{Adrianne Reynolds} Gaudet tells how body was cut up
Indigo Ace
KOLB TRIAL: Gaudet tells how body was cut up
By Barb Ickes
Nathan Gaudet described in grisly detail this morning how he
dismembered Adrianne Reynolds’ body on Jan. 23, and told a Rock Island
County Circuit Court jury the plans for disposal of the body parts
came from Sarah Kolb, 17, who is on trial for the East Moline
teenager’s murder.
Gaudet, 16, of Moline, was on the witness stand for 45 minutes,
describing how he removed the body parts with a hand saw.
The teen, who is in the custody of the Illinois Department of
Corrections, said he “knelt down and used the saw” to cut up the body.
First, Gaudet said, he cut off the head “at the neck” and then the
arms.
“I cut them at the shoulder,” he added.
He continued, saying, “Next, it was the legs and the torso.”
His testimony was given in a somber tone of voice, and he answered all
yes-or-no questions with “yes, sir” and “no, sir.”
Gaudet, who has pleaded guilty to helping dismember Reynolds’ body and
is serving an undetermined sentence in a juvenile detention center,
said the plan to dispose of the remains was Kolb’s idea.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Dave Hoffman tried to
impeach Gaudet about having accepted a plea deal with the state for
his part in the dismemberment.
In his redirect, however, Rock Island County State’s Attorney Jeff
Terronez was able to show the jury that Gaudet revealed details of the
dismemberment before the plea agreement was reached.
Gaudet was brought to the courtroom shackled at the ankles and was
seated in the witness stand before the jury was brought into the
courtroom. The prosecutors informed the jury of Gaudet’s guilty plea.
Gaudet said it also was Kolb’s idea to hide the body parts in separate
places. The head and arms were dropped down a manhole at Black Hawk
State Historic Site in Rock Island because Kolb was concerned about
dental records and fingerprints, Gaudet said. Other remains were found
on a farm owned by Kolb’s grandparents in Mercer County, Ill.
Reynolds’ birth father, seated in the courtroom, flinched dramatically
when Gaudet described the dismemberment.
Kolb, of Milan, Ill., is accused of strangling Reynolds, 16, during a
Jan. 21 fight in a car outside a fast-food restaurant in Moline. Also
charged with murder is Cory Gregory, 18, of Moline, who police say was
also in the car that afternoon. He is scheduled to go on trial in
February.
In testimony on Monday, Kolb’s grandfather said he followed her and
Gregory from a remote area of his farm the day Reynolds disappeared
because he didn’t recognize her car and was suspicious about what it
was doing parked on his land in the dark.
Brian Engle said a car that he later learned belonged to his
granddaughter “took off” when he approached it in his truck while
feeding cows on his farm near Millersburg, Ill. He said the car
traveled about a half mile in the dark without its headlights on and
said a passenger in the truck wrote down its license plate number.
When the same car was parked in his driveway at home, he said, he
realized it belonged to Kolb.
“I asked what she was doing on the back of the farm,” he said. “She
said she was showing it to Cory.”
Engle said he also asked his granddaughter why she drove away when he
approached.
“She said she was scared,” he said. “She said she didn’t know who was
behind her.”
Several days later, Gregory led police back to a spot close to where
Kolb’s car had been parked. It was there that authorities found
Reynolds’ charred and dismembered remains. Police have said the pair
returned to the farm two days after they were spotted by Kolb’s
grandfather and attempted to burn the body, later cutting it into
pieces.
Rock Island County State’s Attorney Jeff Terronez is attempting to
prove that the two strangled or smothered Reynolds during a fight in
Kolb’s car. She and Gregory, 18, are charged with two counts of
first-degree murder and one charge of concealing a homicide. Her trial
entered its second week Monday, and Gregory’s trial is to begin in
February.
Kolb’s grandmother, Mary Engle, also placed the 17-year-old at the
farm on the day of the murder. She said she was expecting her
granddaughter to visit her in Mercer County that day because it was
her birthday. Though Kolb had promised to bring a birthday cake that
day, Engle said, she came empty handed.
“She seemed quiet and fidgety,” she said of Kolb’s demeanor.
Also testifying Monday were two people who were leaving the Taco Bell
on Avenue of the Cities in Moline on Jan. 21 when they saw someone
they both identified as Kolb, sitting in the passenger’s seat of a
parked car.
