Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 20

Thread: Neo-Nazi John Ditullio Sentenced to LWOP in 2006 FL Stabbing Death

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Neo-Nazi John Ditullio Sentenced to LWOP in 2006 FL Stabbing Death



    Makeup hides neo-Nazi's swastika in Florida court

    ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Reuters) – A neo-Nazi gang member went on trial for murder Monday with his swastika and other tattoos covered by makeup on the order of a Florida judge who thought they could prejudice jurors.

    The judge ordered the state to pay for a cosmetologist to apply makeup before trial each day to cover up the tattoos on John Ditullio's face and neck, which include a swastika, barbed wire and an obscene word.

    Ditullio, 23, is charged with stabbing to death 17-year-old Kristofer King in 2006 in New Port Richey, north of St. Petersburg.

    His lawyer argued in a pretrial motion that the tattoos, which Ditullio acquired after his arrest, could prejudice a jury. The judge agreed but ruled that any tattoos Ditullio had before his arrest should not be covered.

    Ditullio could face the death penalty if convicted.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091207/us_nm/us_usa_nazi_1

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Fellow neo-Nazi recounts 2006 stabbing in Pasco trial

    NEW PORT RICHEY — Cory Patnode still bears the markings on his skin of the years he spent as an American Nazi. He has since left the group that adhered to the principle of "whites only," but his tattoos of a rebel flag and swastika remain.

    Patnode, 30, took the stand Wednesday in the murder trial of John Allen Ditullio, who was a prospective member of the neo-Nazi group living on Teak Street. He told jurors that early on March 23, 2006, he saw a masked man run into the neo-Nazi compound as a woman ran out of the house next door, bloodied and screaming.

    Patnode said he went inside the compound and found Ditullio holding a knife.

    "I basically cussed a storm and said, 'What the hell did you do now? Now the cops are definitely coming,' " Patnode testified. "Basically he told me, word for word, 'I killed them, I killed them both, stabbed them in the face.' "

    But Patricia Wells, now 48, had actually survived the attack, but her son's friend, 17-year-old Kristofer King, died. Ditullio, 23, could face the death penalty if he is convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, which authorities say was fueled by bigotry.

    Patnode, who is serving time in the Pasco County jail for violating his probation on unrelated charges, talked jurors through the night of the attack. He also described the neo-Nazis' beliefs and lifestyle.

    Defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand pressed Patnode about his decision to testify against Ditullio. He also wanted to know why, if Patnode was no longer a neo-Nazi, he still has racist and anti-Semitic tattoos.

    "I always assumed tattoos are permanent," Patnode said.

    "They can be covered up, can they not?" Brunvand asked.

    "Yes," Patnode said.

    That prompted prosecutor Mike Halkitis to ask: "Did you have the money to hire a makeup artist?"

    Brunvand swiftly objected, and Circuit Judge Michael Andrews had the jury removed from the courtroom.

    The issues of tattoos and makeup have dominated news coverage of the case since last week, when Andrews allowed the defense to have a taxpayer-funded cosmetologist apply makeup to tattoos on Ditullio's face and neck each morning so the jury won't see them. The tattoos are a barbed wire running down his face, a swastika and the words "f--- you" on his neck.

    During jury selection, potential jurors were asked what they knew of the makeup issue. The ones who had heard about it promised to put it out of their minds.

    Now, Brunvand said, he feared the jury would be influenced by Halkitis' question.

    But Andrews disagreed, saying it didn't reveal anything new.

    "The ones who didn't know still don't know," the judge said.

    He brought the jury back, and Halkitis asked Patnode again: Did he have money to pay to have his tattoos concealed?

    "No," Patnode answered.

    Jurors also heard Wednesday from a DNA analyst, who analyzed blood samples from Ditullio's clothes, the gas mask and the fence. Several samples matched Ditullio and Wells. But Brunvand noted that some samples were contaminated with the analyst's DNA, and one item may have contained the DNA of Shawn Plott, another neo-Nazi.

    Earlier in his testimony, Patnode described the night of the stabbing. Wells, who lived next to the neo-Nazi compound, had a black friend and a gay son with openly gay friends, all of which sparked the ire of her neighbors.

    Patnode said he came home from work to the compound about 5 p.m. March 22. He, Ditullio and a few others began listening to loud music and drinking whiskey.

