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Thread: Shawn Kavanagh Sentenced to LWOP in 2014 MO Triple Murder

  1. #11
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Accused killer wants judge to decide his fate after 9 years in court

    Chris Hayes and Kevin S. Held

    ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – Accused killer Shawn Kavanagh, who police say called 911 to report his murders, remains in court nine years after the crime. The intended target, investigators say, was the suspect’s wife, who was taking refuge with co-workers, who became stabbing victims.

    FOX 2 was with a victim’s sister at the St. Charles County Courthouse on Wednesday, as she struggles through repeated delays.

    In February 2014, Kavanagh reportedly called 911 to say he’d stabbed four people. Three of them, including a 7-year-old child, died in the attack. Kavanagh was almost immediately arrested and charged, yet the case continues to drag through the court system.

    “It’s a constant wound, just reopened for everyone,” Haley Roberts said.

    Roberts has been to court too many times to count, pushing for justice for her sister, Tara Fifer.

    “We’re this close and things change again,” Roberts said.

    Though the crime occurred in Warren County, the proceedings have been moved to St. Charles County because of a defense request for change of venue. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case, which has sometimes been delayed for unusual reasons.

    “One of the judges passed away. One of (the defendant’s) lawyers had gotten pregnant at one point and just wasn’t able to withstand trial,” Roberts said.

    Another delay involved an attorney’s son who died in a car crash.

    “I see the impact (delays have) had on first responders, investigators on the case, EMS, people who were involved in any way shape or form,” Roberts said. “This gets brought up for them continuously, over and over again, and they have to relive it the same way my family and I do, and it’s not fair.”

    Another twist in this latest hearing – Kavanagh waived his right to a jury trial and asked a judge to decide his fate.

    “I hope that we can all put this to rest and start living our lives, remembering our sister in a positive way, and remembering the other people involved in a positive way, instead of constantly focusing on the bad,” Roberts said.

    The latest trial date is set for March.

    https://fox2now.com/news/fox-files/a...-in-court/amp/
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  2. #12
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    According to MADP on Twitter, Shawn Kavanaugh’s death penalty trial started yesterday in St.Charles County.

    https://twitter.com/MADPMO/status/1635284326530121729

  3. #13
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    Death penalty trial opens in St. Charles in Valentine’s Day triple murder

    By Erin Heffernan
    St. Louis Post-Dispatch

    ST. CHARLES — Shawn Kavanagh doesn’t deny his crimes in a Warren County trailer on Valentine’s Day nine years ago.

    He was supposed to meet his wife that day. When she stood him up, he tracked her down at a friend’s home and flew into a rage. There, he killed three people she was with — two women and a 7-year-old boy — before stabbing his wife in the chest.

    His now ex-wife said in court on Monday she regained consciousness to see Kavanagh standing over her covered in blood. Then, she testified, he asked her a question: “How does it feel to be stabbed in the heart?”

    The trial for Kavanagh opened Monday in St. Charles County court after years of delays. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. His defense attorneys are making the case for a lesser charge.

    The trial opened with recordings of Kavanagh’s confessions to police and testimony from his former wife, Jessica Powell, who survived the night of the killings with lifelong injuries.

    Her friends and co-workers, Tara Lynn Fifer, 22, and Lexy Vandiver, 29, along with Vandiver’s 7-year-old son, Mason, all died from their injuries.

    Kavanaugh faces three counts of first-degree murder. Kavanaugh’s defense team argues he is guilty in the deaths but should get the lesser charge of second-degree murder because, they argue, the deaths were not premeditated.

    “He was unable to comprehend what he was doing,” defense attorney Anthony Davidson said during opening statements.

    The defense is expected to offer evidence that Kavanagh suffers from borderline personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, causing him to have no control over his actions when he’s in a rage.

    The trial began after a long series of unexpected delays caused by defense turnover, the COVID-19 pandemic, attorney illness and the death of a defense attorney’s family member.

    Kavanagh waived his right to a jury trial and requested a change of location out of Warren County. St. Charles County Circuit Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey will decide Kavanagh’s fate in the case.

    ‘Why did I do this?’

    In the hours after the killings, a distraught Kavanagh kept repeating the same thing to investigators, recordings played in court Monday showed.

    “I just wanted to be with my wife on Valentine’s Day,” he repeated to Warren County Sheriff’s Department detectives.

    But evidence showed the two shared a tumultuous marriage.

    Kavanagh and Powell met in September 2012 and married seven months later.

    But soon, Kavanagh became violent and jealous, Powell testified.

    He punched through walls, broke furniture and, in one incident, slashed a machete through a door while struggling to install a screen, she testified.

    He had a long fascination with swords and knives and a large collection of weapons, she said.

    About a month before the killings, Powell testified she called 911 after Kavanagh became violent during a fight. He was arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault. As a condition of his release on bail, a judge ordered him not to contact his wife.

