PA: 2005: A murderous year
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2005: A murderous year
By LAURIE MASON
The Intelligencer
If it seemed this year that every time you opened the newspaper there
was a story about someone being killed, you weren't imagining things.
Bucks County had one of the deadliest years on record in 2005 with 14
homicides, more than double 2004's count of six.
Montgomery County's number doubled. There were 18 homicides last year,
up from nine in 2004.
In Doylestown and Norristown courtrooms, some of the killers were
brought to justice. Others convicted of murder are awaiting their day
in court, while their alleged victims wait for closure. And some cases
- prosecutors say the most tragic - didn't result in any criminal
charges.
Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons, who responded with police
to nearly every crime scene this year, said she was almost overwhelmed
sometimes by how many people were being killed.
"I think there was one weekend in the summer that we had three
separate murders," she said. "It was surreal. It got to the point
that if the phone rang in the middle of the night I thought someone
must be playing a joke on me."
While it's hard to compare one homicide to another, prosecutors said
some of the 2005 killings were exceedingly brutal.
Like the Aug. 25 slaying of Christian Rojas. The 28-year-old computer
programmer from Costa Rica who was living in Bensalem was found beaten
and drowned in his apartment.
When police tracked down his alleged killers, Heather Lavelle, 35, and
James Savage, 39, the couple reportedly confessed to torturing Rojas to
death so they could steal his money to buy drugs.
Lavelle, a former insurance executive and crack addict who dated Rojas,
allegedly told police she and Savage hogtied Rojas and forced him into
his bathtub, where Savage beat him with brass knuckles and held his
head under bloody water.
Lavelle and Savage, who were captured in North Carolina a week after
the killing, are awaiting trial. If convicted, Lavelle would be the
first Bucks woman on death row.
A frenzied attack
"Blood, blood everywhere" was the description police officers gave
after their first look at the scene of Wayne and Carol Denno's grisly
murders in May.
The Warminster couple was stabbed to death in what prosecutors called a
"frenzied attack" at their Bradley Lane home.
Wayne, 47, and Carol, 44, each were stabbed more than 20 times, police
said, and their throats were slit.
The motive? Police say the Dennos had racked up a $700 crack cocaine
debt. When the four Philadelphia men who sold them their drugs came to
collect, police say, a battle with knives began that was allegedly
witnessed by one suspect's 2-year-old son.
Awaiting trial in the case are Allan Dillard, 22, and the Carmichael
brothers - Carlos, 31; David, 28; and Matthew, 23.
"That crime scene stands out because it was so bloody," Gibbons
said. "You had two victims, and it was obviously a very violent
killing."
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for all four suspects, but
defense attorneys plan to argue the Dennos' alleged risk-filled
lifestyle contributed to their deaths, therefore mitigating the
aggravating factors that would make the killers deserving of lethal
injection.
The speediest verdict
Jerry Saxon's death led to one of the county's most memorable jury
trials in 2005.
Saxon, 52, was found in an insulin-induced coma at his Bensalem
apartment in March 2003. While police suspected his wife, Jean Saxon,
46, early on, she wasn't arrested until late 2004, following a lengthy
grand jury investigation.
At her trial in Doylestown last month, Jean Saxon, a nurse, claimed she
did not know how her husband's blood-sugar level dropped to a fatal
level and denied accusations she tampered with his life support
machines after he was hospitalized.
But prosecutor Michelle Henry had armloads of evidence against Saxon;
she stood to gain a huge life insurance payout, she was having an
affair with a married lover, police found a bag filled with stolen
medications at her home and a Google search for "insulin + ingested +
dangerous" on her computer.
The crown jewel in the prosecutor's case, however, came from a most
unlikely place: down the toilet.
A gunk-covered syringe, which Saxon's landlord found more than a year
after the slaying, helped jurors make up their minds. The result was a
jury's finding of guilty in less than a hour. A record, prosecutors
said, for a first-degree murder case in Bucks.
