Carpenter who killed 3 with hammer is executed
Carma
On 19 May 1997 21:47:03 GMT, plan...@aol.com (PlanetCat) wrote:
>So the man was a murderer AND his timing was off. If only he'd lived long
>enough to pack his hammer in his kit bag and pay Joe a visit......
>
> c
If wishes were fishes
we'd all cast nets.....
(well...maybe not all, but you get the drift...:)
Laura H
Tell me the drift part was unintentional....pleeeeeez! *G*
Jill0704
Did anyone else watch Dateline last night when they
covered the story of George Revelle? This is a case
in which the trial was covered by Court TV. I was
able to watch the majority of the trial. IMO, all the
evidence is circumstantial, and if I had been on that
jury, I could not have convicted Mr. Revelle of the
murder of his wife. At least they had the good sense
not to recommend the death penalty. He is appealing
his life sentence.
Comments?
Jill
Cybil
Laura H
I watched it too, Jill and feel the same. I was so glad that jury
didn't opt for the death penalty. Obviously they had enough doubt about
his guilt NOT to recommend it. Makes you wonder just how much doubt
they did have.
Laura H
Jill0704
Laura H <fro...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> I was so glad that jury
>didn't opt for the death penalty. Obviously they had enough doubt about
>his guilt NOT to recommend it. Makes you wonder just how much doubt
>they did have.
Exactly! They even said as much. Of the ones interviewed,
one even said she didn't think Revelle was guilty, but she
was apparently swayed by the others at some point. One
guy was very much in favor of the death penalty, but in the
end, they said they went for life in prison for two reasons,
because his children have been through enough already and
on the chance that he did *not* do it! That tells me they
still had plenty of doubt.
Jill
Jill0704
Cybil <Cy...@tiac.net> writes:
>Refresh my memory? Please?
Certainly. George Revelle was accused of killing his wife,
Lisa, a schoolteacher. In fact, he was convicted of killing
her and sentenced to life without parole. George was a
banker in a small Missouri town and was mayor of the small
upscale community near there where he and Lisa lived in a
$1/2 million house with their two children. Friends and family
do not believe George is guilty. In fact, his in-laws have
supported him throughout.
George has stuck with the same story throughout, as near
as I can tell. He was awakened by a beeping sound that
he thought sounded like someone randomly punching in
numbers on the keypad of his home alarm system. The door
from the garage into the house had been bypassed by Lisa
earlier in the evening and not reset. George got up to get his
loaded shotgun, but is approached by an intruder who puts a
gun to Lisa's head, calls him "Banker George" and tells him
to disarm the alarm system. When he goes to attempt to
disarm it, the intruder's gun goes off, shooting Lisa in the
head. The intruder's actions and words indicate to George
that the shooting was accidental. After being cautioned about
people attempting to use bankers to get to a bank's money,
and after a similar case in the same part of the country in
which a banker was abducted, the bank robbed, and the
banker murdered, George was of the opinion that the intruder
intended to use George to rob the bank George worked for.
Anyway, after the shooting, the intruder makes his getaway.
George calls 911. Lisa dies in the hospital a few hours later.
About three days of searching the house with dogs and high
tech equipment turns up no murder weapon. Even with no
murder weapon, the investigation still focuses on George.
Turns out he has stolen money from the bank as well as
from the community association or whatever it was. He is
over his head in debt. However, as was mentioned on
Dateline by one of the jurors, there's a great big jump from
liar and thief to murderer. He had a $1/2 million life insurance
policy on Lisa that would have expired two days after her
death.
A letter arrived at the police station telling where to locate
the murder weapon. The gun was located in a pond where
the letter said it would be, and it was wrapped with duct
tape--supposedly the same kind of duct tape found in
George's house. Give me a break. Unless they were able
match up torn edges, that doesn't prove a thing to me.
There were carpet fibers on the duct tape that *may* have
been from George's house, but, again, too circumstantial
to suit me.
The police think George wrote the letter or had an
accomplice do it. Maybe. But I'd like them to prove it.
I just have a hard time with police focusing *only* on
spouses in these cases. Yes, sometimes the spouse
is guilty, but not always. An investigator admitted on
the stand that he was not interested in any evidence
that would support the idea that George didn't have
anything to do with this.
Jill
Holli D.
Hi Jill:
I saw the show too - spent the whole hour going "he did it - he didn't
do it...." just like with Jeff MacDonald & OJ...sometimes I wish
someone would just whisper in my ear - "they didn't do it".