“We were parked next to this red car and I noticed it really rocking,”
Connie Bennett testified. “I thought it looked like someone was
fighting in the backseat.
“The back windows were steamed up,” she said. “I could not see who was
inside.”
Bennett’s husband, Vernon Bennett, also testified that the windows
were “fogged up” and he could not see into the backseat.
However, the Bennetts both identified Kolb in the courtroom as the
person sitting in the front passenger seat of the parked car.
Connie Bennett said Kolb looked “afraid.”
http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/11/08/news/local/doc4370e45a400e5122392863.txt
--
Anne
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
dogzster
Jeez. And for such young people to be the perpetrators. This whole case just
makes me sick. :(
--
http://www.sleepingdogz.net
Brand new forum for all kinds of bark!
gossip, news, entertainment, and much more
Indigo Ace
the Quad-Cities Online--
KOLB TRIAL: Gaudet says Kolb was the mastermind
By Barb Ickes
TUESDAY’S DEVELOPMENTS: Nathan Gaudet spent nearly three hours on the
witness stand, describing how he cut Adrianne Reynolds’ body into
pieces — under the direction of Sarah Kolb. He said it was Kolb’s idea
to remove and hide the 16-year-old’s head and arms so that her dental
records and fingerprints could never be found.
Kolb’s sister testified that she knew the day before Reynolds’ body
parts were found that the missing girl “had passed away,” because Kolb
told her she was dead.
COMING TODAY: Rock Island County State’s Attorney Jeff Terronez said
he plans to call his final witnesses in the state’s case against Sarah
Kolb. He said it is likely the state will rest by day’s end.
One of Sarah’s Kolb’s two defense attorneys said they have not yet
decided whether she will testify. The defense is likely to present its
case, if the attorneys choose to call witnesses, beginning Thursday.
Teen says Kolb was mastermind
Editor’s note: Readers are advised that the story that follows
contains graphic testimony from Tuesday’s court proceedings.
In nearly three hours on the witness stand, Nathan Gaudet told how
Sarah Kolb, after strangling Adrianne Reynolds, masterminded a plan
for hiding the 16-year-old’s head and arms so that her dental records
and fingerprints never would be found.
Gaudet testified Tuesday that Kolb and her co-defendant, Cory Gregory,
recruited him to help hide the East Moline girl’s remains after they
already had spent six hours trying to burn the body. The day after the
Jan. 21 murder, he said, the pair quizzed him on whether he could ever
kill a person before they revealed to him how they had murdered
Reynolds in Kolb’s car.
“Sarah asked Adrianne for a hug and then pulled her hair and told her
to stay away from her and Cory,” Gaudet said. “(Kolb) grabbed a stick
and starting hitting her in the head. She said Adrianne broke her nose
(in the fight).
“Cory held (Reynolds’) arms back while Sarah strangled her to death,”
he said. “She said that after she strangled her, blood started coming
out of her mouth.
“(Gregory) took the belt and wrapped it around her neck while they
drove to Big Island.”
At Big Island, a piece of land near the Mississippi and Rock rivers in
Milan, Ill., Gregory moved the body to the trunk of Kolb’s car, Gaudet
said. The pair then drove to Kolb’s grandparents’ farm in Mercer
County, Ill., he said.
“They poured gasoline on her, threw a tarp on her and lit her on
fire,” he said.
The next day, Jan. 23, Gregory called Gaudet at his grandparents’
house in Moline and told him to “get ready to go see the body,” he
said.
Before leaving with Kolb and Gregory, he said, he took a handsaw from
his grandparents’ basement, hiding it in his coat. In court Tuesday,
Rock Island County State’s Attorney Jeff Terronez brought out a saw,
which Gaudet identified as “the saw we cut up the body with.”
At Kolb’s grandparents’ farm near Millersburg, Ill., he said, Gregory
moved some pieces of a tree, exposing an unrecognizable corpse and
said, “This is Adrianne.”
Gaudet then described how he “knelt down and used the saw” to first
remove the teen’s head “at the neck” and arms “at the shoulders” and
the torso “underneath the ribs.”
When asked why he got involved, he said, “So we could dispose of the
body for Sarah” and “To help (Kolb and Gregory) stay out of jail.”
He said that Gregory used a plastic bag to pick up the severed head
and arms, placing the bag in the trunk of Kolb’s car. Next, the teens
went to the McDonald’s in Aledo to eat, he said.
