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Thread: Jury Recommends Life Sentence for Kenneth Daniels in 2007 CA Slaying of Rosemarie Edwin

  1. #1
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    Jury Recommends Life Sentence for Kenneth Daniels in 2007 CA Slaying of Rosemarie Edwin

    A jury is expected to be seated today in the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta in the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting two women -- one of whom died -- during break-ins at a senior apartment complex in Hemet.

    Kenneth Daniels, 26, of San Jacinto could face the death penalty if convicted of a dozen felony charges, including first-degree murder, elder abuse, forcible rape and special circumstance allegations of killing during the commission of a rape and during the commission of a burglary.

    Jury selection got underway a month ago. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Angel Bermudez has summoned some 320 prospective jurors to the Southwest Justice Center for questioning on their availability and qualifications. He's expected to swear in a panel today, but opening statements are not scheduled until next week.

    Daniels, who has been in custody without bail since Dec. 28, 2007, is accused in three separate assaults -- two of which involved the same woman -- at the Oak Terrace Apartments at 551 N. Santa Fe St., a gated facility reserved for residents 55 and over.

    Daniels allegedly broke into the apartment complex in the predawn hours of Aug. 21, Oct. 19 and Dec. 11, 2007. In the latter instance, 74-year-old Rosemarie Edwin was beaten to death.

    Daniels allegedly forced his way into the wheelchair-dependent victim's apartment and attempted to sexually assault her, but she apparently resisted. Daniels repeatedly struck Advertisement
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    [ The Tutoring Center ] the woman in the head, inflicting fatal injuries, according to prosecutors.

    During the Aug. 21 and Oct. 19 attacks, the defendant allegedly pushed open an unlocked balcony door to access a then-63-year-old woman's apartment. During a July 2008 preliminary hearing, the victim, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe, testified she had fallen asleep in her recliner while watching television and awoke to find Daniels in her kitchen.

    She said she tried to flee out the front door, but that Daniels -- whom she positively identified -- punched her in the head, knocking her down and pummeling her until gaining her full compliance. According to the victim, the defendant forced her to orally copulate him.

    The victim said she suffered a fractured cheek bone, broken eye socket, several chipped teeth and a badly dislocated shoulder. She was still in recovery when, almost exactly two months later, Daniels allegedly returned, breaking into her apartment the same way he had before.

    "And I said, 'No, not again. Please no, not again,"' the woman testified.

    She alleged that Daniels replied, "You know the rules," and forced her into the bedroom and raped her, leaving soon afterward.

    She moved out of the apartment weeks later.

    After Edwin's death, Hemet police officers began staking out the complex on a nightly basis. Around 2 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2007, they caught the 6-foot-3, 185-pound defendant allegedly attempting to break into another senior's unit.

    http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/72112/
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    Jury Selection Delayed

    With pretrial motions dragging on, jury selection is not expected to get underway until later this month for the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting two women -- one of whom died -- during break- ins at a senior apartment complex in Hemet.

    Kenneth Daniels, 26, of San Jacinto could face the death penalty if convicted of a dozen felony charges, including first-degree murder, elder abuse, forcible rape and special circumstance allegations of killing during the commission of a rape and during the commission of a burglary.

    Riverside County Superior Court Judge Angel Bermudez continued to hear arguments today from the defense and prosecution regarding evidence and witnesses to be submitted during trial.

    All pretrial motions will likely be completed by the end of next week, and during the week of June 24, some 320 prospective jurors will be summoned to Bermudez's Murrieta courtroom for questioning as to their availability and qualifications.

    Opening statements in the case are tentatively set for July 8, Deputy District Attorney Jess Walsh told City News Service.

    Daniels, who has been in custody without bail since Dec. 28, 2007, is accused in three separate assaults -- two of which involved the same woman -- at the Oak Terrace Apartments, 551 N. Santa Fe St.

    The gated facility is reserved for residents 55 years and over.

    Daniels allegedly broke into the apartment complex in the predawn hours of Aug. 21, Oct. 19 and Dec. 11, 2007. In the latter instance, 74-year-old Rosemarie Edwin was beaten to death.

    Daniels allegedly forced his way into the wheelchair-dependent victim's apartment and attempted to sexually assault her, but she apparently resisted. Daniels repeatedly struck the woman in the head, inflicting fatal injuries, prosecutors allege.

    During the Aug. 21 and Oct. 19 attacks, the defendant allegedly pushed open an unlocked balcony door to access a then-63-year-old woman's flat.

    During a July 2008 preliminary hearing, the victim, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe, testified that she had fallen asleep in Advertisement
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    [ Casa Tiene Vista ] her recliner while watching television and awoke to find Daniels in her kitchen.

