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

[joe jones]

I think there is enough to put reasonable doubt in the jurors minds.

I think the defence CIC and the states contention he may have not acted alone give rise to reasonable doubt, it just defies any logical explanation that one person was able to go round bashing people in the head as they lay in the same bed as each other and not one made it so far as the door to the trailer which was open or out the open windows, a trailer is not like a house, the walls are very thin,

they were all not intoxicated or drugged into a stupor, it is obvious from todays witness that most of them made an effort to defend themselves or escape, and yet they were all killed except for Byron, whilst he was bashing the head of one victim in one bedroom then the others in the other rooms had a chance to flee

and Guy would have been covered in blood, not just a few spots on his shorts and shoes, he according to state was bashing peoples heads in, the trailer was covered in blood from floor to ceiling, it would have been on all his clothes, in his hair, under his nails, all over his body as it would have soaked through his clothes, so why isn't there any in the car,

 

[Soulmagent]

I found this article which refers to a book he wrote .

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...orge-zimmerman-zimmerman-trial-zimmerman-case

Nothing I have seen (including trial footage ) show me anything about him on that case.

 

[Soulmagent]

Its in this update Soul.... posted by Popsicle.

He went to friend's apartment, came back home but didn't go inside, Nohilly said.

Heinze said he went over to the window of the mobile home where he knew West was and got more crack cocaine from West. He drove to St. Simons Island, met his brother Tyler at a Best Western motel about 2:30 to 3 a.m. on the morning he found his father and others slain, Nohilly testified.

That is what time he said he went to meet his brother.

I clicked the link and read it and in the blog it doesn't say what time is mentioned for any activities except ,meeting his brother. However I think not having a timeline is not helping.

Testimony says he didn't meet his brother until later and then we can only assume GHJ was the knock at the door, and was later let in.

 

[QueenD]

I had never heard until today that the trailer had 3 bedrooms, which makes it even more of a struggle for me to comprehend how one person could have moved from bedroom to bedroom, to kitchen and living area beating people to death over and over again and not one was able to get out an unlocked front door, and none of them were incapacitated through drink or drugs, only 1 had taken sleeping medication,

This blows my mind too. There were some comments under today news4jax.com story that someone said that could make sense. That one of those that are deceased held the gun on the victims until HJR killed them all then eliminated the one witness.

I have lived in older mobile homes before (clean , neat ones) and I know most of the older ones are basically layed out the same. Most didn't have insulation between the walls just paneling and 1x1 or 2x2 and trust me you could be at one end of the trailer and hear everything that was going in the other end.

How this took place and no one woke up and ran for their life is something I don't get. I do feel like HJR is the killer, but can't help but think someone helped him. Just MOO

 

[oceanblueeyes]

By Terry Dickson




7:05 p.m.

Guy Heinze Jr. told the court Tuesday night he will not testify in his own defense in his death penalty murder trial before it goes to the jury Wednesday.

After both sides closed, prosecutors called a witness to rebutt testimony about nunchucks found near the crime scene, which police said they did not have.

Glynn County police Capt. Thomas Tindale testified as a rebuttal witness that he helped process the crime scene at New Hope Mobile Home Park where eight had been beaten to death.

“We didn’t do anything until the medical examiner had done his examination,” Tindale testified in Guy Heinze Jr.’s death penalty murder trial.

Tindale testified officers were to look for the barrel and receiver of a 20 gauge shotgun barrel missing from the house and a knife.

There were items and tools found that were taken as evidence and others that were covered in dirt and were left, Tindale testified.

“If you could tell it had been there weeks and months and spider webs were growing over it and grass growing over it,’’ it was obvious it hadn’t been used in the recent hours so it wasn’t picked up, Tindale testified.

Tindale said that the area where tires were stacked. Gail Montgomery Priest, former manager of New Hope, testified earlier that homemade metal nunchucks were found insjde the tires long after investigators had left.

Under cross-examination, Tindale said he had searched the tires and found nothing.

Tindale said the initial search of the exterior lasted a couple of days and all the evidence removed from the park afterward all was moved afterward.

