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  1. #1
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    Joshua Kevin Drucker - Georgia




    The death penalty case for Joshua Drucker, which had been scheduled to start Monday in Cobb County, has been postponed.

    Cobb County District Attorney Patrick Head said Friday that the judge granted a continuance request made by the Drucker's lawyer this week because one of the defense experts was not prepared for trial. A new trial date has not been set.

    Drucker, 32, is charged with murder for allegedly gunning down a Marietta man and his Bulgarian girlfriend in a meth-fueled rage in 2004.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/drucker...se-966423.html

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    Drucker death penalty case to begin

    Joshua Drucker is slated to stand trial on murder charges this week in Cobb County, seven years after he allegedly gunned down a Marietta man and his Bulgarian girlfriend in a meth-fueled rage.

    If convicted, Drucker, 33, of McDonough could face the death penalty. Police say he gunned down David Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25, after a brief quarrel in the kitchen of Robertson's house on April 5, 2004.

    The first task for defense attorneys and prosecutors is to pare down a pool of about 130 potential jurors to a panel of 12 jurors and three alternates, a process that is expected to take about two weeks.

    Drucker's father, the Rev. Doug Drucker, is expected to be a key witness in the case. The elder Drucker, a minister, reported the slayings to police after his son allegedly confessed to killing two people.

    A co-defendant, Melissa Suzanne McCrayer, has cooperated with authorities and is also expected to testify against Drucker.

    McCrayer has told prosecutors that she and Drucker used methamphetamine and drank alcoholic beverages before going to visit the victims, who were friends. When Drucker asked Robinson for methamphetamine, he allegedly became angry when Robinson offered only marijuana.

    McCrayer said she heard a loud noise and turned to see Robinson crumple to the floor with a gunshot wound. Drucker shot Nikolova when she screamed and began hitting him, according to McCrayer's prior testimony in preliminary hearings.

    McCrayer said she and Drucker fled with Robinson's gold necklace, cellphone and wallet and went on a 36-hour meth binge that included trips to a Mexican restaurant, a motel room in Sandy Springs and an Atlanta strip club before they were caught.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/drucker...e-1165921.html

  3. #3
    absolutely ridiculous it takes this long to bring these cases to trial in Georgia. This has to be one of many reasons why the D.A's often opt for the plea agreement with the defendants. Georgia's death penalty system is a mess.

  4. #4
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    Lawyers make closing arguments in death penalty case

    Lawyers in the death penalty trial for Joshua Drucker made their final arguments to the jury Monday morning.

    A Cobb County jury is expected to begin deliberations this afternoon.

    Jurors are tasked with deciding whether Drucker's shooting of Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25, on April 5, 2004, constituted a murder, a voluntary manslaughter, or in the case of Nikolova, an accident.

    In a videotaped statement played during the trial, Drucker indicated to detectives that he killed Robertson -- a former friend -- for revenge. He said Robertson had given Drucker's sister drugs that she overdosed on about 14 months before the slayings. Drucker's sister suffered permanent brain damage as a result and is now confined to a wheelchair.

    Drucker, 33, of McDonough and a female friend allegedly went to Robertson's home near Marietta on the night of the slaying under the pretense of visiting him.

    Senior Assistant District Attorney Ann Harris said that Drucker shot Robertson in the kitchen not long after their arrival. He gunned down Robertson's girlfriend, Nikolova, when she ran up to Drucker, hit him with her fists and screamed, "You killed him!" according to prosecutors.

    Defense attorneys say Robertson's slaying didn't fit the legal definition of murder. Defense attorneys asked the jury to consider finding him guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, because Drucker's anger over his sister's condition was a clear provocation that excited "a sudden, violent and irreversible passion."

    The difference in punishment is that a murder conviction for Drucker would result in a life sentence, life without parole or the death penalty; whereas the maximum penalty for voluntary manslaughter is 20 years in prison.

    Defense attorneys said Nikolova's killing was not a crime but an accident caused by two accidental discharges of Drucker's handgun.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/lawyers...s-1197913.html

  5. #5
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    Trial begins for accused Cobb killer Joshua Drucker

    Jurors saw graphic images of the bloody crime scene where two people were found dead as the trial began Wednesday for the man accused in the 2004 double homicide.

    If convicted in Cobb County Superior Court, Joshua Drucker, 33, of McDonough could face the death penalty. Drucker is accused in the April 2004 shooting deaths of David Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25.

    Robertson and Nikolova were found dead in Robertson's home. Prosecutors allege that Drucker shot the pair after a quarrel.

    Drucker's father, the Rev. Doug Drucker, is expected to be a key witness in the case. The elder Drucker reported the slayings to police after his son allegedly confessed to killing two people.

    A co-defendant, Melissa Suzanne McCrayer, has cooperated with authorities and is also expected to testify against Drucker.

    McCrayer has told prosecutors that she and Drucker used methamphetamine and drank alcoholic beverages before going to visit the victims, who were friends. When Drucker asked Robertson for methamphetamine, he allegedly became angry after Robinson offered only marijuana.

