GUILTY GA - Eight family members brutally murdered in Brunswick home, 29 Aug 2009

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mobeydick said:
Chances are no one will mess with someone convicted of killing 8 people without a firearm. He knows killing someone else is not going to affect the time he will spend in prison! They know he would be very violent at any time!
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Hi there Mobey! Nice to 'see' you over here.

I actually think they will think he is a low yellow bellied coward since he killed these families in their sleep. That doesn't take macho or toughness. That is what a coward does.

He will always be among those who are much tougher than he is, and even criminals have their code of honor a lot of times, as weird as that is. And beating to death families including a DS teen, a stroke victim, and trying to murder a small child wont give him anything but contempt.

There will be a lot of those there that have nothing to lose either. He will meet his match just like the Toler family is hoping he does.

IMO
 
noZme said:
I said above that I hoped to hear from jurors. After reading about Tyler's outburst in the courtroom, perhaps they should find a hidey-hole & crawl in.
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I think Tyler is already walking in his brother's footsteps. He has had his own run ins with the law a couple of times already.

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By Terry Dickson
BRUNSWICK | Guy Heinze Jr. was found guilty Friday of eight counts of murder in the brutal beating deaths of his father and seven others, six of whom he called family.

The nine-woman, three-man jury, with a replacement member seated at 10:30 a.m., deliberated about four hours before returning the guilty verdicts on the eight malice murder counts, an aggravated assault with intent to murder charge and two drug charges.

The previous jury, with one juror that prosecutors had asked the judge to remove beginning Monday, had deliberated two days without reaching a verdict.

Heinze sat down and appeared to exhale deeply but did not otherwise react as the verdicts were read. But his younger brother, Tyler, shouted vulgarities as he left the courtroom with bailiffs beside him.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett thanked the remaining jurors for their service in what had been a long and difficult trial.

In order to get the juror replaced, prosecutors, with the agreement of the victims’ families, agreed to remove the death penalty as a sentencing option, Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson said.

Under Georgia law, Heinze will receive a life sentence, but Scarlett must decide once sentencing is held whether it is life with or without the possibility of parole.

“Both sides agreed it was an impediment to getting a verdict,” Johnson said of the juror who, it now appears, had prompted a deadlock.

When court opened Monday, a bailiff told Scarlett the juror said on the second day of the two week trial he couldn’t find Heinze guilty. The juror was also overheard talking with his wife about the trial Sunday during a closely monitored visit with family members.

As Tyler Heinze left the courthouse grounds, he shouted “That ain’t justice, man,” toward Johnson and Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering as they stood in front of the courthouse.

“You ought to see the smirk on his face,” he said of Doering.

A short time later, defense lawyer Newell Hamilton Jr. left the courthouse hand in hand with his wife, Shannon.

The clearly unhappy Hamilton responded to only one question about the outcome.

“Yeah, I’m disappointed,” he said.

Diane Isenhower, the ex-wife of victim Russell D. Toler Sr. and the mother of some of those beaten to death, left with an aunt and other family members.

“They don’t want to comment,” Lt. William Daras, the lead investigator, said as he escorted them to their vehicles.

Members of the Toler family told the Times-Union Friday morning they didn’t want Heinze to get the death penalty, that they wanted him “out in the [prison] population.”

The trial had lasted almost 10 days before the full verdict came down. The foreman of the jury had announced Thursday that the jury had reached a verdict on the two drug charges, one a felony and the other a misdemeanor, but that they were deadlocked 9-3 on the eight murder charges and the single aggravated assault charge.

When trial opened Friday morning, Scarlett did not make the usual statement that the jury was deliberating. Instead, lawyers from both sides kept coming in and out of the courtroom.

About 10:20 a.m., the jury filed into the courtroom and Scarlett told them a male juror had been removed and replaced with a woman alternate. But he explained the change constituted a new jury so the two verdicts already reached were void.

“Your deliberations must start anew and cover all 11 counts,” Scarlett said.

Scarlett passed a new verdict form to the foreman and at 10:30 p.m. ordered the nine-woman, three-man jury to begin deliberations. Four hours later, including lunch, their work was done.

Johnson praised the police for doing their jobs so well, especially Daras.

“He helped keep this case together,” Johnson said.

Then Johnson referred again to the removed juror and the deal made to get him off the jury.

“I think all of you know there was a situation that occurred in the last week and a half,” he said.

Although the state had given up the possibility of a death sentence, Johnson said “we got a conclusion instead of coming back in six months.”

Had the jury remained deadlocked, Scarlett could have declared a mistrial and the whole process could have been repeated including the long procedure of juror qualifying which alone had taken three weeks.