“Once I had searched something there was no reason to go back and search it again,’’ Tindale said.

Asked how he explained how Priest found nunchucks in tires he already had searched, Tindale testified, “Once we were through with the scene anybody could put anything there.

Defense witnesses have said nunchucks could have caused some of the wounds on victims.

Since learning of the supposed nunchucks, Tindale said he had done nothing to try to find them.

Judge Stephen Scarlett told the jury evidence was closed in the case and that lawyers would give closing arguments, he would then charge them on the law and they would begin deliberating.

Court will resume at 9 a.m., Scarlett said.

6:24 p.m.

After asking consultant Michael Knox a few questions, Guy Heinze Jr.'s defense lawyer rested his case.

6:10 p.m.

Judge Stephen Scarlett indicated that the lawyers will finish with their evidence Tuesday night and could open court later Wednesday when the lawyers would give their closing arguments Wednesday.

5:55 p.m.

During cross examination from prosecutor John B. Johnson, consultant Michael Knox acknowledged that Guy Heinze Jr. himself may have transferred evidence as he walked from room to room in the mobile home where his father and seven others lay beaten to death Aug. 29, 2009.

But Knox, who was called by the defense, maintained it is up to police to process the crime scene as they find it and not add to the contamination.

He also acknowledged he had worked only from photographs to do "a partial blood pattern analysis."

He had identified wounds earlier as come from a sharp object. Johnson asked if he didn't know that GBI regional medical examiner Edmund Donoghue had identified the wounds as having resulted from cockroaches feeding on the victims as they lay dead.

Johnson also asked Knox about two of his opinions, that the persons who committed the crimes must have been covered with blood and that someone straddled victim Brenda Gail Falagan and held her arm while someone else beat her.

Johnson said the quilt that covered Falagan had no blood on it and asked how someone covered with blood from killing the other victims could have straddled Falagan.

When Johnson characterized his comments about the Glynn County police investigation as complaints, Knox said he was not complaining but did not correct Johnson when he called it a criticism.

Knox had said clothes with spots of blood left in a bathroom where none of the victims lay should have been tested.

Johnson asked if the blood dripped on those clothes could have dripped from the barrel of a 20 gauge shotgun barrel that was missing.




Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...t-nearly-enough-defense-witness#ixzz2iUzgimah

 

[oceanblueeyes]

This blows my mind too. There were some comments under today news4jax.com story that someone said that could make sense. That one of those that are deceased held the gun on the victims until HJR killed them all then eliminated the one witness.I have lived in older mobile homes before (clean , neat ones) and I know most of the older ones are basically layed out the same. Most didn't have insulation between the walls just paneling and 1x1 or 2x2 and trust me you could be at one end of the trailer and hear everything that was going in the other end.

How this took place and no one woke up and ran for their life is something I don't get. I do feel like HJR is the killer, but can't help but think someone helped him. Just MOO

Since in Georgia's criminal past history one man was able to bludgeoned to death his entire family.............NINE family members...I do believe GHjr was able to do this right by himself. One MSM news site even mentioned the parallels between the two mass bludgeoning murder cases.

There is simply no forensic evidence showing that anyone else was involved. That is the great thing about forensic evidence...........it has no biases......it knows no names beforehand. It is what it is, and in this case it all points to one mass murderer.....Guy Heinz Jr.

BBM

WOW now that is some kind of far out conspiracy. Sorry, but I had to chuckle how people invent things. :floorlaugh:

While what you say is true the truth of the matter is everyone in that home DID die in the room where they slept. So if we go by the defense's assertions there would have to be eight perpetrators to control all 8. Yet there is no evidence of anyone else's involvement.

Also with that many people living in one trailer coming and going at all hours....... people tend to tune out the noises around them and they had two window fans going full blast. Its the same thing when someone lives by a railroad track or an airport. Eventually the noises are tuned out and are paid no mind. People are even known to mumble or moan in their sleep. One strike to the head as mighty as these blows were would leave them either dead and dying or so stunned and immediately unconscious shortly thereafter. They certainly would be in no condition to rage war with a man that was beating their brains out.