    McCrayer said she heard a loud noise and turned to see Robertson crumple to the floor with a gunshot wound. Drucker shot Nikolova when she screamed and began hitting him, according to McCrayer's prior testimony in preliminary hearings.

    McCrayer said she and Drucker fled with Robertson's gold necklace, cellphone and wallet and went on a 36-hour meth binge that included trips to a Mexican restaurant, a motel room in Sandy Springs and an Atlanta strip club before they were caught.

    Henry County police Maj. Jason Bolton, the first of two witnesses to take the stand Wednesday in Judge Robert Flournoy's courtroom, testified that Drucker told his father he had killed someone. The father contacted Henry police, who in turn notified Cobb police, Bolton said.

  6. #6
    I'm very surprised we're actually seeing a death penalty case proceed to trial here in Georgia. Georgia is known to have a large backlog of death penalty elegible cases but almost none never make it to trial.

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    Cobb prosecutors: Drucker deserves death

    A former youth pastor deserves the death penalty for the fatal shootings of two former friends because it was a crime that shocks the conscience with its "deliberateness and its callousness," a Cobb County prosecutor told jurors Thursday in her closing argument.

    Senior Assistant District Attorney Ann Harris said that the victims, David Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25, were essentially ambushed in their own home near Marietta by Joshua Drucker -- a man they thought was their friend -- on April 5, 2004.

    Prosecutors said Drucker and his friend Melissa McCrayer went to Robertson's house under the pretense of visiting him. The foursome chatted at the kitchen table, and then Drucker shot Robertson when he stood to fetch some marijuana. Drucker turned the gun on Nikolova after she began hitting him and screaming, "You killed him!"

    The jury already convicted Drucker Oct. 11 on two counts of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and credit card fraud. Now, they have three sentencing options: life with the possibility of parole, life without possibility of parole or death.

    Witnesses during the trial said Drucker at one time served as youth pastor at the Global Outreach Church his father pastored in Stockbridge, but he became addicted to methamphetamine and started dealing drugs around the time that his family suffered a series of devastating setbacks. They included the death of his infant nephew and a drug overdose that left his sister brain-damaged and confined to a wheelchair.

    Drucker told police he killed Robertson as part of a vendetta, because he gave his sister the drugs she overdosed on about 14 months prior to the slayings.

    Prosecutors said Drucker's crime merits the ultimate punishment because it meets several aggravating circumstances that must be present under Georgia law in order to receive the death penalty. One of them was committing the crime of killing Nikolova while in the commission of committing another capital felony, which was the killing of Robertson. Another was receiving something of monetary value as a result of the crime, because Drucker stole jewelry, money and credit cards from the victims.

    Finally, it was a deliberately vile, wanton and inhuman crime when he shot Nikolova, Harris said. She fell to her knees spitting up blood as Drucker and McCrayer left the kitchen. But a few minutes later, prosecutors say Drucker returned to the room and shot her a final time in the head.

    "She suffered tremendously, and she was conscious, and it was a brutal death for Laura," Harris said.

    Defense attorney Jimmy Berry is expected to give his statement to the jury around midday.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/cobb-pr...s-1206330.html

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    Cobb man guilty of murder, faces death penalty

    Cobb County jury took just 30 minutes to find a man guilty of four counts of murder on Monday.

    Joshua Drucker, 33, could face the death penalty for killing Andrew Robertson and Lora Nikolova in April 2004. Lawyers for both sides did not dispute that Drucker pulled the trigger, but prosecutors painted Drucker as a cold-blooded, drug-addicted killer while the defense team told jurors the killings were an accident and possibly a crime of passion.

    “We know that there is a killer among us. He sits right here,” Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Ann Harris said in closing arguments.

    Drucker’s attorneys said he was settling a score with Robertson because he supplied drugs to Drucker’s younger sister. Drucker’s sister, Amanda, overdosed on those drugs and suffered brain damage that left her confined to a wheelchair.

    “This was not a sudden irresistible passion about Amanda. This was just an angry young man. He’s angry at anyone who crosses him. He’s angry at anyone who doesn’t agree with him,” said Harris.

    “He has been agitated. He has been provoked. He has been whipped up about what has happened to his sister,” said defense attorney Joseph Vigneri.

    Following closing arguments, Drucker begged Cobb County Judge Robert Flournoy for a mistrial because his lawyers did not call witnesses he believed could sway the case. Drucker claimed the prosecution also intimidated witnesses. Flournoy denied his request.

    Drucker’s lawyers pushed for a voluntary manslaughter verdict, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years if convicted, but prosecutors have asked the jury to decide on a punishment of death, or a life sentence.

    The jury will be asked to determine Drucker’s sentence on Tuesday.

    http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local...penalty/nD9P3/

  9. #9
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    Friend testifies in death penalty case

    A former friend of Joshua Drucker testified Monday she witnessed him gun down two acquaintances in the most emotional day thus far of his Cobb County death penalty trial.

    Melissa McCrayer, a co-defendant in the case and one of the prosecution's star witnesses, allegedly witnessed Drucker shooting David Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25, after accompanying Drucker to Robertson's home on April 5, 2004.

