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Why is it that this is not classed as a hate crime?
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- The grim details of how two brothers allegedly committed a nine-day crime rampage that left five people dead are being closely monitored by a community that is still shaken nearly two years after the slayings and more than a month into the brothers' murder trial.
The apparently random abduction of five friends from a home on December 14, 2000, is the darkest detail to surface. Investigators say the victims were forced to engage in sexual acts and withdraw money from automated teller machines. Then they were all shot, execution-style, as they knelt in the snow on a dark soccer field.
Four of them -- Aaron Sander, 29; Heather Muller, 25; Brad Heyka, 27; and Jason Befort, 26, died.
Befort's girlfriend, then a 25-year-old teacher, survived. Bleeding from a head wound, she ran barefoot and naked through the snow for nearly a mile to find help.
Reginald Carr, 24, and Jonathan Carr, 22, now face a total of 113 charges, including murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The alleged crime spree began on December 7, 2000, with the abduction of Andrew Schreiber, who was also forced to withdraw cash from an ATM but was otherwise left unharmed.
The crimes escalated on December 11 with the shooting during an attempted robbery of Ann Walenta, 55, who later died.
The case has become a rallying cry for white supremacist groups across the nation because the suspects are black while all the victims were white. Weeks before the trial was set to begin, a Nazi group held a rally in Topeka where the case was repeatedly cited.
Prosecutors are not trying the case as a hate crime. They say robbery was the motive.
Wichita Mayor Bob Knight -- who has made improving race relationships a cornerstone of his administration -- said Friday that regardless of race and ethnicity, what occurred could be described as "raw, brutal and evil."
"You have innocent people tortured, killed, humiliated by someone who is little more than an animal. I'm not looking at it as a black and white issue," Knight said. "I am not a big fan of capital punishment, but if anything deserves people losing their lives, it is this kind of heinous crime."
'Everything kind of went gray'
Jurors appeared riveted by the survivor's testimony on October 10.
"As I was kneeling, there was a shot. And I don't remember, we were all screaming, but I can remember hearing Aaron say, 'please no' -- he used the word 'sir.' There was another one, and another one, and then another one, and then everything kind of went gray as I was shot," she said.
She said she felt the impact of the bullet, but did not fall forward until one of the men kicked her. She heard the men get into the truck and waited until she could no longer see headlights before she got up to check on her friends to see if they were alive.
"I went to Jason," she said. "I rolled him over. He had blood coming out of one of his eyes. I still had on my sweater and I took it off and tied it around his head to act as a tourniquet to try to stop it."
The trial began September 9. Jury selection lasted 18 days. The state was still presenting and planned to resume on Monday.
Dan Walker, a construction worker who was working at a job at the Sedgwick County Courthouse where the case is being tried, spent his lunch break watching the trial on TV.
"It was so bad what was done to these girls and these boys -- it wasn't just homicide, it was brutal murder," Walker said.
Denise Taylor, a courthouse worker, says she listens to or watches the trial coverage every day.
"I want to see what it is that provoked them to do such heinous crimes, and why five people couldn't overpower them to save their lives," Taylor said.
But at Augusta High School -- where Befort was a science teacher and junior varsity basketball coach -- the radios have been turned off in the administration offices.
The deaths hit teachers and students hard, and the school was shut down for the funeral, said superintendent Jim Markos.
"That was kind of closure for us, and it was a good closure," Markos said. "Now it was reopened again with the trial."
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- The grim details of how two brothers allegedly committed a nine-day crime rampage that left five people dead are being closely monitored by a community that is still shaken nearly two years after the slayings and more than a month into the brothers' murder trial.
The apparently random abduction of five friends from a home on December 14, 2000, is the darkest detail to surface. Investigators say the victims were forced to engage in sexual acts and withdraw money from automated teller machines. Then they were all shot, execution-style, as they knelt in the snow on a dark soccer field.
Four of them -- Aaron Sander, 29; Heather Muller, 25; Brad Heyka, 27; and Jason Befort, 26, died.
Befort's girlfriend, then a 25-year-old teacher, survived. Bleeding from a head wound, she ran barefoot and naked through the snow for nearly a mile to find help.
Reginald Carr, 24, and Jonathan Carr, 22, now face a total of 113 charges, including murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The alleged crime spree began on December 7, 2000, with the abduction of Andrew Schreiber, who was also forced to withdraw cash from an ATM but was otherwise left unharmed.
The crimes escalated on December 11 with the shooting during an attempted robbery of Ann Walenta, 55, who later died.
The case has become a rallying cry for white supremacist groups across the nation because the suspects are black while all the victims were white. Weeks before the trial was set to begin, a Nazi group held a rally in Topeka where the case was repeatedly cited.
Prosecutors are not trying the case as a hate crime. They say robbery was the motive.
Wichita Mayor Bob Knight -- who has made improving race relationships a cornerstone of his administration -- said Friday that regardless of race and ethnicity, what occurred could be described as "raw, brutal and evil."
"You have innocent people tortured, killed, humiliated by someone who is little more than an animal. I'm not looking at it as a black and white issue," Knight said. "I am not a big fan of capital punishment, but if anything deserves people losing their lives, it is this kind of heinous crime."
'Everything kind of went gray'
Jurors appeared riveted by the survivor's testimony on October 10.
"As I was kneeling, there was a shot. And I don't remember, we were all screaming, but I can remember hearing Aaron say, 'please no' -- he used the word 'sir.' There was another one, and another one, and then another one, and then everything kind of went gray as I was shot," she said.
She said she felt the impact of the bullet, but did not fall forward until one of the men kicked her. She heard the men get into the truck and waited until she could no longer see headlights before she got up to check on her friends to see if they were alive.
"I went to Jason," she said. "I rolled him over. He had blood coming out of one of his eyes. I still had on my sweater and I took it off and tied it around his head to act as a tourniquet to try to stop it."
The trial began September 9. Jury selection lasted 18 days. The state was still presenting and planned to resume on Monday.
Dan Walker, a construction worker who was working at a job at the Sedgwick County Courthouse where the case is being tried, spent his lunch break watching the trial on TV.
"It was so bad what was done to these girls and these boys -- it wasn't just homicide, it was brutal murder," Walker said.
Denise Taylor, a courthouse worker, says she listens to or watches the trial coverage every day.
"I want to see what it is that provoked them to do such heinous crimes, and why five people couldn't overpower them to save their lives," Taylor said.
But at Augusta High School -- where Befort was a science teacher and junior varsity basketball coach -- the radios have been turned off in the administration offices.
The deaths hit teachers and students hard, and the school was shut down for the funeral, said superintendent Jim Markos.
"That was kind of closure for us, and it was a good closure," Markos said. "Now it was reopened again with the trial."
at your logic, sir.
Hope you are doing good!
I've never been poor or gone without.
