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Thread: Gregory L. Wilson - Kentucky

  1. #21
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    September 16, 2010

    Deborah Pooley’s family, friends remember a ‘sweet girl’

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Debbie Pooley left Miami for the suburbs of Cincinnati in the mid-1980s looking for a safer place in a smaller city near home.

    To her family and friends, her kidnapping and murder in 1987 about two years after she moved home proved a cruel irony.

    "She was a sweet girl," said Kathy McBurney Salce, who worked with Pooley at a restaurant and bar in suburban Miami. "To lose her like that, we're still not over it."

    Pooley's sister, Bonnie Shinkle, and several friends spoke to The Associated Press in recent days as the Kentucky Supreme Court weighed whether to let the execution of the man convicted of her killing go forward. It's the first time many have spoken publicly about Pooley since her death.

    Gregory Lee Wilson, 53, had been set to die by lethal injection at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville on Thursday before a judge halted the proceedings because of concerns about the inmate's mental state and how Kentucky execution method. The high court was considering whether to lift the stay of execution.

    Wilson was convicted in 1988 of kidnapping Pooley from the parking lot of her apartment complex in Covington, Ky., raping her while a co-defendant drove, then killing Pooley, 36, in 1987. Investigators found Pooley nearly three weeks later in a field in Indiana.

    When Gov. Steve Beshear signed a warrant setting Wilson's execution date for Sept. 16, memories of Pooley and the way she died 23 years ago came rushing back for her family and friends.

    "It's just opening old wounds for all of us," said Salce, who now works at the University of Miami.

    Pooley, a native of Hamilton, Ohio, moved in with her sister in South Florida in the early 1980s and went to work as a bartender at Dalts, a popular eatery and bar in Kendall, a suburb of Miami. She joined a group of young employees, including Salce, in an atmosphere veterans of the establishment describe as "flamboyant" and "family-oriented."

    The group became a tight-knit circle of friends that shared holidays, spawned lasting connections and several marriages.

    "We used to always eat Thanksgiving dinner together like family," said Maria Doria Perez, who also worked at Dalts and is now a teacher in the Miami area.

    In the middle of this group was Pooley, who earned the nickname "Mom" from co-workers who turned to her for advice about relationships, college and the future.

    "If Debbie had not been murdered, she's still be my friend," Salce said. "We were robbed of that because of this heinous murder."

    Pooley also doted on her two nieces, who would sit in a booth at Dalts eating homemade potato chips under her watchful eye. Shinkle, who took her sister in after the move to south Florida, said Pooley would read to the children, who couldn't get enough of their aunt.

    "She made the stories come alive," said Shinkle, 62. "I think she would have loved to have had a family."

    Perez recalls Pooley buying large amounts of "Hello Kitty" paraphernalia for the girls.

    "They were the world to her," Perez said.

    Pooley moved back north to be near her parents, Walter, a pressman at the Hamilton, Ohio, Journal-News who died in May, and Anne, who is now in poor health, in the mid-'80s. She settled in northern Kentucky and went to work at Barleycorn's Yacht Club in Newport, across the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Within two years, Wilson and Brenda Humphrey, a former prostitute now serving life in prison, would kidnap and kill Pooley.

    The pending execution date has brought back the horror of the days when no one could find Pooley and the sadness they felt at her death.

    "We were all young and it hit everyone hard," said Donna Lovell of Miami, who worked at Dalts.

    Shinkle said her parents stopped putting up a Christmas tree and kept all of Pooley's things at their home.

    "They've still got her clothes in a drawer, like she still lives there," Shinkle said. "You think she's going to come walking in the door someday."

    More than 23 years after Pooley's death, her friends still miss her some speak of her in the present tense and remain angry at Wilson.

    "If he's found God, he should be willing to meet his maker," Perez said. "I don't think he should be seeing any sympathy."

    http://www.kypost.com/dpp/news/state...-girl%E2%80%99

  2. #22
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    September 16, 2010

    Kentucky to determine Gregory Wilson’s fate

    EDDYVILLE, Ky. - With the decision in the hands of the highest court in the Commonwealth, the question arises: Will a convicted rapist and murderer be executed after 23 years or not?