    Patnode said he and member John Berry went outside into the fenced yard. As they stood talking, they heard a popping sound come from next door — the neighbor's tires being slashed. Patnode said he angrily confronted Ditullio about it, fearing it might draw police to the house. Sheriff's deputies were constantly harassing them, he said.

    About 20 minutes later, Patnode said, he saw a man wearing a gas mask hop the fence between the two houses and run into the neo-Nazi house. Then Wells ran out of her home, wounded and screaming.

    Brunvand questioned Patnode about his motive for testifying.

    "You didn't go to law enforcement and provide them with a statement because you had a change of heart?" Brunvand asked.

    "No," Patnode said.

    "It was only because you were arrested that you gave a statement?" Brunvand asked.

    "Yes," Patnode said.

    He acknowledged that when he talked to detectives, he was in the presence of Brian "Zero" Buckley, the Nazi group's president whom Patnode had idolized for years.

    Brunvand asked about the group's code of silence, which forbade the members, who thought of each other as brothers, from ratting on each other.

    Buckley, Plott, Patnode and Berry were considered brothers; Ditullio, merely a prospect who had to guard the fence and take out the trash, was not.

    "To this day, you're not ratting on your brethren, are you?" said Brunvand, who has speculated that Ditullio was made to be the fall guy for the crime.

    "No, sir," Patnode said.

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/fellow-neo-nazi-recounts-2006-stabbing-in-pasco-trial/1057612

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Closing arguments are expected today in the trial against self-proclaimed neo-Nazi John Ditullio.

    Thursday the prosecution rested its case, and Ditullio took the stand in his own defense.

    He says he became close with several members of a Pasco neo-Nazi group, but he was not the one who viciously attacked Patricia Wells and killed Kristofer King.

    Earlier, a former member of the group testified against Ditullio. Cory Patnode said Ditullio told him "word for word" that he committed the crime.

    Brandon Wininger, Wells' son and a friend of King's, also testified in the case, saying that the men who lived in the neo-Nazi compound shouted slurs at him because he is gay.

    If convicted, Ditullio could face the death penalty.

    http://www.abcactionnews.com/content/news/local/pasco/story/Closing-arguments-expected-in-trial-of-self/ycI0b-9LnEmt5JHRrhceAA.cspx?rss=794

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    When neo-Nazi John Ditullio took the stand in his own murder trial last month, first his lawyer questioned him. The prosecutor had his shot, and the defense attorney stood again to follow up.

    Then the lawyers sat back and listened as the 12 members of the jury became the questioners.

    In January 2008, changes adopted by the state Supreme Court gave jurors a more active role in trials. They are now allowed to take notes and, in all civil cases, question witnesses. With disagreement about the practice still lingering, it's left to judges' discretion in criminal cases.

    Circuit Judge Michael Andrews, who presided in Ditullio's case, routinely allows it. He, prosecutor Mike Halkitis and Bjorn Brunvand, Ditullio's lead attorney, huddled at the bench and read through more than 40 questions submitted by jurors to decide which could be asked.

    Ditullio had joined a small clan of American Nazis living in a single-wide mobile home in the Griffin Park area of west Pasco. On March 23, 2006, authorities say, Ditullio put on a gas mask, broke into the home of a next-door neighbor and stabbed two people. Patricia Wells, who suffered injuries to her face and arms, had an openly gay son and a black friend who visited. Kristofer King, a friend of Wells' son who was also gay, died in the attack.

    Some of the jurors' questions to Ditullio reflected their curiosity about his lifestyle. How did the group pay its bills? How long had Ditullio held neo-Nazi beliefs? Does he still consider the other members his brothers?

    Other questions zeroed in on the evidence. Why was Ditullio's DNA found on the gas mask, if he was innocent as he claimed? What were he and the others in the neo-Nazi compound wearing that night?

    One question provided a window into a juror's mind-set. It began, "Do you really expect us to believe …"

    Brunvand said he didn't think the jurors' questions threw an advantage to either side. But he said their questioning may have helped his client a little because of the evidence the defense used to try to poke holes in the state's case.

    Foremost, there was an unresolved issue about what Ditullio had on that night and the next morning when he was arrested — a red T-shirt and black pants — and what another neo-Nazi had been seen in. Shawn Plott, several witnesses said, had on a white T-shirt and khaki pants, which matched what Wells said her attacker wore.

    "It's helpful that I had some good facts to deal with," Brunvand said.

    What sometimes concerns him about the practice in general is the questions that don't get asked.

    "Jurors are curious about all kinds of things that they can't know about," said Circuit Judge Lowell Bray, who hears civil cases in Pasco County.

