St. 
in Mansfield, the newspaper reported.

Cunningham, who was found behind a burned up Madison Township home in September 
2016, was killed in June 2016, according to what Grate said in court, the 
newspaper reported.

Grate pleaded guilty to Leicy’s aggravated murder and the gross abuse of her 
corpse and to the murder and gross abuse of Cunningham’s corpse. He was 
originally charged with 14 counts related to the 2 deaths, the remaining 10 
charges being dropped as part of the plea deal.

Judge Brent Robinson sentenced the Ashland man to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole, according to Cleveland TV station Fox 8.

The victims' family members addressed the court during the sentencing. 
According to Fox 8, one family member described Grate as "a monster who 
deserves a cruel death."

Grate responded with a brief apology the News-Journal reported.

"I apologize for my actions. I can't change nothing," he said.

(source: norwalkrelector.com)








INDIANA:

Gary man on death row for killing wife, 2 stepchildren still seeking new trial 
or resentencing



A Gary man on death row for killing his wife and two stepchildren is still 
seeking a new trial, or alternatively, asking to be sentenced again.

Kevin Isom, 53, was sentenced to death in 2013 after a jury convicted him in 
the Aug. 6, 2007, deaths of his wife, Cassandra Isom, and stepchildren Michael 
Moore, 16, and Ci'Andria Cole, 13.

Police found all three shot in the family's apartment in Gary's Miller section. 
Isom was found sitting on the floor in a bedroom with blood on his clothes, 
court records show.

Isom filed a direct appeal, which was denied. His sentence was, however, 
amended to three concurrent, rather than consecutive, death sentences, court 
records show. Isom then filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which was 
denied in June.

Now, Isom has appealed that denial, asking the Indiana Supreme Court to reverse 
his convictions and remand his case for a new trial. As an alternative, Isom 
asked for a new sentencing proceeding, court records show.

Isom’s convictions and death sentence violate the U.S. and Indiana 
constitutions, according to an 87-page brief filed Friday by public defenders 
representing Isom.

Specifically, the brief states that Isom had ineffective counsel at trial; his 
counsel for his appeal had a “constitutionally deficient performance” which 
prejudiced Isom; and the post-conviction court erred in denying a request to 
determine whether Isom was still competent to proceed, among other issues.

If the Indiana Supreme Court affirms the denial of Isom’s petition for 
post-conviction relief, “Isom may want to ask the federal courts to review his 
convictions and sentence,” according to the brief.

Isom was denied his right be tried by an impartial jury, the brief states. 
Prospective jurors discussed Isom’s case during the selection process, even 
though they were instructed not to do so, according to the brief.

“Counsel should have moved to strike the entire panel,” the brief states.

Isom’s current counsel asked permission to question Isom’s jurors about his 
case, but that was denied, court records show.

Isom’s trial team should have interviewed Dr. Gary Durak and called him as a 
witness, the brief states. Durak evaluated Isom 2 times in 2008, closer in time 
to when Isom was charged than two other doctors who did testify, according to 
the brief. Durak had noted that Isom may be “on the schizophrenia spectrum,” 
according to court records.

“They jury heard nothing to substantiate Isom’s severe mental illness,” the 
brief states.

Having this information, along with other records and mitigating information, 
“is reasonably likely to have moved the jury to determine Isom did not deserve 
the death penalty,” according to the brief.

Isom was deemed competent to stand trial, but he “truly does not remember what 
happened in his apartment,” the brief states.

Isom has previously refused to be in the courtroom and “irrationally refused to 
have any discussions with counsel,” according to the brief. Isom’s team argued 
that he should be evaluated again to see if he is competent to understand his 
current proceedings, the brief states.

“Each team of attorneys representing Isom has, at some point in their 
respective times on Isom’s case, harbored a good-faith belief that Isom’s 
mental condition was or is so compromised so that Isom was not able to assist 
the attorneys,” according to the brief.

The brief also requested that the state “provide information regarding the 
drugs which will be used to execute Isom,” which was denied because an 
execution date has not been set, so the state does not know which substances or 
methodology will be used.