The missing juror was one who had sat apart from the rest and at times had given only cursory glances at the evidence.

Doering acknowledged it had taken a long time to get the case to trial and thanked the community for its patience.

“It’s been a long process for four years,” he sid.

Of Tyler Heinze’s comments, Doering said, “He has his point of view and I respect that.”

Doering said he wanted to be respectful to the families on both sides.

Doering was asked about the testimony of defense witness Michael Knox, a forensic science and criminology consultant, who found numerous faults with the investigation including breaks in the chain of custody of evidence, the discarding of some items that could have been evidence and contamination of the crime scene.

Doering said some of that was warranted and had been dealt with. He said again that sometimes the department relies on people to do certain things and learns later they weren’t done.

That can’t be changed so the only option is to move forward and make the best case the department can, he said.

“Despite the critique, it didn’t overshadow the facts of what happened,” Doering said.

There was a lot of evidence jammed into the unkempt mobile home where fans were running all over to fight the summer heat.

Police had been alerted to the deaths about 8:15 a.m. Aug. 29, 2009, when Heinze, using the phone of a neighbor, told police he had been out all night and come home to “find my whole family beat to death.”

Heinze was one of 10 people who lived in the single-wide mobile home at New Hope Mobile Home Park off U.S. 17 north of Brunswick and all but one of the others died of massive head injuries from being beaten.

Police said the weapon likely was the barrel of a broken 20 gauge shotgun. The bloody butt stock was lying on the floor, but the barrel has never been found.

The dead were: Heinze’s father, Guy Heinze Sr., 45; Russell D. Toler Sr., 44; Toler’s children, Russell D. Toler Jr., 20, Chrissy Toler, 22, Michael Toler, 19, and Michelle Toler, 15; Chrissy Toler’s boyfriend, Joseph West, 30; and the senior Toler’s sister, Brenda Gail Falagan, 49.

Heinze was charged with aggravated assault with intent to murder in the beating of Chrissy Toler’s son, Byron Jimerson, who is now 7 and lives with his paternal grandmother.

Among the evidence against Heinze:

He had taken a shotgun from the house and put it in the car he was driving before calling for help for the eight already dead and two struggling for their lives;

Inside the car, police found the narcotic prescription medication of Michael Toler and Michelle Toler’s cellphone with West’s dried blood on it;

Beneath a pair of khaki shorts, Heinze was wearing a pair of gym shorts with the blood of three victims and there was also victims’ blood on his flip flops.

The drug charges, a felony and a misdemeanor, arose from the prescription painkillers and a small amount of marijuana police found that morning in the car Heinze was driving. He could get a maximum five years on the felony.

Hamilton and defense witnesses asserted that no one person could have killed all the victims, but Doering said he still believes Heinze alone carried out the killings.

Under cross-examination during the trial, Daras said he believed that Heinze, who admitted smoking crack all night, had wanted Michael Toler’s pills and was rebuffed. He had come back later to get the pills and all the money in the house.

If so, he missed some money. Russell Toler Jr. had $61 in his pockets. No one else had any.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/breaking-ne...e-jr-guilty-eight-counts-murder#ixzz2imTRQUBJ
 
I hope we get a more detailed account of the presented case.

I hope they truly had all the evidence they needed to come to a beyond a doubt verdict.

I am however shocked the death penalty came off the table this morning. It should have stayed.
I respect the verdict ,I wasn't in court so I cannot protest that of which I don't have all the facts .
However I hope we can see the court transcript one day.
 
Soulmagent said:
I hope we get a more detailed account of the presented case.

I hope they truly had all the evidence they needed to come to a beyond a doubt verdict.

I am however shocked the death penalty came off the table this morning. It should have stayed.
I respect the verdict ,I wasn't in court so I cannot protest that of which I don't have all the facts .
However I hope we can see the court transcript one day.
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That would be great but the only way that could happen I think is if someone paid for the transcripts and that can be costly. I know, I have paid for them before in another case. Especially a trial that ran so long each day and even on Saturdays.

I think they had plenty of evidence that pointed directly toward him and no one else.

But something was just off from the very beginning about the problem juror. Was he a stealth juror and had planned all along to hang the case no matter how much evidence was entered? It seems so.

I put the fault of the plea deal squarely at the feet of Judge Scarlett. He had been told repeatedly by multiple people about this man's misconduct but yet he did nothing. So to finally get this man dismissed ADA Johnson had to deal with the devil (GHJ and DT) and take the death penalty off the table. Such a rotten shame, when I cant think of a more deserving defendant at the moment. Yet it is better than trying the case all over again.

