Re-trial of "no body" murder case in Kansas
KSN.ComRemains of victim in "no body" case found
Remains of missing man found near his Davis home
By Hudson Sangree - hsangree@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B2
John Finley Scott, a retired UC Davis professor, is shown in 1981 with his mountain bike. He disappeared almost two years ago; a man was convicted of murder in the case despite the lack of a body then.
The skeletal remains of murdered University of California, Davis, professor John Finley Scott, who disappeared nearly two years ago, were discovered last week in a shallow grave near his house, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department announced Monday.
The department said in a statement that investigators had received new information that led them to Scott's body.
Working with county coroners and forensic anthropologists from California State University, Chico, they unearthed the remains. They examined them in the laboratory, and a deputy coroner confirmed Monday that they were Scott's, the statement said.
Scott, 72, a retired sociology professor often credited with inventing the mountain bike, disappeared in June 2006. The blood-splattered scene at his house west of Davis convinced investigators he had been killed.
An extensive search failed to turn up a body.
Nevertheless, prosecutors went forward with a case against Charles Kevin Cunningham, a previously convicted felon whom Scott had hired to trim trees on his rural property.
Prosecutors said Cunningham, 48, had stolen Scott's checks and forged his signature.
When Scott confronted Cunningham, the man killed him to avoid being sent back to prison, Deputy District Attorney David Akulian told jurors in Woodland.
Cunningham continued to forge Scott's checks, he said.
The lack of a body did not deter jurors from finding Cunningham guilty of first-degree murder. On Oct. 23, they convicted Cunningham on all charges.
At the time, District Attorney Jeff Reisig called it a "tremendous verdict" and said the case was the first no-body homicide prosecution in the county in 30 years that anyone in his office could remember.
On Monday, Reisig said the discovery of Scott's body confirms the prosecution's theory.
"It vindicates it beyond any shadow of a doubt," he said. "Now that we have the body, it closes the door on the question of where is Professor Scott.
"We are confident that he was brutally executed by Charles Cunningham," Reisig said, "and the jury's verdict was righteous."
An autopsy still was pending to determine the cause of death, he said.
Scott was an iconoclastic scholar and avid biker.
In 1953 he outfitted a Schwinn bicycle with balloon tires, multiple gears and more powerful brakes, calling it his "woodsie bike."
He was among the first in the United States to make a sport out of hurtling down mountains on a bicycle, according to cycling historians.
In the 1970s, he lobbied the Legislature to establish modern traffic laws that treat bikes much like cars.
The professor's former home on the outskirts of Davis, where he lived alone, is boarded up.
Reisig said the discovery of Scott's body would bring closure to his family, including his sister and niece, who attended the trial.
"Professor Scott's family were devastated not only by his murder but not being able to have a proper funeral," the district attorney said.
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U.S. man convicted over Japanese woman's death
Tatsuhito Iida / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
LOS ANGELES--A 23-year-old man has been convicted of second-degree murder over the death of a Japanese woman who disappeared in Hawaii a year ago.
Following Monday's verdict, the court likely will hand down a sentence to Kirk Lankford in June.
With no body or murder weapon yet discovered, police established the case against the defendant purely on circumstantial evidence. Lankford's trial by jury lasted more than a month.
Local media have given prominent coverage to the case.
According to the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, a district court delivered a guilty verdict at 11:40 a.m. over the death of Masumi Watanabe, 21, who was staying with a Hawaiian family in Oahu at the time of her disappearance.
Prosecutors demanded the court take no longer than three weeks to rule on the case, but Lankford's defense lawyer said it should take three to six months to reach a decision.
Presiding Judge Karl Sakamoto, who will decide Lankford's punishment, said the court would resume in late May. Tuesday's hearing closed after about an hour.
Under Hawaiian state law, murder suspects are charged with second-degree murder except for special cases, such as the murder of a police officer. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
During the trial, which started March 3, the prosecutors did not posit a motive or method for the killing. However, they said Watanabe's DNA was detected in a bloodstain discovered in Lankford's truck and that her glasses also were found in the vehicle. Further, eyewitness testimony claimed to have seen Lankford digging a hole at a beach.
Prosecutors also produced more than 100 pieces of evidence.
After all the evidence had been presented, the prosecutors told the jury the defendant was trying to cover up a hideous murder and there was no doubt of his guilt.
During the investigation, Lankford--who worked for a pest control company--said he had never met Watanabe and completely denied the allegation.
However, at a court hearing, his lawyer said Lankford's truck had accidentally struck Watanabe while she was walking on a street. He then allegedly put her in the passenger seat with the intention of driving her to the house of her Hawaiian host family. But she allegedly leapt from the vehicle, hit her head on the road and died.