From Mercer County, the trio drove back to Big Island, Gaudet
testified. They planned to hide the remains there but saw people
fishing and left. He said that Kolb then drove to Black Hawk State
Historic Site in Rock Island. The ground was too hard to dig a hole
for the body parts, he said, but they happened upon a manhole while
digging and decided to drop the bag inside.
Three days later, police said, Gregory led them back to the park where
the black bag and its contents were recovered from the manhole.
Defense challenges Gaudet
Nathan Gaudet, who turns 17 on Friday, is serving time in a juvenile
detention center after pleading guilty earlier this year to helping to
conceal Reynolds’ murder. Before the jury in Sarah Kolb’s murder trial
was allowed in the courtroom Tuesday, Gaudet was ushered onto the
witness stand in leg shackles.
Near the end of his questioning, Terronez revealed to the jury that
Gaudet was, in fact, in state custody.
During cross-examination, Kolb’s attorney, David Hoffman, challenged
Gaudet’s testimony. He repeatedly referred to transcripts from
interviews with police in which Gaudet’s statements sometimes varied.
He questioned the teen’s motives for testifying against Kolb,
suggesting he was telling police what they wanted to hear in order to
land a favorable “deal” with the state that would keep him out of
adult prison.
For instance, Gaudet testified that he acted alone in the actual
cutting of body parts, but said in an earlier statement that Gregory
had helped. He told Hoffman that he initially said Gregory helped
because one of the victim’s legs already was separated from her body,
due to the burning.
He also said he gained a clearer recollection of events after his
arrest.
“My mind’s clearing now,” he said. “I’m off drugs.”
Gaudet also said he was “coming off (the drug) Ecstasy” the day he
dismembered the body.
In his redirect, Terronez pointed out that Gaudet gave police details
of Reynolds’ murder on two occasions prior to pleading guilty to
concealing the homicide.
Gaudet’s grandmother
The 35th witness in the state’s case against Sarah Kolb gave the first
tearful testimony in the seven-day-old trial.
Pat Corbin, Nathan Gaudet’s grandmother, said she had “a gut feeling”
that she should search the basement of her Moline home after learning
that two of her grandson’s friends were involved in the disappearance
of Adrianne Reynolds.
She testified that Gaudet came and went several times from her
basement the day Kolb and Gregory picked him up in Kolb’s car, which
was two days after Reynolds disappeared.
“I had this nagging feeling,” she said as she described searching the
basement three times before finding a backpack hidden beneath a
blanket. Corbin said she opened the backpack and, fighting back tears,
said, “That’s when I saw the saw.”
She said members of her family agreed they should call police.
“We thought it might be connected somehow with the missing girl,” she
said of the saw.
Gaudet identified the saw in court Tuesday as the one he used to
dismember Reynolds’ body.
Kolb’s sister gets immunity
After just a few questions by the prosecutor who is trying her sister
for murder, Elizabeth Jones attempted to plead the Fifth Amendment on
the grounds that further testimony could be self-incriminating.
But Terronez had a document in hand, offering Jones “use immunity,”
guaranteeing that she would not be charged for any crime related to
her testimony.
Terronez told Judge James Teros “there could be some obstruction (of
justice) issues” resulting from Jones’ testimony but said he would not
use it against her. Teros then ordered Jones to testify.
She told the jury she initially believed Kolb was going to ask whether
Adrianne Reynolds could stay at her Milan, Ill., apartment when the
two spoke four days after Reynolds was reported missing. She said that
her sister was interested in having a relationship with Reynolds and
said she had advised Kolb against such a relationship.
Instead of asking whether Reynolds could stay with her, Jones said,
her sister told her the 16-year-old “had passed away.”
Jones testified that Kolb told her Reynolds had been strangled in her
car. She also said that she took a shovel, a garden tool and a
necklace out of Kolb’s car trunk and threw them away.
She described the necklace, earlier identified as belonging to
Reynolds, being “caked with something.” She said that Kolb told her
Nathan Gaudet had wanted to keep the necklace as “a souvenir.”
Jones said she noticed two days earlier, the day after Reynolds
disappeared, that Kolb appeared to have a broken nose. She said she
assumed Reynolds broke her sister’s nose after being told about the
two having a fight in Kolb’s car.
She said that Gregory was “obsessive” about her sister and described
Reynolds as sounding “crazy” on voice mail messages left on Kolb’s
cell phone.
