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Thread: Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. - Florida

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    Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. - Florida



    Byrd ‘Bud’ Billings and his wife Melanie Billings




    Trial set for Billings' murder suspect

    Florida (WALA) - A pre-trial conference was held Monday morning in the Billings’ murder case. The first of seven suspects charged in the death of Byrd and Melanie Billings is scheduled to go on trial October 25.

    Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. is thought to be the mastermind behind the July 2009 robbery at the Billings’ home in Beulah. During the commando-style raid, Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot to death and at least one safe was stolen.

    Six other suspects await trial for their involvement in the killings. Two of the suspects have accepted plea deals in exchange for their testimony against their co-defendants. Rakeem Florence, the youngest suspect, pleaded no contest to second degree murder charges in May. In January, Frederick Thornton's charges were also downgraded and the death penalty was taken off the table for his testimony.

    The state plans to seek the death penalty against Gonzalez, Jr., Wayne Coldiron and Donnie Stallworth. Leonard Gonzalez, Sr. and Gary Sumner are charged with murder, but do not face the death penalty. Pamela Long Wiggins is charged with being an accessory after the fact.

    State Attorney Bill Eddins told FOX10 News that the discovery process has gone smoothly over the last year and both sides are prepared to go to trial in the Gonzalez case. The prosecution will be seeking the death penalty.

    Eddins anticipates the defense will file a motion for change of venue prior to the trial date for Gonzalez, Jr. Eddins will ask the judge to keep the trial in Escambia County, and bring in a larger jury pool to assure Gonzalez receives a fair trial.

    http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/trial-set-for-billings-murder-suspect

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    Billings Murder Suspect Scheduled To Stand Trial

    UPDATED News Five is inside the conference with attorneys as they prepare for the trial of Patrick Gonzalez, Jr.

    PENSACOLA, Florida - 11:45 a.m.

    The judge has allowed News Five inside the closed door conference.

    State Attorney Bill Eddins says prosecutors will call 40 witnesses during the trial. Ashley Markham, Melanie Billings' daughter, will be the first witness to testify. Eddins told the judge he expects the state to take 2 1/2 to 3 days to present their case.

    The jury will be selected from a pool of 100 potential jurors beginning on Monday.

    11:15 a.m.

    Attorneys involved in the high profile home invasion murder of a Beulah, Florida couple will meet behind closed doors this morning.

    The attorneys will discuss last minute details for the trial of Patrick Gonzalez Jr., the first of seven men accused of killing Byrd and Melanie Billing. Gonzalez, Jr.'s trial is scheduled to begin on Monday.

    The Billings, a couple well known for adopting special needs children, were shot to death in their home on July 9, 2009. Nine of their children were in the house during the home invasion, but none of them were hurt.

    Investigators have described Gonzalez Jr., 36, as the mastermind of the killings. In the weeks following the murder, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan often said he beleived robbery was the motive, but nearly 800 pages of interviews and other discovery documents suggest the murder may have been a contract killing with ties to with MS-13, a violent gang with roots in Central America.

    Florida State Attorney Bill Eddins is seeking the death penalty against Gonzalez Jr, and two other suspects, Wayne Coldiron, 42, and Donnie Stallworth, 29.

    Two other men, Gary Sumner, 31, and Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Sr., 57, are also charged with murder.

    A teenager, Rakeem Florence, who was 16 at the time of the murder, and Frederick Thornton, 20, have pleaded guilty to second degree murder and will be called by prosecutors to testify in Gozalez, Jr.'s trial.

    An eighth suspect, Pamela Long Wiggins, is charged as an accessory after the crime.

    http://www.wkrg.com/florida/article/...-2010_6-38-pm/

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    Jury selection set for alleged ringleader in slaying of Fla. couple with 9 special-needs kids

    Jury selection began Monday in the trial of a karate instructor charged with leading a group of armed men dressed as ninjas in robbing the home of a wealthy couple and killing the pair as their nine special-needs children cowered or slept nearby.

    Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., 36, could get the death penalty if convicted of organizing the break-in at Byrd and Melanie Billings' home in a rural area near Pensacola on the night of July 9, 2009.

