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Thread: Raymond Peake Sentenced to LWOP in 2010 PA Slaying of Todd Getgen

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Raymond Peake Sentenced to LWOP in 2010 PA Slaying of Todd Getgen


    Todd Getgen


    Prosecutors urge judge not to appoint Peake a public defender

    Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a former Camp Hill prison guard charged with murdering a local attorney.

    Todd Getgen, 42, was found shot to death on the State Gamelands Rifle Range in Cumberland County in July.

    The district attorney's office filed a notice of aggravating circumstances Thursday morning, saying Peake committed the murder in the commission of another felony: the theft of Getgen's gun. According to court documents, police said Getgen's custom AR-15 rifle was later found in a storage unit rented by Peake.

    Peake appeared in court for his arraignment Thursday without an attorney. The judge said Peake's former attorney is not qualified to handle capital cases.

    Peake told the judge he doesn't have the money to hire another lawyer, but district attorney Dave Freed said he may not qualify for a public defender based on his income and pension as a state prison guard.

    "We do have the opportunity to weigh in," said Freed. "Normally we don't, but in this case when you have somebody who worked, whose spouse worked – I was in his house and I saw thousands and thousands of dollars worth of guns and camping equipment that he had - I'm not sure that rings completely true to me."

    Peake has just over two weeks to find a new attorney. His arraignment is rescheduled for December 21.

    http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=13606010

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    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Raymond Franklin Peake, who has been charged in the shooting death of Todd Getgen, is shown carrying what police say is Getgen's rifle into a storage locker Peake rented in South Middleton Township.

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    Peake expected to be arraigned Tuesday

    A former Camp Hill State Prison guard charged with murdering a local attorney is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

    Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Raymond Peake, who is charged with murdering attorney Todd Getgen at a Cumberland County shooting range over the summer. Police said Peake also stole Getgen's gun.

    Investigators said Getgen's custom rifle was later found in Peake's storage unit.

    http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=13718603

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Former prison guard accused of killing Cumberland County lawyer asks for public defender; county opposes

    Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed is challenging a request by Raymond F. Peake, the former Camp Hill state prison guard accused in the fatal shooting of Enola lawyer Todd Getgen at a North Middleton Township rifle range in July, to have a public defender represent him.

    Peake allegedly was trying to arm a group to overthrow the U.S. government.

    A county judge will review the 64-year-old Hampden Township man's request and make a ruling Jan. 5 during Peake's arraignment.

    Peake's formal arraignment, where he gives a plea, has been delayed twice. It was continued already this month to give him time to find another lawyer.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and Peake's lawyer is from Maryland and is not certified to try death penalty cases in Pennsylvania.

    Peake made more than $50,000 at the prison and receives a military pension, Freed argued.

    Thomas Tuso of Penn Township in Perry County is a co-defendant in the case for allegedly storing Getgen's gun and other guns for Peake. Tuso is not charged in the slaying of Getgen.

    It will be at least six months before the Peake case is ready for trial, Freed said.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...ccused_of.html

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Public defender appointed in shooting-range killing case

    CARLISLE, Pa. (WHTM) - A public defender will represent the former Camp Hill prison corrections officer accused of murdering an Enola attorney at a Cumberland County shooting range last summer.

    Court of Common Pleas Judge Skip Ebert granted Raymond Peake's request Wednesday after reviewing documents indicating Peake and his wife earned $104,000 in 2009 from their salaries, Social Security benefits, and Peake's military pension.

    Peake and his wife earned $84,000 in 2010, even though he was in prison for nearly half of the year, according to the documents.

    Peake, who faces the death penalty if convicted in the killing, had claimed he didn't have the money to hire another attorney. His previous attorney is not qualified to handle death penalty cases in Pennsylvania.

    Ebert said in his ruling that he did not want to financially burden Peake's wife because she is an innocent party in the case.

    Peake pleaded not guilty to the shooting death of Todd Getgen during the arraignment Wednesday. Ebert set a trial date of April 25, but District Attorney Dave Freed said the trial will likely be delayed.

    Prosecutors accuse Peake of killing the 42-year-old on a North Middleton Township shooting range in July and are seeking the death penalty because the murder occurred during the commission of another felony, the theft of Getgen's custom AR-15 rifle.

    Authorities said the gun was recovered from a storage unit rented by Peake.

    http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=13787840

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    No trial date set in case of former state prison guard accused in killing at North Middleton rifle range

    Lawyers met with a judge behind closed doors Tuesday in the case of Raymond F. Peake, the 65-year-old former Camp Hill state prison guard accused of killing an Enola man at a rifle range in July 2010.

    Cumberland County First Assistant District Attorney Jaime Keating said the meeting in Judge Skip Ebert’s chambers was to update Ebert on where things stand with the case and what happens next.

    Peake was not present but was represented by his lawyer, Taylor Andrews, the county’s former long-time chief public defender now in private practice.