    Gregory Lee Wilson , 53, who was found guilty and sentenced to death 22 years ago after kidnapping, raping and murdering 36-year-old Deborah Pooley in Covington, Ky., awaits the answer to that question.

    On May 29, 1987 Pooley, an assistant manger for Barleycorn’s Yacht Club in Newport, Ky., left her friend’s house in Union Township, Ohio. She never made it home.

    According to police, Wilson and Humphrey forced Pooley into the back seat of her car just outside her apartment in Covington. Wilson raped her, then strangled her while Humphrey drove to Indiana. On the border of Illinois and Indiana, just outside Indianapolis, the couple dumped Pooley’s body in a blueberry patch in Pittsboro, Ind., just off the highway. A man discovered her body in the field on June 15, 1987.

    Wilson, who previously served a prison sentence in Ohio on two counts of rape in Cuyahoga County; was charged with two counts of rape, one count of kidnapping and one count of aggravated robbery in union Township; and charged with one count of rape in Hamilton, Ohio, Pooley’s hometown—was arrested on June 18, 1987.

    He was sentenced to death Oct. 31, 1988. At that time, the victim’s father Walter Pooley, now deceased, said, “they got what they deserved.”

    During the trial he said that he would “never put it behind me.” It was the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing he thing he thought about at night. Walter died in May, just four months before the execution of his daughter’s murderer.

    Last month, the governor signed Wilson’s death warrant, however, just shy of his execution date several religious figures came forward in Wilson’s defense, asking that his life be spared.

    The Rev. Dr. Marian McClure Taylor, executive director, Kentucky Council of Churches is against putting anyone to death no matter the crime that they committed. She testified in January in front of Kentucky’s Supreme Court regarding revisions in the protocol for executions.

    “God shows a remarkable unwillingness to give up on us, and does not give us permission to give up on each other.”

    As long as society can be kept safe by some means other than taking a convicted person's life, we should not take that life.”

    Four Catholic bishops from Kentucky as well as Pope Benedict XVI asked Gov. Steve Beshear last week to commute Wilson’s death sentence scheduled for today.

    On behalf of the Pope, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville gave the governor a letter asking that the death row inmate not be executed siting legal problems in his case from 1988. After a meeting with the governor there were no changes made in Wilson’s fate.

    But that wouldn’t be the last word on the matter.

    On Sept. 10, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd put a stay on Wilson’s execution because he said due to his low IQ, the death row inmate could be mentally retarded. If the Kentucky Supreme Court were to decide that he is in fact mentally retarded, he would not be executed.

    Shepherd ruled that "the state's protocol for carrying out an execution is inconsistent with state law and doesn't provide a safeguard to prevent a mentally retarded or criminally insane inmate from being executed.”

    Attorney General Jack Conway appealed that ruling on Monday and the decision moved to the seven justices of the Kentucky Supreme Court.

    Conway also requested Wilson’s psychiatric records from his case in 1988 on Tuesday.

    In February 1988, Kenton County Circuit Court Judge Raymond Lape ordered that Wilson undergo an examination at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center in LaGrange. This exam was done to determine whether or not he was competent to stand trial and if he was sane when he murdered Pooley. Any mental defects would then be considered at the time of his conviction. During his trial, Wilson did not plead insanity as a defense, although it was considered.

    If Wilson is executed as scheduled, he will die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. CST. He will be the third to be executed by lethal injection – behind Marco Allen Chapman; and Eddie Harper, who was the first to receive the lethal cocktail in 1999.

    The last execution in Kentucky was in November 2008 when Chapman, 37, who was sentenced to death after being convicted in the 2002 killings of two children Cody, 6, and Chelbi Sharon, 7, and leaving their mother Carolyn Marksberry and older sibling Courtney, 10, for dead in Gallatin County, Ky.

    There are currently 34 inmates on death row, including one woman, 33 men.