    Kavanagh in January 2014 moved out of their shared home in Bellflower, Missouri, north of Warrenton and about 80 miles west of St. Louis, and in with his parents. But despite the court order, the couple continued to text, call and occasionally see each other, phone records presented in court showed.

    Powell texted Kavanagh in the days before the killing, telling him she would see him on Valentine’s Day, according to the records. When the day arrived, however, she delayed seeing him and planned to go to a casino with two of her co-workers, Vandiver and Fifer, instead.

    The three women were all nursing assistants at a New Florence nursing home but became close, Powell testified. Testimony at trial revealed Kavanagh was jealous and suspected his wife was having an affair with Fifer.

    The night of the killings, Powell met with the two other women at Vandiver’s trailer home in the 26000 block of Humber Road, south of Jonesburg, to get ready for the casino. Vandiver had arranged for a neighbor to watch her two kids, 7-year-old Mason and her 18-month-old daughter, Jeanette.

    But before the women could leave, Kavanagh arrived at the home about 8 p.m. and became enraged when he spotted Fifer with his wife.

    Powell testified she argued with Kavanagh outside, before her husband went back into the trailer.

    “I heard screaming,” Powell testified.

    Powell said Kavanagh then stabbed her and pulled her by the hair to a bathroom.

    She testified Kavanagh then threw up, looked into the mirror and screamed: “Why did I do this?”

    Powell said she eventually convinced Kavanagh to hand her the baby, Jeanette, while she was still suffering from her wounds.

    Kavanagh then called his father and 911 to report the stabbings.

    ‘I lost it’

    He did not resist arrest but didn’t initially fully admit to the killings, according to recorded interviews with sheriff’s office investigators played in court Monday.

    “I know that I blacked out,” Kavanagh told Lt. Scott Schoenfeld soon after law enforcement arrived. “I lost it.”

    Kavanagh claimed he couldn’t remember what happened but said he knows: “I went crazy and people got hurt.”

    In later interviews, Kavanagh confessed to the stabbings, arguing he only aimed to kill Fifer, but the others “got in the way.”

    Fifer and Vandiver were found dead from multiple stab wounds inside the home. The child, Mason, was airlifted to Cardinal Glennon Children’s hospital, where he died four days later.

    Warren County Prosecuting Attorney Kelly King is personally prosecuting the case along with Assistant Attorney General Kevin Zoellner.

    Public defenders Davidson and David Kenyon are representing Kavanagh.

    The trial will continue Tuesday in Division 1 in St. Charles County Circuit Court.

    The case marks the second death penalty trial within the last year in St. Charles County court.

    Richard Darren Emery, convicted of murdering his girlfriend, her two children and her mother in 2018, was sentenced to death in October.

    Like in the Kavanagh case, Emery’s attorneys admitted he was behind the deaths, but argued he had a mental illness that caused him to go into a “dream-like state” during the killings.

    https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...94d9b1eab.html

  4. #14
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Kavanagh guilty on all charges

    Convicted murderer goes to sentencing next week

    By Adam Rollins
    Warren County Record

    A St. Charles County judge on Friday declared a verdict that family and friends of Tara Fifer, Lexy Vandiver, Mason Vandiver and Jessica Powell have known in their hearts for nine years: That Shawn Kavanagh is guilty of first-degree murder, with no defense that excuses his actions.

    Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey delivered verdicts for nine felony charges in brief, direct statements during a Friday afternoon hearing that lasted less than 5 minutes. The rulings follow three days of testimony and argument earlier this week, at a trial that’s finally happening after years of delays.

    Kavanagh has been awaiting trial since he was arrested in February 2014 and charged with the murders of Tara Fifer, Lexy Vandiver and Mason Vandiver, as well as the severe wounding of Jessica Powell, and four counts of armed criminal action and one charge of burglary.

    As the family members and close friends Kavanagh’s victims heard the verdict and then began exiting the St. Charles County courtroom, it was as if they were finally allowed to let out the emotions that they had been holding back throughout the three days of Kavanagh’s trial. They didn’t make it to a private room that had been set aside for them before they began to cry with a mix of sorrow and relief. They hugged and told each other that this long ordeal is nearly over.

    Several family members also took a moment to thank Prosecuting Attorney Kelly King for the work she has done in this case. King was elected as Warren County’s head prosecutor in November of 2014, inheriting the Kavanagh case and now taking it to a verdict.

    But the trial for Kavanagh isn’t quite over. Hearings will resume on Monday for the sentencing phase, in which Prosecutor King and Assistant Attorney General Kevin Zoellner will argue for the death penalty. On the other side, attorneys for the Missouri Public Defender system will attempt to convince Judge Navarro-McKelvey that Kavanagh should be allowed to live out his life in prison.

    https://www.warrencountyrecord.com/s...-charges,61439
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  5. #15
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    Judge spares man from death penalty in Warren County triple murders

    By Erin Hefferman
    St. Louis Post Dispatch

    ST. CHARLES — A judge spared Shawn Kavanagh from the death penalty Tuesday, sentencing him to life in prison without parole for fatally stabbing two women and a 7-year-old old boy in a Warren County trailer nine years ago.