Was an interesting case though - I don't remember hearing much about
it<g>
Holli
Jonathan L. Parker
Jill0704 wrote:
>
> Did anyone else watch Dateline last night when they
> covered the story of George Revelle? This is a case
> in which the trial was covered by Court TV. I was
> able to watch the majority of the trial. IMO, all the
> evidence is circumstantial, and if I had been on that
> jury, I could not have convicted Mr. Revelle of the
> murder of his wife. At least they had the good sense
> not to recommend the death penalty. He is appealing
> his life sentence.
>
> Comments?
>
> Jill
Hmmm...circumstantial evidence all pointing to just one suspect, contra-
dicting his alibi. Maybe he should have said he was out chipping golf
balls when the bushy-haired stranger (or was it the one-armed man this
time?) showed up.
Sorry, I just couldn't help it. The devil made me do it...
Aleeyah
> Mr. Revelle specifically stated he was awakened from sleep by the sound
> of the security alarm going off and confronted an intruder. The company
> that monitored the alarm proved by computer records the alarm DID NOT
> activate that night. Therefore, Mr. Revelle must have lied to fabricate
> a story about an intruder entering his home.
I understood him to say that he was awakened by a "beeping" that sounded
like someone pushing buttons on one of the alarm activation pads, not by
the alarm itself going off.
> The most harmless person was killed (Mrs. Revelle) and the person who
> would benefit an intruder the most by being kidnapped (a banker) was
> left unharmed. Sounds strange to me...
>
Not when you consider the claim that it was friends of Revelle's
estranged, n`er do well brother. The letter of confession that was
supposedly sent by these two men stated that they had simply carried out
a plan to rob Revelle, a plan that Revelle's brother cooked up. They
specifically stated that they did not think that the brother would want
Revelle to "go down" for something that they, not Revelle, did.
I just don't know what to think personally. On one hand there is the
insurance policy and the debt, on the other there is the problems that
Revelle would have had in sneaking off to ditch the gun (not to mention
the fact that the PD never found the gun in the house immediately after
the murder despite searching it thoroughly and with high tech equipment
for 3 entire days after the murder. When would Revelle have had time to
hide it between the murder and the arrival of the police?). As for the
fibers on the duct tape used to "package" the gun (tape that matched
tape used to fix a hose of some type in the Revelle house), who is to
say that the friends of the brother didn't steal it from the house
before they left? It's possible.
Too many possibilities, not enough answers.
PD
In article <19970521220...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
jill...@aol.com (Jill0704) wrote:
> Did anyone else watch Dateline last night when they
> covered the story of George Revelle? This is a case
> in which the trial was covered by Court TV. I was
> able to watch the majority of the trial. IMO, all the
> evidence is circumstantial, and if I had been on that
> jury, I could not have convicted Mr. Revelle of the
> murder of his wife. At least they had the good sense
> not to recommend the death penalty. He is appealing
> his life sentence.
>
> Comments?
>
> Jill
I suspected that he was probably guilty, however, the defense's arguments
were somewhat believable. The one thing that stood out in my mind was the
letter with the stamp that did not match his DNA. To me, that would
convince me of "reasonable doubt".
I was confused by the facts of the alarm system going off...he said first
said it was beeping (most alarm systems beep for a minute or two to give
the owner a chance to disalarm), but then I think he said it did sound and
he shut it off.
I thought that under the circumstances, he sounded very calm in the phone
call to 911. He did sound like he was moving about the house. Why would
he not be trying to stop bleeding (sounding more panicked, etc.).
Anyway...I still think there was a good chance he may not have done it.
In my opinion, the only thing that would save him now is if the "real
murders" come forward once more with another letter with details that
would prove to the prosecution they put an innocent man in jail.
Later...PD
ArachnomaniA
In article <3383A0...@ix.netcom.com>,
Laura H <fro...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>I watched it too, Jill and feel the same. I was so glad that jury
>didn't opt for the death penalty. Obviously they had enough doubt about
>his guilt NOT to recommend it. Makes you wonder just how much doubt
>they did have.
Agreed Laura. This is the thing I had a real problem with. They as much
said that they weren't totally sure if he did it or not, but convicted him
anyway. Personally my feeling was that he was guilty, but if I had been
on the jury I would have made it hung. I just find it really disturbing to
send someone to jail for life or to death on something you're not quite sure
of. At least if it had been hung he could have gotten a new trial and hope-
fully things would have brought forth more clearly as well as anything that
might have been ignored.
Kathy
spi...@mcs.com
Laura H
Yep Kathy. Agreed. :) I hope the guy at least appeals and we get to
hear more of what happened....and that note really has me puzzled. He
could have written it I suppose, but I'm just not sure.
Laura H
