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

[popsicle]

Russell Toler Sr. and and Micahel Toler, 19, were in the south bedroom, Brenda Gail Falagan was in bed in the middle bedroom, Guy Heinze Sr. dead in the living room, where witnesses have said he slept ,and Russell Toler Jr. was in the adjacent kitchen.

In the north bedroom, Byron Jimerson, then 3 and the only survivor, was in bed and Michelle Toler, 15, ended up on a pallet on the floor wear Joseph West, 30, lay dead where he slept. The body of Chrissy Toler, who was Byron’s mother, West’s girlfriend and Michelle Toler’s sister, lay between the mattress and the wall.

 

[popsicle]

12:05 p.m.

Asked about the blood on the gym shorts Heinze wore beneath khaki shorts, consultant Michael Knox said he would have liked to have seen if the shorts were different in size and whether the outer shorts could have ridden up exposing the inner shorts to contamination at the crime scene.

Anyone who handled any evidence should have signed or initialed any container of evidence.

Each individual item of clothing should be placed in an individual paper bag and a record should be established to show it was secure and no one had tampered with it, Knox testified.

No evidence, even if packaged, should have been left in a car overnight, and all evidence should be turned in to a secure property room at the end of a shift, Knox testified.

Court recessed for lunch.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...e-beaten-8-people-death-defense#ixzz2iT44th6A

 

[Soulmagent]

Thanks.

Didn't Hjr say he went around to West's window to get crack around 2:30 am that morning?

Can you link me that? This is all I have found about 2:30.

He met Tyler Heinze at a motel on St. Simons between 2:30 and 3 a.m. Saturday morning, had breakfast with him later and drove back home just after 8 a.m. where he found the front door unlocked and everyone seemingly dead, Nohilly testified.

He also said he had smoked crack all night and “was still high,” Nohilly testified.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...thers-beaten-death-2009-medical#ixzz2iTE3hKvX

 

[oceanblueeyes]

6:14 p.m.

The day's final witness was Glynn County police officer Roderic Nohilly who found Oliver, Stalvey and a state trooper on the front porch of the mobile home with Guy Heinze Jr.

Nohilly said he entered the mobile home with Stalvey. He saw a man lying on a mattress who appeared to be dead and another man lying on the kitchen floor, Nohilly testified.

Working with a diagram of the house, Nohilly testified he saw two people, Chrissy Toler and West, lying dead in a bedroom.

Stalvey, then a sergeant, notified other officers that he found one juvenile still alive, Nohilly said.

Nohilly said he exited the house and spoke with Heinze about what he had done the day before.

"I asked him if he knew anyone who would hurt his family. He said he didn't know anyone,'' Nohilly said.

Heinze gave him the names of all the victims and where they were in the trailer, he testified.

Heinze said he had gotten off work about 4:30 p.m., come to the trailer where he found all the victims and smoked marijuana with Joe West, bought crack cocaine from West and then left in Rusty Toler Jr.'s Mercury Cougar.

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.

Heinze claimed he and his brother had breakfast and he drove the Cougar to the mobile home went inside and found everyone beaten he thought to death, Nohilly testified.

Heinze also said he put his hand on his father's chest and then went through the house and found all but Michael Toler dead.

"He said he checked everyone's wrist,'' Nohilly said.

Unable to contact the house phone, Heinze said he went to a neighbor and asked her to call 911, Nohilly said.

Heinze said he found the house phone on the living room floor and used it to call 911 a second time as he went back to Michael Toler's room. Asked if there were any weapons in the house, he said there two shotguns, a 16-gauge and a 20-gauge. He claimed he removed the 16-gauge earlier from the closet where Michael Toler lay and put it in the car's trunk because it had been stolen.

"He said he bought it off a subject he knew had stolen it and didn't want us to find it,'' Nohilly said.

Nohilly said he had never entered that room.

The khaki shorts that Heinze was wearing had a smear of blood on the leg, but Nohilly said he saw no other blood on Heinze.

Heinze also acknowledged he had smoked crack all night and was still high, he said.

The jurors have told Judge Stephen Scarlett they want to start trial earlier so court will resume at 8:15 a.m. Thursday.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/georgi...-jrs-death-penalty-murder-trial#ixzz2hzON9zwg

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.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

10:55 a.m.

