Opinion ID: 2599781
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Conspiracy to Murder, and the Murder of, Curtis James Dean

Text: Curtis James Dean lived with his wife, Jennifer, and their two small children in Victorville. Sometime in late 1990, Jennifer Dean told a coworker that she and her husband were having marital problems. Another coworker heard Jennifer Dean say more than once that she hated her husband and wanted him dead. Around the same time, Jennifer Dean began having an affair with Jeffrey Hunter. On January 11, 1991, defendant approached James Winstein and told him that a female friend of Hunter's who lived in Victorville wanted her husband dead. Defendant told Winstein that if he participated in killing the man, they would receive insurance money from the policy on the man's life. Winstein was to provide the transportation. The killing was supposed to take place within the month. Although defendant asked him to participate several times, Winstein turned him down. On the night of February 7, 1991, Jennifer Dean went to her job at a Taco Bell but, according to a coworker, spent most of her shift talking on the telephone. Another coworker testified that she was acting as if something was wrong. She left the Taco Bell around 2 a.m. Around 2:30 a.m., Jennifer Dean's neighbor, Deborah Benson received a call from Dean. Dean told Deborah Benson that she had just arrived home from work and could not find her husband in the house. She said she thought her husband might be sick because she saw something on the wall. Dean also said some things in her bedroom were in disarray and that the house may have been burglarized. Deborah Benson woke her husband, Scott, told him about the call, and asked him to go check on Dean. Scott Benson drove the short distance to the Deans' residence and met Jennifer Dean at her front door. Dean spoke in a very matter of fact voice and did not appear to be agitated or afraid. She told Benson that her house and been burglarized and was in disarray. When Benson entered the house, however, it did not appear to be in disarray or to have been burglarized. Benson walked through the house. The Deans' daughters were asleep in the master bedroom. As Benson moved down the hallway accompanied by Dean, he saw blood on the wall and in the guest bathroom, near the light switch. He entered the children's bedroom and found the body of Curtis James Dean on the floor between the two twin beds in what Benson described as a fetal position. There were vast amounts of blood on the bed, floor and wall. He closed the door, went to the kitchen and called 911. Jennifer Dean was present as he told the 911 operator about what he had found. She did not react or speak. Because he did not know whether Curtis James Dean was dead or alive, Benson went back into the bedroom, knelt by the body and tried to find a pulse, but was unable to do so. He observed numerous stab wounds to the body. He returned to the kitchen, got back on the line with the 911 operator, and told her that it appeared that we had a death. Again, Jennifer Dean did not react. Later, after the police arrived, Scott Benson took the Deans' two small children to his house. When they arrived at his house, Sabrina, the older child said something about the two mean men that killed her daddy, or the two mean men that hit her daddy. At a later point, Benson, Jennifer Dean, and the children were driven to the sheriffs station in a police car. While they were in the patrol car, Sabrina repeated her comment about the two mean men that hurt her daddy. The transporting officer, Deputy Gryp also heard Sabrina tell her mother that she saw daddy bent over in a pool of blood in the bedroom. While they were at the station, Benson noticed blood smears on Sabrina's nightgown and her leg. Gryp also saw the blood spatters and heard Sabrina complain about a bump on her head. The police investigation revealed no signs of forced entry into the Dean residence nor signs that the residence had been ransacked. A great deal of blood was found inside and outside the Dean residence. Two drops of blood found on the cement in front of the house were later determined to be consistent with defendant's blood. Blood found on a green hand towel left on the floor outside the children's bedroom was also consistent with defendant's blood, as was blood found on the bathroom floor, bedroom door jamb and on the hallway carpet. Much of the rest of the blood found in the house, including the blood found on Sabrina's nightgown was consistent with Curtis James Dean's blood. The blood spatters on Sabrina's clothing indicated she was less than five feet from her father when he was stabbed. Curtis James Dean suffered 38 knife wounds, including a series of wounds that appeared to have been inflicted after his death. Police later recovered items belonging to Jennifer Dean from the apartment of friends where she often stayed. Among those items was a paper place mat from Taco Bell with defendant's name and a telephone number written on it. Police also obtained Dean's bank records. They showed a $500 cash advance on January 17,1991. Defendant's girlfriend, Sue Kennedy, testified that a woman named Jennifer called defendant at the apartment she shared with defendant. She testified further that sometime in February 1991 she noticed a cut on defendant's forehead that he said was the result on a garage door shutting on top of his head. After defendant was arrested, Kennedy had a phone conversation with defendant in which he told her he had gone to the Dean residence with Mark Redden, a friend of his, to beat up Dean's husband. He told Kennedy that, when Redden started attacking Curtis James Dean with a tire iron, defendant ran into the bathroom and stayed there. Kennedy asked defendant if he had killed Dean for insurance money. Defendant remained silent. On May 6, 1991, defendant gave a statement regarding the murder of Curtis James Dean to an Army investigator, Lester Powlen. The interview was taped and the tape was played for the jury. Defendant described how Hunter approached him and asked him to find someone to kill Jennifer Dean's husband. Defendant met with Dean and told her he would arrange the hit for $10,000. She gave him a photograph of her husband. At a second meeting, she advanced him $500. Defendant recruited Mark Redden to help with the murder. On the night of the murder, Redden and he went to the Taco Bell where Jennifer Dean worked and obtained the key to her house. They drove to the Dean home and entered. Defendant was armed with a double-edged dagger and Redden carried the tire iron from defendant's car. The plan was for Redden to hit Curtis James Dean with the tire iron while defendant stabbed him. But defendant told the investigator that, once inside the bedroom where the victim was sleeping, he got cold feet, told Redden he did not want to kill the victim, and went into the other room. Defendant claimed that Redden struck Dean with the tire iron, and, at one point, even struck defendant on the head. After Redden hit him, defendant said he went into the bathroom. He claimed that Redden took defendant's dagger. Defendant heard Sabrina Dean screaming while her father was being murdered. Defendant said he cleaned the cut on his head with a green towel. He and Redden then left the house. After the murder, defendant threw his dagger, some latex gloves and pictures of Dean into a dumpster. He and Redden buried the tire iron and their clothing in the desert. Later, defendant took a homicide detective into the desert and led him to a site where two sets of clothing and a tire iron were found buried. The condition of the clothing negatively affected the ability to obtain serological results or genetic markers. Both pairs of pants, however, displayed impact stains and heavily saturated areas that appeared to be bloodstains.