The Toler family lost more family members than anyone and they want him in GP so I guess I should want what the victims' family wants.

IMO
 
Guy Heinze Jr. Gets Life Without Parole In Slayings Of 8 In Georgia

RUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Spared from a possible death sentence by a deal among lawyers, A Georgia man convicted of beating his father and seven others to death inside the mobile home they shared was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Guy Heinze Jr. was sentenced less than a week after a Glynn County jury found him guilty of malice murder for the Aug. 29, 2009, slayings. Prosecutors spared 26-year-old Heinze from a possible death sentence last week as part of a deal with defense attorneys that allowed them to avoid a hung jury.

full article at link .............. http://www.wildabouttrial.com/one_o...e-without-parole-in-slayings-of-8-in-georgia/
 
I saw an interview yesterday from someone in Bryon's family.

It was sad to hear that Byron does have brain damage. God bless him, and I hope he never remembers that awful night in hot August 2009 when the devil came to Georgia.

Plus GHJ got 20 years for attempting to murder Byron and 6 years for the drug charges.

Good riddance.
 
Seems a BBC tv was following/filming the trial, I have just watched a documentary about the case, it was very enlightening, they showed quite a few photographs from the crime scene with the bodies still in situ, and for me it only reaffirms the impossibility of one person doing all that beating in that small space on there own with not one victim able to escape,

according to states case the murderer was killing for up to 2-3 hours, many of the victims have severe defence wounds including broken/fractured hands, it took a serious amount of time just to beat one victim to death and we are expected to accept that all the others did not hear anything or make a run for it

some of the victims were in one of the 3 bedrooms, from the evidence it seems that a severe fight went on between killers and Rusty snr, yet whilst this was happening no others got out,

it did show the blood on Guys shorts, the ones he wore under the outer pair, and the blood was from three of the victims, this to me was the only solid piece of evidence pointing to Guy,

from this programme it also seems that I was under the misapprehension that he used the butt of the rifle to kill, the state actually assert that he killed them all with the barrel of the gun, which makes the killing of all the victims by one man with a barrel off a gun even more illogical, ME said some of the head wounds were similar to what he would expect if someone had fallen from a tall building, the butt of the rifle was found by Rusty snr head,

another thing that struck me was many of the reporters who had sat through the whole trial were astounded at a guilty verdict

5 jurors spoke, and it seems it was a very stressful deliberation, with many jurors crying and a lot of tension, the jurors seemed to really consider the case though and many had opinions on which piece of evidence they felt was the thing that meant they voted guilty

one question I was disappointed the interviewer did not ask the jurors was whether they thought Guy acted alone, and if they did how they think he was able to kill all the victims on his own,

I have now hopped back onto the fence about his guilt, even though the documentary has revealed that the different blood on the shorts is stronger evidence than I originally thought, I am firmly of the opinion though that it just does not seem feasible that one person could have done it

I don't think you will be able to watch it in USA, it should go on BBC IPlayer, which is an online service provided by BBC where people can watch programmes they missed on TV, they normally put it on there for about a month,

if you want to have a look on IPlayer then programme is called Life and Death Row, BBC3, 24/03/2014 at 9pm, for anybody who followed the case it is worth a watch
 
Thanks Joe,
I was shocked by the verdict. I had hoped that I just didnt hear the important evidence.

I also expected an appeal.

I am going to try to watch the program.
 
the shorts are the one major thing that give me pause for thought about Guy being involved, but they alone would not be enough to make me vote guilty,

and a I have previously posted it just seems impossible that one person did it,

there were fans shown in the pictures in the documentary, I do not know how many if any were on, so that may have drowned out the noise of the attack carrying outside the trailer, but inside the trailer is so small that it would be very difficult for any loud persistent noises to not be heard,

one other thought I had was that it was not random, which is why LE possibly focused on Guy, the families trailer was tucked away on the trailer park, and I can't see why anybody would have just come upon the trailer without intending to go there,

another thought is the pictures show the trailer full of stuff, trash, a microwave prominent in one picture, stuff everywhere, so if you were not familiar with the trailer you would possibly have been stumbling round falling over stuff, even if you were familiar with the home it seems impossible that you could ever have crept quietly through that trailer, everything was crammed into such a small place,

the defence expert opined that it would definitely have taken more than one person, he said 4-5, I think that seems too many, but he did point out some interesting evidence that he says the crime scene analyst and LE overlooked, such as apparent handprints in blood on the bottom of Rusty JNrs jeans, which showed he may have been dragged, and no blood splatter on the wall in Brendas room which showed that she was the only victim who had a pillow placed over her head and it had to have been held in place as the murderer beat her to death, there was blood on one of her hands (am unsure if I recall correctly if defence expert said it looked like finger prints) so defence expert said it needed 3 hands to kill her, one to hold pillow down, one to beat her, and one to hold her hand/s down,

pictures also show a very bloody pillow, think in the girls room, where there was no body, so that victim had been severely beaten but had then been able to move off that pillow and out of the bed,