I don't have one doubt in my mind that GHjr did these gosh awful brutal crimes all by himself.

I just hope he is convicted so that his wiped out family will receive the justice each one richly deserves.

Brutality to this degree deserves no less than the death penalty.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Here are just some examples where GHJ told bald face lies. He tried to smear Joe West and Joe West didn't have one illegal chemical/drug in his body when he was murdered. The crackhead in that family was Guy Heinz Jr.



The jury saw Heinz tell a police investigator in a videotaped interview that he had taken the gun from the mobile home the morning of the slayings. Heinze said he paid a man $25 for the gun and that he believed it was stolen and didn’t want police to find it.

He also read from a toxicology report on Joseph West that showed he had no marijuana in his system. Heinz told police he and West had smoked marijuana together Aug. 28, the night before Heinz found him dead with the others in the mobile home.

Chrissy Toler and Russell Toler Jr. had consumed marijuana, toxicology tests showed.

Both Russell Toler Sr. and his son Michael Toler tested positive for propoxyphene, a prescription painkiller, the reports showed.

On Aug. 28, Joe West, Michelle and Chrissy Toler and Chrissy Toler’s son Byron Jimerson, the sole survivor of the beatings, were seen in a video at a convenience store on U.S. 17 near Brunswick where West had spoken with another man. The four left the store about 11:45 p.m. It was the last time all but Byron were seen alive. Heinze was not on the video although he claimed to have been there, Darris said.

 

[popsicle]

Thanks OBE.

I just want to point out to those that think others might have been involved.... even if this were so, it wouldn't make GHjr any less culpable. He would be facing the same charges and the same sentence. jmo

 

[oceanblueeyes]

As this long journey for justice is winding down my heart and thoughts are with the victims who died and their family.

Here is an excellent slide view that brings home who this case is really all about.

http://jacksonville.com/slideshow/2013-10-03/murder-case-guy-heinze-jr-brunswick#slide-51



May justice be soon coming.:heart:

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Thanks OBE.

I just want to point out to those that think others might have been involved.... even if this were so, it wouldn't make GHjr any less culpable. He would be facing the same charges and the same sentence. jmo

Morning Popsie!

I agree totally and that is why I haven't understood the defense's argument from day one because even IF he may have had help it doesn't make HIM less accountable.

I continue to believe he did not have any help whatsoever and that is why none of the evidence showed another murderer but I do respect others that believe he had help.

I understand that it is hard to fathom for some to believe one person could do this but if another man long ago in the same state killed nine family members by also bludgeoning them to death then GHjr is no different. In fact, IMOO, the crack gave him more rage and power/strength

JMO though

 

[oceanblueeyes]

By Terry Dickson





Hamilton said that Heinze’s neighbors at New Hope Mobile Home Park said he was frantic and seemed to be in shock. Officers knew that and also had Heinze’s admission he was high from using drugs overnight, but they still questioned him at the scent, Hamilton said.

Others who saw Heinze in the early morning hours on St. Simons Island in the hours before he went home and found his family dead testified they saw no blood on the shorts he was wearing, Hamilton said

Prosecution witnesses testified the shorts were reversible and blood was not visible on the black side that Heinze was wearing to the outside but visible on the gray fabric on the inside of the shorts.

Hamilton reminded them of the testimony Tuesday of Michael Knox, a paid consultant.

Knox testified that the blood on the shorts was transfer blood that got on the shorts after the crimes not blood spattered on the shorts during the beating, Hamilton said.

The shorts were stored in a common bag with other pieces of clothing that had blood, and transfer could have resulted, he said.

Former Glynn County police officer Mike Owens had possession of the shorts awhile and ‘We don’t know how we stored them,’’ Hamilton argued.

As for the lack of alternative suspects, he characterized Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson’s assertion that police knew Heinze did it “so why keep looking?”

9:50 a.m.

