Opinion ID: 2481410
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Capital Sentencing HearingEligibility Phase

Text: At the eligibility phase, the State introduced a copy of defendant's birth certificate, showing his date of birth as March 30, 1978. The State also offered a certified copy of five judgments of guilt based on defendant's guilty pleas. L.M.'s mother testified that her daughter and defendant had been platonic friends who talked daily on the phone. He often visited the Marson home to watch movies with L.M. She allowed L.M. to go for a drive with defendant at approximately 11 p.m. on the evening of July 8, 1996, and expected her daughter to be home in half an hour. When she was not home by 3 a.m., she called the police. Crime scene investigator Steve Zuber of the Illinois State Police described the grain bin where L.M.'s body was found as being in a field of fairly mature corn, about a hundred feet off the road and surrounded with fairly dense vegetation. There was a path leading from the road to the empty bin, but it was also covered with vegetation. Some of the vegetation was crushed-down as if a vehicle had recently driven on it. There were tire tracks and shoe prints in the dirt behind the grain bin, where the vegetation was less dense. He took photographs of the tire tracks and shoe prints. Zuber identified several distinctive aspects of the shoe prints that identified the shoes as Nike brand shoes. Zuber further testified that he found the body of L.M. inside the grain bin, with her head wrapped almost completely in duct tape from her eyebrows down to her chin with no openings left for her eyes, ears, nose, or mouth. Her arms and wrists and lower legs were also bound with duct tape. Her shorts were torn and there appeared to be blood on her underwear. Her fingers were also bloody. Zuber identified a photograph of the soles of L.M.'s shoes and noted that no footprints matching her shoes had been seen in the area of the grain bin. Barbara Sloop testified regarding the dating relationship between defendant and Rachel and Rachel's decision to end it because she felt defendant was smothering her with his constant attention. While the young couple was dating, defendant visited the Sloop home every day and spent some weekends there. After the breakup, he continued to be a regular visitor and to call Rachel almost every day. When she returned home after work on the evening of July 8, 1996, defendant was there. Kim Haist, a family friend, was also there. She had been staying in the Sloop home with her two small children because an ex-boyfriend had recently set fire to her car. Barbara and Kim discussed the security of the Sloop home and defendant interjected that if anybody wanted in your home, whether your doors were locked or not, they would get in. Shortly thereafter, Barbara told defendant that dinner was almost ready and that he could not stay because she did not have enough food for everyone. He did not leave right away, but did eventually leave. Barbara said that she was asleep on the couch in the living room when the telephone rang at about 11:30 p.m. She recognized defendant's voice. He told her that Kim's former boyfriend had ransacked her apartment and was going to pour gasoline on it and set it on fire. He told her to get Kim and come directly to her apartment in Carthage and not to go to the police station. She woke Kim and then Rachel, so that Rachel could listen for the children in case they woke up. When she and Kim arrived at Kim's apartment, neither defendant nor the police were there and nothing was amiss. She called home and got a busy signal, so she drove to the sheriff's office. Thomas Merchie, a crime scene investigator with the Illinois State Police, testified that he photographed a brown or tan Ford bearing Iowa license plates that was parked east of the Sloop residence on a gravel road leading into a field. The car was separated from the house by a corn field and a bean field. He measured the distance at approximately 417 feet from the car to the house. Merchie observed a police radio sitting in the front seat of defendant's car. The radio was turned on and he could hear police radio frequency traffic. After arranging for the car to be towed for later processing, Merchie went to the Sloop home to process the scene there. In the living room, he found the body of a young woman on the couch. She was partially covered with an afghan and her head was on a pillow. She had been shot in the right side of the neck, with the bullet traveling through the pillow. She had a second gunshot wound to the top of her head. In an upstairs bedroom, Merchie found a shotgun on the floor near an empty gun case and a .22-caliber handgun. Outside the residence, he found three telephone wires that had been cut. He also found a blue-handled side cutter, or wire cutter, in the grass outside the house. He found no signs of forced entry into the house. After being accepted as an expert witness without objection by the defense, Dr. Travis Hindman testified regarding the autopsy he performed on L.M. He described the duct tape that was wrapped very tightly from her forehead to her chin. Her arms were taped to her chest and her legs were taped together. She had abrasions on the fingers of both hands. Her shorts were torn and stained. He found bruising and tearing in the vaginal area, compatible with a sexual assault. Hindman recovered bullet fragments