    Gonzalez wore arm and leg chains as he was brought into the court Monday morning. His defense attorneys asked that their desks be moved so that the roughly 200 potential jurors would not see the chains. Gonzalez has also been charged with attacking another inmate in jail.

    Prosecutor Bill Eddins said he expects jury selection to take about two days.

    Two of Gonzalez's co-defendants are scheduled to testify against him, Eddins said. But he said none of the young children who were in the home the night of the slayings are expected to testify about what they saw that night.

    Prosecutors say the couple was killed during a botched attempt to steal a cash-filled safe. Their adopted children were not physically harmed in the attack.

    Seven co-defendants have been charged with first-degree murder. Several could testify against Gonzalez and name him as the man who fatally shot Byrd Billings, who owned a company that financed used-car purchases, and his wife.

    Gonzalez's attorneys have asked Circuit Judge Nicholas Geeker to move the trial out of Pensacola. They say extensive local and national media coverage has tainted the jury pool. They point to national appearances by the slain couple's adult daughter on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and by Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan on CNN and other national television shows.

    But Geeker ruled earlier this month that he must first try to seat a jury from his Panhandle circuit of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Oklaoosa and Walton counties before considering relocating the trial.

    Among the evidence expected to be submitted at the two-week trial is surveillance video taken from the sprawling home the night of the killings. The shadowy, time-lapse video shows armed intruders dressed in black barging into the couple's living room. Melanie Billings is seen protectively grabbing what appears to be a child.

    The Billingses were fatally shot in their bedroom, where there were no video cameras. A safe that was taken from the family's home contained nothing of value, but a second safe that wasn't stolen had $164,000 in cash, court records show.

    According to autopsy reports, Melanie Billings, 43, was shot twice in her chest, and in the face and head. Byrd Billings, 66, was shot multiple times in the head and legs.

    The crime scene photos document dozens of bullet holes throughout the living room and bedroom and a trail of blood along the living room floor.

    In his initial interview with investigators, Gonzalez suggested a group of car dealers with a grudge against Byrd Billings wanted him "whacked."

    Gonzalez also told investigators that he and one of Byrd Billings' grown sons, Justin, had worked together as "enforcers" to get payments from people who had gotten behind. His attorney, John Jay Gontarek, did not return calls seeking comment.

    The nine children in the home, all between the ages of 4 and 11 at the time of break-in, have varying special needs ranging from Down syndrome to fetal alcohol syndrome and autism.

    The silent surveillance video footage from the children's bedrooms shows two of children remaining still during the break-in. A third child is in her bedroom alone when the attackers arrive, and their van can be seen through her window. The girl walks to the window and appears to watch the men enter. The girl then gets back in the bed and pulls the covers around her. She gets up a second time before returning to bed and putting her head on the pillow as the tape ends.

    Previously released records of interviews by sheriff's investigators show that one child told investigators that he heard a knock on the door and that "two bad men" said, "You're going to die, one, two, three" and then, "no way, no way."

    The records show that child was sleeping in his parents' bed when they were killed.

    The Billingses' adult daughter told Winfrey that she and her husband are raising the children in the home where their parents died.

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...,5399774.story

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    Billings' oldest daughter takes stand

    PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - UPDATE: 1:12 p.m. The adult daughter of wealthy Florida couple had a frantic telephone call with a younger sibling who was unable to talk as their parents were being killed by armed intruders.

    Ashley Markham testified Tuesday, saying she told the boy to hand the phone to another of the couple's nine adopted children with special needs, a young girl.

    Markham also said she told the girl to run to home to of a nurse who lived on the property and call for help.

    Earlier Tuesday, a prosecutor told the jury the ringleader accused of killing Byrd and Melanie Billings was desperate for cash and hatched the plan in hopes of stealing millions from a home safe.

    State Attorney Bill Eddins said in opening statements that 36-year-old Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Junior mistakenly thought the couple kept millions at their home. Gonzalez faces a possible death sentence if convicted of killing the couple.

    10:47 a.m. A prosecutor says the alleged ringleader in the home-invasion, murders and botched robbery of a wealthy Florida Panhandle couple was desperate for cash and hatched the plan in hopes of stealing millions of dollars.

    In opening statements in the trial of 36-year-old Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., State Attorney Bill Eddins said Tuesday morning that Gonzalez mistakenly thought Byrd and Melanie Billings kept millions in a home safe.

