Opinion ID: 2157140
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Additional Cases Offered by Defendant

Text: For approximately three days prior to murdering his twenty-three-year-old victim, Bolinger watched and followed her. On March 9, 1983, he broke into the victim's vacant apartment through a window to burglarize the victim's home and to get her. He soon heard her return and attempted to leave without being seen. However, the victim saw Bolinger so he attacked her. He grabbed her and stabbed her in the upper chest. He then tied her hands and feet, gagged her, and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, he took money from her wallet and left. Bolinger was arrested for another rape and attempted murder. He confessed to committing that crime and two other crimes. He told a psychologist that he killed the victim because she reminded him of his stepmother who had physically abused him. Bolinger was charged with capital murder, felony murder, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, burglary, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. He pleaded guilty to felony murder and aggravated sexual assault, and received a term of thirty years with a ten year parole disqualifier. The AOC coded as present the c(4)(c) (torture or depravity) and the c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factors and the c(5)(d) (diminished capacity), c(5)(f) (no significant criminal history) and the c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factors. Bolinger is a Vietnam veteran who was addicted to alcohol and drugs and became intoxicated every day. At the time of the offense, Bolinger was thirty-six-years-old and had been employed for two weeks as a meter reader. He had no prior criminal record.
At around 6:00 a.m. on May 11, 1991, a twelve-year-old boy was awakened by screams. The boy went to his mother's bedroom and from the doorway saw Brockington, nude from the waist down, kneeling on the floor next to the bed, moving in a manner consistent with sexual activity. The boy asked where his mother was, and Brockington said she was sleeping and that the boy should leave. Ten to fifteen minutes later, Brockington left and the boy returned to the bedroom to find his mother dead. He immediately called the police. The police found the thirty-four-year-old victim lying on the floor next to the bed. Her blue jeans and underwear had been pulled down around her lower left leg. Blood covered her face, the wall, carpet, and bed sheets. An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled to death. Brockington was arrested later that day. He confessed that he had a physical confrontation with the victim, struck her in the head with a pointed object, and had sexual contact with her. Brockington was charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated assault, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. He pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter and received a twenty-five-year sentence, with an eight-year term of parole ineligibility. The AOC coded as present the c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factor and the c(5)(f) (no significant criminal history) and the c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factors. Brockington was thirty-three years old at the time of the offense. Although he fathered one child, he is single and lived with his parents at the time of the murder. A high school graduate, Brockington was employed before the arrest, and had no prior criminal record. He claimed to be a regular cocaine user for a year or two up to the time of his arrest.
On July 23, 1991, twenty-three-year-old Richard Chippero entered the home of his neighbor, thirty-nine-year-old Ermina Tocci, and asked her to have sex with him. Tocci refused, and Chippero pulled out a pocket knife and chased her into the bedroom. He forced her to undress and raped her at knifepoint. Fearing that she could identify him, Chippero stabbed Tocci ten times. She died from the wounds. Chippero subsequently discarded the knife. It was never found. A partial sneaker print was found on the victim's back. That impression closely resembled the impression from a pair of sneakers found in Chippero's home. Also, vaginal swabs taken from the victim during the autopsy provided evidence of sexual activity, although DNA testing did not conclusively tie the sexual assault to Chippero. Eventually, Chippero confessed after he had been in police custody for several hours. Chippero committed the murder only twenty-five days after being paroled from a prison sentence for other serious offenses. He had been previously convicted of aggravated assault, aggravated arson, arson, burglary, and theft. Chippero's two stepfathers were imprisoned for abusing him. His first stepfather physically abused him and his mother. His second stepfather physically and sexually abused him. When he was seven-years-old, Chippero was diagnosed as being hyperkinetic, emotionally disturbed, and mentally retarded. After graduating from a school for emotionally disturbed students, Chippero was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on four occasions. He was diagnosed with a bi-polar affective disorder and manic behavior. The jury convicted Chippero of capital murder, felony murder, aggravated sexual assault, hindering apprehension or prosecution, and a weapons offense. The jury found the c(4)(f) (escape detection) and the c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factors and the c(5)(a) (extreme emotional disturbance), c(5)(c)(age), c(5)(d) (diminished capacity), and c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factors. The jury found each of the aggravating and mitigating factors applied, but could not unanimously decide whether to impose the death penalty as a sentence. Chippero was sentenced to life imprisonment with a thirty-year parole disqualifier term on the murder conviction. The court sentenced him to a consecutive life sentence with a twenty-five-year parole disqualifier term for the aggravated sexual assault conviction. Finally, for the hindering apprehension or prosecution count, Chippero received a concurrent five-year term. The remaining convictions were merged for sentencing. On appeal, Chippero's conviction was set aside by this Court because his confession was the product of an illegal arrest. State v. Chippero, 164 N.J. 342, 753 A. 2d 701 (2000). The matter has been remanded for retrial.