The lawyer also claimed Lankford tried to bury Watanabe's body at a beach, but because he was spotted by a homeless person, Lankford traveled to a different beach to dispose of her body in the sea.
As part of his testimony, Lankford denied murdering Watanabe and said he tried to conceal the incident as he was afraid of losing his job.
The jury twice visited sites related to the case to examine claims made by the prosecutors and Lankford's lawyer.
Saturday marked the first anniversary of her disappearance and a memorial service was held at a church in Honolulu, which was attended by Mayor Mufi Hannemann.
(Apr. 16, 2008)
Oregon "no body" murder case
Without body, state must prove death
By BENNETT HALL
Gazette-Times reporter
Murder conviction not uncommon even when victim is never found
How can you convict someone of murder without a body?
That’s the challenge faced by Benton County prosecutors in the trial of Joel Patrick Courtney, who stands accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering Brooke Wilberger, a 19-year-old college student who disappeared from a Corvallis apartment complex on May 24, 2004.
Though Wilberger is presumed dead, her body has never been found.
But that doesn’t mean a murder conviction is out of the question — far from it, legal experts say.
“It’s certainly harder if you don’t have a body, but not as hard as you might think,” said Susan Rozelle, who teaches classes in evidence and criminal law at the University of Oregon School of Law.
Affidavits unsealed this week in the Wilberger investigation offered a glimpse into the kinds of evidence Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson might present at trial.
According to the documents, investigators searched the New Mexico home of Courtney’s estranged wife and seized physical evidence that included hair fibers possibly belonging to Wilberger. The documents also cite witness accounts placing Courtney in the area of the Corvallis apartment complex about the time Wilberger disappeared.
Prior to his extradition to Oregon, Courtney was convicted of abducting a young woman near the University of New Mexico campus and raping her at knifepoint.
Haroldson would not comment directly on the Wilberger case, but he noted that Oregon law specifically allows jurors to base their verdict on either direct or circumstantial evidence. In cases where direct evidence is questionable or lacking, he said, circumstantial evidence may prove compelling.
“You could have a body and have a very weak case, or you could have no body and have a strong case,” Haroldson said.
Prosecutor Josh Marquis had no physical evidence to work with in a 1993 Deschutes County case, but that didn’t prevent him from winning a murder conviction in the disappearance of Carolann Payne. As in the Wilberger case, Marquis had no body to point to, but he did have a suspect: Joel Abbott.
“We had suspected him for some time,” recalled Marquis, now the district attorney for Clatsop County. “We wired up ... a friend of his with a body wire, and Mr. Abbott made some fairly incriminating statements.”
By themselves, those statements might not have been enough to convict Abbott of killing Payne, especially because her body had never been recovered. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Payne was a drifter with no fixed address.
But Marquis was able to persuade the jury that the missing woman must be dead because of the absence of any sign that she was still alive. In court, he showed that Payne had not contacted any of her relatives, there was no record of any run-ins with law enforcement, her Social Security number had not been used and there were no financial transactions involving her.
“I did it by proving the negative,” Marquis said.
Steven L. Krasik, the lead attorney for Courtney, did not return a phone call seeking comment on Friday.
Other lawyers, however, said prosecutors face an uphill battle.
“The state has the burden of proving a person died,” noted Sam Kauffman, a defense attorney with Garvey Schubert Barer in Portland.
That’s true, agreed Rozelle, the UO law professor. One likely strategy in a “no body” homicide case is to cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory of the crime by offering alternative explanations for the evidence presented at trial, she said. Courtney’s attorneys might also be expected to remind jurors of the absence of direct proof that a murder has occurred.
“That is going to be for the defense the best argument,” she said.
But she also noted that convictions have been obtained before, despite such arguments. Jurors simply have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty as charged.
“All you need are enough facts that look suspicious enough that the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt,” Rozelle said.
“There are lots of definitions of reasonable doubt, but one thing they all agree on is that it doesn’t mean the foreclosure of any doubt at all.”
Veteran prosecutor Norm Frink said he can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
“There’s no big deal about prosecuting a homicide when no body is present. It happens all the time,” said Frink, chief deputy district attorney for Multnomah County.
In fact, Frink said, his office has successfully handled several such cases, including the slaying of Tim Moreau, an employee of the Starry Night concert hall in Portland who vanished in 1990.
Ten years later, nightclub owner Larry Hurwitz pleaded no contest in the killing after another employee, George Castagnola, testified that he helped strangle Moreau to cover up a ticket-counterfeiting scam.
“The notion that there’s some big problem with prosecuting a case just because the remains of the decedent haven’t been found is a false notion,” Frink said.
“It’s just not that big an impediment to a successful prosecution.”
Bennett Hall can be reached at
758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.
Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, "No Body" Guy