    He once had a juror ask how much money a plaintiff's lawyer would keep if monetary damages were awarded.

    In Ditullio's case, Brunvand said one juror wanted to know if Ditullio had any prior convictions. He didn't, but procedural rules prohibit such questions from being asked.

    "My concern is then there's this lingering doubt: 'Are they hiding something?' " Brunvand said.

    The jury ended up deadlocked after deliberating for almost 10 hours. Ten of the 12 voted for acquittal.

    Ditullio, 23, will be retried in March. The state is seeking the death penalty.

    Circuit Judge Pat Siracusa, who hears criminal cases in Dade City, does not generally allow jurors to ask questions of witnesses during trials.

    His reason: Jurors shouldn't take on the job of the prosecutors.

    "They're searching for evidence rather than neutrally observing the evidence that's being presented," Siracusa said. "They're not the investigators, they're not the prosecutors. If the state doesn't meet its burden (of proof), then it's not for them to fill in the gaps."

    But he sees the other side of the argument.

    "I certainly understand the allure of allowing them to ask questions and getting them to participate in that way," he said.

    Mike Kenny, a former prosecutor who recently switched to doing private defense, tried several cases in front of Judge Andrews in which jurors asked questions.

    As a prosecutor, he said, the jurors' questions sometimes helped him identify what issues they wanted to know more about.

    "I knew there were unanswered areas that I needed to fill in," he said. "We think that we know exactly what the issues are. The problem is we think too much like lawyers sometimes."

    For the most part, through depositions and pretrial investigation, prosecutors know what defense attorneys will ask of witnesses, and what the answers will be, and vice versa.

    That's how both sides like it — no surprises.

    "We're always a little bit afraid of the unknown," said Brunvand, Ditullio's attorney. "We like to know what the question is and what the answer is, and so from that perspective it's a little scary to have jurors ask questions."

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/jurors-questions-revealed-evidence-insight-in-pasco-neo-nazi-trial/1063041

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Court pays for makeup in Pasco neo-Nazi's retrial

    With the retrial of neo-Nazi John Ditullio looming, his court-appointed attorney asked a judge Thursday for approval of money to defend his client in this hate-crime homicide.

    The requested funds included, as they typically do, the costs of traveling to take witness depositions — airfare, hotels, rental cars.

    But in this case, the expenses go beyond the typical. Other costs the judge approved are a makeup artist to cover up the tattoos on Ditullio's face, neck and hands each day of the trial; and three life-sized cardboard cutouts to portray the height and build of some key figures in the case.

    Cost of the makeup artist: $125 a day for up to three weeks.

    Cardboard cutouts: $2,175.

    "In our country we appoint attorneys" for poor defendants, said Circuit Judge Thomas McGrady, in approving the use of public funds for other defense costs. "Certainly we should have the same due process whether they're indigent or not."

    Pasco authorities say that on March 23, 2006, Ditullio donned a gas mask and broke into a neighbor's New Port Richey home, where he stabbed a woman in the face and neck, then attacked a teenager. Patricia Wells was slashed in the face and hands but recovered. Kristofer King, who was 17, died.

    Ditullio was a recruit in a small neo-Nazi clan that outfitted a single-wide mobile home like a heavily guarded compound. Wells told authorities that the neo-Nazis harassed her for weeks before the stabbing. She had a black friend who sometimes visited her home, and her son is gay. Authorities think King might have been mistaken for Wells' son.

    Ditullio went to trial last December, but the case ended with a jury deadlocked at 10-2 for acquittal. Ditullio, now 24, was facing the death penalty, as he will again when his retrial begins Sept. 27.

    He took the stand in his own defense last year, saying that he spent hours that day doing yard work, then came inside and drank something given to him by the other members that was laced with tranquilizers. Outside, he said, he saw Shawn Plott, another member of the group, carrying a bundled-up sweatshirt and looking like "he had seen a ghost."

    When he took the stand, the jury then saw a made-up Ditullio — no sign of his tattoos of barbed wire along his face, no swastika and the words "f--- you" weren't visible on his neck.

    A judge then also allowed court money to be spent on the makeup artist, and the trial judge, Circuit Judge Michael Andrews, approved the request.

    Bjorn Brunvand, Ditullio's attorney, argued that the tattoos were so offensive that they — instead of the evidence — could sway jurors toward a guilty verdict.

    The tattoos "have nothing to do with the facts of the case," Brunvand said last year.