Isom’s team is worried this could affect his opportunity to challenge whether 
the method is acceptable under the U.S. and Indiana constitutions, the brief 
states.

Isom is currently being held at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, 
according to the Indiana Department of Correction.

(source: Post-Tribune)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

State says men killed teen during planned robbery



The 2 men accused of murdering 17-year-old Emmanuel Hinton in Rapid City 
earlier this week did so during a planned robbery, a prosecutor said Friday in 
court.

Andre Martinez, a 19-year-old from Rapid City, came up with a plan to rob 
another teenager who was selling marijuana, said Karla MacArthur Harris, a 
prosecutor with the Pennington County State's Attorney Office.

Martinez then recruited Cole Waters, also 19 and from Rapid City, to help with 
the robbery, the prosecutor said. When four people met for the deal, Waters 
held a gun — owned by Martinez — to Hinton's head before shooting him. Waters 
reportedly admitted to investigators that he pulled the trigger.

Hinton, of Box Elder, was shot around 8 p.m. Feb. 26 in an alley on the 700 
block of Blaine Avenue and died at the hospital around 10:30 p.m. He was taken 
to the hospital by an individual who was with him at the time of the shooting. 
Waters turned himself in the next morning, while Martinez was arrested at his 
home after a brief deployment of the Rapid City-Pennington County Special 
Response Team.

Martinez and Waters, who appeared in court via a TV linked to the jail, are 
each charged with aiding and abetting 1st-degree murder, committing a felony 
with a gun, conspiracy to commit 1st-degree robbery, and aiding and abetting an 
attempted first-degree robbery. If convicted of the murder charges, they would 
receive a punishment of either life in prison or the death penalty.

Both men have had past encounters with the criminal justice system, Judge Sarah 
Morrison said.

MacArthur Harris requested $1 million cash-only bonds for both men. A lawyer 
standing next to Martinez called the request "quite exuberant" and said her 
client can't afford it and that he has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 
and mental health problems. But Morrison agreed to the $1 million bond and 
ordered Martinez and Waters not to contact the other teenager they allegedly 
planned to rob.

Family or friends of the defendants gasped and cried when they learned of their 
high bonds and that if found guilty, they could be executed.

Waters, who cried and appeared distraught during the hearing, shouted out "I 
love you Mom and Dad" before being taken back to his cell.

Hinton also had supporters at the hearing.

He was "the (most caring) guy I ever met," 18-year-old Rhianna Dodd said after 
the hearing. Dodd, who was there with 2 friends, said Hinton was nice to 
everyone and had a large and loving family and group of friends. She said 
Hinton worked various jobs to support his family and recently helped fix his 
mother's car.

His death is the "worst thing that could have happened," she said.

(source: Rapid City Journal)








COLORADO:

Brauchler: Coloradans should have the final say on the death penalty (and I’d 
hope they keep it)



Our General Assembly is poised to take away from Coloradans the decision about 
whether to have a death penalty, citing lack of popular support, lack of 
deterrence, excessive costs and even racism in its application. Each of these 
points is easily refuted. There are good reasons to maintain capital punishment 
in our state and even better reasons for Coloradans themselves to decide 
whether to repeal it.

Anti-death penalty activists regularly claim as justification for repeal that 
public sentiment for capital punishment is waning. Colorado doesn’t need to 
rely on outcome-driven polling or speculation to answer this question. We can 
rely on the only poll that matters: the ballot.

In the many decades since the U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penalty 
constitutional, no state’s voters have repealed it. None. While several state 
courts and legislatures have ended capital punishment, whenever and wherever 
voters are permitted to vote on the death penalty, they vote to keep it. In 
some cases, they vote to put it back into law after a legislature imposes its 
will over the voters’.

In 2016, the Nebraska legislature repealed the death penalty and then overrode 
the governor’s veto of that repeal. Nebraskans overwhelmingly voted it back in 
the next general election. That same year, there were two ballot measures in 
California to repeal the death penalty and to speed up the appellate process 
for death sentences. Californians — yes, Californians — voted to keep the death 
penalty and to speed up the appellate process.

