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Thread: VonTrey Clark, Kevin Watson and Freddie Lee Smith Sentenced in 2015 TX Murder of Samantha Dean

  1. #11
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    They haven't said whether they are seeking the dp as yet.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #12
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    Former Austin officer charged with capital murder appearance rescheduled

    AUSTIN (KXAN) — VonTrey Clark will be back in court July 27 to face the capital murder charges against him. Clark was expected to make a court appearance Wednesday morning, but it has been rescheduled.

    The former Austin police officer is accused of killing his girlfriend Samantha Dean and her unborn baby. Clark is believed to be the father of the child.

    This case first broke Feb. 4 2015, after Dean was found shot to death in her car in Bastrop. Made to appear like a drug deal gone bad, investigators say she was shot several times. An autopsy showed she was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.

    Clark is accused of conspiring with another man, Kevin Watson, who also faces capital murder charges. Watson has plead not guilty; he is being held at the Bastrop County Jail.

    Investigators discovered Dean’s journal in her South Austin home during their search for clues leading to her killer. She wrote that she feared for her life and that Clark was “going to kill her.”

    The last time Clark was in court was in March. His attorney’s are trying to throw out the Grand Jury indictment. They are arguing parts of witness testimony wasn’t recorded.

    Watson is expected back in court May 25 for his pre-trial hearing.

    http://kxan.com/2016/05/04/former-au...back-in-court/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
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    State to pursue death penalty against former Austin officer VonTrey Clark

    By KVUE News

    AUSTIN - State prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a former Austin police officer accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, Samantha Dean, in 2015, according to KVUE's and the Austin American-Statesman's Tony Plohetski.

    In response to the state's decision to seek the maximum penalty, VonTrey Clark's defense attorneys filed a motion to push back Clark's trial date by "at least 11 months due to the extensive amount of discovery in the case."

    Bastrop County District Judge Carson Campbell granted the motion for Clark's trial to begin Feb. 5, 2019, instead of March 19, 2017.

    Clark is charged
    with capital murder. Dean was seven months pregnant at the time of her death, and prosecutors claim she was killed because she wouldn't terminate her pregnancy.

    Clark fled to Indonesia after her death but was later captured by federal officials, who returned him to Bastrop County.

    No trial date has been set for Kevin Watson, the hit-man Clark allegedly hired to kill Dean.

    http://www.kvue.com/news/local/state...lark/488087056
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #14
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Former APD officer murder trial delayed until 2020

    By Lauren Lanmon
    KXAN News

    BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — Another big delay for the capital murder trial of a former Austin police officer Vontrey Clark. Clark is accused of hiring someone to kill his girlfriend and their unborn child.

    On Thursday, a judge agreed to the defense's request for more time, pushing the trial back to 2020 on the fifth anniversary of Samantha Dean's death.

    “Once you know who the accused is, he’s been identified and placed into custody, five years seems to me a remarkable amount of time to get this case to trial,” said retired Travis County judge Charlie Baird.

    Dean was found in a Bastrop parking lot in 2015, she was seven months pregnant. Clark has been in the Bastrop County Jail since September of 2015 after federal agents extradited him from Bali.

    Dean worked with the Kyle Police Department in the victim services unit. "Everybody knew she was going to be an excellent mother," said one of her co-workers.

    Five years is a long time for friends and family to wait and could create some challenges. "It's just natural circumstances that you don't remember things as well as you did shortly after they happened. So, it could very well affect the quality of their testimony," said Baird.

    However, Baird says he understands that a high-profile case like this could take a substantial amount of time due to the amount of evidence investigators and lawyers are having to go through.

    “There could be fingerprints, confessions, eyewitnesses, just a lot of evidence to put your arms around and marshal and make sure you are prepared for trial on both sides,” said Baird.

    KXAN did reach out to Dean's family for a comment, we talked with her mother who said she is under a gag order and could not comment or talk with the media.

    Clark is facing the death penalty. Studies show death penalty cases in Texas cost two-to-three times more than imprisoning someone in maximum security for life. Since reinstating the death penalty int he early 1980's, Texas has executed 555 people.

    That includes 10 people this year.

    Right now there are more than 200 people on death row awaiting their sentence. That's the lowest since the 1980's.

    https://www.kxan.com/news/local/bast...tter_KXAN_News
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #15
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    Jury selection for VonTrey Clark murder trial to be held at Bastrop ISD arts center

    By Brandon Mulder
    Austin American-Statesman

    Bastrop County has moved the early stages of VonTrey Clark’s capital murder trial to the Bastrop school district’s spacious Jerry Fay Wilhelm Center for the Performing Arts.

    The arts center will host the trial’s voir dire process, the legal phase of a jury trial in which a group of summoned citizens are winnowed down to a 12-member jury panel with two alternates.

