IN LOVING MEMORY OF HEATHER MULLER & THOSE WHO DIED IN THE WICHITA MASSACRE (DECEMBER 14 TO 15, 2000)

            On this date, December 15, 2000, Heather Muller was murdered with four other people by the Carr Brothers who were Jonathan and Reginald Carr. This was also known as the in the Wichita Massacre. Unit 1012 will remember all those who died during that massacre. We have a message for the victim’s families.

Heather Muller (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.wichita-massacre.com/)

INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Massacre

The Wichita Massacre, also known as The Wichita Horror, was a murder/assault/rape/robbery spree perpetrated by brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr against several people in the city of Wichita, Kansas in December 2000. The Carrs killed five people and a dog. A sixth victim, a woman known as HG, survived a gunshot wound to the head. The crimes shocked Wichitans, and purchases of guns, locks, and home security systems subsequently skyrocketed in the city. The brothers were tried, convicted and sentenced to death in October 2002. Although it appeared that a 2004 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court overturning the state death penalty law was going to spare the Carrs, the decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the death penalty law and returned the Carrs and other condemned killers to death row. The attacks, along with the reemergence of serial killer Dennis Rader and the murder of the Clutter Family in the 1950s and the Dayton Street Murders in 1974, rank as the worst crimes in the history of Kansas.

Crime spree

The Carr brothers, 22-year-old Reginald and 20-year-old Jonathan, already had lengthy criminal records when they began their spree. On December 8, 2000, having recently arrived in Wichita, they committed armed robbery against 23-year-old assistant baseball coach, Andrew Schreiber. Three days later, they shot and mortally wounded 55-year-old cellist and librarian, Ann Walenta, as she tried to escape from them in her car; she died three days later.

Their crime spree culminated on December 14, when they invaded a home and subjected five young men and women to robbery, sexual abuse, and murder. The brothers broke into a house chosen nearly at random where Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander, Jason Befort and his girlfriend, a young woman identified as 'H.G.', all in their twenties, were spending the night. They initially scoured the house for valuables. In a much-remarked point of tragedy, H.G. learned of Befort's intent to propose marriage when the Carrs, by chance, discovered the engagement ring hidden in a can of popcorn. After the search, the Carrs forced their hostages to strip naked, bound and detained them, and subjected them to various forms of sexual humiliation, including rape and oral sex. They also forced the men to engage in sexual acts with the women, and the women with each other. They then drove the victims to ATMs to empty their bank accounts, before finally taking them to a snowy deserted soccer complex on the outskirts of town and shooting them execution-style in the backs of their heads, leaving them for dead. The Carr brothers then drove Befort's truck over the bodies.

They returned to the house to ransack it for more valuables, and in the process killed Nikki, H.G.'s muzzled dog. H.G. survived because her metal barrette deflected the bullet, and ran naked for more than a mile in freezing weather to report the attack and seek medical attention.

The Carr brothers, who took few precautions, were captured by the police the next day, and Reginald was identified by Schreiber and the dying Walenta. The District Attorney stated that the Carrs' motive was robbery.

Controversy

Since there was reportedly no prima facie evidence of racial motivation, only that the victims were white and the Carr brothers are black, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston decided not to treat the incident as a hate crime. Media commentators David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, and Thomas Sowell all stated that the crime did not garner much airtime or space in the national mainstream media due to political correctness. Sowell went on to claim that the media has a double standard regarding interracial offenses, tending to play up "vicious crimes by whites against blacks" but play down equally "vicious crimes by blacks against whites".

Despite the accusations of limited news coverage of the incident, The Wichita Eagle commented that four young black people who were murdered only eight days before the "Wichita Massacre" received even less media coverage. Speculation has been raised that this may have been due to the race of the victims. One relative questioned "How could one be any worse than the other, if the results were the same?"

Aftermath

Muller was a pre-school teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School. Every year the school awards a deserving 8th grade student the Heather Muller Love of Faith Award. With the help of HG's testimony, the brothers were convicted of nearly all 113 counts against them and were both given the death penalty.