The stubborn reality that the public still supports a death penalty is 
precisely why anti-death penalty legislators and the governor will deny us the 
right to vote on it. Even former Gov. John Hickenlooper, after suspending the 
death sentence of mass murderer Nathan Dunlap, said that the repeal of the 
death penalty was not a matter for the legislature, but for the people of 
Colorado.

Good idea. Coloradans can be trusted to vote on important matters like taxes, 
term limits, school funding, marijuana and the death penalty.

If the legislature permits us to vote on the abolition of the death penalty, we 
can have an honest debate about the facts and reasons for and against capital 
punishment.

There have been numerous studies with widely divergent and sometimes 
inconsistent findings on the issue of deterrence. Recently, the National 
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences engaged in a comprehensive 
analysis of those many studies and concluded: “claims that research 
demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate 
by a specified amount or has no effect on the homicide rate should not 
influence policy judgments about capital punishment.”

And yet, deterrence is only one of many purposes of sentencing. The paramount 
goal of sentencing is the imposition of justice. Sometimes, justice is 
dismissing a charge, granting a plea bargain, expunging a past conviction, 
seeking a prison sentence, or — in a very few cases, for the worst of the worst 
murderers — sometimes, justice is death.

A drug cartel member who murders a rival cartel member faces life in prison 
without parole. What if he murders two, three, or 12 people? Or the victim is a 
child or multiple children? What if the murder was preceded by torture or rape? 
How about a serial killer? Or a terrorist who kills dozens, hundreds or 
thousands?

The repeal of the death penalty treats all murders as the same. Once a person 
commits a single act of murder, each additional murder is a freebie.

That is not justice.

President Barack Obama agrees. Although he has called the death penalty 
troubling, his justice department sought capital punishment numerous times, 
including in the cases of the Boston Marathon bomber and the murderer of 9 in a 
Charleston church.

A state without a death penalty promises the evilest among us that “no matter 
what you do to us, and no matter how many times you do it and to whom you do 
it, you never have to worry about forfeiting your life.”

Anti-death penalty activists also claim without reliable or logical support 
that capital punishment costs too much. They object to my refusal to give the 
Aurora theater mass murderer the sentence he found acceptable and they repeat 
the unproven claim (the office of the public defender has never disclosed what 
it spent) that the trial “cost $5 million.” They skip the fact that most of the 
money spent by my office was to uphold the rights of the 1,158 victims.

Those who suggest that the repeal of the death penalty would lead to 
significant savings ignore common sense. If Colorado had no death penalty on 
July 20, 2012, does anybody honestly believe that the mass murderer would have 
shown up in court to plead guilty and go to prison for eternity? No. The same 
lengthy trial would have occurred with all the same victims, witnesses and 
expenses.

In fact, Colorado’s death penalty has led to some taxpayer savings. Just within 
the past several years, 2 murder cases in Arapahoe saw the defendants plead 
guilty to avoid capital punishment.

The claim by some that Colorado’s capital punishment is motivated by race 
relies upon a debunked 2012 study commissioned by criminal defense attorneys 
for a 2-time murderer trying to avoid the death penalty. The study has been 
rejected by every Colorado court in which it has been offered. One court found 
the study “flaw[ed]” and a “red herring.” Another, finding that the study used 
“a substantially skewed database,” concluded “it is clear it was not an 
unbiased study, but one designed to provide support for a particular position 
and designed to reach an anticipated conclusion.”

Three men currently occupy Colorado’s death row. In 1993, Nathan Dunlap tried 
to murder 5 people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and succeeded in killing 4. 
One teenage victim began to shake her head and pleaded with him “no.” Dunlap 
said this made him angry. So, he shot her through the top of the head. In 2013, 
John Hickenlooper intervened to derail the jury’s death sentence for this 
monster.

More than a decade later, Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray earned death sentences 
for murdering Gregory Vann, and subsequently murdering the courageous 
eyewitness to that killing, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancé, Vivian 
Wolfe. It is a historical anomaly that the only 3 remaining murderers on death 
row are Dunlap, Owens, and Ray, all African-American men. In between Dunlap and 
Owens/Ray, Colorado changed its death penalty sentencing from a jury to a 
3-judge panel. Numerous other heinous murderers — white, Latino, Asian — faced 
death sentences in jurisdictions throughout the state, including triple ax 
murderer Cody Neal in Jefferson County and a killer of his 11-week-old daughter 
who then bludgeoned a prison guard to death. The Supreme Court declared the 
panel unconstitutional, automatically converting those sentences to life.