    She said she initially thought she was having a nightmare but soon realized there was an intruder present and tried to flee out the front door.

    The victim testified that Daniels -- whom she positively identified -- punched her in the head, knocking her down, then pummeled her until gaining her full compliance. According to the victim, the defendant forced her to orally copulate him because he was having difficulty getting an erection, then he "did his business and got up."

    After the rape, the woman testified that Daniels gestured to her telephone, saying "There's the phone; I gotta go now."

    According to the victim, she suffered a fractured cheek bone, broken eye socket, several chipped teeth and a badly dislocated shoulder. She was still in recovery when, almost exactly two months later, Daniels allegedly returned, breaking into her apartment the same way he had before.

    "And I said, 'No, not again. Please no, not again,"' the woman testified.

    She alleged that Daniels replied, "You know the rules," and forced her into the bedroom and raped her, leaving soon afterward.

    She moved out of the apartment weeks later.

    After Edwin's death, Hemet police officers began staking out the complex on a nightly basis. Around 2 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2007, a suspect clad in dark clothing was seen jumping a fence ringing the building, and officers began tailing him. They lost sight of him briefly, and about that time, a resident called 911 screaming that a man was trying to break into her apartment.

    According to Hemet police, officers spotted the suspect leaving the location and attempted to stop him, at which point a struggle ensued, with officers having to forcibly restrain the 6-foot-3, 185-pound defendant.

    About eight months after charges were filed in the case, then-District Attorney Rod Pacheco said Daniels' alleged "vicious and remorseless acts ... against an elderly and particularly vulnerable victim more than justify the ultimate penalty."

    http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/71570
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    Man guilty in murder, rape trial





    Jurors found a 26-year-old man guilty Tuesday, Aug. 13, of murdering a 74-year-old woman during an attempted rape and twice raping a 64-year-old woman, both of whom lived in the same Hemet apartment complex for seniors.

    Kenneth Daniels Jr. now faces a potential death sentence as a result of his murder conviction and the jury’s findings that the slaying happened during the commission of a burglary or attempted rape.

    The trial now moves into the next phase in which the six-woman, six-man jury will determine whether Daniels should receive death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Judge Angel Bermudez at Southwest Justice Center in French Valley scheduled the death-penalty phase of the trial to begin Aug. 26.

    Because the trial is continuing, the jurors remain sworn to secrecy and Daniels’ defense attorney, Renee Rupp, declined to comment.

    Deputy District Attorney Jess Walsh said he was pleased with the jury’s decisions. Besides the murder and rape counts, Daniels was found guilty of inflicting great bodily injury causing the death of an elderly person, two counts of oral copulation by force, one count of attempted rape, three counts of burglary and two counts of attempted burglary.

    The crimes occurred between Aug. 21, 2007, and Dec. 28, 2007, during which time Daniels, in the words of Walsh, conducted a “reign of terror” at Oak Terrace Senior Apartments.

    Jurors heard testimony during the trial’s first phase from the victim in the Aug. 21, 2007 attack. She said she awoke during the early morning darkness to find a strange man crouching in her kitchen, who subsequently beat her and forced her to have sex with him. The man returned to her house early Oct. 19 when, the victim testified, she awakened to find he had hold of her arm and he again forced her to perform sexual acts with him.

    On Dec. 13 of that year, officers were again called to the apartment complex where they found the badly beaten, partially nude body of 74-year-old Rosemarie Edwin. Investigators concluded she had been attacked and killed on Dec. 11. DNA evidence found near Edwin’s body matched genetic material obtained in the first two incidents, which later was found to come from Daniels.

    Fifteen days after Edwin’s body was found, emergency dispatchers received a call from a woman saying someone was trying to break into her apartment at Oak Terrace. Hemet police officers stationed near the complex responded and captured Daniels after he attempted to flee on foot. During the probe, investigators found that blood on one of his shoes matched the murder victim’s.

    In Daniels’ defense, Rupp conceded in her closing statement that her client had attacked and raped the first victim and had hit the slain woman, but questioned whether the prosecution had proved he had killed or tried to rape her. A forensics examination of her body failed to identify physical evidence of sexual assault.

    Rupp theorized that Daniels entered Edwin’s apartment thinking it was abandoned because the door had been left ajar and it looked disheveled. He did not know she was there until she saw him and started screaming, prompting him to strike her, she contended.