He mentioned a shotgun Heinze took from the house where the victims lay dead. Heinze told police he put it in the car he was driving because he had paid $25 for it and thought it was stolen. Hamilton said police interviewed a couple of people who Heinze said were with him during that buy, but they didn’t ask about it.

Heinze said he had to buy the stolen shotgun because he had broken another one, Hamilton said holding up the butt of a shotgun found beside Russell Toler Sr.’s body.

The barrel was missing and never found although police and Brunswick-Glynn County Search and Recovery searched the miles of roadway and causeway between New Hope and St. Simons Island where Heinze had gone early Aug. 28 to meet his brother Tyler who was partying at a hotel.

Rusty Toler Jr.’s half brother testified he had seen Toler Jr. the night before he was slain and that he appeared very nervous.

“What was Rusty Toler Jr. nervous about? We’ll never know,’’ Hamilton said.

9:30 a.m.

Guy Heinze Jr’s. death penalty murder trial opened Wednesay morning with some rulings on Judge Stephen Scarlett’s charge to the jury.

“I don’t think there’s any evidence to his hiring someone,’’ Scarlett said of a portion of the charge he would remove.

Also, there is now language allowing the jury to consider convicting Heinze of being a party to a crime for which no one else has been tried or convicted. That comes after two paid witnesses, a pathologist and a forensic science and criminology consultant, testified that their reviews of the police investigation indicated that more than one person was responsible for the Aug. 29, 2009, beating deaths of Heinze’s father, Guy Heinze Sr., his close friend, Russell D. Toler Sr., and six members of Toler’s extended family in a crowded, squalid mobile home.

The state is prosecuting Heinze on eight malice murder charges and, in the beating of a 3-year-old boy who survived, aggravated assault with the intent to murder.

Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson waived his right to speak first and said he would make his entire closing argument after the defense finished.

Defense lawyer Newell Hamilton Jr. reminded the jury they had agreed to listen patiently and to “decide whether Guy murdered his father Guy Heinze, Sr., his uncle, Rusty Toler Sr., his best friend, Rusty Toler Jr.,” and the other victims.

“They have not even come close to proving Guy murdered his family,’’ Hamilton said.

He then reminded the jury that the Heinze’s and the Tolers weren’t actually related but that they still considered each other family.

“The state has not proven one single allegation against Mr. Heinze,’’ he said.

He pointed out the possibility of finding Heinze guilty of being party to a crime.

After four years of investigation, “They still don’t know what happened,’’ he said.

The party to a crime charge shows reasonable doubt that Heinze killed the victims, Hamilton said.

The state’s theory, as testified to by Lt. William Daras, is that Heinze came to the house to get the prescription medication of Michael Toler 19, killed everyone and took all the money he could find.

“He went on a killing spree and killed every member of that family except Byron Jimerson, who the state wants you to believe he tried to kill,’’ and with a weapon that has never been found.

Referring again to the party to a crime option, Hamilton called it a “fall back position,’’ and if the state doesn’t believe Heinze killed the victims, the jury shouldn’t either.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...-heinze-jr-death-penalty-murder#ixzz2iYQWSZac

 

[oceanblueeyes]

By Terry Dickson





11:20 a.m.

Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson reminded the jury in Guy Heinze Jr.’s death penalty murder trial that what they have seen in the courtroom is not what they see on TV.

The basic part of the justice system is the officers on the street, he said in his closing argument.

Police have to finish the jobs in a time frame so people who live near a crime scene can get back into their homes and people can get back to running their mobile home parks, he said.

Heinze is accused of killing his father and seven others in the mobiel

“Police had seven days in this case to do their investigation,’’ he said.

It’s not the investigation that defense witness Michael Knox was paid $18,000to say it should have been, he said.

“What we generated in two weeks, they got to go through over 3 ½ years’’ and say what police did wrong, Johnson said.

“They can’t fight the physical evidence in this case. Mr. Heinze’s statements in this case,’’ he said.

“Where’s Garrett Hogue? He’s in Afghanistan,’’ so we decided to go with an officer who was there, Johnson said.