    The court ruled that Peake qualified to be represented by the county public defender.

    District Attorney David Freed plans to seek the death penalty for Peake, because Peake’s alleged shooting of Todd Getgen was done while committing another felony, the theft of Getgen’s custom-built AR-15 rifle.

    Andrews was appointed to represent Peake because he is certified to try death-penalty cases. County public defenders are also involved in several other homicide cases, Andrews noted.

    No date has been set for Peake’s trial and it could be several months before his case is ready for trial, based on comments from both Andrews and Keating.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...case_of_f.html

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    Hearing continues for Cumberland County prison guard accused of murder

    A hearing into the evidence against murder suspect Raymond F. Peake of Hampden Township continued in Cumberland County Court today.

    Two men testified that a man they later identified as Peake made them feel uneasy when they encountered him at the state Game Commission rifle range in North Middleton Twp. on July 20, 2010. The next day the body of Todd Getgen, a 42-year-old personal injury lawyer from Enola, was found at the range.

    Peake, 65, a former Camp Hill state prison guard, is charged with killing Getgen and stealing his custom-built AR-15 rifle. Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed is seeking the death penalty in the case. Police have said Peake was trying to arm a rebel group.

    Steve Sheaffer and Barry McKeel both testified they were shooting at the range the same day Peake was there. The men described Peake as aloof and unfriendly. Their testimony was similar to that of Mark Ticehurst of Mechanicsburg, who testified during the hearing in October.

    Judge Skip Ebert had not yet set a date for when the hearing will resume. Prosecutors have two more witnesses to call who were not available Monday.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...cumberlan.html

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    New witness testifies at suppression hearing for Raymond Peake

    Yet another witness Tuesday testified that Raymond Peake was "creepy" and giving off "bad vibes" at a Carlisle shooting range in 2010.

    Bryce Schaeffer, a 21-year-old Army ROTC student, testified at a suppression hearing Tuesday that he saw Peake being grumpy and acting oddly the day before Enola attorney Todd Getgen was shot and killed at the range on July 21, 2010.

    Schaeffer testified that he and his father, Steven Schaeffer, were shooting pistols at the state game commission shooting range in North Middleton Township for about an hour before moving to the rifle range.

    "My dad went to the car to get more ammo and that is when Peake showed up," Schaeffer said. "I tried to greet him with a nod or wave and he ignored me. He was a little grumpy but nothing too unusual."

    Schaeffer's testimony mirrors the testimony of three witnesses, including his father, who have all said virtually the same thing - Peake seemed out of sorts and was unwilling to acknowledge the other shooters at the range.

    "Normally when we meet other people at a public range they are pretty friendly and he was pretty cold," Schaeffer said. "He didn't want to have anything to do with us."

    Charges

    Peake, 64, of Hampden Township, a former state prison guard, was arrested and charged a week-and-a-half after Getgen was killed.

    Peake faces eight charges, including criminal homicide, robbery and aggravated assault, and is in Cumberland County Prison without bail.

    District Attorney David Freed is seeking the death penalty because the homicide included a robbery.

    Peake's defense attorney, former Chief Public Defender Taylor Andrews, is arguing to have much of the evidence in the case suppressed, including statements Peake made to investigators and the information witnesses gave regarding his identity.

    A hearing on Andrews' motion began in Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 18 and resumed Nov. 7 before being continued again until Tuesday.

    Schaeffer testified Tuesday that shortly after the murder, a police officer came to his home and asked both him and his father to identify a man from the shooting range.

    While in two separate parts of the house, Schaeffer and his father easily picked the same man out of the lineup, Schaeffer said.

    "Usually people are very nice, but he was not," Steven Schaeffer said in his testimony on Nov. 7. "I just had an uneasy feeling. I didn't care for him. He just gave me a bad feeling."

    Weapons found

    At a hearing in September 2010, police confirmed that the bullet fragments from the shots that killed Getgen were positively matched through ballistics tests to a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle belonging to Peake.

    Getgen's custom AR-15 rifle with suppressor that he was shooting at the time of his murder was stolen from the scene. Police later found and identified Getgen's gun in Peake's possession.

    The police discovered the weapon and another rifle stolen from the same range on May 21, 2010.

    According to the affidavit from Detective Timothy Lively, the owner of the Remington rifle reported to Officer James Peterson of the North Middleton Township Police Department that his firearm was stolen at the 300-yard lane of the range when he went to check his target, leaving the rifle at the shooting table.

    Investigators begin surveillance of Peake on July 28. During that time, they saw him place a 14-gun cabinet in a storage unit at Midway Self Storage in South Middleton Township.

    Police acquired a search warrant for the storage space, and during the search, Lively found the gun cabinet, which held a Remington 700 .308 caliber rifle, a custom AR-15 with a Lewis Machine Company lower bearing with an attached Yankee Hill Machine company suppressor and another AR-15, the affidavit said.