Jones also said her sister, who is bisexual, once consulted her about
whether she should pursue a relationship with Reynolds.
“She just said that she was a very good-looking girl and she wanted to
date her,” she said.
http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/11/09/news/local/doc4371557617686538115455.txt
Indigo Ace
Times--
KOLB TRIAL: Grandfather puts Kolb on farm where body burned
By Barb Ickes
Coming today: Nate Gaudet, 16, is scheduled to testify. He has pleaded
guilty to concealing Reynolds’ homicide. He also has told police that
Kolb choked Reynolds outside the Taco Bell and that co-defendant Cory
Gregory used a belt “to finish the job.”
Monday’s developments: Sarah Kolb’s grandparents, Mary and Brian
Engle, testified that Kolb visited their Mercer County, Ill., farm the
day Adrianne Reynolds disappeared. Her grandfather described Kolb as
“quiet and fidgety” that day while her grandfather told of following
Kolb’s car down a dark country road after spotting it parked on a
remote piece of his farmland.
Several days after Kolb’s grandfather followed her car, police found
Reynolds’ burned and dismembered remains near the spot where the car
had been parked.
Also Monday, two witnesses said they saw Kolb sitting in the front
passenger’s seat of a car in the parking lot of Taco Bell on Avenue of
the Cities the day Reynolds was reported missing. One of the witnesses
testified that she believed someone in the car was fighting.
Grandfather tailed car with Kolb, Gregory inside
Sarah Kolb’s grandfather said he followed her and Cory Gregory from a
remote area of his farm the day Adrianne Reynolds disappeared because
he didn’t recognize her car and was suspicious about what it was doing
parked on his land in the dark.
Brian Engle testified Monday in Kolb’s murder trial, saying a car that
2 saw Kolb in car at Taco Bell
Also testifying Monday were two people who were leaving the Taco Bell
on Avenue of the Cities in Moline on Jan. 21 when they saw someone
they both identified as Kolb, sitting in the passenger’s seat of a
parked car.
“We were parked next to this red car and I noticed it really rocking,”
Connie Bennett testified. “I thought it looked like someone was
fighting in the backseat.
“The back windows were steamed up,” she said. “I could not see who was
inside.”
Bennett’s husband, Vernon Bennett, also testified that the windows
were “fogged up” and he could not see into the backseat.
However, the Bennetts both identified Kolb in the courtroom as the
person sitting in the front passenger seat of the parked car.
Connie Bennett said Kolb looked “afraid.”
A key witness in the case, Nate Gaudet, has told police that Kolb
started the fight with Reynolds. Police said Gaudet told them that
Kolb choked Reynolds and Gregory used a belt “to finish the job.”
The doctor who performed on autopsy on Reynolds remains said there
were no marks on the victim’s neck, but testified that the likely
cause of death was strangulation or suffocation.
Gaudet, 16, has pleaded guilty to concealing Reynolds’ murder. He is
serving an undetermined sentence in a juvenile detention center, but
is being delivered to Rock Island County today to testify in the Kolb
trial.
In his opening statements, Terronez told the jury: “You’re going to
hear that Nate Gaudet cut Adrianne’s head off.”
After the East Moline girl’s head and arms were removed from her body
and placed in the trunk of Kolb’s car, Terronez said, “(Kolb, Gregory
and Gaudet) went to McDonald’s to get something to eat.”
Also scheduled to take the witness stand today is Elizabeth Jones,
Kolb’s sister. The girls’ stepfather, Darrin Klauer, testified Monday.
He said that Kolb and Gregory stopped in at his Milan, Ill., home on
the afternoon that Reynolds disappeared.
He said Kolb parked her car in the garage that afternoon, which was
unusual. He also described Gregory as being “obsessed” with Kolb.
“He didn’t like when other people showed an interest in Sarah,” he
said.
Kolb’s aunt, Della Smoldt, said she saw the two teens late in the
afternoon on Jan. 21 when they stopped into an antique store in Aledo
that is managed by Kolb’s grandmother. She said Kolb had a “fresh”
scratch on her face, which she attributed to “wrestling around” with
Gregory.
When Kolb showed an interest in red glassware at the store, Smoldt
said, Gregory commented, “(Kolb) just acquired a fondness for the
color red.
http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/11/08/news/local/doc436f84a1d4809739670726.txt