    Walsh responded in his final remarks to the jury that Edwin’s body evidenced injuries of a savage attack, including a fractured skull, and that the evidence at the scene was consistent with the previous break-ins and sexual attacks.

    http://www.pe.com/local-news/riversi...rape-trial.ece
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    Jury deliberating fate of convicted murderer

    A jury has begun deliberating the fate of a man convicted in a series of burglaries and rapes of elderly women at a retirement apartment complex in Hemet leading to the murder of a 74-year-old woman.

    Kenneth Daniels Jr., 26, faces either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole in what a prosecutor calls a “reign of terror” at the Oak Terrace Senior Apartments.

    Lawyers in the case presented contrasting images of the killer.

    Defense attorney Jeff Zimel displayed photographs of a smiling young boy and football player who Zimel contends suffered from untreated mental health and cognitive impairment problems — signs of which he first exhibited as a child.

    Deputy Riverside County District Attorney Jess Walsh showed pictures of a brutally beaten woman and the partially covered bodyRosemarie Edwin that included blood smeared on the wall of her bathroom.

    “There’s something wrong with Kenny Daniels’ brain,” Zimel told the six-man, six-woman jury who convicted Daniels of a series of charges, including first-degree murder, last month.

    Zimel said Daniels was “a product of his background,” having lived through the separation of his parents. He had a habit of taking things apart, pulling the stuffing out of a mattress, cutting cords to drapes, spreading feces on the wall of a bathroom and lighting fires.

    At the age of 4, Zimel said, Daniels set fire to his home and, at the age of 6, burned down a condominium in Rialto.

    “As the fire was burning,” the deputy public defender said, “he stood there mesmerized.”

    In one instance, Zimel contended, Daniels brought a telephone to one of his victims so she could seek medical help.

    Walsh described the 2007 attacks in in detail, recounting what it was like for the women to have a man climb 10-foot fences, enter their apartments and attack them. In the cases of two of his victims, including the murdered woman, Walsh said Daniels returned again to attack.

    “What sympathy did he offer for the victim?” Walsh asked. “This wasn’t just burglary. This wasn’t just rape. He went back over and over and over again (and) showed a lack of remorse.”

    Walsh quoted a prosecution expert who testified that Daniels did not suffer from schizophrenia and contended that there was no evidence that the killer was mentally ill at the time of the crimes.

    “It’s easy to forget who he is and what he did as time passes,” the prosecutor noted.

    “He actually derives pleasdure by hurting people,” Walsh said. “These women were in their sanctuary, their home … and he invaded it” for sexual pleasure.

    “No amount of sympathy for Mr. Daniels shoudl outweigh what he did,” Walsh said.

    http://blog.pe.com/breaking-news/201...cted-murderer/
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    Jurors opt for life in prison for murderer, rapist

    Kenneth Daniels Jr., 26, who was convicted in a series of burglaries and rapes of elderly women at a retirement apartment complex in Hemet that led to the murder of a 74-year-old woman, should get life in prison without the possibility of parole, jurors found on Monday, Sept. 16.

    He had been eligible for the death penalty.

    Lawyers in the case presented contrasting images of the killer.

    Defense attorney Jeff Zimel displayed photographs of a smiling young boy and football player who Zimel contends suffered from untreated mental health and cognitive impairment problems — signs of which he first exhibited as a child.

    Deputy Riverside County District Attorney Jess Walsh showed pictures of a brutally beaten woman and the partially covered body of Rosemarie Edwin that included blood smeared on the wall of her bathroom.

    “There’s something wrong with Kenny Daniels’ brain,” Zimel told the six-man, six-woman jury who convicted Daniels of a series of charges, including first-degree murder, last month.

    http://blog.pe.com/news/2013/09/16/h...rderer-rapist/
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    Man Convicted of Fatally Beating Hemet Woman in 2007 to be Sentenced Friday

    A man who killed a 74-year-old Hemet woman in her apartment and twice sexually assaulted one of her neighbors is scheduled to be sentenced Friday Oct. 25.

    Kenneth Daniels Jr., 27, was convicted Aug. 13 of fatally beating Rosemarie Edwin during a December 2007 burglary and attempted sexual assault.

    A Murrieta jury also convicted him of 11 other felonies, including elder abuse and forcible rape, for a series of crimes that spanned August to December of that year.

    On Sept. 16, the same panel recommended life in prison for the defendant, who could have faced the death penalty. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Angel Bermudez is expected to uphold the jury's recommended sentence.

    Daniels was convicted of three separate assaults - two of which involved the same woman - at the Oak Terrace Senior Apartments, a gated facility on North Santa Fe Street reserved for residents 55 and over.

    Prosecutors said the defendant broke into the complex in the predawn hours of Aug. 21, Oct. 19 and Dec. 11, 2007. In the latter instance, Edwin was beaten to death.

