Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 21

Thread: Joshua Fulgham Sentenced to 2 Life Terms in 2009 FL Murder of Heather Strong

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

    Joshua Fulgham Sentenced to 2 Life Terms in 2009 FL Murder of Heather Strong



    New facts in killing

    With a year having passed since Heather Strong was killed in a gruesome fashion in a storage trailer, previously unknown details about the case have emerged and shed new light on the relationships between the victim and her accused killers.

    Strong's estranged husband, Joshua Fulgham, and his girlfriend, Emilia Carr, are charged with kidnapping and capital first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty; the state is seeking the death penalty.

    Authorities knew Strong and Fulgham, who already had two children together, had married in December 2008. But it turns out that, a month earlier, Fulgham had proposed to Carr.

    What prompted Fulgham's sudden change of heart is unclear. So is the effect it had on Carr.

    "She just couldn't believe it. She was hurt," Carr's mother said in a deposition. "Here he proposed to her, bought the ring for her, and in December, he came and took it and married Heather."

    The victim's cousin is less charitable. She said the marriage was a ruse, all part of a plot to deceive Heather Strong so Carr and Fulgham could kill her.

    "Why else would Emilia let him marry her?" Misty Strong asked during an interview.

    Also coming to light are details of a prior incident when authorities say Carr attacked Heather Strong.

    In January 2009, just one month before the murder, Carr allegedly held a knife to Strong's throat, demanding she sign a letter that would lead to a dropped criminal charge against Fulgham and secure his release from jail.

    That detail comes from one of the many reports that law officers prepared after the body was found. There is no indication that Strong ever reported the assault to law enforcement.

    As the state continues its vigorous prosecution of both defendants, another interesting development has emerged: This marks the first time Marion County prosecutors have sought the death penalty against a woman since Aileen Wuornos in the early 1990s.

    - - -

    About a year ago, Strong's body was unearthed from a makeshift grave beside an abandoned storage trailer off a property in Boardman, about two miles north of McIntosh.

    Through fingerprints, authorities were able to identify the body. Strong, 26, had disappeared a month earlier.

    Authorities already had one of their prime suspects - Fulgham - in custody. On March 19, 2009, he led deputies to the spot where the body was buried.

    That day, detectives observed the clumsy efforts to dispose of Strong's body. Clad in a T-shirt and jeans, the 5-foot-6-inch corpse had been partially stuffed into a large, zip-up suitcase and placed in a 3-foot-deep hole.

    The hole was covered by two pieces of wood and black plastic bags to ward off flies.

    If the method of burial was slipshod, the manner of death suggested a cold indifference to human life.

    An autopsy concluded that Strong died from suffocation.

    She had been bound to a chair with duct tape with a plastic bag placed over her head. Her airway constricted until she blacked out.

    "That's one of the cruelest deaths you can experience. Oxygen deprivation is a horrible death," said prosecutor Rock Hooker, who was at the scene when Strong's body was unearthed.

    The question is what would drive someone to inflict such a death upon the mother of two.

    Fulgham, now 28, had been arrested and accused of fraudulent use of Strong's debit card during the time she was missing. Both he and Carr, now 25, provided statements to detectives implicating themselves and each other, providing details of how they lured Strong to the trailer, attempted to break her neck and, when that didn't work, suffocated her with a bag placed over her head.

    According to Fulgham's statement to deputies, Strong was lured to the trailer under the pretense of cash. Carr struck her in the forehead with a flashlight when she attempted to flee.

    He said he held Strong down while Carr bound her to the chair with duct tape and placed a bag over her head. Fulgham then sat across Strong's lap as Carr attempted to break her neck.

    When that failed, Fulgham told detectives, Carr blocked Strong's airway until she drew her last breath.

    A grand jury indicted them in April 2009.

    The gruesome crime is made more unusual by the fact that Carr was eight months' pregnant at the time.

    She gave birth two months after she was taken into custody. The child is believed to be Fulgham's.

    - - -

    Fulgham, a native of Mississippi, had a history of domestic violence toward Strong, and his possessive behavior had long been observed by others.

    Strong's mother, Carolyn Spence, said three years ago he called her in Mississippi, telling her he had tied Heather up, duct taped her mouth, and stuffed her into the trunk of his car so the "alligators would eat her alive."

    Ben McCollum, a mechanic in McIntosh whom Strong had been dating, relayed to authorities that Fulgham once called his house and automobile shop, threatening to kill both him and Heather and burn his shop.

