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Thread: Marcus Delon Wesson - California Death Row

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    Marcus Delon Wesson - California Death Row


    Sebhrenah April Wesson


    Elizabeth Breahi Kina Wesson


    Illabelle Carrie Wesson


    Aviv Dominique Wesson


    Johnathon St. Charles Wesson


    Ethan St. Laurent Wesson


    Sedona Vadra Wesson


    Marshey St. Christopher Wesson


    Jeva St. Vladensvspry Wesson


    Marcus Delon Wesson


    Summary of Offense:

    Wesson ran a cult-like family organization which included home schooling, extreme religious teachings that promoted suicide, polygamy, and incest and rape of his daughters and nieces. Wesson would begin to sexually abuse his daughters and nieces when they were eight years old, marry them, and father children with them. On March 12, 2004, when police were called to his house, Wesson emerged with blood on his clothes and nine of his children were dead in a pile on the bed. Wesson had directed his adult daughter to kill eight of her siblings and then commit suicide. The defense contested guilt by arguing that Wesson did not physically pull the trigger that killed his nine children. The prosecution argued it did not matter who pulled the trigger because Wesson directed the murders and controlled all of the women in the house. Wesson was found guilty of nine counts of murder, nine counts of rape, and five counts of continuous sexual abuse. During the penalty phase, the defense argued Wesson should not be put to death because he had an obvious mental illness and did not actually fire the gun.

    Victims: Sebhrenah April Wesson, 25; Elizabeth Breahi Kina Wesson, 17; Illabella Carrie Wesson, 8; Aviv Dominique Wesson, 7; Johnathan St Charles Wesson, 7; Sedona Vadra Wesson, 2; Marshey St Christopher Wesson, 2; ; Ethen St Laurent Wesson, 4; and Jeva St Vladensvspry Wesson, 1

    Wesson was sentenced to death in Fresno County on July 27, 2005.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Marcus Wesson is unlikely to ever face execution

    FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno's most notorious convicted mass murderer has a new day in court. Action News was there as Marcus Wesson's appeal came to court for the first time. Wesson was not there in person. He's still on death row. But his case comes up just as legislators are trying to let voters decide whether California should even have the death penalty.

    Related Content: Story: Marcus Wesson "Family Secrets"

    Wesson was convicted of killing nine of his children and evidence in the case showed the perverse lifestyle he forced his family to lead. But his attorney says he's the perfect example of how the state is wasting money by pursuing the death penalty.

    The crime was grotesque. Nine bodies stacked in a back bedroom of a home in March 2004. More than a year later, jurors convicted Marcus Wesson of murdering all nine -- his own children and grandchildren in a twisted family tree. He's been at San Quentin prison ever since.

    Now, more than six years since the verdict, his appeals attorney made his first court appearance on the case. Mark Cutler has represented many death row inmates and not one of them has been put to death, even after decades living in prison. He says Wesson's case will also take decades -- long enough for the 64-year-old to avoid a true death penalty.

    "I can't see any possibility in the world that Marcus will be executed," Cutler said. "He will die a natural death long before the case is over."

    Cutler's job is to make sure nothing went wrong in Wesson's case. It slows down the death penalty process, but he says it's the only way to make sure no innocent people are executed.

    "Most people's reaction is always that there's got to be some way to make this faster, but there really isn't," Cutler said.

    Only 13 people have been executed in the 33 years since California's death penalty was reinstated, none since 2006. Legal analysts say prosecuting capital punishment cases costs 20 times as much as it does to send a killer to prison for life without parole. But when it comes to the Wesson case, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer isn't swayed by the financial argument.

    "Marcus Wesson is the very reason we should have the death penalty," he said. "Life in prison for him would be an injustice to his nine children he killed."

    ABC-30 legal analyst Tony Capozzi agrees.

    "What happened in that case was so bad, I agree, if it was ever a proper time for the death penalty, it would be in that particular case," he said.