    Daniels forced his way into the wheelchair-dependent victim's residence and attempted to sexually assault her, but she resisted, and he repeatedly struck her in the head, inflicting fatal injuries, according to trial testimony.

    During the Aug. 21 and Oct. 19 attacks, the defendant pushed open an unlocked balcony door to access a then-63-year-old woman's apartment. The victim, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, told investigators that on both occasions she had fallen asleep in her recliner while watching television and awoke to find Daniels in her kitchen.

    She said the first time she tried to flee out the front door, but Daniels punched her in the head, knocking her down and pummeling her until gaining her full compliance. According to the victim, the defendant forced her to orally copulate him.

    The woman said she suffered a fractured cheek bone, broken eye socket, several chipped teeth and a badly dislocated shoulder. She was still in recovery when, almost exactly two months later, Daniels returned, breaking into her apartment the same way he had before.

    "And I said, 'No, not again. Please no, not again,'" the woman testified.

    She said Daniels forced her into the bedroom and raped her, then fled. She moved out of the apartment weeks later.

    After Edwin's death, Hemet police officers began staking out the complex on a nightly basis. Around 2 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2007, they caught the 6-foot-3, 185-pound defendant attempting to break into another senior's residence.

    http://banning-beaumont.patch.com/gr...ntenced-friday
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #7
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    HEMET: Rapist, murderer gets life sentence

    OCTOBER 25, 2013 BY DARRELL R. SANTSCHI

    Kenneth Daniels Jr.

    Convicted rapist and murderer Kenneth Daniels Jr. was sentenced Friday, Oct. 25, to spend the rest of his life in prison for what a judge called a “reign of terror” in 2007 against elderly women at a senior apartment complex in Hemet.

    Riverside County Superior Court Judge Angel Bermudez sentenced Daniels to life without the possibility of parole for the killing of Rosemarie Edwin, 74, and to consecutive sentences totaling 108 years and 8 months for rapes and burglaries at the Oak Terrace Senior Apartments on North Santa Fe Street in Hemet.

    Jurors in the French Valley court found Daniels, 26, guilty of rape and murder in August, but decided during the penalty phase of the trial that he should not be put to death.

    Bermudez noted that Daniels had suffered mental health problems as a child, but added that a long time had passed since Daniels showed evidence of it.

    The judge said Daniels “calculatingly picked weak and defenseless women. The victims here were all in their golden years.”

    Bermudez added that Daniels had circumvented security measures, climbed walls and even peered inside apartments looking for his targets.

    Daniels’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Jeff Zimel, appealed unsuccessfully to the judge to have the sentences for the lesser crimes run concurrently. The judge gave Daniels credit for nearly six years in prison before his trial.

    Zimel also asked the judge to consider the defendant’s youth and the lack of any prior criminal record.

    Daniels’ third and last victim at the apartment complex, a woman who walked with the aid of a cane, told the judge at the sentencing that she has suffered nightmares since she was attacked in December 2007.

    “He has brought a darkness that has carried over for many years now,” she said. “It is a long time to be scared.”

    The Press-Enterprise does not routinely identify victims of sexual assault.

    The woman said she had received warnings of attacks at the apartment complex between August and December 2007.

    “When I heard that rustling outside my window, I felt that rustling in my stomach that has not really gone away,” she said. “The fear goes on.”

    She told the judge that she still sees a psychiatrist.

    “The man has committed three rapes, killed one person and returned to the scene — returning is the thing that scares me,” she said.

    Noting that Daniels had returned to the apartment complex several times, raping one victim twice in separate night-time attacks, the woman called his decision to go back to the complex repeatedly “incredibly stupid.

    “I think if her ever gets out he is gong to do that,” she said. “He has that mentality in his blood.”

    Dublin Wahlberg, a cousin who spoke on behalf of Rosemarie Edwin’s family, said she had lived as a recluse since the death of her infant son and the departure of her husband.

    She was an “extremely frail, physically crippled woman” he said.

    “The defendant is a rapist. He is a murderer,” Wahlberg said. “That is what he has chosen to do. That’s what he will be remembered for. I think the very best thing to do is to keep the defendant away from the public for the remainder of his lifetime.”

    Daniels showed no emotion during the sentencing. He glanced briefly at Wahlberg after he spoke and never looked at the elderly victim.

    The defendant spoke only three words during the court session, answering “No, your honor” when the judge asked if he had anything to say.

    The crimes occurred between Aug. 21 and Dec. 28, 2007.

    Follow Darrell R. Santschi on Twitter @DarrellSantschi and online at blog.pe.com/crime-blotter

    http://blog.pe.com/breaking-news/201...life-sentence/

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