The officers didn’t hide everything, all of the “three hundred forty-something pieces of evidence,’’ that the defense got to photograph and do anything they wanted with it, Johnson said.

Knox didn’t deal with evidence that Heinze was at the crime scene when the victims were killed, Johnson said.

He held up a photo of a document with Heinze’s palm print and a print of his little finger.

Mr. Knox talked about blood spatter, but he didn’t want to talk about the document that had no blood on it but the palm and finger print.

“It’s that man’s palm print,’’ he said pointing to Heinze, ‘’ and that man’s little finger in a victim’s blood.”

How does Heinze’s palm print show up on a document that was In a drawer of a bedside able “if he wasn’t there,’’ Johnson said. “How does that happen.”

Why didn’t Knox talk about it? Because they can’t explain how it was found in the circumstances it was found.

“He put his handprint in this blood,’’ after the killings had occurred when he was looking for Michael Toler’s pills, the pills found in the car Heinze was driving, Johnson said.

In explaining his whereabouts, he claimed to have gone to Barrington Park in McIntosh County, found nobody there and smoked crack alone, but other witnesses said there were a number of people there partying, Johnson said.

“He wants you to believe ‘I was drugged up and don’t remember it.’ If you remember part of it, why don’t you remember all of it?’’ Johnson asked.

Nobody had any money In the house including “the drug dealer,’’ Joseph West who he claims to have paid $65 that night, Johnson said.

Yet West had no money and he also had no drugs, he said.

“Who, ladies and gentlemen, had marijuana, cocaine and propoxyphene? It wasn’t his daddy. It wasn’t his uncle. It was that man sitting right there,” Johnson said.

He brought up the defense contention that police didn’t investigate a lead that an Andy Anderson had threatened Toler Sr. and his family. It was investigated twice and found that Anderson was in jail and couldn’t have done it.

“There was some contention… a gang of people went over there and killed those people. The problem is there’s no evidence of that,’’ Johnson said.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...-heinze-jr-death-penalty-murder#ixzz2iYjzQNCo

 

[oceanblueeyes]

This is HUGE!

He held up a photo of a document with Heinze’s palm print and a print of his little finger.

Mr. Knox talked about blood spatter, but he didn’t want to talk about the document that had no blood on it but the palm and finger print.

“It’s that man’s palm print,’’ he said pointing to Heinze, ‘’ and that man’s little finger in a victim’s blood.”

How does Heinze’s palm print show up on a document that was in a drawer of a bedside table “if he wasn’t there,’’ Johnson said. “How does that happen.”

 

[popsicle]

Especially since he had no blood on him during the staged discovery of the victims.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

By Terry Dickson





11:34 a.m.

Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson in his closing argument in Guy Heinze Jr.’s death penalty murder trial refuted a defense assertion that Heinze was traumatized after finding his father and seven others slain in the home they all shared.

If he was traumatized, Heinze could still, “Go in the house, go in the master bedroom, step over Rusty Toler Sr., go in the closet… and get this gun and put it in the trunk of a car,’’ Johnson said.

The defense said Heinze was traumatized and tried to bring up the possibility of a third gun.

“How many guns were in the house, Mr. Defendant?” Johnson said.

Heinze said there were only two and part of the broken one is still there and the other Heinze said he put in the car because it was stolen, Johnson said.

“We have this,’’ he said holding up an ATF document saying the gun belonged to Russell Toler Sr. and was not stolen.

Police thought all the victims were shot to death and sent survivor Byron Jimerson to the hospital as “an apparent gunshot victim,’’ and only upon examination did they determine he had been beaten.

“My family’s been beat to death,’’ he said of Heinze’s statement to neighbors. “Not shot, beat to death.”

Heinze knew how the victims died before police, he said.

“We have this cell phone,’’ Johnson said, in the car the defendant was driving from 12:30 a.m. until he arrived at the trailer around 8 a.m.

The phone had no minutes left, but "we know somebody used the phone to try to make a call," Johnson said.

The phone belonged to victim Michelle Toler, had the dried blood of victim Joseph West, “yet it’s in the car,’’ Johnson said.