ICYMI: I sought capital punishment for the Aurora theater mass murderer, a 
white man from upper-middle-class California. A single juror kept him from 
death row.

If our legislature repeals the death penalty, the death sentences for Dunlap, 
Owens, and Ray will be converted to mere life sentences, either by Gov. Jared 
Polis or by the Colorado Supreme Court. The same outcome has followed every 
legislative repeal across the country.

If the repeal of the death penalty is to be Colorado’s future, it should be 
Coloradans who repeal it. The legislature should refer repeal to the ballot and 
trust Coloradans to decide whether to treat all murderers the same or to 
maintain a tool to distinguish the worst of the worst.

(source: Opinion; George H. Brauchler is the district attorney for the 18th 
Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln 
counties----Denver Post)




ARIZONA:

Arizona lawmakers move to tighten state's death penalty law



Arizona legislators are moving to tighten the state's law on capital punishment 
by eliminating three of the 14 so-called "aggravating factors" than can be the 
basis for imposing death sentences.

Some U.S. Supreme Court justices haves said Arizona's multitude of aggravating 
factors means virtually every defendant convicted of first-degree murder could 
be eligible for death, violating the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual 
punishment.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports that the Maricopa County Attorney's Office 
supports the bill that has cleared the Senate with bipartisan support and now 
awaits House consideration.

A lobbyist for the County Attorney's Office said the law is constitutionally 
sound but that there's been discussion about ways to ensure that it can remain 
on the books for the future.

(source: Associated Press)








USA:

Judge sets June 3 trial in missing Chinese scholar case



In Peoria, a federal judge has delayed until June the trial of the man accused 
of kidnapping and killing a University of Illinois scholar from China.

U.S. District Judge James Shadid on Thursday approved the two-month delay, 
setting Brendt Christensen 's trial for June 3. Christensen's trial was to 
begin April 1, but defense attorneys requested more time to prepare a 
mental-health expert.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty , saying Christensen tortured 
26-year-old Yingying Zhang before killing her in Urbana, Illinois, in April 
2017. He has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping resulting in death. Zhang's body 
has never been found.

The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports that proceedings are expected to last two 
months. The court is to begin mailing summonses to potential jurors March 4.

(source: Associated Press)

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

DeWitt Chili's murder suspect pleads guilty to killings



In Syracuse, the man who police say killed 2 people at the Chili’s in DeWitt 
last year admitted his guilt in court Friday.

William Wood, Jr. pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including murder in the 1st and 
2nd degrees as well as robbery and attempted murder.

Wood, 33, admitted to killing Kristopher Hicks and Stephen Gudknecht on Sept. 
15 at the Chili’s on Erie Blvd. in DeWitt. He also admitted to attempting to 
kill another employee, who survived.

Wood and 4 others were indicted for what police say was a planned robbery that 
ended with the murders of Gudknecht and Hicks.

Ronald Green, 47, is the accused getaway driver. Tracy Brown, 57, allegedly 
gave Wood the gun. Prosecutors believe Brown initially received the gun from 
Jerome Pinkard, who is also facing charges.

Brown’s son, Ryan, has been indicted on charges of hindering the prosecution.

In court Friday, Wood said he wore a mask during the robbery, but realized that 
the some of the victims recognized him. He said he shot both victims in the 
head.

Wood also told the court that Brown gave him the gun and knew it would be used 
for a robbery. He said Brown expected money from the robbery.

By pleading guilty, Wood faces life in prison without the possibility of 
parole.

His sentencing is scheduled for April 15.

Despite admitting his guilt in Onondaga County Court, Wood is still facing 
federal charges for the murders.

If found guilty on federal charges, there is a possibility Wood could face the 
death penalty.

(source: cnycentral.com)