Murder, Arson and Jealousy

   

Two 18-year-old boys, from Pulaski, Tn., William Charles Angel, Jr. and Matthew Wood, are sitting in the Giles County jail. They are both charged with 3 counts of first degree murder in the deaths of 38-year-old Desere Thornton and her two sons, 16-year-old Jerrod Thornton and nine-year-old Anthony Thornton. The two teens are also charged with arson, accused of burning down the home of the three murder victims.

One of the teens, Matthew Wood, was burned so badly while trying to set the house ablaze that his mother had to call 911 for emergency assistance. That call was what caused investigators - who had just received another 911 call about a house on fire - to zero in on the teens.

The two 911 calls were placed in the early morning hours of October 23, minutes after a home on Milky Way Drive in Pulaski, Tn. caught on fire.

The first call came in at 1:34 a.m. from a neighbor, Robin Hernandez, of the Thornton's saying: “The house across the road from me is on fire, the woods are on fire.....and there was just some kind of explosion down there.”

The second call came in at 1:59 a.m. from Matthew Wood's mother, Janet Thomlin, saying: “My son just called me and said him and a friend of his was playing with fire and he is burnt really bad and he’s screaming and crying....he said him and a friend were playing with fire, with gasoline, and he got too close and it burnt all of his face.”

The authorities won't release any information on how the family was killed but said that the fire was an attempt to cover up the murders.

Apparently Wood and Angel went to the Thornton's house to look for the 16-year-old Jerrod. Wood was jealous and thought that Jerrod was involved with an ex-girlfriend of his. They all knew each other because they went to the same school, Richland High School. In fact Wood had asked Jerrod's girlfriend, Tessia Tibbs, about it just days before:

Giles County Sheriff, Kyle Helton, said it's one of the worst crimes he's seen.

"It's a small county, almost everybody knows each other and it's just a shock that somebody would commit such a heinous crime....It's tough for the community and it's just going to take time to heal"

According to neighbors, the family had recently moved into the home. Desere Thornton owned a local gym and her two sons attended school just a few miles from the now charred home.

Wood and Angel will be back in Giles County court on December 8th.

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Mom Charged in Quadriplegic's Death

Lorrie Mae Thomas, 40, will stand trial on 6 counts including murder, child abuse and welfare fraud in the death of her 9-year-old quadriplegic, adopted daughter, Shylae Myza Thomas. So said Judge Tracy Collier-Nix of 68th District Court in Flint, Mi. at a hearing on Oct., 13, 2009.

Investigators believe Shylae had been dead for six weeks before police found her body, wrapped in a garbage bag and stuffed in a 33-gallon container filled with mothballs, her feet hanging over the side, in a storage unit at 9125 N. Saginaw Rd. in Vienna Township on April 22, 2009.

At the time of her death 9-year-old Shylae weighed only 33 lbs. The doctor who performed the autopsy said the cause of death was a combination of neglect, malnourishment and dehydration. Shylae suffered from quadriplegia because of a "suffocation issue" in her crib at 3 weeks of age.

"You don't even really need an autopsy or an expert to tell you that this 9-year-girl at 33 pounds was starved to death," Assistant Prosecutor Marcie Mabry said after the hearing.

See Video Clip Below

The state Department of Human Services began to suspect something might be wrong after a worker went to Thomas' house at 1041 E. Pierson Rd. near I-475 to check out a tip that Shylae and another child there were being neglected. Thomas had 7 other children.

The DHS worker asked about Shylae and was told that she was on the way to Virginia where Thomas was planning to relocate to. The worker became suspicious when Thomas was unable to provide a contact number to the person who had Shylae. Eventually the police were called in.

A police investigation turned up information that Shylae had been dead for weeks and her body was being kept in a storage unit at the Stor & Lock storage facility. They found Shylae's body there about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22. Thomas was arrested and her other children were placed in DHS custody.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton described the child’s living conditions as filthy, ‘For her to have to live like that, and then to die and be stuffed into a bag and plastic bin in a storage facility, just breaks my heart,’ he said.

Judge Tracy Collier-Nix's ruling came at the end of a three-day preliminary hearing that began June 3 and continued Oct. 1.

At the hearing prosecutors played a recording of a phone conversation with Thomas from jail just days after her arrest in which she uses an expletive to describe police and said she had planned to retrieve Shylae's body from the storage unit and bury it.