from a gunshot wound to the back of her head. The cause of death was severe brain trauma due to the gunshot wound, with a possible contributory cause of asphyxia due to her face having been covered with duct tape. Other physical findings demonstrated that L.M. was alive when she was shot. Had she not been shot, she eventually would have suffocated. Hindman also testified regarding the autopsy of Lonna Sloop. She had one gunshot wound to the side of her neck and one to the top of her head. The bullet penetrated a pillow before entering her neck, pulling some of the pillow filling with it. The wound was about one-inch deep and when the pillow fabric rebounded, it pulled the filling and the bullet with it. As a result, the neck wound was survivable. The second wound was fatal. The State's final witness in the eligibility phase was Rachel Sloop White, now age 28. She testified that she began dating defendant in March 1996, when she was 17 years old. During the several months that they dated, he came to her house every day and stayed all day. She decided to end the dating relationship in late June 1996 because he was too possessive and she felt that she had no space of her own. After she ended the dating relationship, he continued to visit the Sloop home every day and they remained friends. She explained that Kim's brother, Terry Haist, was engaged to Amy Sloop, Rachel's older sister. Kim and her two children were staying with the Sloops because she suspected the children's father, Terry Hamelton, of setting fire to her car the previous weekend. On the afternoon of July 8, 1996, defendant was visiting the Sloop home and the fire was discussed. At about 11:20 p.m. that night, Rachel's mother woke her up, explaining that she and Kim had to leave the house. Rachel was afraid to be the oldest person in the house with only her 12-year-old sister, Lonna, and two small children. She woke Lonna and asked her to accompany her downstairs so she would not be alone. Lonna lay on the couch and fell asleep while Rachel sat in a recliner, watching television. She looked up and saw defendant coming through the dining room toward her. When she asked what he was doing there, he replied that her mother knew he was there and that it was okay for him to be in the house. He asked her to come into the dining room to talk to him and she complied. Toward the end of that discussion, he asked Rachel if she would resume dating him. At this point in her testimony, the State rested its case on eligibility. The defense presented no evidence at this stage of the proceedings. Closing arguments were made and the jury was instructed. The State noted that defendant was 18 years old and that he had pleaded guilty to first degree murder. In addition, the State argued that it had proven the existence of three eligibility factors beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) defendant was convicted of murdering two individuals and their deaths were the result of his intent to kill (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(3) (West 1996)); (2) defendant killed L.M. in the course of another felony, aggravated criminal sexual assault (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(6) (West 1996)); and (3) both murders were committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner pursuant to a preconceived plan, scheme or design to take a human life by unlawful means, and the conduct of the defendant created a reasonable expectation that the death of a human being would result therefrom (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(11) (West 1996)). In support of the third factor, the State argued that the murder of L.M. was cold, calculated, and premeditated, as shown by the fact that the defendant brought a gun and duct tape when he went to Marson's house and that he drove only 1.6 miles from the Marson home before leaving the road to park behind a grain bin that was surrounded by dense vegetation, where he raped her, bound her with duct tape, placed her inside the grain bin, and shot her. Similarly, the State argued, the murder of Lonna Sloop was cold, calculated, and premeditated. Defendant lied to Barbara Sloop to get the adults to leave Rachel, Lonna, and two small children alone in the house, using information about who was in the home that he obtained in an earlier visit that day. He sped to the Sloop home and parked off the road with his headlights off, so that he could see the adults leave. Then he parked his car where it could not be seen from the house, cut through a cornfield to reach the house, and cut the telephone lines. After gaining access to the house, he shot Lonna in the top of the head as she lay on the living room couch. Defense counsel emphasized that defendant, after receiving Miranda warnings and knowing that he did not have to speak, cooperated with the police. He gave a full statement and took responsibility for his actions at that time and later when he pleaded guilty. If he had premeditated killing L.M., counsel argued, he would not have spent half an hour visiting with her in her home before taking her out that night. Counsel also noted that defendant did not try to disguise his voice when he called the Sloop home. Thus, counsel suggested, because he did not try to conceal his identity from his victims' mothers, he did not premeditate the murders. The jury found, unanimously, that each of the three aggravating factors existed.