    Gonzalez faces a possible death sentence if convicted of killing the couple.

    The Billings were known for adopting nine children with varying special needs ranging from Down syndrome to fetal alcohol syndrome. The children were at home when their parents were killed.

    http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/bill...billings-trial

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    Murder suspect refuses to look at crime scene photos

    Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr. covered his eyes and turned his head as photographs of a blood-soaked crime scene appeared on computer screens around the courtroom.

    It's a scene that he's charged with creating.

    Tuesday marked the first day of testimony in Gonzalez Jr.'s capital murder trial.

    He's charged with home invasion and two counts of first-degree murder in the July 9, 2009 deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

    The second day of the trial saw 14 witnesses take the stand.

    The Billingses' oldest daughter, Ashley Markham, was the first to testify. During her brief stint on the stand, she spoke about the phone call she made to her parents' home about 7:15 p.m. the night they died.

    Her adopted brother Jake answered the phone and was frantic.

    "He was just screaming," she said, on the verge of tears. "I was asking him to let me talk to somebody. I couldn't understand what he was saying."

    Her sister, Adrianna, took the phone and Markham told her to find April Spencer, a nurse who lived on the Billings property and helped care for the couple's nine special-needs children.

    April Spencer testified about opening the door to her home and finding the distraught Adrianna.

    Spencer said she entered the main house and went into the couple's bedroom and made the gruesome discovery. Spencer wept and could hardly speak as she testified to finding her employers — he at the foot of his bed with his arms bound and she on her back in a bedroom closet in a pool of blood.

    Spencer rocked back and forth as she testified.

    Witnesses and the prosecution painted Gonzalez Jr. as a nearly destitute, drug-addled man who needed money to raise the six children he shared with his wife, Tabatha.

    His business failing and his family's well-being at stake, Gonzalez Jr. recruited six people to help him rob Byrd Billings, a used-car dealer, said State Attorney Bill Eddins in his opening statement.

    "He was married, had six children and he had no money," Eddins said. "He was so broke that his mother had to buy him a car, which happened to be a big, red van."

    His folly was that he talked too much, Eddins said.

    "The proof will show the defendant in this case was not the smartest person in the world," he said.

    Tabatha Gonzalez testified that she and her husband did busy work for Pamela Long Wiggins, a Gulf Breeze real estate agent and antique mall owner. Long Wiggins is tied to the robbery because her maroon mini-van was used to transport guns used in the robbery and the small safe taken from the Billingses' home.

    Terry Poff, Gonzalez Jr.'s mother, said that her son was struggling financially. She often gave him cash to make ends meet. She bought him the now infamous red van used in the robbery for $300.

    "He was about to lose his vehicle," she said, adding later, "He was trying very hard."

    Markham testified about a meeting between her father and Gonzalez Jr. more than a year before the murders.

    Byrd and Melanie Billings ran a used-car dealership and an auto financing company. Around May 2008, Gonzalez Jr. met with Byrd Billings about becoming a partner in his struggling karate studio in Pace.

    Tabatha Gonzalez testified that Byrd Billings felt the now defunct business was a "bad investment."

    Instead he gave Gonzalez Jr. a $5,000 cash donation to Project FIGHTBACK, a program he and his wife founded to teach self-defense to children and women.

    The day ended with two-hours of testimony from Frederick Lee Thornton Jr., one of the young men recruited by Gonzalez Jr. to take part in his robbery.

    Step-by-step, Thornton recounted the weeks that led up to the robbery that promised a $13 million fortune hidden somewhere in the Billingses' home that never actually existed.

    Defense attorney John Jay Gontarek called the arrest of his client "a rush to judgment."

    He said that Gonzalez Jr. was open with former Escambia County Chief Deputy Bill Chavers and tried to help figure out what happened to the Billingses.

    When the connection was made to the big red van and the robbery and murders, Gontarek said authorities immediately turned their sights on his client.

    "That's when they said, 'red van,'" he said. "This is going to be a great movie script. A humdinger."

    The statement was a reference to Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan's post-murder statements that the case was a "humdinger."