    "It was all about control. That's all what it boiled down to," said Misty Strong, a cousin of Heather's who first reported her disappearance on Feb. 24, 2009.

    Fulgham and Heather Strong had two children together, now ages 3 and 9. Despite the tempestuous relationship, they married in December 2008, just two months before Strong was killed.

    Strong sought at least two domestic violence injunctions against Fulgham - once in September 2008 and again in January 2009, the same month Fulgham was arrested for aggravated assault with a firearm for threatening Strong with a shotgun. He served some jail time, but the charge was later removed at Strong's request.

    - - -

    What prompted that request is unknown. But after Strong's death, detectives learned that, about that time, Carr had held a knife to Strong's throat and demanded that she drop the charge.

    Jamie Acome - one of Carr's ex-boyfriends and father of one of her children - told detectives that Carr wanted Strong "out of the way," because she knew Fulgham would "eventually go back to Heather regardless of what him and Emilia was going through."

    While she doesn't recall her cousin ever talking about Carr at length, Misty Strong believes the couple wanted Strong out of the picture, perhaps to get rid of Fulgham's child support payments.

    "The only thing that makes sense is money," she said.

    In depositions, both Carr's mother and sister said Carr didn't have any obviously strained relationship with Heather Strong. She would even baby-sit her children from time to time.

    The only things that mattered to Strong, according to her family, were her two children.

    "Those kids went everywhere she went," said her mother, Carolyn Spence. The two children, she added, are now in foster care.

    A mother to four children herself, Emilia Carr is not unfamiliar with the criminal justice system.

    The second-eldest of three daughters, Emilia Carr was born Emilia Yera. In February 2004, her father pleaded guilty to a charge of solicitation to commit murder against his wife, Carr and one of her sisters. He allegedly tried to prevent them from testifying against him in a criminal case.

    He was sentenced to 48 months in prison for solicitation.

    Court records show Carr, who has been married twice in the past, filed domestic violence injunctions against both her ex-husbands. She served two years of probation on a grand theft charge in 2004 for her involvement in an ex-husband's theft of a crate of exotic birds.

    - - -

    A trial date for Fulgham and Carr has been set for August, but prosecutors are almost certain that date will be pushed back to a later date.

    Fulgham is now on his third attorney due to conflicts with the Public Defender's Office and Office of Regional Conflict Counsel.

    Peter Cannon, an attorney in Tampa now assigned to represent Fulgham, said he plans to challenge the admissibility of Fulgham's statement to detectives.

    Carr is represented by Candace Hawthorne, who also has indicated plans to challenge the admissibility of Carr's statement to authorities.

    The next status hearing is set for April 9.

    Misty Strong, who spoke to her cousin almost every day either by phone or computer prior to her death, believes Heather was too trusting of Fulgham.

    "She was just so kind-hearted. She would keep forgiving him," Misty Strong said of her cousin. "She was stuck in that same trap of, 'This is my kids' father.' I guess she felt no one else would want her. She thought it was easier just to deal with him and keep quiet about it."

    In June 2009, Fulgham wrote a letter to Strong's mother in which he expressed remorse over Heather's death. "I do want you to know that I didn't want for nothing bad to happen to Heather. You know how much me and her has [sic] been through in 11 years nothing this bad never happened. I loved Heathear [sic] and still do and I have to live with this every day."

    Although Carr's mother, Maria Zayas, declined to comment about her daughter's case, she did have one comment when asked whether she believed Carr was guilty.

    "It's hard to say."

    http://www.ocala.com/article/20100314/articles/3141017&tc=yahoo?p=5&tc=pg

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Trial to start Nov. 29 in Boardman murder case

    One of two people charged with capital murder in connection with a chilling homicide by suffocation in Boardman is set to go to trial in a couple weeks' time.

    The case is proceeding even though Emilia Carr doesn't think her defense lawyer — a death penalty-certified attorney who represents clients the Public Defender's Office cannot due to conflict — is ready.

    Carr is the first woman Marion County prosecutors have sought the death penalty against since serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the early 1990s.

    “This is my life,” the raven-haired 26-year-old said evenly to a judge earlier this week.

    The defendant added she had yet to review any of the state's discovery materials and expressed her wish for a trial continuance.

    “I want to know that the attorney representing me is adequately prepared and ready to fight this,” Carr continued. “I might not be the attorney, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into — with my eyes open, not half shut.”

    Carr and her former boyfriend and co-defendant, Joshua Fulgham, are charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping for the 2009 death of 26-year-old Heather Strong, a young mother from Citra who was Fulgham's estranged wife.