    The judge's ruling upset King's mother, Charlene Bricken.

    "This is part of who he is. This is what the jury should see," Bricken said before last year's trial. "And if the jury is afraid, they should be."

    • • •

    In another high-profile murder trial this year, a cardboard cutout was used to show the victim's size to the jury.

    Max Horn was charged with second-degree murder for shooting Joseph Martell after the 2008 Chasco parade. Horn claimed self-defense, saying the 6-feet-6, 328-pound Martell had charged him.

    Horn, who was shorter and overweight, was found not guilty.

    In Ditullio's case, Brunvand hopes to use the cardboard figures to illustrate a murky identity issue. Because her attacker wore a gas mask, Patricia Wells never saw his face and can identify him only by size. She insists, though, that she had seen Ditullio enough times to know he was the one who stabbed her.

    Brunvand — who must still get the trial judge's approval to use the cutout — wants to bring in three of them to depict, with accurate size and height, Ditullio, Shawn Plott and a man named Ron James, an acquaintance of Wells'.

    Plott is now a fugitive, and Brunvand said James cannot be located.

    Ditullio is 6 feet 1 and 230 pounds, according to Pasco County jail records.

    James, Brunvand said, is the same height as Ditullio. In a recorded interview of Wells where James was present, Brunvand said Wells told him the stabber was "a lot shorter than you, Ron."

    Plott is listed in jail records as 5 feet 8, 150 pounds.

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/court-pays-for-makeup-in-pasco-neo-nazis-retrial/1121946

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Neo-Nazi murder trial postponed after new jailhouse informant steps forward

    Prosecutors in the death-penalty murder case against John Ditullio plan to call a new witness who claims Ditullio made admissions to him in jail in the last two years about stabbing two people in a hate-fueled rampage.

    Kraig Constantino is representing himself on charges of aggravated battery. He was in jail until last week, when he agreed to testify and prosecutors agreed to let him out on his own recognizance.

    During his time in lock-up, he filed numerous hand-written motions and made hundreds of phone calls, all of which Ditullio's attorney plans to use to indict Constantino's credibility.

    The 11th-hour information prompted Circuit Judge Michael Andrews to delay the retrial, which had been set for next week. Ditullio was tried last December but it ended with a deadlocked jury.

    Ditullio, 24, was a member of a small neo-Nazi clan that lived in a mobile home on Teak Street in Griffin Park. On March 23, 2006, prosecutors say, he donned a gas mask and broke into the home next door where a woman lived with her son. They say the neo-Nazis hated Patricia Wells because she had black friends and her son is gay. Ditullio charged at her with a knife, stabbing her in the face and hands, then went after Kristofer King, a friend of Wells' son. King, 17, died a day after the attack.

    According to defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand and Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis, Constantino will testify that:

    • Ditullio had three or four conversations with him before last year's trial and one after in which he admitted doing the stabbings.

    • Ditullio said he stabbed Wells because she was dating an African-American man and they sold crack cocaine.

    • Ditullio said he turned the knife on Kristofer King as he was coming to the aid of Wells.

    • Ditullio said Shawn Plott, another member of the neo-Nazis who Brunvand has painted as the real killer but who is currently on the run, won't ever be found because he "had friends who did him in."

    When Halkitis repeated that in court Wednesday morning, Ditullio tipped his head back, crinkled his face and shook his head.

    Constantino, 40, has been involved in the court system for more than 20 years. He often chooses to represent himself, filling volumes of files with handwritten motions. He has accused judges, court reporters and attorneys of committing fraud and falsifying records.

    In his current case, he is accused of beating and stabbing a man he suspected of trying to hit on Constantino's girlfriend. The man was beaten with a wooden board and stabbed with a pocket knife.

    In the case file, Constantino wrote a brief titled "Anatomy of a Crime" in which he discussed the origins of the Moon Lake neighborhood.

    "Early on, the peace and public interest were preserved by members of the Ku Klux Klan," he wrote. "A gradual mingling of Klansmen and outlaw bikers policed the area into the late 1980s."

    Halkitis said Constantino wanted to be released from jail in exchange for providing testimony against Ditullio because he feared for his safety. He has no other deal with prosecutors in his own case.

    Constantino claims that Ditullio has "tremendous influence" over other inmates at the Pasco County jail, including various ethnic gangs. He also said there are jail guards who support Ditullio and might harm Constantino if he was in lockup.

    Brunvand called the assertions "ludicrous."