On the evening of November 11, 1991, police discovered the naked body of Barbara Williams in her apartment with multiple stab wounds and an electrical cord wrapped around her neck. Seated next to her were her five-year-old and nine-year-old sons, Kyshon and Karee. Kyshon sustained thirty-seven stab wounds to his face, neck, chest, stomach, back, arms and legs, while Karee sustained twenty-five stab wounds to his chest and lung. The children managed to live, and later identified Clowney as the killer. A paramedic estimated that the stabbing occurred fourteen hours earlier, and that Williams died due to blood loss at least twelve hours earlier. Williams had contusions and hematomas consistent with being punched or held, as well as a lip laceration consistent with being punched. Thirty-nine stab wounds punctured her chest, lung, back, diaphragm, and liver. She also had defensive wounds. An autopsy revealed forceful penetration of her vagina and anus. Karee said that a man came in through the window and stabbed him, his brother, and his mother. He had survived by playing dead. After the man left the apartment, Karee covered his mother with a blanket, and as he did, his mother told him she loved him. On the day of the murder, Clowney was in the hospital with puncture wounds to his right elbow. He told two friends that he stabbed a woman and her two children, and explained that he was in the apartment exchanging sex for money or drugs. He said that the woman had the knife and they struggled for it. The three went to Williams' apartment before the body was discovered, but were refused entry into the building. His friends convinced Clowney to turn himself in the next day, and Clowney related his self-defense story. Kyshon and Karee subsequently identified Clowney in a photo array. Clowney's sperm was found at the scene, and a pair of Clowney's trousers contained Williams's blood. A knife found in Clowney's apartment also contained Williams's blood. The State did not prosecute Clowney capitally. A jury convicted him of murder, two counts of felony murder, attempted murder (two counts), aggravated sexual assault, and weapons offenses. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment with a thirty-year parole bar for the murder. Clowney was also sentenced to a concurrent nine-year sentence with a four-year parole ineligibility term for the aggravated sexual assault charge. For the first count of attempted murder, Clowney was sentenced to twenty years with a ten-year parole ineligibility term, to run consecutive to the murder charge. For the second count of attempted murder, Clowney was sentenced to another twenty-year term with a ten-year parole ineligibility term, to run concurrent to the first attempted murder sentence, as well as consecutive to the murder count. The other convictions were merged for purposes of sentencing. The AOC coded as present the c(4)(b) (grave risk of death to another) and c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factors and the c(5)(c)(age), c(5)(d) (diminished capacity), and c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factors. At the time of the murder, Clowney was nineteen years old and a drug dealer. He claimed to have sold drugs to the victim on numerous occasions. As an adult, he had a prior simple assault conviction. He also had an extensive juvenile record. He began drinking beer at age eleven, and went on to abuse hard alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. Clowney's parents were both alcoholics, and his father abused drugs. His mother once attempted suicide and was diagnosed with adjustment disorder with depressed mood. His mother and her boyfriend physically and emotionally abused Clowney. She once cooked his pet hamsters in the oven and forced him to kill his dog. Clowney became suicidal like his mother. He made several suicide attempts. He tried to cut his wrists when he was twelve. When he was eighteen years old, he severed his finger but refused to go to the hospital. One year later, he tried to kill himself by drinking bleach. Williams also tried to kill himself in jail after murdering Williams by banging his head against the jail walls. He also burned his arm with cigarettes in order to alleviate his anger. He was diagnosed with intermittent-explosive disorder and borderline personality disorder with anti-social features.
