|
|
Post by MXB on May 30, 2007 23:10:50 GMT -5
A judge sentenced serial killer Wayne Adam Ford to death today for the slayings of four women.
In handing down the sentence, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith denied a request by Ford's attorneys to grant a new trial or reduce the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Ford was found guilty of the deaths of Tina Renee Gibbs, 26, of Las Vegas; Lanett Deyon White, 25, of Fontana; Patricia Ann Tamez, 29, of Hesperia; and an unidentified woman whose torso was discovered in a slough near Eureka.
Ford surrendered to authorities at the Humboldt County sheriff's station with a woman's severed breast in his jacket pocket on Nov. 3, 1998.
A jury convicted Ford in June and recommended the death penalty two months later. The trial lasted about six months. Despite the length of the trial and the attention the case received, Supervising Deputy District Michael McDowell said, in the scheme of things, it wasn't an unusual death-penalty case.
"This is a case that has only begun," McDowell said. "The appelate process will be years."
While deciding whether to reduce Ford's sentence Friday, Smith said he considered Ford's surrender compelling. His surrender, however, was ultimately outweighed by the fact that Ford killed so many people before deciding to turn himself in, the judge said.
Ford remained calm and showed no outward emotion as the judge sentenced him. Ford's conviction and sentence will be automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Smith ordered Ford transferred to death row at San Quentin State Prison to be executed by lethal injection or other means the state sees fit.
|
|
|
|
Post by MXB on May 30, 2007 23:43:05 GMT -5
Serial killer Wayne Adam Ford, in his first public comment since he was convicted last year of slaying four women, said his expected death penalty sentence "doesn't bother me one bit."
Ford, in an electronic voice file made last week and addressed to a Press-Enterprise reporter, also said "the truth" never came out during his eight-month trial.
"The fact I'm being executed doesn't bother me one bit," Ford said. "But the fact the truth wasn't told, and the people were hurt beyond what they should have been hurt, that bothers me."
Ford, 45, was convicted June 27. The same jury recommended the death penalty on Aug. 10.
Documentary filmmaker Victoria Redstall said Ford believes the truth involves his blacking out -- the result of head trauma suffered in a 1980 car crash -- during the killings in 1997 and 1998. She said he does not deny killing the women.
During a telephone interview, she played an audio clip of Ford explaining his actions during the killings.
"It does not mean I was sitting there, enjoying myself, reviving them and torturing them," Ford said. "That never happened."
'Room Zero'
Redstall, 32, of Studio City, said she has collected more than 88 hours of telephone interviews with Ford, who is awaiting sentencing at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Her interviews are for "Room Zero," a nearly complete 90-minute documentary set to go out for bidding March 16 -- the day when Ford could be formally sentenced to death.
Ford said in his recorded statement that he has exclusively told his story to Redstall.
"I got into the mind of a serial killer," Redstall said last week. "I should be respected for that."
Redstall, who also is an actress and model, made national headlines and appeared on talk shows in August when news came out that she had followed Ford's prison bus and had sung country music songs with him.
A San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy was disciplined after Redstall had unauthorized contact with Ford while he was in custody. She was banned from all county jails in August.
Redstall said she seethes at the "idiots" who imply that she is a serial killer groupie. She said she wants the public to take her seriously as a filmmaker.
"Just because I'm a girl, and just because I'm a model," Redstall said, "people want to think there has to be a romance."
13 Clues
"Room Zero" is named for a small cabin at the Ocean Grove Lodge in Trinidad, where Ford stayed the night before he unexpectedly surrendered to Humboldt County sheriff's officials Nov. 3, 1998.
Ford was not a suspect in the crimes when he surprised authorities by presenting them with a woman's severed breast.
Redstall said "Room Zero," now in its final editing, aims to determine the identity of "Jane Doe," the first of four women Ford is convicted of killing.
"We're getting closer every day," Redstall said. "We're trying to piece together who she is."
Jane Doe, also known as "Humboldt County Doe," was found floating in a fresh-water slough in October 1997.
An upcoming news release for the film mentions 13 clues about the unidentified woman, ranging from a mother in her 20s to an environmentalist with hairy armpits.
Death Row?
Deputy Public Defender Joseph Canty, one of two attorneys who defended Ford last year, has filed a motion for a new trial. It is scheduled for a hearing when his client returns to court next month.
Canty based his motion on violations of Ford's constitutional rights, prosecutorial misconduct and jury selection error.
In court records, Canty accuses former prosecutor Dave Mazurek, now a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge, of unfairly calling attention to Ford for declining to take the stand in his defense.
Canty quotes Mazurek during the trial saying that Ford, had he taken the stand, could have told jurors about performing sex acts on his dead victims.
"Because it really wasn't an accident," said Mazurek, quoted in court records. "If he told you, you would figure out he really did intend to kill these girls as the ultimate act of sadism ... sexual gratification for himself."
During the trial, court officials played several interviews that police recorded with Ford within hours of his arrest.
In those, Ford grudgingly describes performing erotic asphyxiation, restricting the blood flow to the brain to increase sexual pleasure, on as many as 50 women.
He said he was unable to revive four of them.
Ford was the first defendant in California charged under the 1998 serial murder law, which consolidates related killings into one jurisdiction.
Ford was extradited to San Bernardino County in 1999. His 2006 trial was delayed because of challenges to the new law, the initial prosecutor's retirement and numerous courtroom motions.
Canty said the law also requires Superior Court Judge Michael Smith to consider a motion to reduce the death penalty recommendation to life in prison without parole.
Canty declined to comment about "Room Zero."
Reach John F. Berry at 909-806-3058 or jberry@PE.com
Murder victims
Wayne Adam Ford was convicted last year in the deaths of four women:
"Jane Doe," a still-unidentified headless torso found in a Humboldt County fresh-water slough on Oct. 26, 1997.
Tina Renee Gibbs, 26, of Las Vegas, found in a river near Buttonwillow in Kern County on June 2, 1998.
Lanett Deyon White, 25, of Fontana, found in an irrigation ditch near Lodi on Sept. 25, 1998.
Patricia Anne Tamez, 29, of Hesperia, found in the California Aqueduct near Hesperia on Oct. 23, 1998. Ford had her severed breast in his pocket when he unexpectedly surrendered to Humboldt County sheriff's officials on Nov. 3, 1998.
SOURCE: San Bernardino County Superior Court records
|
|