I am going to check if it is on BBC player to re watch the programme as I could not take in all the evidence that I saw last night
 
If you don't doubt anything about this case then think please, How can a single man get into a trailer so silently he didn't wake ANYONE not even the people asleep on the open plan kitchen floor, yet in the 911 call he is so smashed out of his tree on drugs it's hard to understand him?

How could he possibly have the strength, coordination and the speed you'd need to beat 8 people to death (not shoot or stab) Yet most of them are found in their sleeping positions as if they hadn't been woken up although there was at least one other adult in the same room?

Some say crack can give you a feeling of power and as if you can take on the world but it's just a feeling it does not turn an ordinary 20 something man into The Incredible Hulk!

Due to the tester messing up it was not brought up that Guy PASSED a polygraph test.

Also someone reported finding a hammer and a Nunchaku with what was described as "rust coloured stuff" on them behind and below the trailer, yet no one returned the call or went to collect them for examination. In fact they said there wasn't a report called in, until they heard the official police recording of the telephone call.

Just these are enough to add doubt into a mind, even if it's tiny, yet 4 hours after the jury change Guy was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt by all. yet before the change they were in a dead lock for 3-4 days really???
 
I watched the documentary and I have to say I am down with the GUILTY verdict. He was on crack. I think he could have killed them all. He had the use of a shotgun. Some were beaten also, but everyone was shot as well. He could have stormed through shooting them all in their beds, then beating them as an afterthought of rage. He seemed pretty messed up.
 
I'm not sure how I missed the case on TV, maybe I saw something about it but just didn't remember. Anyway, first time I heard about it was from my brother. He said there was a guy who had come to the prison (my brother is locked up) and when they asked what he was in for, he said it was for killing 8 family members but that he didn't do it. He asked me to look into it and give him my opinion. After all I've read and watching the documentary, I don't believe he did it. Just my opinion.

My brother says in person he's a timid shy guy. Doesn't try starting anything or try acting like a bad *advertiser censored*. He maintains his innocence and still gets support and letters from his Grandmother and Brother.
 
sinwonderland said:
If you're still interested in watching the documentary, it aired here in the states and here's a link to it online...
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=04d7...pub=SDX.SkyDrive&authkey=!AqEtAb7cM1xarBw&v=3
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Thanks for the link, going to watch it tomorrow.

katydid23 said:
I watched the documentary and I have to say I am down with the GUILTY verdict. He was on crack. I think he could have killed them all. He had the use of a shotgun. Some were beaten also, but everyone was shot as well. He could have stormed through shooting them all in their beds, then beating them as an afterthought of rage. He seemed pretty messed up.
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After following the trial I think he is guilty.
 
katydid23 said:
I watched the documentary and I have to say I am down with the GUILTY verdict. He was on crack. I think he could have killed them all. He had the use of a shotgun. Some were beaten also, but everyone was shot as well. He could have stormed through shooting them all in their beds, then beating them as an afterthought of rage. He seemed pretty messed up.
Click to expand...

nobody was shot, all 8 victims were beaten multiple times, the states position is they were beaten with the barrel of the shotgun, which makes the idea that one man on his own could have beaten each victim over and over again yet nobody else woke up and escaped or was able to fight back ludicrous in my opinion, there were 5 adult males in the trailer, none of the victims toxicology results show they were incapacitated by drugs or alcohol and it took time to beat to death each victim, seems very improbable that one person could have done it
 
joe jones said:
nobody was shot, all 8 victims were beaten multiple times, the states position is they were beaten with the barrel of the shotgun, which makes the idea that one man on his own could have beaten each victim over and over again yet nobody else woke up and escaped or was able to fight back ludicrous in my opinion, there were 5 adult males in the trailer, none of the victims toxicology results show they were incapacitated by drugs or alcohol and it took time to beat to death each victim, seems very improbable that one person could have done it
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The more I read and the more I see about the case, it seems so obvious that he didn't do it. I think for what a horrible crime it was and with so many victims, they did an absolutely terrible job of collecting and testing evidence and investigating tips and suspects. I feel this will be one of those cases where something new will come to light in the future (hopefully for Guy sooner rather than later) that will prove it was someone else.
 
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