    St. Charles County Circuit Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey sentenced Kavanagh, 32, to four consecutive life sentences Tuesday, prompting sobs from a courtroom full of family and friends from both sides.

    "I have been a lawyer for 23 years and nothing has challenged me professionally and spiritually as much as this case," Judge Navarro-McKelvey said before announcing her decision.

    She said Kavanagh's decision to call 911 to report the stabbings himself, his confessions and evidence of mental disorders, including borderline personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, led her to the lesser sentence.

    "Today I'm going to give you what you don't deserve," she said addressing Kavanagh. "I'm going to give you mercy."

    Kavanagh's crimes stemmed from a jealous rage on the evening of Feb. 14, 2014.

    That night, he tracked down his then-wife, Jessica Powell, to her friend’s Warren County trailer after she backed out of Valentine’s Day plans with him. There, he stabbed Powell before repeatedly stabbing her friends, Tara Lynn Fifer, 22, and Lexy Vandiver, 29, along with Vandiver’s 7-year-old son, Mason, who died trying to protect his mother, the trial revealed.

    Powell and Vandiver’s 18-month-old daughter, Jeanette, survived.

    Heather Vandiver, Lexy Vandiver's sister-in-law, now has joint custody of Jeanette.

    She spoke before sentencing Tuesday, pleading for the death penalty by showing the judge photos of Mason's wounds along with a picture of a now 10-year-old Jeanette.

    "He doesn't deserve to live," she said through tears outside the courtroom after the hearing. "He stabbed a little boy. He deserves to die."

    Kavanagh made a statement in court Tuesday taking the blame for the killings and apologizing to his victims and their families.

    "I've done so much damage," he said. "All I can say is, 'Sorry.'"

    The case

    Prosecutors announced in 2014 that they would seek the death penalty in the case.

    Kavanagh waived his right to a jury trial and requested the case be held outside Warren County.

    Navarro-McKelvey convicted Kavanagh on March 17 after a three-day trial hinging on his mental state the night of the crimes.

    Kavanagh's ex-wife, Powell, recalled on the stand how Kavanagh grew enraged when she stood him up on Valentine's Day. The two were separated by a court order at the time after a previous fight.

    Powell testified Kavanagh repeatedly attacked her before asking: "How does it feel to be stabbed in the heart?"

    Kavanagh after the rampage called his parents and then dialed 911 to report the stabbings himself. He remained at the scene until law enforcement arrived, at one point yelling into a mirror: "Why did I do this?" Powell testified.

    When investigators arrived, Kavanagh initially told detectives he didn't remember the stabbings.

    Recordings of the interrogations were played during the trial.

    “I know that I blacked out,” Kavanagh told Lt. Scott Schoenfeld of the Warren County Sheriff's Department within hours of the killings. “I lost it.”

    “I just wanted to be with my wife on Valentine’s Day," he repeated to the detective.

    The next day, Kavanagh confessed, admitting that he flew into a rage the night of the stabbings when he spotted his wife with Fifer.

    Powell, Fifer and Vandiver all worked together as nursing assistants at a New Florence nursing home. Powell and Fifer developed a romantic relationship in the months before her death, according to Fifer's family and texts read during the trial.

    Kavanagh’s public defenders, Anthony Davidson and David Kenyon, argued during the trial that Kavanagh was incapable of pre-meditated murder because of his mental disorders. The lawyers sought a lower charge of second-degree murder, which is not eligible for the death penalty.

    The judge decides

    Judge Navarro-McKelvey said before sentencing Tuesday that she "wholeheartedly believes" that the killings were premeditated "narcissistic" acts, but said she took evidence of mental illness into account at sentencing.

    "You did stay and face the music," the judge said to Kavanagh.

    After reaching her verdict last month, the judge heard three days of testimony from family, friends and supporters of both the victims and Kavanagh that she weighed for sentencing.

    More than 20 people testified over two days in support of Kavanagh including his relatives, friends, two priests and a religious sister, describing his continued role in their lives, his character and his remorse for his crimes.

    "Despite the brutality of your crime, there remain people who can see past it," the judge said to Kavanagh Tuesday.

    The sentence comes more than nine years after the crime because of delays prompted by attorney turnover, the COVID-19 pandemic, illness among lawyers on the case, and the death of a defense attorney’s family member.

    Warren County Prosecuting Attorney Kelly King personally prosecuted Kavanagh with help from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. She declined to comment on the sentence Tuesday.

    Navarro-McKelvey acknowledged Tuesday that those who loved the victims may be upset by her decision.

    "No one in this courtroom will receive perfect justice today," she said. "That justice will have to come from the perfect judge: God."

    https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...a2d2d4d78.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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