    Clark, a former Austin police officer, has plead not guilty in the 2015 shooting death of Samantha Dean, a Kyle Police Department crime victims counselor who was seven months pregnant with his child. Clark was charged with capital murder five months after authorities found Dean’s body with three fatal gunshot wounds behind a vacant office building in Bastrop County.

    The voir dire process, which is slated to begin early next year, will have to be moved to the performing arts center due to the high number of jury summons that are likely to go out, county officials said. Because prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty for Clark, the voir dire process will begin with a venire panel, which consists of a group of prospective jurors randomly summoned to court. No county courtroom has capacity to fit such a crowd, which officials have said could range in the hundreds.

    From the venire panel, judges will determine who is qualified to serve as a juror, including determining if people are categorically opposed to capital punishment. The voir dire process will then continue with one-one-one interviews with potential jurors to determine their ability to be fair and unbiased, a process that could take several weeks, officials said.

    “Because of the gravity of the death penalty as an available punishment, courts should do everything possible to ensure capital voir dire results in a fair, impartial jury that is able to follow the rule of law,” reads a Roger Williams University Law Review article on voir dire in capital cases.

    Bastrop County prosecutors were not able to comment on the case due to a gag order that has been placed on all parties involved.

    The voir dire process is scheduled to begin Feb. 4. The trial is scheduled to begin March 23.

    Last year, Bastrop County District Judge Carson Campbell granted Clark’s defense attorneys’ request to delay the trial by over a year, citing voluminous discovery and cell phone data attorneys had to sort through.

    State and county prosecutors have turned over a trove of discovery to Clark’s defense attorneys — 68,000 documents, a hard drive with five terabytes of data and DNA results from the state crime lab. Investigators seized about 50 cell phones in the case and cell phone data will play a large role in the evidence presented during trial.

    Through investigating Dean’s death, authorities learned she and Clark had a yearslong on-and-off relationship, and witnesses said Clark offered $5,000 to have Dean killed when she wouldn’t terminate her pregnancy, according to court documents. Before his arrest, Clark fled to Indonesia but was apprehended by authorities there. Federal agents flew to Indonesia and brought him back to the United States.

    https://www.statesman.com/news/20190...sd-arts-center
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #16
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    Third man arrested in Harris County in connection to Samantha Dean murder

    By Brandon Mulder
    Austin American-Statesman

    A man who has long been linked to the 2015 murder of Samantha Dean and her unborn child was booked in the Bastrop County jail Tuesday after a grand jury indicted him for capital murder earlier this month.

    Freddie Lee Smith, 33, who arrested last week in Harris County on the capital murder charge and taken to the Bastrop County jail Tuesday, is being held without bail.

    Smith is charged as one of two associates in a murder-for-hire scheme in which police believe VonTrey Clark, who was indicted for Dean’s murder in 2016, offered $5,000 for Dean’s death. Witnesses said Clark, who has a family, hired Smith and Kevin Leo Watson to kill Dean because she didn’t want to end her pregnancy, according to court documents. Watson was indicted for capital murder in 2016.

    Dean, who was a Kyle Police Department crime victims counselor, was seven months pregnant with her and Clark’s child, Madeline, when she was shot and killed, court documents show. Clark, a former Austin police officer, was arrested and charged with capital murder five months after authorities found Dean’s body with three fatal gunshot wounds behind a vacant office building in Bastrop County.

    Watson and Smith were both connected to the case through cell phone records of burner phones that police say were used to coordinate the killing. Both were arrested in Harris County, where they lived.

    Clark was fired from the Austin police department in 2016 after he left to Indonesia without permission. His attorneys said at the time he was seeking medical attention for an undisclosed ailment. He was detained in Bali, Indonesia, and was flown back to Texas by FBI agents after he was charged with murder.

    Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz was not able to comment on Smith’s arrest Tuesday due to a gag order placed on Watson’s and Clark’s murder case.

    “The state is of the opinion that it’s virtually impossible to comment on Smith without talking about Watson and Clark,” Goertz said. “It’s the same fact pattern.”

    Smith’s arraignment has not yet been set. Watson pleaded not guilty in 2016, then amended his plea to guilty earlier this month. Clark has plead not guilty; his trial is set for March.

    The voir dire process is slated to begin Feb. 4 at the Bastrop school district's Center for the Performing Arts due to the high number of jury summons that are likely to go out, county officials have said. No county courtroom has capacity to fit such a crowd, which officials have said could range in the hundreds.

    The state is seeking the death penalty for Clark, court documents show.

    Last year, Bastrop County District Judge Carson Campbell granted Clark’s defense attorneys’ request to delay the trial by over a year, citing voluminous discovery and cell phone data attorneys had to sort through.

    Discovery turned up around 68,000 documents, a hard drive with five terabytes of data and DNA test results. Investigators also seized around 50 cell phones in the case and have said cell phone data will play a large role in the evidence presented at trial.

    https://www.statesman.com/news/20190...ha-dean-murder
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #17
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    Former APD officer VonTrey Clark pleads guilty to capital murder

    By Bridget Spenser and Elizabeth Evans
    Fox 7 News

    BASTROP COUNTY, Texas - A former Austin Police Department officer charged with hiring a hitman to execute his girlfriend and unborn baby has pled guilty to capital murder.