    Attorneys in the Wesson case are still just making sure the 25,000 page transcript is correct. It'll be years before the state Supreme Court even hears the case and there are further appeals after that.

    http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?se...cal&id=8240570

  3. #3
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Unbelievable! Itīs about justice and not to find tricks to avoid the system. Some lawyers donīt understand it.

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    Justice Story: The 'Vampire king' of Fresno kills 9 children

    Victims were his kids or grandkids he had fathered in incest with his daughters and nieces


    From left, Jeva St. Vladensvspry Wesson, Aviv Dominique Wesson, Sedonia Vadra Wesson (bottom), Illabella Carrie Wesson (top), Marshey St. Christopher Wesson, Ethan St. Laurent Wesson (top), and Jonathan St Charles Wesson, are seen in an image from a memorial program for several of the Fresno, Calif., slaying victims.


    At more than 300 pounds and with dreadlocks cascading past his waist, Marcus Wesson, 57, was not what people generally think of when they hear the word “vampire.”

    But, when he stepped out of his home on the afternoon of March 12, 2004, one detail perfectly fit the image of the undead — he was covered in blood.

    Police had been called to the house off the Golden State Freeway in Fresno to break up a domestic disturbance, a panicked call from a woman who said her child was being held captive.

    It quickly became the scene of mass murder.

    The corpses were piled in a bedroom. It took hours to figure out exactly how many there were, since the bodies were tangled up in bloody clothes. The final count was nine, all under the age of 25, the three youngest under two. All had been shot in the eye with a .22 pistol, which was found in the pile near the hand of the oldest victim. They were all still warm when police entered the room.

    Wesson was docile as he was walked away in handcuffs to be charged with nine counts of murder. But, while the slaughter of innocents was the worst of his crimes, it was just the final act in the horror story that was life with this father.

    Wesson fancied himself the leader of a new religion based on Christianity and vampirism, wrote Monte Francis in his book on the case, “By Their Father’s Hand.”

    Incest was a big part of this new religion.

    In “incest one produces the seed of perfection of one’s self,” Wesson wrote in “In the Light of the Light for the Dark,” a tome in which he described his new faith and his conviction that he and his children were vampires.

    The victims were all of his own blood, his children or the grandchildren he had fathered with his daughters and nieces.


    Marcus Wesson's Fresno house of horror, where nine bodies were found entwined in piles of clothing in a bedroom.


    The man who would become the vampire king of Fresno was born in Kansas in 1944, the eldest of four children of Ben and Carrie Wesson. The father was a drunk and child abuser who disappeared when Marcus was a child.

    Friends and relatives remembered Marcus as kind and a good student who sang in his school choir and loved trains. He enlisted in the Army in 1966 and served as an ambulance driver for two years. Upon his return, he moved in with an older woman, Rosemary Solorio, who had several children from a previous relationship. She and Marcus had a child together, but before long, his eye strayed to Solorio's 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

    He married the girl in 1974 when she was 14 and he 27. They had 10 babies. One died as an infant.

    Wesson moved his family around California, living in tents, on boats, shacks, trailers, and various houses. They got by with welfare and food stamps, often putting meals on the table by sending the children dumpster diving.

    With the addition of nieces and nephews from his wife’s sister, there were eventually 16 children in the clan. School was not on the agenda for any of them. Wesson took care of their education.


    Sebrenah April Wesson, 25, one of Marcus Wesson's daughters, was shot in the face. Her father was charged with nine counts of murder.


    “Loving,” Wesson’s lessons in sexual technique, was a big part of the girls’ curriculum. Their domestic responsibilities included washing his dreadlocks and scratching his head and armpits for him.

    Instruction in oral sex started early, at age eight or nine, the girls would later testify. He “married” his daughters, Kiani and Sebhrenah Wesson, and started to have babies with them. Nieces Ruby Ortiz and Rosa and Sofina Solorio also bore his children.