    Strong's body was unearthed from a shallow makeshift grave outside a storage trailer in Boardman, just a few miles north of McIntosh, in March 2009 after she was reported missing by her cousin a month earlier. The cause of death was suffocation.

    Prosecutors assert that Carr and Fulgham trapped Strong inside the trailer, placed a plastic bag over her head and tried to break her neck, eventually blocking her airway when the first method failed.

    Carr's attorney, Tavares-based Candace Hawthorne, declined to comment about her preparedness in representing Carr, who was in the last months of pregnancy around the time of the homicide.

    She gave birth to a child two months after being booked into the Marion County Jail in March 2009.

    All Hawthorne would say was that she agreed with Circuit Judge Willard Pope's assessment that he found “no evidence” that Hawthorne was delivering ineffective legal counsel.

    “She might not be working toward your expectations, but that's different than being ineffective,” the judge informed Carr. He declined to address her desire for a continuance.

    The thoughts recently expressed by Carr, in any respect, betray her concern for the stake presented by her upcoming trial, expected to last one week. If found guilty as charged, she would proceed to a penalty phase hearing, where the jury would recommend either life in prison or death.

    Prosecutor Rock Hooker, who along with 5th Circuit State Attorney Brad King will try the state's case, replied in the negative when asked whether Carr or Fulgham have been extended any plea offer to testify against the other at trial.

    Fulgham's attorney, Peter Cannon, also confirmed Friday his client had not been offered any deal by the State Attorney's Office.

    The two defendants, whose alleged motive in Strong's murder may be connected to a possible love triangle that involves the issue of money and child support payments, each provided statements to detectives following their arrests.

    At the end of next week, defense lawyers are expected to challenge the admissibility of a portion of Carr's statements, in which she allegedly provided details of the plan, the trap and the crime, which left two young children motherless.

    Fulgham was present in the courtroom during Wednesday's hearing, sitting handcuffed in the jury box as Carr spoke her turn before the judge. His trial is not expected to occur until at least next year.

    Jury selection in Carr's trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 29.

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2010111...nt02?p=3&tc=pg

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Fulgham gets new lawyer; trial date pushed back

    His co-defendant already has been tried, convicted and sentenced to death. But Joshua Fulgham will need to wait a while longer to learn his own fate.


    On Tuesday, more than two years after Fulgham's arrest in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Heather Strong, a judge approved a new attorney to take over his case.

    Terence Lenamon, a board-certified criminal defense attorney from Miami, is stepping in to take over as lead counsel from Peter Cannon, who has withdrawn from the case for medical reasons. The Tampa attorney was appointed to the case in January 2010.

    Lenamon and Fulgham's Ocala-based lawyer, Tania Alavi, notified Circuit Judge Willard Pope of the substitution during a brief court hearing Tuesday. Fulgham, brought in from the Marion County Jail, sat at the defense table after briefly shaking hands with his new lead attorney.

    Fulgham, 29, is awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping. His then-girlfriend, Emilia Carr, is on death row for her involvement in the murder of Heather Strong, Fulgham's estranged wife.

    Strong was lured to a storage trailer behind Carr's mother's home near McIntosh. Prosecutors say the couple bound the 26-year-old woman to a chair and placed a plastic bag over her head, suffocating her before burying her body in a shallow grave.

    Lenamon, who often blogs about death penalty issues on his attorney website, said Tuesday he only knows a broad summary of the facts of the case so far, given the recent timing of his assignment.

    He isn't concerned with the time lag of his client's trial compared with Carr's: With the attorney switch, it is now expected not to occur until at least late this year. With death penalty cases, Lenamon said, "things have to be approached cautiously."

    Another status conference will be held later this month.

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2011030...nt02?p=2&tc=pg

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Fulgham murder trial set to begin on Halloween

    A trial date for the capital murder case of Joshua Fulgham has been scheduled for Oct. 31, a judge decided Monday.

    Fulgham has been awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping in connection to the death and disappearance of his estranged wife Heather Strong. His co-defendant, and girlfriend, Emilia Carr, was convicted on the same charges late last year and was sentenced to death in February.

    In light of a recent lead defense attorney swap, Fulgham's trial had been indefinitely postponed. His new attorney, Terence M. Lenamon of Miami, proposed Monday a trial date of January 2012, citing the thousands of hours of preparation a capital case would require.