Courtroom-clearing outburst
There was high courtroom drama in another Bucks murder case in 2005,
the Dec. 5 guilty plea of Stanford Douglas Jr.
Douglas, 30, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the
March 27 shooting of William Berkeyheiser, 62, of Upper Makefield.
Douglas, a 6-foot-5-inch, over-the-road truck driver diagnosed with
schizophrenia, admitted firing seven bullets at Berkeyheiser as he
opened his door on Easter.
Douglas used the services of a private detective to track down
Berkeyheiser to get revenge for a joke Berkeyheiser, a former
co-worker, supposedly told in 1998, police say.
The killer never disclosed the contents of the joke, and Berkeyheiser's
family said he was not prone to off-color humor. Prosecutors also
learned Douglas had a "hit list" of people he allegedly planned to
kill over past slights or insults.
Bucks County President Judge David Heckler eventually sentenced Douglas
to life in the mental health unit of a state prison but not before a
courtroom-clearing outburst that began when Douglas demanded the death
penalty.
Standing at the defense table, Douglas informed the judge he was going
home, then started for the courtroom audience. Chairs and tables slid
around the room as several deputies pounced on the defendant.
Dragged to the floor, Douglas continued to struggle as his weeping
family and the victim's wife and children were rushed to safety.
Douglas finally calmed down after talking to a county detective, and
the courtroom was brought under control.
The most troubling cases
While most killers get their day in court, some slayings did not result
in criminal charges because they were cases of murder-suicide.
In April, Solebury police found the body of Susan Czarny, 50, inside
her Summerhill Court home. She had been stabbed numerous times, her
throat slit and her skull crushed.
Police say her husband, Jon Czarny, 48, killed himself by taking an
overdose of pills. His body was found in his car at a nearby shopping
center. Prosecutors say there was a long history of domestic violence
in the home.
Gibbons said domestic violence and mental illness were the underlying
causes in the case that led to the most troubling crime scene she had
to respond to all year.
In June, Suzanne Detwiler, 40, was shot to death by her husband, Andrew
Detwiler, 44, while she was attempting to dial 911 at the family's East
Rockhill home. The father then was shot by his 15-year-old son, who was
trying to protect the mother.
Gibbons' voice still cracks when she speaks of the case and the look on
the boy's and his 17-year-old brother's tear-streaked faces in the
hours after the incident.
"This was so emotionally traumatizing to these young boys, and at
that point I don't even think they knew how traumatized they were. They
both had blank looks on their faces."
Gibbons quickly ruled the shooting was justified and the boy faced no
charges. Gibbons said she still thinks and worries about both brothers.
"I just can't imagine anything more terrible. I truly hope they're
getting the help they need."
While Bucks and Montgomery counties' homicide rates were high in 2005,
they still pale in comparison to Philadelphia's, which had more than
270 slayings, according to police statistics.
Of the 18 Montgomery County murders last year, only two occurred in
eastern portion of the county:
* Michael Ewer, a homeless man, was found dead in late October in
Lansdale's Memorial Park of severe blunt head trauma. Ewer's murder has
not been solved.
* Joseph Nitterour of Lower Bucks County was killed when hit in the
head with a hammer allegedly wielded by Daryl Grasty outside an Upper
Dublin business in October. Nitterour was attempting to call police at
the time to report that Grasty was breaking into a truck.
Gibbons said effects of last year's killings will continue to be felt
by her staff next year, with more than four murder trials already
scheduled for early 2006. But she hopes residents know they still live
in a safe place.
"Yes, we had a bad year, but I don't think it's a trend. Most of
these homicides can be traced to two things, drugs and domestic
violence. People can protect themselves by steering clear of the drug
culture, and we're trying to do something about domestic violence."
Already in the works, she said, is a domestic violence "study
group," of law enforcement, victim advocacy and domestic violence
experts. The panel, which has been meeting under her direction since
early fall, will become a more formal task force in 2006.