"I did not murder her," Thomas said in the April 25 call.

After the hearing, defense lawyer Mark Clement said Thomas found Shylae dead at home and panicked — fearing that her own children would be taken from her if she reported the death. He said Thomas denies that she starved the girl and says she was feeding her.

Lorrie Mae Thomas is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 in circuit court.

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Mercy Killing and Attempted Suicide

This is the sad story of James and Phyllis Fish. It is a tragic love story about an elderly couple dealing with end-of-life issues and the dilemma of facing a terminal illness. That is not to excuse the actions of James Fish in killing his wife of over 60 years, nor does it absolve him in the botched suicide attempt afterward. It is merely an account of the lives of two individuals who lived, and hoped to die, together. She was 88 years old. He is 90 and recovering in hospital.

"He wanted to end his wife's suffering because of the terminal illness," said Jim Amormino of the Orange County Sheriff's Department..... "Then he decided that he did not want to live without her and then he turned the gun on himself."

See video clip here

Fish is now facing a charge of voluntary manslaughter. At 90 years old, Fish could spend the final years of his life behind bars. If convicted, he could face 21 years in prison.

"It's a very tragic, sad case all around, but again, based on circumstances and based on suspect's age, it was decided to book him for voluntary manslaughter as opposed to murder," said Amormino.

Both James and Phyllis were from Indiana. James graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1943. They both served in World War II. Phyllis was a nurse.

When they met and married is uncertain, but by 1952 James had a radiology practice in California. They lived in Santa Barbara County and Salinas until James let his medical license expire in 1979. As a couple they were inseparable.

After retiring the couple took up residence in the Leisure World Retirement Community in Laguna Woods. Phyllis quickly gained a reputation as a tireless community organizer and social butterfly. One neighbor said she was "a 5-foot-tall little fireball." She served on several elected boards, was on the landscaping committee in her neighborhood and loved to golf and garden. She also had a wonderful sense of humor.

James was more introverted he would hang the American flag outside every morning and take it down each evening promptly at 5 p.m. He rarely said much to his neighbors but was devoted to his wife and had a wide range of hobbies. He liked puttering in his woodworking shop.

He cooked fabulous dinners of curried lamb and French seafood stew, and fixed a Sunday brunch of omelets and champagne for his wife each week. They took barge trips down the Seine River in France and cruises through the Panama Canal well into their 80s.

"They had a very, very loving relationship and he loved her to death," said Rita Schoonmaker, 76, a close friend and former neighbor. "They told stories about their life together."

However as time went by their age began to catch up with them and affect their lifestyle. Phyllis suffered a stroke and was confined to a wheel chair. She also began to show signs of dementia.

Meanwhile, James was slowly going blind from macular degeneration. At times, his vision was so bad he didn't even know who was saying hello to him, said his 86-year-old next-door neighbor Paul Jones.

The couple hired a caregiver who would wheel Phyllis outside almost every day for fresh air and sometimes would drive her around the community in a golf cart.

A devastating blow hit the couple when Phyllis was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and James was told she would die by the end of the year.

James began to withdraw from his friends, he seemed depressed about his wife's condition and his own failing eyesight. He did not however show any indication of what he was planning to do.

Authorities allege Fish gave his wife morphine, then tried to shoot her, but the gun didn't fire. A caregiver in the home then took the gun from him and called 911.

As deputies responded to the retirement community, Fish allegedly used another handgun to shoot his wife in the head, killing her.

"Then he decided that he did not want to live without her and then he turned the gun on himself," said Amormino.

James did shoot himself but did not commit suicide. He is hospitalized in critical condition in Mission Viejo Hospital. There is a bullet lodged in his head.

"I'm very, very sad. I'm particularly sad for Jim. I know Phyllis was going to be leaving us soon anyway, but I'm sorry that Jim didn't leave us too," Schoonmaker said. "I think he probably is too."

Prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh agreed that this was indeed a tragic case but said:

"This is a man who lived to be 90 years old without violating the law, without committing a crime," he said. "It's a horribly sad case, but he has to be, to some degree, held accountable for what he did."

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Where Is Phillip Arnold Paul?