    Dressed in a gray dress and black cardigan, her blonde curly hair pulled back with a wide black headband, McCrayer grew emotional as soon as Senior Assistant District Attorney Ann Harris flashed portraits of the victims.

    McCrayer told jurors that she went with Drucker to Robertson's house near Marietta to get drugs. Just 20 at the time, she was also an admitted drug addict who worked as a stripper and said she hung out with Drucker almost "all day, every day."

    She testified they sat for a few minutes with Robertson and his girlfriend, Nikolova, at the kitchen table. Then, Drucker asked Robertson for marijuana.

    McCrayer testified that the two men stood and walked out of her field of vision and then she heard a gunshot. She turned in time to see Robertson crumple to the ground.

    Nikolova then jumped up from her chair and ran to Drucker, hitting him with her fists and screaming, "No, no, no, you killed him!" McCrayer said.

    "And then he shot Laura," McCrayer said tearfully. "She fell on all fours. She was on her knees spitting blood. She was wiping her mouth. I ran out of the room."

    Nikolova, a student from Bulgaria, met and fell in love with Robertson after she came to Atlanta on a short-term work visa. She was staying with him at the time of the slayings.

    A Bulgarian interpreter whispered a translation of McCrayer's testimony into Nikolova's father's ear as he sat in the courtroom and wept at the description of his daughter's death.

    Drucker admitted to the killings in a videotaped confession to police. He told detectives he wanted revenge against Robertson for providing his sister with drugs that she subsequently overdosed on, causing her severe brain damage.

    However, Drucker has pleaded not guilty. His defense attorney, Jimmy Berry, said he wants to avoid the death penalty and make the state prove its case.

    Drucker was stoic but alert throughout McCrayer's testimony.

    After the shootings, the pair took jewelry, cell phones and Robertson's wallet, McCrayer said. After buying marijuana from a friend, the couple went to two strip clubs. McCrayer couldn't get in because she was underage, so she took a taxi back to a motel.

    She said when Drucker returned the following morning, he told her he spent $1,500 at the Pink Pony strip club. He also thought the bodies wouldn't be discovered for at least a month, McCrayer said. However, police arrested the pair at the motel less than two days after the shootings.

    When prosecutors asked why she never left or called the police, McCrayer said it was because she was scared.

    "I didn't want him to hurt me," she testified.

    McCrayer said she went through drug treatment after the slayings, graduated college and is now attending nursing school. The defense team is expected to cross-examine her Tuesday.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/friend-...h-1193747.html

  10. #10
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    Waitress testifies death penalty defendant threatened her

    A waitress at the Pink Pony strip club where a death penalty defendant went after he allegedly shot two people testified Friday that he threatened to kill her when she wouldn't drink shots with him.

    Cobb County Sheriff's Office, Cobb County Sheriff's Office Joshua Kevin Drucker, 33, could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

    The waitress, Jennifer Carlton, testified in the Cobb County trial of Joshua Drucker, 33, of McDonough, that Drucker was known to the girls in the strip club as "the money thrower" because he threw $1 bills around on a prior visit. She said when he came into the club in April 2004, he bought her entire tray of 44 shots for $220 so that she could talk to him for an hour.

    "He was cocky," Carlton recalled on the stand. "It was like he was kind of happy, but not really. It was like he was trying to impress me."

    Prosecutors say Drucker's encounter with Carlton happened just a few hours after he gunned down an acquaintance, David Andrew Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25, in the kitchen of Robertson's home.

    Carlton testified that Drucker began to confide problems his family had been experiencing, including a sister who tried to kill herself by overdosing on drugs because she was depressed about the recent death of her infant child. She said Drucker told her that his sister was "a vegetable" in the hospital. He said the guy who had sold her the drugs deserved to die, and asked the waitress if she agreed.

    "I said, ‘No, it's not his fault that his sister OD'd,'" Carlton testified, recounting the conversation. "I said, ‘If he knew she was going to overdose, he probably wouldn't have sold her the drugs.' "

    Drucker told police in a videotaped confession that was screened for jurors on Thursday that he had killed Robertson as part of a personal vendetta because Robertson gave his sister a potentially deadly cocktail of drugs. He allegedly shot Nikolova when she yelled at him and tried to intervene.

    At some point during their discussion, the waitress said Drucker also confided that he was a pastor's son and expressed doubts about the existence of God because of everything bad that had happened to his family.

    Then he told her he was a drug dealer and offered her methamphetamine, Carlton said. He also urged her to drink some of the shots he had purchased from her, but Carlton said she declined. That's when the waitress said Drucker flew into a rage, grabbed her arm and threatened to kill her. He got kicked out of the club.

    "I couldn't believe it. It was like the guy was crazy," Carlton said. "You could see the look in his eyes. It was crazy. Just for not drinking shots."

    Police said they arrested Drucker and his female friend and co-defendant, Melissa McCrayer, at the end of a 36-hour meth binge that included trips to a Mexican restaurant, a motel room in Sandy Springs and two Atlanta strip clubs.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/waitres...y-1192251.html

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