Jurors watched an hour-long video tape of Guy Heinze Jr. being interviewed by investigator Len Davis Sept. 2. Heinze had been in custody since Aug. 29 on drug charges after he told a 911 operator he had come home and found his father and seven others dead.

The interview jumped back and forth from his activities from getting up in the morning Aug. 28 until he found the victims and frantically reported the deaths about 8 a.m. the next morning. In the interview, Heinze acknowledged smoking $100 worth of crack cocaine in the hours before discovering the victims' bodies at home.

On the tape Heinze said:
He had worked building a house Aug. 28 in Eulonia but got off early because it was raining. He got paid in cash, went to coworker's house on St. Simons,walked to Bubba Garcia's for lunch and went back to the coworker's house.

"We was just chilling."

Some time later he got a ride home.

"I ended up buying some crack from Joe,'' smoked it, took a shower, his cousin shaved his head at the house, bought some more crack from Joe and then borrowed Russell Toler Jr.'s car around midnight he said to go see a girl.

He drove to Fort Barrington in McIntosh County where he smoked crack, later met his brother on St. Simons Island at 4 or 4:30 a.m. Aug. 29. They ate breakfast at Huddle House and he then got back into Toler Jr's car and drove home to New Hope Mobile Home Park.

"I was geeked up,'' and had tried to sleep on the floor at his brother's hotel room, he said, where everyone else was sleeping.

He told Davis that he was wearing khaki shorts, a blue striped polo shirt and flip-flops.
Heinze said he moved in with Russell Toler Sr., who he called his uncle, about June 2008, moved out for a few months but moved back into the trailer since May 2009 where 10 lived.

"Everybody got along real fine,'' he said.

"While I was working, my uncle drawing unemployment and my dad was between jobs,'' he said of financial arrangements.

They were getting evicted, he said, because there were 10 living in the trailer. The only fights occurred when Chrissy Toler's mother came over and got upset because Chrissy's bodyfriend, Joe West, was black, he said.

He said he slept on the floor of a bedroom he shared with Russell Toler Sr. and Michael Toler.

He claimed not to associate with Joe and Chrissy's friends when they came over often to buy drugs from Joseph West.

"They'd come up to the window and buy ___ out the window,'' he said. "You wouldn't hardly know they were there."

Asked where he got the khaki shorts he wore the morning of the slayings, Heinze said from a friend who went to rehab up north.

"Do you know anybody that would do this to your family?'' Davis asked.

"Nobody I know was mad like that,'' Heinze said.

He acknowledged he had kept Russell Toler Jr.'s car too long.

"I knew he was going to be mad with me when I got back," he said.

Heinze said he got paid "Four hundred and ninety something dollars" Friday.

Asked how much he paid West for crack, Heinze said, "I paid him sixty something,'' perhaps $65.

He later got $50 worth of crack from West later, but didn't pay him at the time.

Russell Toler Jr. cut his hair at the kitchen in the house on Friday.

Asked when he put on black gym shorts, Heinze said, "I had them on all the time under what I had on.''

Police have testified that, beneath a pair of khaki shorts, Heinze had on black and gray reversible gym shorts and that blood spatters were visible on the lighter gray side of the shorts. A DNA analyst testified the blood was that of some of the victims.

"I opened the door and I saw my dad like that...I got hysterical,'' he said.

He ran into the other rooms, found the others dead and got more frantic. He found a cell phone in the floor and started to call 911, but he took the shotgun out of the house first.

Heinze said he saw Peggy, who was neighbor Margaret Orlinski, outside and told her, "Call the law. Call the law."

He went back in and found Michael alive, but didn't really touch the others, but looked at them to see if they were breathing.

He touched his dad, but removed the covers off Chrissy and Joe without touching their bodies.

Asked what mad him conclude the victims had been beaten, Heinze said "When I looked in and seen my dad, it didn't look like him. Something had tore his face up."
He didn't remember touching anything but a 16 gauge shotgun that he put in the car.

He had paid $25 for the shotgun a month earlier and knew it was stolen.

"There was supposed be a 20 gauge in there, but I don't remember seeing it,'' he said.

The front door was unlocked.

"We don't lock the door...Nobody's got a house key,'' and besides the house is not air-conditioned so the windows stayed open.

He described where he found everyone lying in the mobile home and said he found Chrissy's son, "Little Byron" in the bed.

"It looked like they were in bed,'' he said and repeated the only thing he remembered touching was the shotgun and the phone.