    VonTrey Clark, 36, was charged in the murder of Kyle Police crisis counselor Samantha Dean and her unborn child in 2015.

    Clark was sentenced to life in prison with no parole.

    Dean’s body was found behind a vacant shopping center along Highway 71 west of Bastrop on Feb. 3, 2015. She was shot three times in the head.

    Dean was seven months pregnant with a baby girl whom she'd named Madeline. The baby did not survive.

    Clark initially pled not guilty in 2015. Investigators say Clark conspired with several others to kill Dean because she refused to have an abortion.

    In 2015 the hired hit-man told detectives that Clark paid him and another man $5,000 to kill Dean because she wanted Clark to pay child support for the baby. Clark then took Dean’s body to Bastrop and staged the murder scene.

    Police also linked two others to Dean's death.

    Clark was placed on restricted duty at APD in July 2015 due to the department's internal investigation into Dean's murder, then was fired after he failed to cooperate with the investigation and left the country without permission from the department. Clark's attorney says he went to Indonesia for health reasons.

    Clark was extradited from Indonesia in 2015 after he arrived on an American Airlines flight through Jakarta. He was then arrested in Bali based on a red notice from Interpol.

    Suspected triggerman Freddie L. Smith was arrested for his involvement back in September. Kevin Watson, another suspected accomplice, has already pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

    https://www.fox7austin.com/news/form...capital-murder
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #18
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    Related:

    Third man accused of killing pregnant Samantha Dean to face trial in 2022

    By Brandon Mulder
    Austin American-Statesman

    A third man charged with capital murder in the killing of Samantha Dean, who was pregnant with a married Austin officer’s child, has a tentative trial date in February 2022.

    Freddie Lee Smith, 34, was arrested a year ago in Harris County and charged with one count of capital murder after being accused of killing Dean in 2015 at the request of former Austin Police Department officer VonTrey Clark. Clark, who prosecutors said had an on-and-off relationship with Dean for several years, pleaded guilty to murder in 2019 and received a life sentence for hiring Smith and another man, Kevin Leo Watson, to kill Dean.

    Smith is accused of taking part in the murder-for-hire scheme in which authorities have said Clark offered Smith and Watson $5,000 to kill Dean because she was pregnant with her and Clark’s child and refused to end her pregnancy.

    Smith’s tentative trial date, which is a year-and-a-half out, is intended to give the coronavirus pandemic time to abate so that jury trials can safely resume, attorneys said during a virtual court hearing held over Zoom on Wednesday.

    “We tried to plan this out as best as we can knowing that, with the way this year’s gone, everything’s been thrown up in the air,” said Smith’s defense attorney Tom Abbate, mentioning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s estimation that a COVID-19 vaccine will become available in mid-2021.

    “That’s a ways into the future, but this is probably going to be the most workable schedule that we can come up with at this time,” Abbate said.

    Jury trials are still not allowed in Texas without special approval, as per Supreme Court of Texas emergency orders.

    “I know all of us judges are chomping at the bit to do justice and let people have their jury trials. I just don’t see it before maybe the spring of next year,” said Bastrop County District Judge Chris Duggan.

    Smith’s defense attorneys asked Duggan on Wednesday for a bail reduction for Smith whose bail is set at $1 million. Duggan denied that request, citing bonding guidance set by the Code of Criminal Procedure.

    Watson, the other man who was paid to kill Dean, initially pleaded not guilty in 2016 but amended his plea in 2019 and pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

    Dean, who was a Kyle Police Department crime victims counselor, was seven months pregnant when she was shot and killed, court documents show. Clark, who has a family with his common-law wife, was arrested and charged with capital murder five months after authorities found Dean’s body with three fatal gunshot wounds behind a vacant office building in Bastrop County.

    https://www.statesman.com/news/20200...-trial-in-2022
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #19
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    Man sentenced to life in prison for 2015 murder of pregnant woman

    Jaclyn Ramkissoon

    BASTROP COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — A man accused of helping to kill a pregnant woman in 2015 was convicted of capital murder on June 30.

    According to Bastrop County records, Freddie Lee Smith was given a life sentence in prison. His trial began June 22.

    In 2015, Smith helped kill Samantha Dean, who was a victim services coordinator for Kyle Police. She was seven months pregnant at the time of the murder.

    Court documents showed former Austin Police officer Vontrey Clark paid Smith, as well as another man, Kevin Watson, to kill Dean. Clark pleaded guilty to capital murder in December 2019 and is serving a life sentence.

    Watson received a 35-year sentence with credit for 2625 days previously served.

    Court documents revealed Clark was in a secret relationship with Dean. He told investigators he was the father of the unborn child.

    https://www.kxan.com/news/local/bast...ant-woman/amp/
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