Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 9, 2006 9:55:32 GMT -5
Eyewitness to double homicide testifies in death penalty hearing
By:Heather Nann Collins , Journal Inquirer
Waiting for a friend to pick her up, Diana Thomas looked out from the open, second-floor bedroom window of her Hartford apartment on a warm August night in 2000.
Across the street, sitting on the porch of her neighbor's multi-family apartment house, she spotted that neighbor's "auntie," Carolyn Privette, and another person, a man in a dark sweatshirt.
Minutes passed, Thomas told a Hartford Superior Court jury on Friday, and then she heard gunshots, at least three, punctuating the night.
Stepping to the window, she looked on in horror at the scene across the street, Thomas said: Carolyn Privette, on her hands and knees, was on the porch crawling towards the door.
The hooded man was standing over her.
"She was on her hands and knees and he shot her," Thomas said through tears. "He shot her, then she dropped flat. He shook her to see if she was dead. Then he came down the stairs."
The man, later identified as Jessie Campbell III, stopped, Thomas said, and stood over her neighbor, 18-year-old Desiree Privette, who lay unmoving at the bottom of the porch, her right heel on the bottom step.
Campbell stood over Desiree, put his gun to within two feet of her head, and pulled the trigger, Thomas said.
Campbell "stepped over her, and then he walked in the alleyway to the back," Thomas said.
Desiree Privette, a Manchester High School graduate, lay dead of gunshot wounds to the head. Less than two feet away, her friend, LaTaysha Logan - the mother of Jessie Campbell's son - lay dying of a single gunshot wound to her head.
Carolyn Privette was the lone survivor of Campbell's rage.
Campbell, who turns 27 today, was convicted in 2004 of capital felony, murder, first-degree assault, and a weapons charge. That jury hung on whether he should be executed or spend life in prison without release for the capital conviction - the only punishments allowed by law.
A new jury was picked this summer and on Thursday began hearing evidence in a penalty phase. In order to ensure execution, the state must prove that an aggravating factor existed and is more compelling than any mitigating factors the defense presents.
The aggravating factor, prosecutors Dennis O'Connor and Vicki Melchiorre say, is that Campbell created a "grave risk of death" to Carolyn Privette.
Carolyn Privette is expected to testify on Monday; the prosecutors told Judge Edward J. Mullarkey that they plan to finish presenting their case by lunchtime on Tuesday.
Mullarkey told Campbell's lawyers, public defenders David G.E. Smith and Ronald Gold of the Capital Defense Unit, to be ready to begin their presentation of mitigating factors on Tuesday afternoon.
©Journal Inquirer 2006
By:Heather Nann Collins , Journal Inquirer
Waiting for a friend to pick her up, Diana Thomas looked out from the open, second-floor bedroom window of her Hartford apartment on a warm August night in 2000.
Across the street, sitting on the porch of her neighbor's multi-family apartment house, she spotted that neighbor's "auntie," Carolyn Privette, and another person, a man in a dark sweatshirt.
Minutes passed, Thomas told a Hartford Superior Court jury on Friday, and then she heard gunshots, at least three, punctuating the night.
Stepping to the window, she looked on in horror at the scene across the street, Thomas said: Carolyn Privette, on her hands and knees, was on the porch crawling towards the door.
The hooded man was standing over her.
"She was on her hands and knees and he shot her," Thomas said through tears. "He shot her, then she dropped flat. He shook her to see if she was dead. Then he came down the stairs."
The man, later identified as Jessie Campbell III, stopped, Thomas said, and stood over her neighbor, 18-year-old Desiree Privette, who lay unmoving at the bottom of the porch, her right heel on the bottom step.
Campbell stood over Desiree, put his gun to within two feet of her head, and pulled the trigger, Thomas said.
Campbell "stepped over her, and then he walked in the alleyway to the back," Thomas said.
Desiree Privette, a Manchester High School graduate, lay dead of gunshot wounds to the head. Less than two feet away, her friend, LaTaysha Logan - the mother of Jessie Campbell's son - lay dying of a single gunshot wound to her head.
Carolyn Privette was the lone survivor of Campbell's rage.
Campbell, who turns 27 today, was convicted in 2004 of capital felony, murder, first-degree assault, and a weapons charge. That jury hung on whether he should be executed or spend life in prison without release for the capital conviction - the only punishments allowed by law.
A new jury was picked this summer and on Thursday began hearing evidence in a penalty phase. In order to ensure execution, the state must prove that an aggravating factor existed and is more compelling than any mitigating factors the defense presents.
The aggravating factor, prosecutors Dennis O'Connor and Vicki Melchiorre say, is that Campbell created a "grave risk of death" to Carolyn Privette.
Carolyn Privette is expected to testify on Monday; the prosecutors told Judge Edward J. Mullarkey that they plan to finish presenting their case by lunchtime on Tuesday.
Mullarkey told Campbell's lawyers, public defenders David G.E. Smith and Ronald Gold of the Capital Defense Unit, to be ready to begin their presentation of mitigating factors on Tuesday afternoon.
©Journal Inquirer 2006