    Brenda Humphrey, Wilson’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, was sentenced to life and is serving her time at Ky.'s Women's Correctional Institute in Pewee Valley.

    http://www.kypost.com/dpp/news/state...E2%80%99s-fate

  3. #23
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    September 16, 2010

    Kentucky execution will not be carried out Thursday

    A man sentenced to death for murdering a Covington woman 23 years ago will not be put to death on Thursday.

    Gregory Wilson, 53, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday evening for kidnapping, raping and strangling Debbie Pooley, 36, in May 1987.

    Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd put the execution on hold last week, citing concerns about the state's lethal-injection process and the potential that Wilson is retarded, which would bar the death penalty for him.

    Prosecutors on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to overturn Shepherd's order and let the execution go forward, but the high court has not ruled on that.

    The reason is that the Supreme Court has not gotten a response to prosecutors' request from Wilson's attorneys, nor is one expected today, Justice and Public safety Secretary J. Michael Brown said in a news release.

    That means the injunction Shepherd issued remains in effect.

    The warrant Gov. Steve Beshear issued for Wilson's execution is good only until midnight Thursday.

    Setting a new date will require a new order.

    http://www.kentucky.com/2010/09/16/1...ll-not-be.html

  4. #24
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    On October 14, 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit DENIED a Certificate of Appealability for Wilson.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions...0a0329p-06.pdf

  5. #25
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    October 14, 2010

    Judge: Kentucky case shows execution system unreliable

    Misdeeds and mistakes in a Kentucky death penalty case show the legal system is unreliable for deciding if an inmate should be executed, a federal appeals court judge said Thursday.

    Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr., of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, said multiple problems in the case of 53-year-old Gregory L. Wilson led to a defense that was a “charade,” a “kangaroo court” and created “a risk of bias” against Wilson.

    “Until we reform this broken system, we cannot rely on it to determine life and death,” wrote Martin, who repeatedly reference a Courier-Journal story describing a host of problems surrounding Wilson’s trial.

    Martin's comments came in a dissent from a decision by the appellate court not to reconsider a case Wilson filed challenging the practice of giving a sedative to an inmate before execution.

    Wilson had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 16 for the 1987 kidnapping, rape and murder of 36-year-old Debbie Pooley in northern Kentucky.

    A state judge in Kentucky halted all executions in September, expressing concerns about how the state method of carrying out a death sentence. The 6th Circuit's decision Thursday does not affect the injunction, which remains in place.

    Since the injunction, Kentucky's supply of sodium thiopental, a key drug used in a lethal injection, has expired and state officials do not expect to receive more until early in 2011, leaving the state unable to carry out an execution until then.

    Allison Martin, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Attorney General's office, declined comment because of pending litigation in Wilson's case. Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders and Wilson's attorney, Dan Goyette, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

    Wilson and a co-defendant, Brenda Humphrey, seized Pooley as she returned home from visiting a friend. As Humphrey drove, Wilson raped Pooley in the back of the car before robbing and killing her. Pooley remained missing for more than two weeks before searchers found her body in a rural field in Indiana.

    As noted in The Courier-Journal story, the judge in Wilson's case, then-Kenton County Circuit Judge Ray Lape posted a notice on the door: “PLEASE HELP. DESPERATE. THIS CASE CANNOT BE CONTINUED AGAIN” in an effort to recruit attorneys. Two men volunteered to take the case, one of whom ran his law practice out of a nearby bar and neither having experience in death penalty trials. Wilson also handled some of his own defense.

    “Over my more than thirty years on the bench, Wilson's trial stands out as one of the worst examples that I have seen of the unfairness and abysmal lawyering that pervade capital trials,” Martin wrote.

    During and after the trial, Humphrey, who identified Wilson as Pooley's killer and is now serving a life sentence in prison, had an affair with James Gilliece, another judge in the same courthouse. The affair became public knowledge about a decade after the trial.