OTHER LINKS:

http://stthomaswichita.com/home/registration/doc_view/1176-8th-grade-awards

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/classics/carr_brothers/index.html

http://www.wichita-massacre.com/

http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/carr-brothers.htm

LATEST NEWS ON THE CARR BROTHERS:

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Kansas-Supreme-Court-to-hear-Carr-death-penalty-appeals-235447651.html

DA talks implications of Carr brothers' death penalty appeals

By: KAKE News - Email

Updated: Thu 10:45 PM, Dec 12, 2013

The Carr brothers were convicted of felony murder in the December 11, 2000 death of Ann Walenta, and capital murder in the deaths of Jason Befort, Brad Heyka, Heather Muller and Aaron Sander that happened several days later. (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Kansas-Supreme-Court-to-hear-Carr-death-penalty-appeals-235447651.html)

WICHITA, Kan. -- The Kansas Supreme Court is set to hear death penalty appeals next week for Jonathan Carr and Reginald Carr, Jr., convicted of several murders in Wichita that happened more than a decade ago.

"Even though 12 years have passed and people have come to assume that the process has already played itself out, we are at step one in this process," said District Attorney Marc Bennett, whose office will present the case for why the convictions and sentences should be upheld.

The Carr brothers killed five people in Wichita during a week-long crime spree in December of 2000. In 2002, they were convicted of five murders and the attempted murder of a sixth victim, and sentenced to death.

They appealed their convictions and sentences back in 2002. But because of dozens of court filings over the years, the appeal is just now making it into a courtroom.

Next Tuesday, the Kansas Supreme Court will hold oral arguments for Reginald Carr that morning and Jonathan Carr in the afternoon.

"What's at stake here is this is an appeal just like any other appeal that comes before the Kansas Supreme Court," Bennett said. "Both of these defendants are asking that their convictions be set aside in the first place." 

Both men are challenging their convictions and death penalty sentences. Specifically, each is challenging the court's denial of their motion to change venue, motion to try them separately, sufficiency of evidence supporting numerous convictions, the validity of the court's instructions to the jury during the guilt and penalty phases and the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law.

If the convictions or sentences are overturned, the case would come back to Sedgwick County to be tried again or for a new sentencing hearing.

If the convictions are upheld, the brothers would then have to appeal to the federal court side, which they could work all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"There's a lot that is up in the air on this," Bennett said.

Given how rare death penalty cases are in Kansas, Bennett says these appeals are heading into a bit of uncharted territory.

No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965.

But Bennett says what he knows is that there will be more appeals to come that will take years to sort out.

"This is not the last appeal," Bennett said. "If we win or the defendants win, it's not over with next week."

KAKE News will be following developments in the case as they happen.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

---

Several days after they killed their first victim, the Carr brothers forced their way into a Wichita home with five people inside. They forced three men and two women to engage in sex with each other, then made them withdraw money from ATMs. They were then shot in the back of the head as they knelt side-by-side on a snow-covered soccer field. One of them survived.

Both men were convicted of the following crimes:
-1 count of felony murder
-4 counts of capital murder
-1 count of attempted first degree murder
-5 counts of aggravated kidnapping
-Multiple counts of aggravated robbery
-1 count of aggravated burglary
-13 counts of rape
-3 counts of aggravated criminal sodomy
-7 counts of attempted rape
-1 count of burglary
-1 count of theft
-1 count of cruelty to animals

-Reginald Carr was also convicted of 3 counts of unlawful possession of a firearm

Lois Muller, the mother of victim, Heather Muller.

 

QUOTE: The parents of Heather Muller and Brad Heyka also testified against eliminating capital punishment. The two were raped and murdered in 2000 by the Carr brothers, along with two of their friends.

“Heather was murdered by Jonathan and Reginald Carr, Dec. 15, 2000,” said Lois Muller, Heather’s mother. “Words can’t begin to put an understanding to the impact that sentence has had on our lives.”

Muller urged lawmakers to consider the potential consequences of eliminating capital punishment.

“By repealing the death penalty in Kansas, you will be placing the lives of others in jeopardy,” she said.

COMMENTS AND CONDOLENCES:

            Unit 1012 sent our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the victims’ families of the Wichita Massacre. Do not forget how Heather lived and do not just focus on the killers and how she died. Please walk in her families’ shoes. Do donate money to Forget Me Not Memorial Scholarships and also support the Heather Muller Love of Faith Award.

            Just like the family members of Jodi Sanderholm, the victims’ families of the Wichita Massacre did plead with the State of Kansas not to abolish capital punishment. Unit 1012 supports you here and you all should learn from the Vote No on Proposition 34 campaign, please see our blog post, ‘DEFEATING THE DEVIL’S GAME: VOTING NO ON PROPOSITION 34’. Unit 1012 advises you all to unite as a team to stop the ACLU from destroying justice and protecting evil.

            As Heather Muller was a pre-school teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School. We will present a quote from Thomas Aquinas in favor of the death penalty, a quote that suits the Carr Brothers.