"I was hysterical. I was crying,'' he said.

When Davis asked if there was anything in the house that could be used for a weapon, Heinze said, "I guess anything could be used for a weapon."

"Who do think done this?" Davis asked.

"I really can't think of anybody that could have done it. I've sat in jail and thought about it,'' Heinze said.

When he found Michael Toler alive, Heinze said he held his hand and sat down on the bed beside him.

Asked how much crack he had smoked overnight, Heinze said, "At least $100 worth."
Heinze told Davis he had completed 8th grade.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...ked-100-worth-crack-finding-his#ixzz2i5Ne4biQ

Here is more of his 'story.' It also has inconsistencies. He never mentions in his 911 of seeing Byron and if he had he would have known he wasn't dead either.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

A trivia side note. Michael Knox, the hired consultant for the defense in this case was also on the defense side in the Zimmerman trial.

IMO

 

[popsicle]

A trivia side note. Michael Knox, the hired consultant for the defense in this case was also on the defense side in the Zimmerman trial.

IMO

I didn't know that. Did he testify?

 

[joe jones]

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,

 

[popsicle]

1:50 p.m.

Forensic science and criminology consultant Michael Knox testified in Guy Heinze Jr.’s murder trial that anyone wearing shorts with even trace amounts of blood on them would have transferred some to the seat of the Mercury Cougar Heinze was driving the night before eight people were found slain in a mobile home.

That blood would have been detected by the highly sensitive Luminol that police used to test the car, he testified.

He also testified that the shorts Heinze wore when arrested didn’t have the blood patterns that would have resulted from nine beatings, one that was not fatal.

“There would be a lot more and there would be different patterns … had those been worn by someone who carried out these killings,’’ Knox said.

Examining the shorts Heinze wore as underwear, on which analysts found three victims’ blood, Knox testified “I don’t see any impact spatter, any castoff,’’ that resulted from the beatings.

There was also too little blood on Heinze’s flip flops for him to have carried out the beatings, he said.

“There was some fairly dynamic struggle going on,’’ he said.

He also said all he saw on the flip flops was transferred blood, no spatter, meaning there was nothing that would put them at the scene when the crime was taking place, Knox said.

Knox testified he would expect to see dripped blood on the clothing, impact spatters, blood cast off from swinging the weapon.

“There is no evidence of any of that kind of stuff here,’’ he said.

Of the shirt Heinze was wearing, Knox said he would expect to see “a substantial amount’’ of blood but none was visible.

He also called it a “cardinal sin’’ to store pieces of evidence together and also to store blood evidence in a plastic package as police did in this case in the hours after Heinze was booked into the Glynn County jail on drug charges.

The walk through video showed that someone walked all over the scene before any evidence was gathered.

“You process the area in front of you … and move to the next step’’ documenting as you go, he said.

“You don’t have to go in and trample on it,’’ and destroy evidence before it is processed, Knox said.

It’s not the” Mike Knox rules,” it’s what crime scene investigators do from coast to coast on a daily basis, he testified.

He showed a photo of an investigator in street clothes stepping over the body of Russell Toler Sr. and a slide of Russell Toler Sr.’s body shot by someone standing astride it.

Whoever killed the Tolers, West and Heinze Sr., drove into the area then left. There was no evidence of tire impressions being taken of dirt parking area outside, he said.

Knox said he wasn’t beating up on the local police, that they faced a very large crime scene.

“You have to look at maybe this is more than we’re prepared to handle,’’ he testified.

The FBI and GBI can provide help in processing crime scenes with so many victims, Knox said.

The request could have made its way to Atlanta and resulted in GBI specialists from around the state coming to help, he testified.

Most would have jumped at the chance to help, he said.

“This is the crime scene of your career,’’ because crimes with so many victims seldom occur, he said.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...t-nearly-enough-him-have-killed#ixzz2iTVQiuP8

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I didn't know that. Did he testify?

I cant remember. I will have to check it out.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

1:50 p.m.

Forensic science and criminology consultant Michael Knox testified in Guy Heinze Jr.’s murder trial that anyone wearing shorts with even trace amounts of blood on them would have transferred some to the seat of the Mercury Cougar Heinze was driving the night before eight people were found slain in a mobile home.

That blood would have been detected by the highly sensitive Luminol that police used to test the car, he testified.