    “When any trial is infiltrated by this sort of sordid corruption, it demeans our judicial system and undermines public confidence in its judgments,” Martin wrote. “When a criminal defendant's life is at stake, it is horrifying.”

    Wilson's case isn't the first time Martin has called for either an overhaul of the justice system's handling of death penalty cases or a halt to death sentences.

    In a 2005 opinion involving Brian Keith Moore, who is awaiting execution for a 1979 murder and robbery in Louisville, Martin noted that defendants with “decent lawyers” often avoid the execution chamber, while those with a poor defense team wind up fighting for their lives.

    “But, lest there be any doubt, the idea that the death penalty is fairly and rationally imposed in this country is a farce,” Martin wrote in 2005.

    http://www.courier-journal.com/artic...0140047/-1/rss

  6. #26
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    Parole hearing set for woman in Ky. slaying

    Bonnie Corbett Shinkle is going through a sister's agony, wrestling with the possibility that someone convicted of killing her younger sibling has a chance at freedom after a quarter-century in prison.

    With 58-year-old Brenda Humphrey's parole hearing set for April 18 at Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women in Pewee Valley, Shinkle is learning more about how her sister died in 1987 and reliving the loss while preparing to try to keep Humphrey in prison.

    Humphrey and 55-year-old Gregory Lee Wilson were convicted of kidnapping, raping, robbing and killing 36-year-old Debbie Pooley, then dumping her body in a field about 35 miles from Indianapolis. A judge sentenced Wilson to death and he remains on Kentucky's death row. Humphrey got a sentence of life in prison without parole for 25 years — giving her a chance at freedom this year.

    "I definitely don't want to see her out," Shinkle told The Associated Press. "She definitely doesn't deserve to be out."

    The pending parole hearing marks the second time in three years Pooley's family has had to confront the details of her death and the legal maneuvers of one of her killers.

    Wilson had been scheduled for execution in September 2010. But, days before the scheduled lethal injection, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd stopped the execution, saying Kentucky's protocol for carrying out a death sentence was flawed. A final ruling in that case is pending.

    http://www.foxreno.com/news/ap/agric...-pm-edt/nMZ7y/
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  7. #27
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    Brother Of Slain Woman Still Looks For Answers 25 Years Later

    His sister was the victim of a brutal murder, and 25 years later, it's still unsolved. Today, Anthony Goehr says he wants the truth.

    Anthony Goehr now lives in Frankfort. In 1987, his sister, Peggy Goehr, was kidnapped, robbed, raped and killed in northern Kentucky. There's been no closure for the family ever since. But some recent developments give Anthony hope it may one day be solved.

    Goehr has written letters, he's begged for answers, made phone call after phone call - but he's still waiting for the truth. "When she was taken out of my life, I had a hard time with it," said Goehr. His sister's body was found near a flood wall in northern Kentucky where Newport on the Levee now stands. "I'm 54 now. You figure that was back in 1987 and I'm 54 now and I'm still having a hard time with it," he said.

    The only suspect ever named was Gregory Wilson, but he was never charged. He's on death row now for the brutal murder of another northern Kentucky woman, Deborah Pooley, who was killed about the same time as Peggy Goehr. "It's something that won't go away," said Anthony. "Every time you turn around, you're thinking about it.'

    Wilson's girlfriend at the time, Brenda Humphrey, was also charged in the Pooley murder. On Wednesday, she was denied parole but told the Pooley family, "I just wish them peace."

    Anthony Goehr wants peace for his family, too, and says Humphrey could be the key, hoping one day she may give the information needed to close the case. "That's the hard part to live with," said Goehr. "That somebody knows the truth but it's never come out in court."

    Wilson is awaiting execution, a fate he avoided in 2010 when a judge halted lethal injections in the state after ruling Kentucky's method of carrying out the procedure was flawed. A final ruling in that case is pending.

    Humphrey will not be eligible for parole again until 2017.

    http://www.lex18.com/news/brother-of...25-years-later
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  8. #28
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    Friends Of Victim React to Parole Denial in 1987 Murder

    The Kentucky Parole Board has declined to immediately release a woman convicted of taking part in a rape and murder in northern Kentucky in 1987.