    "Over the past 20 years, this particular witness has manipulated the court system and he will say whatever he has to," Brunvand said.

    He maintains that Ditullio is innocent of the crime and Plott is more likely the killer.

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/neo-nazi-murder-trial-postponed-after-new-jailhouse-informant-steps-forward/1123265

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Neo Nazi on trial for murder persuades court to pay for professional make-up artist to cover his face tattoos

    A judge has sparked fury after ruling that a murder-accused Neo Nazi should have his tattoos covered up by a professional make-up artist during his trial - because they might make him look bad.

    The unnamed Florida magistrate said John Ditullio can have concealer put over the barbed wire on his face and the Swastika and crude insult on his neck for the duration of the hearing.

    The 23-year-old’s lawyer successfully argued that had the jury seen his tattoos it would have been prejudicial and he would not have seen a fair trial.


    The court has agreed to foot the $125 per day for a professional cosmetologist to come in and cover them up.

    The hearing could go on for weeks, meaning the final bill could run into thousands of dollars.

    Ditullio is on trial for an alleged double stabbing which injured a woman and killed 17-year-old Kristofer King in 2006.


    His mother Charlene Bricken, said she was outraged at the ruling.

    ‘The judge is bending over backwards for the criminal,’ she said, adding that Ditullio had taunted the family by sending them a Christmas card from prison.

    ‘Did somebody tie him down while he was in jail and put these tattoos on him?’ she said in a rage.

    Mr Ditullio’s lawyer Bjorn E. Brunvand however, said the concealer was absolutely necessary.

    ‘There’s no doubt in my mind - without the makeup being used, there’s no way a jury could look at John and judge him fairly.

    ‘It’s too frightening when you see him with the tattoos. It’s a scary picture.’

    With his shaven head, 100-yard state and tattoos, Ditullio is a walking billboard for the Nazi movement.

    He has a large 6-inch swastika tattooed under his right ear, barbed wire inked down the right side of his face, and an extreme and very personal vulgarity scrawled on one side of his neck.

    But his lawyers successfully persuaded the court in New Port Richey, Florida, that the sight of them would be distracting and prejudicial.

    Each day a cosmetologist, who has refused to be identified, will apply layers of foundation before smoothing it over to make it look natural.

    Mike Halkitis, the division director for the state attorney’s office in New Port Richey, branded the ruling ‘absurd’ and said the judge should just have issued directions to the jury to ignore the tattoos.

    ‘We believe the jurors listen to judges’ instructions,’ he said.

    Prosecutors allege that Ditullio broke into his neighbour's home and stabbed 44-year-old Patricia Wells, who lived there, and killed Mr King, a friend of her son.

    Ms Wells lived next door to a mobile home that was commonly known as the ‘Nazi compound’, which had large swastika flags flying on the property, authorities have said.

    Ditullio was arrested at the mobile home after a SWAT standoff.

    The trial is the second for Ditullio - last December his first hearing ended in a jury deadlock. Should he be convicted he faces the death penalty.


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz17LvBSYUj

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Slow-going in Nazi trial jury selection

    Seating a jury in the murder re-trial of a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi from New Port Richey is proving difficult.

    Jury selection is now in its second day for John Ditullio. He is accused of stabbing his neighbor and killing her friend in 2006.

    Monday, jury selection was slowed by the issue of the make-up artists hired to cover some of Ditullio's potentially offensive tattoos. More than a dozen prospective jurors say they knew about the make up and some were upset about it.

    Today, several jurors have expressed concern about Ditullio's association with the American Nazi Party.

    Ditullio is accused of stabbing Patricia Wells in the mistaken belief she was dating an African American man and killing her guest, Kristofer King, because he was gay.

    Prosecutors say Ditullio attacked the pair in an effort to gain acceptance into the American Nazis, which had a compound in the Griffin Park neighborhood.

    Ditullio's defense lawyer warned that during this trial jurors will get to know a lot about the American Nazis and what they believe.

    "Several of the witnesses that will be called by the State Attorney's Office are members of the American Nazi Party. You will see photographs of people wearing Nazi-type clothing," Bjorn Brunvand told potential jurors. "Does that cause any of you a concern?"

    Several jurors did express concerns, some privately to the judge, about being involved in such a trial.