On December 1, 1991, Jerome Dennis raped a fourteen-year-old girl at knifepoint, and then stabbed her to death. The girl suffered three stab wounds in the neck, eleven in the chest, and ten in the abdomen. Her ankles and wrists had been bound. Dennis later said that a demon came over him. Less than two weeks prior to the offense, Dennis had been paroled from Yardville State Prison and admitted into the Intensive Supervision of Probation Program. He had three prior adult convictions for sexual assault, two prior convictions for criminal restraint and one for robbery. In a four-month period, he committed this homicide and four others, including raping and then stabbing another victim as described earlier in this Appendix in State v. Dennis (2). Dennis was charged with murder, but he pled guilty to felony murder for the instant offense. He received a life sentence with a thirty-year parole disqualifier. For the remaining offenses, his aggregate sentence is outlined earlier in this Appendix A as State v. Dennis (2). The AOC coded as present the c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factor and c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factor. Dennis completed only the seventh grade and denied any use of drugs or alcohol.
On February 11, 1984, Ralph Edwards, an eighteen-year-old male, was walking along the local railroad tracks when he noticed a nine-year-old female on the platform near the tracks. He followed the victim as she went inside an abandoned station. He approached the victim and asked her to sit with him on a mattress which was discarded in the station. He exposed himself to the victim and attempted to sexually assault her. As he turned her on her stomach to rape her anally, the victim managed to knee Edwards in the groin area and run from the station. Edwards caught up with the victim and used a plastic strap that he had found to restrain her by wrapping it around her neck more than once. When he yanked the strap, the victim fell to the ground and hit her head. She lay motionless. Edwards picked her up and carried her to an area between two track railings. He then went back to the station, retrieved a sheet from the mattress he found in the station and covered the victim's body. Her body was discovered approximately five hours later. The cause of death was strangulation. Edwards was convicted on April 8, 1984 for receiving stolen property. He was arrested one month later when police officers observed him sexually assaulting a young boy on the railroad tracks about a mile and a half from the murder scene. Edwards confessed to the murder when questioned about the latter sexual offense. Edwards was charged with murder, felony murder and attempted aggravated sexual assault. A notice of aggravating factors was provided by the State: c(4)(c) (extreme suffering), c(4)(f) (avoiding detection) and c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony). A jury acquitted him of purposeful murder, but found him guilty of knowing murder and other charges. Edwards had no prior convictions. Evidence of his history of psychological and mental problems was presented, indicating that he functioned on a mental/emotional level of a nine-year-old. At the penalty phase, the jury found factors c(4)(f) and c(4)(g) were present. The jury also found the following mitigating factors applied: c(5)(c)(age), c(5)(d)(mental disease), c(5)(f)(criminal history) and c(5)(h) (catch-all factor). Edwards received a life imprisonment sentence, with a thirty-year period of parole ineligibility for the murder count. The felony murder charge merged with the murder charge for sentencing purposes. On the remaining charge, Edwards was sentenced to ten years, with a five-year period of parole ineligibility to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed on the murder count.
On May 11, 1994, the police responded to a burglary report. A woman awoke to find Otis James lying on the floor next to her bed. He placed his hand over her mouth, motioned for her to be quiet, and began to fondle her. The woman screamed for her daughter, prompting James to flee through a bathroom window. While investigating the burglary, police noticed a window in an upstairs apartment was open. The police found a eighty-two-year-old female in the upstairs apartment lying on her bed stomach-down, nude below the waist. Her legs were spread apart and a gel had been spread over her vaginal and anal area. A chair had been pulled up to the bed next to the woman's exposed genitalia. It was determined that the woman had been sexually assaulted and was killed by asphyxia due to smothering and compression of the neck. The police lifted several fingerprints from both apartments that matched James' prints. James was arrested on September 29, 1995, for the attempted murder of yet another woman. He was identified as the culprit in the May burglary and murder through fingerprints and similarities between the May and September crimes. James was charged with two counts of burglary, felony murder, murder, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, attempted sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual contact. He pled guilty to felony murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a thirty-year term of parole ineligibility. The AOC coded as present the c(4)(f) (escape detection) and the c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony) aggravating factors and the c(5)(d) (diminished capacity) and the c(5)(h) (catch-all) mitigating factors. James claimed he was drunk and high when he committed the offense, and only intended to steal money or property to support his drug habit. He claims not to remember sexually assaulting the eighty-two-year-old woman or noticing that she was dead. Despite participating in several substance abuse treatment programs, he abused alcohol and cocaine daily. James apparently started drinking at age five. James never met his father, and his mother died in a car accident when he was eleven. After his mother's death, James and his two siblings were raised by different relatives. James dropped out of high school after tenth grade. He carried a truck-driving certificate, but was unemployed at the time of the offense. When he was nineteen, James attempted suicide, and was subsequently hospitalized and diagnosed with depression. At the time of the offense, James was twenty-eight-years-old and was living with his sister. He has prior convictions for robbery, burglary, attempted burglary, theft, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and shoplifting. He was on parole when he committed the murder.