    Using the serial numbers on the firearms, investigators discovered the Remington rifle matched the gun stolen on May 21 and that the AR-15 with the suppressor matched the one stolen from Getgen.

    According to records from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the other AR-15 was purchased by Peake, the affidavit says.

    Posted at 12:07 p.m. Tuesday on Cumberlink:

    At a continuation of a suppression hearing Tuesday, another witness testified that Raymond Peake was "creepy" and giving off "bad vibes" at a Carlisle shooting range in 2010, before the murder of Todd Getgen, with which Peake is charged.

    Bryce Schaeffer, a 21-year-old Army ROTC student, said at the hearing that he saw Peake being grumpy and acting oddly the day before police say Peake shot and killed Getgen on July 21, 2010.

    Schaeffer testified that he and his father, Steven Schaeffer, were shooting pistols at the state game commission shooting range in North Middleton Township for about an hour before moving to the rifle range.

    "My dad went to the car to get more ammo, and that is when Peake showed up," Schaeffer said. "I tried to greet him with a nod or wave, and he ignored me. He was a little grumpy but nothing too unusual."

    Schaeffer's testimony mirrors the testimony of three other witnesses, including his father, that have all said virtually the same thing - that Peake seemed grumpy, was unwilling to acknowledge the other shooters at the range and radiated bad vibes.

    http://cumberlink.com/news/local/cri...#ixzz1iWB59L8U

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    'Crime of opportunity' nets ex-prison guard life without parole

    By DAN MILLER
    The Patriot-News

    Todd Getgen of Enola wasn’t perfect, but he had no equal as a father.

    With those words, Getgen’s widow, Stella, described Thursday in a Cumberland County courtroom what life for her and her son has been like since July 21, 2010, when Todd Getgen was shot to death at a rifle range in North Middleton Township.

    Fighting through tears, she read a copy of a letter that her son, Ethan, then 6 years old, had placed in his father’s coffin at his funeral.

    The boy, the couple’s only child, wrote about how he loved when Todd Getgen would cook him dinner and read him “silly stories” at night. How father and son dug holes in the backyard when Mom wasn’t looking.

    “I loved when you took me to Home Depot instead of Toys R Us for my birthday,” the boy wrote.

    Standing not far from Stella, in front of county Judge Skip Ebert, was Raymond Peake III of Hampden Township, who on Thursday pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and theft by unlawful taking.

    Peake, a 66-year-old former Camp Hill prison guard, had stoicly replied “yes, your honor” and “no, your honor” to Ebert’s questions until, shortly after Stella Getgen finished her son’s letter, Peake broke down and almost collapsed. Then he was led out of the courtroom to start his sentence of life in prison without parole.

    Before Peake was sentenced, county First Assistant District Attorney Jaime Keating read letters from Getgen’s sister and two brothers about how Todd, the youngest of seven children, was his high school valedictorian and had perfect attendance.

    He served in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division and saved money while in the military for college. He worked two jobs to get through seven years of college to become a personal injury lawyer to “help those who were down and out who could not fight for themselves,” brother Richard Getgen wrote.

    Peake was also a veteran. He served in combat in Vietnam and was nominated for the Bronze Star. In 2004, 14 years after Peake retired from a 25-year Marine Corps career as a master sergeant, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

    One of Peake’s lawyers, former county Public Defender Taylor Andrews, had said in court papers he intended to call as a witness the doctor who evaluated Peake in 2004, to help try to keep Peake off death row.

    “I’m not going to say it’s why somebody does something,” Andrews said of Peake’s diagnosis after the sentencing. “I’m going to say it’s why somebody is who they are. It shapes you. It shapes you in a way that something like this can happen.”

    According to police reports, Peake, after his arrest, had talked of wanting to arm militias to overthrow the government.

    Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said no evidence of that ever surfaced. Prosecutors said that in the end, Peake just wanted more guns for himself.

    One he decided he wanted was an AR-15 with a fancy suppressor that Getgen liked to fire at the range in North Middleton Township.

    Prosecutors said Peake had no connection with Getgen. He just coveted the gun he saw Getgen firing.

    “Envy is the cancer of the soul,” Keating said afterward. “It was a crime of opportunity. [Peake] saw it, he was going to take it, and he shot him enough times that he was able to steal his weapon.

    “It was an American tragedy, where an American soldier was killed on American soil by a murderer, all for greed,” Keating said.

    Peake’s other lawyer, Gregory Abeln, said Peake pleaded no contest because Peake claimed Getgen was killed by a mysterious truck driver named Matthew, whom Peake had known for 20 years. They never talked by phone, and Matthew just showed up every now and then, Peake said.

    But Peake never produced Matthew. Andrews said Thursday’s plea was a recognition by Peake that there was enough evidence that a jury could have found him guilty.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...nets_ex-p.html

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