Phillip Arnold Paul, 47, is 5-foot-8 and weighs 220 pounds. He is a mentally-ill killer - diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalized in 1987 - guilty of the murder of a 78-year-old woman in Sunnyside, Wash. He escaped from the Eastern State Hospital while on a field trip to the Spokane County fair.

After discovering Paul was missing from the group of 31 patients and 11 staff members, it took over two hours before the incident was reported to the police.

At the time of his escape, Paul was wearing a red windbreaker, blue jeans, a blue t-shirt and carrying a backpack. Police say Paul is not currently exhibiting violent behavior, but may become dangerous the longer he goes without medication.

“This is very serious,” said Susan Dreyfus, secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees Eastern. “We need to understand what happened and why.”

This however is not the first time that Paul had escaped from the same hospital. In 1990 he escaped and was captured but not before shattering the shoulder of a Spokane County sheriff’s deputy in the process. He was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.

Spokane County sheriff's officials were told Paul had $50 when he escaped Thursday, Sept. 17th — enough money to buy a bus ticket, said sheriff's spokesman Dave Reagan. Authorities at Eastern State Hospital are struggling to answer some very serious questions:

"Why was he allowed to take such a trip?" Gov. Chris Gregoire said Friday. "Why did they go to a location that was so heavily populated with families?"

"He is in a bad mental state," his brother, Tom Paul, told The Associated Press. "Why would they load him on a bus and take him to a fair?"

"They believe he was an extreme escape risk and the administration should never have allowed him on the field trip," a statement from the Washington Federation of State Employees said. "The workers have unsuccessfully fought to stop the outings for murderers, rapists and pedophiles committed to the hospital as criminally insane."

Susan Dreyfus, secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services, said those questions would be answered in an investigation she has ordered that included both state mental hospitals.

She was peppered with questions at a news conference, but deferred nearly all of them until the 15-day review, which will be in part conducted by the state Department of Corrections, was finished.

State officials have temporarily halted all outings for state patients with criminal histories while they conduct a review.

Phillip Arnold Paul's criminal history began in April 1987. The gasoline-soaked body of Ruth Mottley, 78, is found in a shallow grave near her Lower Yakima Valley home, her throat slit and neck broken. Phillip Arnold Paul, who lived nearby, told deputies “voices” in his head instructed him to “kill the witch on Emerald Road.”

In July 1987 he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and found not guilty by reason of insanity in Ruth Mottley’s murder and ordered held indefinitely at a “state mental institution for the criminally insane.”

Between the years 1992-2000 Paul began a gradual return to society. He enrolled in classes, held a part-time job and was allowed to spend two weeks at a time at home with his family.

In October 2000 Paul begins to exhibit threatening and delusional behavior. He tells counselors of someone he thinks is a “witch.” He is sent back to Eastern State Hospital for the next 5 years.

In October 2005 he is again conditionally released and begins dating a woman who bore him a son in 2006. He stops taking his medication and is again sent back to hospital for a year. After his release his behavior becomes increasingly defiant and he is finally hospitalized again in Jan. 2009.

On Sept. 17, 2009 Phillip Arnold Paul walks away from his group while attending the Spokane County Interstate Fair. A massive manhunt is still under way to find him.

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UPDATE: Phillip Arnold Paul Captured. Click here for details.

Melissa Huckaby Faces Death Sentence

Melissa Huckaby, 28, accused in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, will likely face the death penalty. She was indicted in July on charges of murdering her daughter's playmate and drugging two other people.

Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa said he will seek the death penalty. He is seeking a speedy trial because younger witnesses he may call to testify will have a harder time remembering specifics about what happened.

Huckaby is charged with kidnapping and murdering Sandra, according to the indictment, along with lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and rape by instrument.

Sandra's body was found after an intensive search, in a suitcase discarded in a pond not far from where she lived.

A gag order has been placed on all parties involved in the case by Superior Court Judge Linda L. Lofthus, who has also sealed documents in the case, including the autopsy and toxicology reports and documents relating to a defense motion to exhume Sandra's body.

In addition to the murder of Sandra Cantu, Melissa Huckaby faces charges that she attempted to poison two other people: a 7-year-old girl, identified only as "Jane M. Doe" and a Daniel Plowman. She is also charged with child abuse related to the 7-year-old-girl who was "in her care and custody." She is scheduled to appear again in court of Sept. 25.

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