He also testified that the shorts Heinze wore when arrested didn’t have the blood patterns that would have resulted from nine beatings, one that was not fatal.

“There would be a lot more and there would be different patterns … had those been worn by someone who carried out these killings,’’ Knox said.

Examining the shorts Heinze wore as underwear, on which analysts found three victims’ blood, Knox testified “I don’t see any impact spatter, any castoff,’’ that resulted from the beatings.

There was also too little blood on Heinze’s flip flops for him to have carried out the beatings, he said.

“There was some fairly dynamic struggle going on,’’ he said.

He also said all he saw on the flip flops was transferred blood, no spatter, meaning there was nothing that would put them at the scene when the crime was taking place, Knox said.

Knox testified he would expect to see dripped blood on the clothing, impact spatters, blood cast off from swinging the weapon.

“There is no evidence of any of that kind of stuff here,’’ he said.

Of the shirt Heinze was wearing, Knox said he would expect to see “a substantial amount’’ of blood but none was visible.

He also called it a “cardinal sin’’ to store pieces of evidence together and also to store blood evidence in a plastic package as police did in this case in the hours after Heinze was booked into the Glynn County jail on drug charges.

The walk through video showed that someone walked all over the scene before any evidence was gathered.

“You process the area in front of you … and move to the next step’’ documenting as you go, he said.

“You don’t have to go in and trample on it,’’ and destroy evidence before it is processed, Knox said.

It’s not the” Mike Knox rules,” it’s what crime scene investigators do from coast to coast on a daily basis, he testified.

He showed a photo of an investigator in street clothes stepping over the body of Russell Toler Sr. and a slide of Russell Toler Sr.’s body shot by someone standing astride it.

Whoever killed the Tolers, West and Heinze Sr., drove into the area then left. There was no evidence of tire impressions being taken of dirt parking area outside, he said.

Knox said he wasn’t beating up on the local police, that they faced a very large crime scene.

“You have to look at maybe this is more than we’re prepared to handle,’’ he testified.

The FBI and GBI can provide help in processing crime scenes with so many victims, Knox said.

The request could have made its way to Atlanta and resulted in GBI specialists from around the state coming to help, he testified.

Most would have jumped at the chance to help, he said.

“This is the crime scene of your career,’’ because crimes with so many victims seldom occur, he said.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...t-nearly-enough-him-have-killed#ixzz2iTVQiuP8

I don't understand what he means by struggles. The Aunt died in her bed with the covers still over her and most all of them that I can remember were found where they slept.

Chrissy, Joe, Michelle, and Byron were all found in the bedroom where they slept. Michael also found in his bedroom and wasn't his father in there with him? Heinz Sr was found in the living room were he slept and Rusty Jr was found in the kitchen were he slept on a mattress or pallet.

So where is he getting there was this dynamic struggle going on? Only one victim displayed defensive wounds and that was Michelle who had two broken bones in her hand.

I'm confused by his assertions. lol

 

[popsicle]

2:50 p.m.

As jurors looked at photos of the bedroom where Russell Toler Sr. was beaten to death, forensic science and criminology consultant Michael Knox told them that Toler put up a struggle and was struck in four locations in the bedroom where he was killed.

“You can’t do this with one person. There are two people in the room carrying this out,’’ consultant Michael Knox testified Tuesday in Guy Heinze Jr.s’ death penalty murder trial.

He asserted people were standing on both sides of the bed who carried out the fatal beating of Toler Sr.

An assailant struck him from each side and then two people joined in beating Toler once he made his way off the foot of the bed, Knox said.

There was little spatter from the beating of Brenda Gail Falagan, Toler’s sister, because she had a pillow over her face as she was beaten, and someone may have straddled her as she was beaten, he testified.

“No other victim in here has their face covered with a pillow while they were being beaten, only her,’’ Knox said.

She struggled with her arm while someone beat her which raises the question of how one person could have held the arm and the pillow over her face while she was being beaten, he testified.

Of all the victims, only Heinze’s father, Guy Heinze Sr., showed no signs of having resisted and died where he lay sleeping on the floor, Knox said.

“He’s knocked out, he’s killed, that’s it,’’ he said.

Knox showed them castoff and impact spatters on the ceiling indicating a long weapon, but he also said some spatter indicates the use of a smaller, shorter weapon and that impressions in the ceiling could indicate a pry bar or hammer. The ceiling impressions had not been tested for blood, he said.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...t-nearly-enough-him-have-killed#ixzz2iTm7KJ4d

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I cant wait for the cross examination of this hired expert.