The blood on the phone was dried and had been smeared on it, he said.

Heinze told police “whether you believe him or not’’ he stepped behind the car after finding his family dead and smoked some marijuana before calling police, Johnson said.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...-heinze-jr-death-penalty-murder#ixzz2iYoGIbov

 

[popsicle]

I don't think this jury will take very long with their verdict.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Especially since he had no blood on him during the staged discovery of the victims.

This just shows even bloggers don't report on all the evidence..even a very important part.

His bloody palm print and little fingerprint being found INSIDE a night table drawer means he was opening drawers looking for drugs after he had murdered all of them.

The DA is doing a great job of tying it altogether, imo.:loveyou:

Its all about logic and commonsense based on the evidence found.

IMO

 

[popsicle]

12:01 p.m.

Defense arguments that police rushed to judgment in the case, ignores the evidence, Johnson said, “and the get to do that.”

He mentioned how people who live in houses for a time can get up in the dark, go to the bathroom and get a glass of water wi

“This house is a mess. There were items strewn all over everywhere’’ and there are people sleeping on the floor, Johnson said.

He knew his way around and he told police where everyone was sleeping, something a gang fo strangers wouldn’t know, Johnson said.

“He wants you to believe he stepped over this man,’’ Johnson told the jury holding up a photo of Russell Toler Sr. lying in his own blood, ‘’yet there’s not one drop of blood on his shoes.”

There’s not blood because that’s not the way it happened, Johnson said

The defense argued that victims’ blood was transferred from articles of Heinze’s clothing stored together, but Johnson said, it couldn’t have happened that way.

“It was dried blood,’’ he said.

He asked how three victims’ blood got on the reversible shorts Heinze wore as underwear.

He had Chrissy Toler’s blood on the undershorts but not on the khaki undershorts, he said.

Heinze was walking around in reversible shorts that he didn’t know had blood on them because it wasn’t visible on the dark outer side, Johnson said.

“He wore these all day long. All night long. This was his underwear. Everything else got changed,’’ Johnson said.

For all his statements does Heinze tell police that his father and Russell Toler Sr. or anyone else in the house got into an argument with this Andy Anderson who must have come back and killed everyone, Johnson said.

When asked if he knew who killed his family, Heinze said he didn’t know of anyone.

Heinze’s former employer spoke of his strength, how he handled heavy sheets of drywall alone, Johnson said.

The defense witnesses said one person could not have done it, but that’s not true, Johnson said.

The biggest person in the house, Joe West, was hit first in a room with four people, Johnson said.

“Who would know who you had to hit first to get to the others?’’ he asked.

“Circumstantial is an interesting thing,’’ arrived at by adding up individual facts to one conclusion, he said.

You have to rule out other possibilities in circumstantial cases and none of the more than 100,000 people in the area could have done it, Johnson said.

“The defense suggested to the jury they should ask where the clothes are Heinze wore during the slayings.

Johnson said they’re the same place the missing gun barrel is, wherever Heinze put them.

Police seized all the evidence, evaluated some, kept some and discarded some, Johnson said.

“It’s your duty to do justice’’ he told the jury and asked for a guilty verdict.

http://members.jacksonville.com/new...-heinze-jr-death-penalty-murder#ixzz2iYQWSZac

 

[popsicle]

12:12 pm.

Presiding Judge Stephen Scarlett recessed court for lunch and said he would reconvene at 1 p.m. and charge the jury on the law.

Before recessing, Scarlett for the second time denied a prosecution motion to remove a male juror who was overhead Sunday making statements to his wife about evidence he had heard. The juror also told a bailiff last week that he could not find "this gentleman" guilty based on what he had heard so far.

His instructions to jurors to not discuss the case with anyone were made to gaurd against outside influences, Scarlett said.

"That's the first day,'' of the trial, Scarlett said of the timing of the juror's statement to the bailiff.

http://members.jacksonville.com/new...-heinze-jr-death-penalty-murder#ixzz2iYQWSZac

 

[popsicle]

But this juror voiced an opinion on this case before the trial was finished!