    He told Circuit Judge Willard Pope on Monday that he preferred at least a week for jury selection, citing three previous capital cases of his elsewhere around the state in which it took that long.

    The state, meantime, told the court it doesn't feel a week-long jury selection is "realistic."

    "Until the court says we're going to trial, we'll continue the case for years," said State Attorney Brad King, who helped prosecute Carr and muster the minimum 7-5 death majority recommendation from a jury.

    The judge, though respectful of death penalty defense preparation needs, also questioned the time the defense team was seeking, pointing out that one trial laying out the facts had already occurred.

    Pope, however, agreed to set aside a week for Fulgham's jury selection before trial begins Oct. 31.

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2011032...n-on-Halloween

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Joshua Fulgham, 30, faces the death penalty. He and his then girlfriend, Emilia Carr, 27, allegedly kidnapped his wife, Heather Strong, 26, and suffocated her in a trailer and then buried her in shallow grave nearby.

    Carr was sentenced to death in February for the same charges. Jury selection for Fulgham’s trial begins April 2.

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2011123...=3&tc=pg&tc=ar

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jury selection begins for murder trial

    If convicted, Joshua Fulgham could join his estranged girlfriend, Emilia Carr, on death row.

    Jury selection for Fulgham’s trial began Monday morning, with about 300 prospective jurors at the courthouse. Lawyers for the state and defense will try to seat a 12-member jury.

    Authorities believe the couple lured Heather Strong, Fulgham’s 26-year-old wife, to a storage trailer in a small town north of McIntosh. They tied her to a chair and suffocated her by tying a plastic bag over her head. They are accused of burying the body in a shallow grave behind the trailer.

    Fulgham and Carr were charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. Carr was found guilty of the charges and became the fourth woman on Florida’s death row in February 2011.

    Now Fulgham is standing trial. By Monday afternoon, the jury pool had been whittled to just more than 100. The judge and attorneys also settled pre-trial motions. The jury screening process, or “voir dire,” resumes this morning.

    In court on Monday, Fulgham’s attorneys, Terence Lenamon and Tania Alavi, argued about redacted phone conversations Fulgham had with Carr while he was in jail. The defense team wanted the full conversations played in court to provide better context.

    Lenamon told the court that the defense does not deny that Fulgham was at the scene of the murder. He also said the defendant offered to plead guilty to the murder in exchange for a life sentence.

    The defense attorneys also argued about whether a statement Fulgham made to the victim’s mother in 2004, which the state characterized as a threat, should be admissible evidence.

    Circuit Judge Brian Lambert denied that motion; the jury will hear about that statement.

    Fulgham, now 30, appeared in an all-red jumpsuit, heavily shackled and surrounded by bailiffs in the courtroom. He occasionally passed notes to his defense attorneys’ aides as Lenamon and Alavi argued on his behalf.

    If found guilty, Fulgham would become the seventh man on Florida’s death row from Marion County. There are currently 397 men sentenced to death.

    The last man sentenced to death in Marion was Renaldo McGirth, in May 2008, for the murder of a Villages woman during an attempted armed robbery.

    Lambert handed down that sentence.

    http://www.gainesville.com/article/2...9937?p=2&tc=pg
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #7
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    He (Fulghams lawyer) also said the defendant offered to plead guilty to the murder in exchange for a life sentence.
    Is he serious?!?! A criminal commits a crime which could be punished by death and before the trial he offers a deal to save his ass?!?!
    No murder can be so cruel that there are not still useful imbeciles who do gloss over the murderer and apologize.

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Defense attorney: 'As we sit here, this man is a murderer'

    Joshua Fulgham's attorneys don't deny their client played a role in the murder of his wife, Heather Strong. But they believe he doesn't deserve the death penalty either.

    "As we sit here, this man is a murderer," Fulgham's lead defense attorney, Terrence Lenamon, said on Wednesday morning to a group of 39 prospective jurors. Prosecutors and Lenamon have painstakingly screened jurors over the past three days to select a 12-member jury for Fulgham's trial.

    The trial is expected to begin this week. It appears from Lenamon's questioning of the jurors that he has a strategy in mind: To convince a jury that the defendant committed a lesser offense and should not be the seventh man from Marion County to be sentenced to death since 1976.

    Fulgham is charged with kidnapping and first-degree premeditated murder -- a capital offense punishable by up to life in prison without parole or, in particular circumstances, death.