How does he know there were two people in the room when Rusty Sr. was being murdered. I can see Sr. jumping off the bed and running around on the other side to put distance between him and his one lone killer.

I see a lot of assumptions being made and speculation going on with this expert.

He says there were signs that maybe a crow bar may have been used. Really? Well a crow bar and the barrel of a shotgun is about the same length and size.

IMO

 

[popsicle]

My thoughts exactly. I don't think much of this guy's testimony...which is why I asked if he testified in Zimmerman's trial. I don't remember him.

 

[popsicle]

Do all crow bars have an end that is shaped differently and would show up on the victims wounds?

 

[popsicle]

4 p.m.

Consultant Michael Knox testified in Guy Heinze Jr.’s death penalty murder trial Tuesday afternoon, that there was evidence that Chrissy Toler, her younger sister, Michelle, 15, and her boyfriend Joseph West, 30, moved around and even changed positions with each other in the room where they were slain and where Chrissy Toler’s then 3-year-old son, Bryon Jimerson, was severely beaten.

There was an indication that Chrissy Toler tried to escape through a window, he said.
Police witnesses have testified, that West, who suffered the fewest number of blows, seven, lay face down where he had lain sleeping on the floor.

All eight victims Heinze is charged with slaying had blunt force trauma that caused their deaths, but there were other wounds that don’t fit the pattern of a single weapon, he testified.

“There’s a variety of weapons that resulted in these types of injuries,’’ Knox testified.
By studying the blood patterns, Knox said, it was evident a short, heavy weapon was used in addition to the long, slender one that caused much of the fatal blunt force trauma to the victims’ heads.

He also referred to a bathroom where clothes with blood on them were found piled but never processed.

“Here we see dripped blood, small drops that came straight down,’’ Knox said.
Someone who was involved in the slayings entered that bathroom dripping their own blood or someone else’s, he testified.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/...t-nearly-enough-defense-witness#ixzz2iU1MuzYy

 

[oceanblueeyes]

My thoughts exactly. I don't think much of this guy's testimony...which is why I asked if he testified in Zimmerman's trial. I don't remember him.

I don't remember him either. I still haven't had time to research it though.lol

I think today has gone very well for the defense as it should since it is their CIC. But testimony is only good if it holds up under cross examination. I do find Mr. Knox's opinions somewhat presumptuous. How does he know there were two attackers in the room simply because there are four places where Mr. Toler Sr. bled? Sr. could have easily jumped off the bed on one side and ran around to the other side trying to put distance between him and his sole killer. I think the expert will be called on that assumption. Michael could have been attacked first in that room and we know he was in no condition to help anyone and lay dying on the bed. Another assumption he is making is GHjr did not clean himself up before leaving even though droplets of blood were found in the bathroom. Its logical he cleaned himself up and reversed his underwear to the black side where the blood spatter wouldn't show.

I don't fault them for not calling in the FBI. They did have the GBI do all the autopsies and all the forensic lab results. The GBI is an accredited lab just like the FBI. So it isn't like the local police tested all of this evidence themselves but sought assistance from an outside agency.

The truth is they did collect over 400 pieces of evidence and what the defense doesn't want the jury to know is the defense could have tested any piece they wanted and the Judge would have granted it. So if they are really so sure someone else was involved they would have tested pieces of evidence that LE did not test looking for that evidence. They didn't because if it showed more evidence against Guy Jr they would have to turn that over in discovery to the state. Defense attorneys are mostly sneaky snakes who love to throw up smoke screens, imo.

We have to remember that GHjr was willing to stay in jail for over four years when he had a constitutional right to a speedy trial. He waived that constitutional right. What truly innocent man would be willing to sacrifice his freedom for that long when he didn't have to? No innocent person would, imo.

I do think LE could have done a better investigation but equally I do believe the evidence they have submitted proves this is guilty but as we know no one knows what a jury will do nowadays.

IMO

 

[blefuscu]

This trial has me worried that Jr might get off.

 

[Soulmagent]

This trial has me worried that Jr might get off.

Why are worried he may get off?

Do you not feel the evidence against him is enough to convict him?

What do you believe proves he is guilty?

 

[blefuscu]

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