    The two-member panel on Wednesday cited the seriousness of the crime as well as the death of 36-year-old Debbie Pooley in telling 58-year-old Brenda Humphrey she could argue for parole again in five years.

    Humphrey received a life sentence in 1988. Her partner Gregory Wilson was sent to death row. Wilson has escaped death so far. Today, Humphrey met for the first time with the Kentucky State Parole Board. She told them she is a different person today than the drug addicted prostitute involved in Pooley's kidnapping, rape and murder. And said she had no excuse for what she did.

    Pooley's friends are relieved Humphrey will stay in jail. It was May 28th, 1987 when Deborah Pooley disappeared. Her body was found in an Indiana field the next month and Humphrey and Wilson charged with her kidnapping rape and murder. Pooley had just left her job at Barleycorn's on the river when the two abducted her outside her Covington apartment. Joe Heil remembers it well. "It was very stressful for our employees. For the time she was missing it seemed like an eternity. It was very stressful for us and just something we never want to endure again."

    Heil hired and trained Pooley who he says was the life of the party. He says everyone who knew her is relieved Humphrey will stay locked up. "It means a lot to us. Means a lot to the family has endured all these years and we constantly think of the family in this case but we also have a lot of employees involved in that and quite frankly, we're happy she was denied parole."

    Humphrey drove Pooley's car while Wilson raped and strangled her in the backseat. Despite the facts, some, including Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders, were concerned she might get out. "Under today's climate in Kentucky, with the efforts being made to reduce the prison population by any means possible and cut back the sentencing and reduce the number of days of sentence the offender actually serves..nothing was a given in this case."

    Sanders says his office will continue to fight parole efforts and push for Wilson's execution. "I'll be happy to be here again in 5 years and object to her release the same way we did this week and hopefully she'll serve that entire life sentence."

    Pooley's sister, Bonnie, circulated a petition online to keep Humphrey in prison. In 5 days it gathered more than 250 signatures. Pooley's parents lived in Hamilton at the time of the killing. Her father has since passed away and her mother has moved to Florida.

    Wilson was scheduled to be executed in September 2010 but was given a stay while the court reviewed claims he was incompetent. All executions are currently on hold while Kentucky reviews its death penalty policies. Wilson is the next death row inmate scheduled for execution.

    http://www.local12.com/news/local/st...0IGX642Bw.cspx
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  9. #29
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    GREGORY WILSON v COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY

    AFFIRMING, IN PART, AND VACATING AND REMANDING, IN PART

    Gregory Wilson received the death sentence in 1988. In 2010, he moved the trial court to prohibit execution of the death sentence because of his mental retardation (mental retardation motion) and to compel deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing of hairs and semen found in the victim's automobile and used by the prosecution in his 1988 trial (DNA motion). The trial court denied both motions in a single order without holding an evidentiary hearing on either of these motions. Wilson now appeals the trial court's order as a matter of right,' raising statutory and constitutional concerns.

    In today's opinions the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled

    Trial court’s ruling on mental retardation motion is vacated and the issue is remanded to the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine if appellant is exempt from execution because of mental retardation. Issue of DNA testing of semen is remanded to the trial court for a ruling.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  10. #30
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    Death row inmate to get hearing

    The Kentucky Supreme Court has ordered a hearing on whether a death row inmate is ineligible for execution because he may be mentally disabled.

    The high court's ruling on Thursday means 55-year-old Gregory L. Wilson will likely undergo tests and be able to present testimony about his mental status.

    Wilson is awaiting execution in the 1987 slaying of 36-year-old Debbie Pooley in Northern Kentucky. Kenton Circuit Judge Gregory Bartlett rejected Wilson's mental disability claim in September 2010, just days before Wilson was scheduled to be executed.

    Another judge halted the execution after finding problems with the method Kentucky uses. The state is now weighing whether to change how it carries out executions.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of the mentally disabled.

    http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...te-get-hearing
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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