    Prosecutors believe that Fulgham and his then-girlfriend, Emilia Carr, lured Strong back to a storage trailer in Boardman and then duct-taped her to a chair. They reportedly tried to break her neck and, when that failed, they duct-taped a plastic bag over her head and suffocated her.

    Carr, who was to Florida's death row last year, is currently at the Lowell Correctional Institution.

    Lenamon and his team may try to prove that Fulgham is guilty of second-degree murder, a lesser offense punishable by up to life in prison. The main difference between first-degree and second-degree murder is there isn't any premeditation in the latter offense.

    "In contrast to first-degree murder, a second-degree murder is an emotional killing, where someone has not thought about it and planned it out," said Susan Rozelle, a criminal law professor at the Stetson University College of Law in Tampa.

    According to Florida statute, premeditation is defined as being carefully thought out and planned, " a calm, cool, reflection," Rozelle said.

    But the state law also says premeditation can occur right before the murder if the killer reflected on what they were doing.

    For State Attorney Brad King to seek the death penalty against Fulgham, he had to determine some of the following aggravating circumstances: if Fulgham had been convicted of a previous felony, committed a capital murder before, previously created a death risk to many people or if the crime committed was heinous, atrocious or cruel.

    It appears King will argue several of these aggravating factors during the trial, and the defense will counter with their own mitigating factors.

    Those may include the defendant's lack of prior criminal history, if the murder was committed "under the influence of an extreme mental or emotional disturbance," or under the extreme domination of another person and the age of the defendant at the time. Other factors such as mental or emotional handicaps. abuse or other struggles as child may qualify as well.

    But while there are restrictions on what prosecutors can use during the trial, there are no limits on what the defense can present, as long as they think it can appeal to jurors.

    "Death penalty law is deliberately crafted to invite mercy," Rozelle said. "The constitution of the U.S. limits aggravating factors and does not limit mitigating factors."

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2012040...9870?p=2&tc=pg
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Betrayal and jealousy are at the heart of why Heather Strong was killed.

    Joshua Fulgham's defense attorney, Terence Lenamon, and State Attorney Brad King spent Friday morning recounting the estranged couple's tumultuous relationship leading up to the day when the prosecution believes Fulgham and another woman murdered Strong.

    Fulgham, 30, is charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder and faces the death penalty if found guilty of those charges.

    His co-defendant, Emilia Carr, received that punishment in 2011 and became only the second woman from Marion County sentenced to Florida's death row.

    King summarized the timeline of events that led up to Strong's murder in a descriptive and detailed narrative during his opening statements. He set out the roadmap for the evidence he plans to present in the coming days.

    King will attempt to show that evidence taken from the crime scene and statements from recorded conversations Fulgham had with Carr will show beyond a reasonable doubt that Fulgham planned to murder Strong, who was his estranged wife.

    “Our focus, our roadmap, so to speak, is directed by the indictment,” King said to the jury of seven men and seven women.

    Lenamon's challenge is disprove that motive and show that his client is guilty of a lesser crime: second-degree murder.

    During opening statements, Lenamon tried to do just that. In essence, Lenamon tried to paint the murder as one driven by passion and betrayal -- a condition for second-degree murder.

    He claims Fulgham was upset with his estranged wife and ultimately agreed to have Carr murder Strong.

    “Things went really bad and happened very quickly,” Lenamon told the jury.

    He argued it was Carr who carried out the murder and Fulgham stood by and watched it happen.

    “Emilia Carr does everything; he lets it happen,” Lenamon said.

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2012040...9793?p=2&tc=pg
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jury hears more recordings in Fulgham murder trial

    State Attorney Brad King continued his case against Joshua Fulgham on Tuesday, playing more audio and video recordings of Fulgham's conversations with investigators the night in March 2009 when they took him into custody.

    Fulgham is accused of murdering his wife, Heather Strong, and could face the death penalty if found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping.

    Fulgham's defense attorney, Terence Lenamon, had begun to cross-examine a homicide detective from the Marion County Sheriff's Office about the recordings before lunchtime Tuesday. That cross-examination is expected to span a good portion of the afternoon.

    The hours of recordings show Fulgham being interrogated by investigators as he continues to deflect their questions on the whereabouts of his wife.

    In a recording played in court on Monday, Fulgham ultimately led them to the area where his wife was buried in exchange for a pack of cigarettes and a chance to see his mother and kids.

    Prosecutors expect their case to continue well into Wednesday.

    Both sides said closing arguments will likely begin on Thursday.

    http://www.gainesville.com/article/2...m-murder-trial
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

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

Posting Permissions

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