    When they were old enough, the girls took jobs outside the home to support the clan.

    Wesson kept the children under control through fear and violence. He offered sermons that said nothing was more important than keeping the family together, not even life itself. Police, he preached, were the devil in disguise and suicide was an acceptable way to escape them.

    Not surprisingly, cracks started to appear in the Wesson fortress as the children grew older. Two of his nieces ran away. On March 12, they returned with the intention of taking their babies with them. Wesson refused, leading to a screaming fight outside the house. Ortiz and Solorio called the police for help.


    Elizabeth Breani Kina Wesson, 17, was another of Marcus Wesson's victims.


    Wesson met police at the door, told them to wait and then disappeared into the house. When he appeared at the door again, his clothes covered in blood, nine of his children, including the babies of Ortiz and Solorio, were dead.

    Wesson did not take the stand at his trial, which started in June 2005. His attorneys tried to raise doubt that he had pulled the trigger. Wesson’s children had been so brainwashed that they believed suicide was better than being separated from him. His attorney implied that the oldest daughter, 25-year-old Sebhrenah Wesson, had shot everyone else before turning the gun on herself.

    The jury didn’t buy it and found Wesson guilty of nine counts of murder and 14 counts of rape and molestation. The sentence was death.

    Wesson’s surviving children have struggled to move on with their lives, chronicled in part in the book, “Where Hope Begins,” by Alysia Sofios. In 2011, Gypsy Wesson, at 27, became the first member of her family to earn a college degree.

    Wesson was marched off to San Quentin’s death row, where he slimmed down, trimmed his dreadlocks, and waited. He is still waiting.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/just...#ixzz2u9FH0pdO
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Fresno's most notorious mass murder remembered

    On this day ten years ago Fresno was rocked by an unthinkable crime. Nine people were shot and killed inside their home. Marcus Wesson would be convicted of murdering his own kids and grandkids.

    The Marcus Wesson case serves as Fresno's most notorious mass murder. The crime scene was so disturbing it brought veteran officers to tears and drew worldwide attention.

    People drive by a barely noticeable vacant lot near Roeding Park every day. Many of them unaware what took place here ten years ago. Cameron Caskey lived across the street. He said, "We actually ended up hearing two gun shots."

    Neighbors had no idea what police officers would discover inside 761 Hammond Avenue. Nine of Wesson's children and grandchildren were shot dead and stacked in a back bedroom of the home.

    Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer recalled, "The officers and the crime scene investigators that had to process that, as well as the investigators, it took a toll on them. It was one of the most horrific things this city has seen."

    Today Marcus Wesson sits on death row at San Quentin. He was convicted of nine counts of first degree murder and several counts of rape and molestation. Wesson fathered children with his underage daughters.

    Fresno County Assistant DA Lisa Gamoan was chief prosecutor in the case. Gamoian said, "When you see the manipulation, the psychological methods he was using to control all the these girls, he even financially exploited them. It made sense he would be directing the ultimate act."

    Fresno County District Attorney Elizabeth Egan said, "It was astounding how deprived this defendant was."

    Gamoian set out to bring the victims to life for the jury. "How much of life we take for granted that they never got to experience."

    After the murders crowds disrupted the quiet neighborhood. Caskey said, "Even for years after that people would drive by Marcus Wesson's property and slowly pass by. That got a little tiring."

    That is, until a local real estate group bought the home and tore it down. The property was later sold to the city of Fresno.

    Marcus Wesson's surviving children have talked about how it felt like living in a prison. Lisa Gamoian refers to family survivors as the walking wounded.

    http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?se...cal&id=9464332
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
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    ABClocal wrote:
    "Fresno County District Attorney Elizabeth Egan said, 'It was astounding how deprived this defendant was.'"

    I think that must be a typo. I think the word should be "depraved."

  7. #7
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Wesson's direct appeal has been fully briefed before the California Supreme Court since September 29, 2017.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_no=S136171

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