    Ditullio's first trial ended with a hung jury a year ago. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

    http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/new...r-trial-120710

  9. #9
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    Neo-Nazi's cover-up fixes focus

    NEW PORT RICHEY - The young fellow surrounded by suits at the long mahogany table could be anybody. Nothing about his appearance — from his gray mock turtleneck pullover and black knit-blend pants to his close-cropped hair and goatee — suggests significance or notoriety.

    Moreover, awash in the unflattering fluorescents overhead, his pallor recalls nothing found in nature. Certainly nothing living, anyway. You'll find the color in the shoe department. "Do you have these sling-backs in ecru?"

    Nonetheless, the trial of this otherwise nonentity has attracted to the West Pasco Government Center live trucks from each of the Bay area's major television news operations, the booms of their microwave links stretching as tall as nearby flagpoles into the cold, clear afternoon.

    The media sensation owes all to the accused's unearthly pastiness, applied — as almost everyone in the conceivable jury pool knows — by a court-ordered makeup artist. They have come — we all have come — for the singularly peculiar reason of seeing what cannot be seen.

    Full Story

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jurors question witnesses in Pasco neo-Nazi trial

    Jurors in the murder trial of neo-Nazi John Ditullio spent Thursday listening to attorneys question witnesses — then peppered the experts with questions of their own.

    Via notes submitted to the judge, jurors asked a DNA analyst about her handling of key evidence. They asked investigators about blood spatter on the street and fingerprints on letters attributed to Ditullio, who is accused in the 2006 double stabbing that left a teenager dead.

    At the time, Ditullio was a recruit in an American Nazi clan, vying for full membership. The group lived on Teak Street, near Hudson, flying Nazi flags, blasting white supremacist music and harassing the woman next door who had an African-American friend and a gay son. One night, authorities say, Ditullio put on a gas mask to hide his face, broke into Patricia Wells' home and stabbed her in the face and arms. Kristofer King, a friend of Wells' son, was also in the house. He died of knife wounds to his head.

    Ditullio, now 24, went to trial last year on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder, but the jury deadlocked. The state is trying him again and seeking the death penalty.

    In Florida, judges may allow jurors to ask their own questions of witnesses. Circuit Judge Michael Andrews routinely allows it, through handwritten questions the judge reviews and then reads aloud.

    On Thursday, a DNA analyst testified about the blood she found on Ditullio's boots, his clothes and the gas mask. A spot on one boot, the analyst said, matched Wells' DNA. Another sample on the gas mask could not rule out Ditullio or Shawn Plott, another member of the neo-Nazi group whom the defense says is the real killer.

    But the analyst also got some of her own DNA into some of the samples. Defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand hammered her about the contamination and raised questions about why it wasn't documented until nearly three years had passed.

    When he was finished, the jurors piped in.

    Why did the contamination report take so long? Is it industry standard to document a mistake? Did she follow protocol?

    The state also called a blood expert to debunk a defense theo*ry about how Wells' blood got on Ditullio's boot. Brunvand has said that when Ditullio was arrested and led to a patrol car, he may have stepped in blood left on the street hours earlier, when Wells ran outside screaming for help. The state's expert said that's unlikely, if not impossible, because the blood would have long since dried.

    But jurors have asked virtually every investigator who was at the crime scene if they noticed blood spots on the street.

    Jurors on Thursday also heard excerpts of letters Ditullio wrote — words Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis says are enough to convict him on their own.

    In a missive he wrote from inside the neo-Nazi compound as Pasco sheriff's SWAT team members surrounded the place, he called the officers "pigs" and said he was ready to die for his race.

    "I'd rather be killed than to live with those n------ forever," Ditullio allegedly wrote in a spiral-bound notebook later seized by investigators.

    Writing to his father from his jail cell, Ditullio wrote that he preferred the death penalty over life in prison.

    "This is all my fault. These are all my actions. I'm sick of f------ other people's lives up for the things I've done," the letter said.

    The Christmas after he was arrested, prosecutors say Ditullio mailed a card to Guy King, Kristofer's father, writing "hope your Christmas is full of memories of your dead gay son."

    The defense does not deny the words are all Ditullio's. But when a fingerprint examiner testified that she had found Ditullio's fingerprints on the notebook inside the neo-Nazi compound, one juror asked about the possibility of other people's prints having been wiped off.

    Ditullio stared down as the letters were read aloud and the jurors inspected them.

    In his trial last year, he took the witness stand and said he was not admitting guilt but writing out of frustration at being wrongly accused.

    He is expected to testify again, and this jury will get to ask him about it.

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/jurors-...-trial/1139183

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •