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Thread: Grady Louis Nelson Sentenced to LWOP in 2005 FL Murder of Angelina Martinez

  1. #1
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    Grady Louis Nelson Sentenced to LWOP in 2005 FL Murder of Angelina Martinez




    Man Accused Of Killing Family Faces Death Penalty

    Trial is underway for a convicted sex offender accused of raping and murdering his wife's 2 children before stabbing her to death.

    According to prosecutors Grady Nelson, 52, stabbed his wife more than 60 times before slashing her throat and plunging a butcher knife into her skull.

    Grady's sexual misconduct with his mentally handicapped 11-year-old step-daughter is possibly what triggered the killing spree, according to prosecutors. Nelson allegedly had sex with his step-daughter on a number of occasions. He was eventually charged and briefly jailed. Charges however were eventually dropped because prosecutors said the girl gave inconsistent statements, according to CBS4 news partners The Miami Herald.

    After being released from jail, Nelson allegedly went home the next morning, where police found him with a knife, covered in blood.

    Nelson reportedly admitted to Miami-Dade police detectives in a videotaped confession that he had sexually assaulted his 11-year-old step-daughter and 13-year-old step-son that day before killing them. Afterwards however he changed his story.

    According to defense attorney David S. Markus, Nelson came home and discovered the bodies and was coerced by police into giving a false confession. Markus says the real killer was Andrew Hall, 62, the boyfriend of the children's grandmother. Prosecutors say there is no evidence to prove that Hall had any role in the murders.

    Nelson worked for the Miami-Dade Human Services Department in 2000 despite a rape conviction on his record. Back in 1991 he was charged with the rape of a 7-year-old neighbor.

    (Source: CBS TV News)

  2. #2
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    Man guilty of murdering his wife

    A former county social worker's aide is guilty of brutally stabbing his wife and raping her daughter at their Miami-Dade home in January 2005, jurors ruled late Friday.

    Grady Nelson, 53, could face the death penalty for the first-degree murder of his wife, Angelina Martinez, 32. He also was found guilty of attempted murder and sexual battery. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Scola will preside over the sentencing portion of Nelson's trial.

    Prosecutors said Nelson brutally stabbed his wife at their home.

    "Angela Martinez was butchered,'' Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Abbe Rifkin told jurors during closing arguments Thursday. "She was stabbed 61 times. Her throat was cut. A knife was stuck in her head.''

    Defense attorneys David S. Markus and Terence Lenamon had argued that Nelson's videotaped confession was coerced by Miami-Dade police, and that Nelson stumbled upon the crime scene when he returned home.

    The 12 jurors began deliberating about 9 a.m. Friday.

    The Miami-Dade Human Services Department hired Nelson in 2000 as a social-worker aide, despite a conviction for the 1991 rape of a 7-year-old neighbor.

    Prosecutors Rifkin and Hillah Mendez alleged that by 2005, Nelson had been having sex with Martinez's 11-year-old daughter for years. Shortly before the murder, he was briefly jailed for the sexual activity, but prosecutors had to drop the charges because the girl gave inconsistent statements.

    A judge signed a domestic violence injunction, but it came too late. Nelson went home after his release from jail. The next morning police found him -- covered in blood -- in the house, wielding a knife.

    In his confession, Nelson admitted to Miami-Dade police homicide detectives that he also stabbed and sexually assaulted the girl and Martinez's 13-year-old son. Nelson was not the father of the children. Both survived.

    "That is the disgusting statement of a cold, evil human being,'' Rifkin told jurors.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/10/1724021/miami-dade-jury-man-guilty-of.html#ixzz0tIhu1KKL

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    Judge Okays QEEG Evidence for Grady Nelson

    Highly Publicized Grady Nelson Death Penalty Trial Sets National Precedent with Florida Circuit Court Judge Hogan-Scola's Admission of QEEG Brain Mapping Evidence

    Miami, FL (PRWEB) - "This may be the first time in any United States criminal courtroom where QEEG analysis has been ruled admissible and respected for its ability to provide vital information on brain injury and impairment," explains Terence Lenamon, death-qualified Miami criminal defense attorney and co-counsel with David S. Markus in Grady Nelson's penalty phase trial.

    On November 8, 2010, the death sentence will be at issue as the penalty phase begins in the highly-publicized trial of Grady Nelson for the first-degree murder of his wife, Angelina Martinez, who died after being stabbed over 60 times. This time, in a precedent-setting ruling by Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Hogan-Scola, jurors will be able to include the results of brain mapping via a quantitative EEG ("QEEG") in their deliberations of mitigating factors balancing between a life or death sentence for Nelson.

    In its simplest terms, explains testifying expert Dr. Robert W. Thatcher, a nationally known pioneer in QEEG analysis who is Board Certified by the American Board of Certification of Quantitative Electroencephalography and a principal in Applied Neuroscience, Incorporated, "…QEEG is a computer analysis of around 19 channels of simultaneous EEG recording under controlled conditions including 3-dimensional source imaging."

    Otherwise known as "brain mapping," for over 20 years admission of QEEG results has been deemed largely inadmissible in state and federal courts across the country under the legal standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court under either its Frye or Daubert rulings. Historically, some judges have found QEEG testing to be insufficiently reliable to be admitted as scientific evidence.

    This evidentiary impasse has continued despite QEEG's growing respect within the scientific community. Today, there are over 50 companies selling QEEG products in the marketplace. Among them, Applied Neuroscience, Incorporated sells its NeuroGuide Deluxe™ which has been tested as reliable.

    On October 22, 2010, the defense motion to allow QEEG evidence presented by Dr. Thatcher as admissible to the jury deciding the sentence of convicted murderer Grady Nelson was granted in Cause No. F05-00846 in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit, in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida, styled State of Florida v. Grady Nelson.

    After hearing arguments from both sides beginning October 6, 2010, and considering the scientific evidence and expert testimony given by both sides, the court ruled on October 22nd that QEEG met the standards of Daubert and Frye and would be allowed. "(E)verything I have heard, the methodologies are sound, the techniques are sound, the science is sound," ruled Judge Hogan-Scola, announcing that the QEEG evidence would be allowed when the penalty phase begins next month .

    "To have Judge Hogan-Scola courageously allow QEEG evidence as part of the mitigating evidence brought forward in the penalty trial of Grady Nelson is newsworthy on a national level. It is a particularly important and welcomed step in the understanding of mental capacity as it relates to the punishment of defendants in this country, particularly those facing the death penalty," said attorney Terence Lenamon.

    "We are understandably encouraged by the fierce dedication to justice exhibited by Judge Hogan-Scola in her ruling on QEEG," continues Mr. Lenamon. "Having a judge with her combination of legal expertise and scientific knowledge was crucial here, and the time to recognize QEEG analysis by experts such as Dr. Thatcher as sound science is long overdue."

    About Terence Lenamon:

    Terence ("Terry") Lenamon is a Board Certified criminal defense attorney practicing in Miami, Florida, where he has achieved national recognition as a death-qualified defense trial lawyer representing those facing the death penalty for capital crimes, having first-chaired over 100 jury trials in his 17 years practicing law. Terence Lenamon is also Executive Director of the Florida Capital Resource Center, a non-profit organization that provides support to Florida death penalty attorneys.

    Lenamon's recent media recognition includes being the initial death-qualified attorney in the Casey Anthony case, as well as representing both Grady Nelson and Caesar Mena. Terence Lenamon has appeared as a criminal defense expert on HLN's Nancy Grace and Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell as well as being quoted for the opinions he provides in print media publications including the Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, and the Palm Beach Post. He blogs regularly about death penalty issues at Terry Lenamon's Death Penalty Blog.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/10/prweb4718954.htm

  4. #4
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    Miami-Dade killer gets life sentence for murder, stabbings, rape

    A former Miami-Dade County social worker's aide will spend the rest of his life in prison -- and not face the death penalty -- for stabbing his wife 61 times and stabbing her two young children, a jury recommended Thursday.

    In a surprise decision, jurors -- after only an hour of deliberations -- rejected a death sentence for Grady Nelson, 53. He was convicted in the grisly January 2005 murder of his wife, Angelina Martinez.

    Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola immediately sentenced Nelson to life behind bars.

    The same jury, in July, took more than 11 hours to convict Nelson.

    Nelson's case drew headlines because the Miami-Dade Human Services Department hired him in 2000 as a social-worker aide, despite his prior conviction for the 1991 rape of a 7-year-old neighbor.

    By 2005, Nelson had been having sex with Martinez's 11-year-old mentally disabled daughter. Shortly before the murder, he was briefly jailed for the sexual activity, but prosecutors had to drop the charges because the girl gave inconsistent statements.

    A judge signed a domestic violence injunction, but it came too late. Nelson went home after his release from jail. The next morning police found him -- covered in blood -- in the house, wielding a knife.

    Martinez was found dead with a knife jammed in her head. The daughter and 9-year-old son were found stabbed but alive. Police charged Martinez with raping both children; he was found guilty of assaulting the girl but not the boy.

    During the four-week penalty phase, defense lawyers Terry Lenamon and David S. Markus argued that Nelson was sexually abused as a child, abandoned by his mother and later became addicted to cocaine.

    Judge Scola also allowed Lenamon to introduce controversial technology that showed digital images of Nelson's brain damage, purportedly leaving him prone to impulsiveness and violence. The state objected, and countered with experts who dismissed the technology as junk science.

    "It's the future,'' Lenamon said of the technology -- known as QEEG brain mapping -- after the sentencing. "This is something that is going to make a huge impact around the country on legal issues, and medical issues.''

    Prosecutors Abbe Rifkin and Hillah Mendez had argued Nelson should be executed because of the violent nature of the murders and because of his criminal past. His 1991 victim recounted how Nelson raped her in testimony last month that drew tears from courtroom observers.

    "The state believes the aggravators were overwhelming in this case, especially because of the particularly horrendous way in which the victim was killed and the defendant's long history of preying on those weaker than him,'' Rifkin said afterward. "However, we respect the jury's verdict.''

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/0...#ixzz170z9lFrI

  5. #5
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    Novel defense helps spare perpetrator of grisly murder

    For years, researchers have used computerized "brain mapping'' technology to read human brain waves in an attempt to diagnose maladies from attention deficit disorder to dementia.

    But can the same technology be used to explain the brutality exhibited by killer Grady Nelson, who stabbed his wife 61 times in South Miami-Dade, then raped and stabbed her 11-year-old mentally disabled daughter?

    His defense lawyers believe so, saying the technology proved that brain damage had left Nelson prone to impulse and violence. Now, they are trumpeting the "QEEG brain mapping'' technology after a jury, in a controversial Dec. 2 decision, rejected the death penalty and voted for life in prison.

    Lawyers say Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola's decision to admit the QEEG was the first time nationally that the test has been admitted as evidence in a major criminal case.

    Both prosecutors and defense lawyers believe the Nelson sentence will spark a new wave of expensive death penalty litigation, with the technology being used to justify the most violent of behavior.

    "The moment this crime occurred, Grady had a broken brain,'' said defense attorney Terry Lenamon. "I think this is a huge step forward in explaining why people are broken -- not excusing it. This is going to go a long way in mitigating death penalty sentences.''

    'HOCUS POCUS'

    For Miami-Dade prosecutors, the decision was frustrating. They fought to no avail to exclude the QEEG evidence from jurors, arguing the science was unproven and used improperly to explain the heinous crimes.

    Electroencephalogram tests, known as EEGs, record electronic energy in the brain through sensors attached to the head. The results are displayed as squiggly lines on paper, and the tests have been in use for decades.

    Only in recent years have computers been utilized to create the "Quantitative EEG,'' known as QEEG, which translates the results into a digital image of a patient's brain to help analyze brain wave frequencies.

    The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office plans to appeal Scola's October decision to allow the technology in as evidence, even though the life sentence cannot be reversed.

    "It was a lot of hocus pocus and bells and whistles, and it amounted to nothing,'' said Assistant State Attorney Abbe Rifkin, who prosecuted the case. "When you look at the facts of the case, there was nothing impulsive about this murder.''

    The jury in July convicted Nelson, 53, of slaying his wife, Angelina Martinez, in January 2005, and attacking her two young children. The counts: first-degree murder, attempted murder and sexual battery.

    Jurors said the punishment vote was evenly split, 6-6, which results in an automatic life sentence. Three jurors interviewed by The Miami Herald were split on whether the QEEG swayed their recommendation for life.

    Delores Cannon, a hospital secretary, said she leaned toward death until the technology was presented. "But then when it came in, the facts about the QEEG, some of us changed our mind,'' she said.

    John Howard, an airport fleet services worker, said he, too, was ready to recommend death. "It turned my decision all the way around,'' Howard said the QEEG. "The technology really swayed me . . . After seing the brain scans, I was convinced this guy had some sort of brain problem.''

    But Leon Benbow, a retired mailman, said he voted for life not because of the QEEG but because he wanted Nelson to rot in prison with the stigma of being a child rapist.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/1...rpetrator.html

  6. #6
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Looks like Nelson finally got what the jury rufused to do, deceased from natural causes as of 11/23/22

    https://fdc.myflorida.com/offenderSe...&TypeSearch=IR
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