    Gontarek also implored the jury to give little weight to the testimony of witnesses Frederick Thornton and Rakeem Florence saying the youngest of the men involved in the case had something to gain from their cooperation.

    Thornton — who pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the same case — will undergo cross-examination from Gonzalez Jr.'s attorneys at 9 a.m. today.

    http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/spe...me-murder.html

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    Co-defendant says he did not know group planned to kill couple

    PENSACOLA - A teenager who pleaded guilty to joining a group of men accused of killing a Panhandle couple in a botched home-invasion and robbery testified today in the double-murder trial of the suspected ringleader.

    Rakeem Florence, 18, told jurors he did not know anyone in the group intended to kill Byrd and Melanie Billings. Florence, who was 16 during the July 9, 2009, home invasion, also said he did not know the couple had nine adopted children in the home between the ages of 4 and 11 with varying special needs including fetal alcohol syndrome and Down's syndrome.

    Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., a 36-year-old karate instructor and father of six, could face the death penalty if convicted of orchestrating the attack and being the triggerman.

    Florence said he and four other men barged through different doors. They dressed in black and wore combat boots, ski masks and goggles. Florence carried an AK 47, but he testified that didn't know how to use the weapon.

    The first person he saw in the sprawling west Pensacola-area home was a child sitting on the living room sofa, he said.

    "Then I saw Mr. Billings on the floor and Mrs. Billings between the couches," he said.

    On Tuesday, another co-defendant who has pleaded guilty in the case told jurors that Gonzalez recruited the various members of the group and told them a safe in the Billings' home contained $13 million that Billings obtained from working for the Mexican Mafia.

    Frederick Thornton Jr., 20, said the men burst into the Billings' living room and found the couple and one of their children. Gonzalez shot Mr. Billings in each of his legs while demanding to know where he kept his cash and then shot him in the head when he wouldn't tell them the safe's location. Thornton said Gonzalez shot Mrs. Billings in the couple's bedroom when she could not remember the combination to the safe.

    The safe that was taken from the family's home contained nothing of value, but a second safe that wasn't stolen had $164,000 in cash, court records show.

    Florence and Thornton face life in prison, though their sentences could be reduced by the judge in exchange for their testimony against Gonzalez and others.

    The two friends testified that they were introduced to Gonzalez by another man and said they were motivated to join in the home invasion by the hope of making money.

    Defense attorney John Jay Gontarek asked Thornton whether it wasn't Donnie Ray Stallworth, the man who introduced both Thornton and Florence to Gonzalez, who actually recruited them to rob the Billings and masterminded the home invasion. Stallworth is also charged in the home-invasion deaths. He has not gone to trial.

    Thornton said it was Gonzalez who did all the planning and talking, bought the clothes they wore July 9, distributed the weapons and shot and killed the couple.

    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/oct...up-planned-to/

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    Prosecution has just rested their case.

    Source: In Session

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    Billings Murder: State Rests In Gonzalez Jr. Trial

    PENSACOLA, Florida - The state has rested its case in the capital murder trial of Patrick Gonzalez Jr.

    Escambia County Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Geeker denied a defense motion for acquittal, which is a standard motion after prosecutors present their case.

    The court is taking a 15 minute break.

    9:00 a.m.Prosecutors are expected to rest their case this morning in the capital murder trial of Patrick Gonzalez Jr.

    Gonzalez is the alleged mastermind in the home invasion murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings. He is the first of seven men to stand trial for the crime.

    The third day of testimony began as prosecutors moved quickly through several investigators.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Gonzalez Jr, and two other suspects who will be tried seperately, Wayne Coldiron, 42, and Donnie Stallworth, 29.

    Two other men, Gary Sumner, 31, and Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Sr., 57, are also charged with two counts of murder and one count of home invasion robbery.

    Frederick Thornton, 20, pleaded no contest to second degreem murder for his role in the crime. Rakeem Florence, who was 16 at the time of the murder, pleaded guilty to the same charge. Both men accepted plea agreements from the Florida State Attorney's Office in exchange for their testimony against Gonzalez. Thornton and Florence could face life in prison.

    An eighth suspect, Pamela Long Wiggins, is charged as an accessory after the crime.

    http://www.wkrg.com/florida/article/...2010_10-39-am/

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    Defense just rested case! No witnesses called.

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