After a night out with friends, Deirdre O'Brien, a female college student, dropped her friends off and drove home at approximately 1:45 a.m. on December 5, 1982. At approximately 2:10 a.m., a park patrolman found O'Brien's car abandoned on the side of the road with its headlights and taillights on. The keys were in the ignition and a purse was left on the seat. The patrolman noticed a tire track in the front of the vehicle. The patrolman drove to the victim's residence and found that she had not arrived home. At 4:26 a.m., New Jersey State Troopers responded to a call from a truck driver at a nearby rest stop that a woman had been stabbed and needed immediate medical attention. A trucker was able to identify the car and the person sitting in the car that had arrived at the rest stop with the injured woman. She screamed and was able to exit the car. The truck driver went to help the victim, noticing that she was bleeding from the chest. Another truck driver made the call to the state troopers. The victim told one of the truck drivers, as well as the troopers that arrived on the scene, that she was forced off the road and was pulled from her car by her assailant. O'Brien died shortly after arriving at the hospital. She had been stabbed four times in the chest and semen had been found in her mouth and vagina. At 11:20 p.m. on January 16, 1983, authorities responded to Koedatich's call for medical assistance. When the police arrived at Koedatich's home, he saw Koedatich leaning against the kitchen table with his T-shirt rolled up. His mother was tending a wound on his back. Koedatich told police that he was driving when a car with a blue light pulled his car over. Koedatich claimed to have gotten out of the car, responded to the inquiries of the occupant of the other car, and as he was re-entering his car, he was stabbed in the back. Koedatich was taken to the hospital, and his car, which matched the description of the car that dropped O'Brien off at the rest stop, was taken to the police garage. Evidence linked Koedatich to the stabbing of O'Brien. A forensic chemist testified that paint particles found in Koedatich's car were found on the victim's clothing. An expert testified that the snow tires found on Koedatich's car matched the tire marks found at the scene of the kidnaping. Another witness testified that there was a correlation between the fibers found on Koedatich's seat cover and those found on the victim's clothing. Also, it was determined that Koedatich's stab was self-inflicted. Defendant was charged with murder, felony murder and kidnaping. A notice of aggravating factors was served: c(4)(a) (prior murder), c(4)(c) (extreme suffering), c(4)(f) (escaping detection), and c(4)(g) (contemporaneous felony). Defendant was found guilty on all counts. Koedatich had a long, violent criminal history dating back to his childhood. In 1971 he was convicted of murder by a Florida court. He was free for approximately four months when he killed O'Brien. Approximately a week before O'Brien's murder, he kidnaped an eighteen-year-old girl as she was leaving work. He sexually assaulted and murdered that girl. For that murder, he was sentenced to death. The conviction was upheld, but was remanded for a new sentencing proceeding. State v. Koedatich, 112 N.J. 225, 548 A. 2d 939 (1988). At the penalty trial for the murder of O'Brien, his sister-in-law testified that Koedatich was very respectful and close with his family. His girlfriend also testified favorably as to his disposition. In addition, a sociologist was permitted to testify about witnessing a death by lethal injection and about the pros and cons of the death penalty. The jury found that aggravating factors c(4)(f) and c(4)(g) applied. The jury also found that mitigating factor c(5)(h) (catch-all) applied. Koedatich was sentenced to life with a thirty-year period of parole ineligibility on the murder count. He was also sentenced consecutively to thirty years with a fifteen-year period of parole ineligibility for the kidnaping count.