Desert Hot Springs man sentenced to life in prison in rape rumor case

8-15-2011 California:

A Desert Hot Springs man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Monday for gunning down a friend over what turned out to be a false rape rumor.

Concepcion Rodriguez, 35, was convicted April 28 of the 2006 killing of Anastacio “Taquito” Torres, with a special circumstance allegation of murder in the commission of a kidnapping.

Co-defendant Mingus Chavarria, 33, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced in May to 15 years to life in prison.

Several of the victim's family members were on hand for Rodriguez's sentencing at Larson Justice Center in Indio.

“On behalf of my family, I want to thank the court for bringing us justice,” said Ernest Torres Jr., the victim's brother. “And we pray to God he has mercy on Mr. Rodriguez. We pray he finds the Lord in prison.”

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Richard A. Erwood denied defense attorney Demitra Tolbert's new trial and acquittal motions, and a request that Rodriguez not be required to pay restitution to the victim's family.

Murder suspect tells how, why he killed sister, another woman and a deputy

Kalisz had been convicted of a sex offense in October of 2009, and this incident in January of 2010! And he was a very angry man. see story

2-10-2011 Florida:

CROSS CITY — John Kalisz, his gun loaded and mind set, walked into his sister's home and didn't waver.

"I shot everybody till the bullets ran out," he told investigators 13 days later.

How many times was each person shot? "Until they shut up," he replied.

Prosecutors say Kalisz killed two people and injured two more at the Brooksville home of his sister, Kathryn "Kitty" Donovan, where the Jan. 14, 2010, rampage began.

In an interview with authorities from his hospital bed, Kalisz detailed how he prepared and what motivated the alleged killing rampage, which ended at a Cross City gas station two hours later.

Kalisz's trial for the alleged murder of Dixie County sheriff's Capt. Chad Reed starts in mid March, and he is scheduled for a pretrial hearing today. He faces numerous counts in Hernando County, including two first-degree murder charges.

Much of what occurred that bloody afternoon is known from official reports. For the first time, however, Kalisz matter-of-factly described the carnage in his own words.

Although the 56-year-old roofer rambled and sometimes contradicted himself during the interview with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a Hernando County detective at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Kalisz said he knew what he was doing and that he had planned what he called "the operation."

He expressed no remorse for killing his sister and only some for Reed's death, saying he shot at deputies because they were preventing him from killing other people. "Not one shell … came out to defy a cop," he said.

Hatred toward his family and the judicial system, Kalisz told investigators, compelled him to kill.

"One of the things that upsets the hell out of me is for years I've helped people, helped people and helped people," he said, "and every time I help somebody I get screwed over."

Kalisz was accused of fondling Donovan's daughter, Manessa Donovan, and threatening her boyfriend. In October 2009, he pleaded no contest to charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He received six years of sex offender probation.

He hated his family for forcing him to spend his inheritance on legal costs, he said. He was frustrated because his probation meant he couldn't leave the state to retrieve his "tools" in Colorado.

Calling Donovan that "pig sister of mine," he told investigators he had intended to "waste the hell out of Kitty and her blood line."

Just an hour before the rampage began, officials said, he had practiced his aim in the woods. Investigators asked him to explain his plan, and Kalisz replied simply: "Bullets. As many as it took."

When he arrived at Donovan's home on Wilhelm Road, Kalisz said, he went to the back of her house and saw her. He shot Donovan three times, reports indicate, before he shot the manager of Donovan's home-based business, 59-year-old Deborah Buckley Tilloston, four times. Both women died on the scene.

He then shot Manessa Donovan, who was pregnant. Although she survived four bullet wounds, she lost the early-stage fetus during surgery at Tampa General Hospital. He also shot Amy Wilson, then 33, who also lived.

"It didn't matter, whoever was alive there did not need to be alive there," Kalisz said. "So I kept going until I felt there was nobody else alive there and then I got in my car and left."

From Brooksville, authorities say, Kalisz drove north on U.S. 19 and said he planned to leave the state. Kalisz said he thought he called another sister, Linda Pleva, whom he told "it was over."

Kalisz remembered little of his conversation with close friend Jessica Denny of Connecticut, whom he phoned after leaving his sister's home. He told her about the killings and said he would shoot any cops who tried to stop him.

He said he didn't know deputies had followed him into Cross City before he turned into a BP gas station. Not until deputies with drawn guns approached his van as he parked next to a gas pump, Kalisz said, did he realize they were there.

"It was no longer about how or what I was carrying, who I was going after," he said, "it was about how many I can take out."

Kalisz heard a deputy yelling for him to drop his weapon and get out of the van, but he refused. "I figured it'd be over by then and if it wasn't over by then," he said, "there was a possibility of making it out of that situation."

Though he couldn't remember how many shots he fired, Kalisz said he might have shot "just to keep the odds even. … I didn't do it out of any guilt, shame or remorse or bitterness towards the cops."

Kalisz fired one round, reports said, and it struck Reed in the mouth. He died that evening.

"Too many rounds went off," he said. "I know there's probably one officer that didn't make it through that ordeal."

Kalisz told investigators he didn't know how to "act, think or feel," at one point even asking them to kill him.

"Just put a freakin' bullet in me, go ahead, I don't give a s---," he said. "Nothing's worth anything anymore." ..Source.. John Woodrow Cox

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Man sentenced to life in prison in deputy's death

2-10-2011 Florida:

CROSS CITY, Fla. -- A 56-year-old man pleaded guilty to killing Dixie County Sheriff's Capt. Chad Reed during a shootout last year.

A judge sentenced John Kalisz to life in prison Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty had the case gone to trial.

Authorities say Kalisz shot 33-year-old Reed on Jan. 14, 2010. ..Source.. by Florida Wires

Detroit man accused of marching naked 15-year-old son into lot, killing him over dispute

11-18-2009 Michigan:

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) — A 37-year-old father irate over hearing his 15-year-old son had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl made the teen strip at gunpoint, marched him to a vacant lot and shot him to death despite pleas from the boy and his mother, a relative said.

Michigan authorities filed a first-degree murder charge Wednesday against Jamar Pinkney Sr. in the shooting death Monday of Jamar Pinkney Jr. in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park.

Defense attorney Corbett O'Meara said prosecutors should consider evidence of the father's state of mind over the sex abuse report.

"If something were to happen that would cause a reasonable person to lose control of himself, that is something the prosecution would have to take into account," O'Meara said outside Highland Park District Court.

Tensions were high in the courtroom Wednesday as the handcuffed suspect was led into the room for the arraignment, which lasted less than a minute.

"No, No, No," one female relative cried before a police officer escorted her out.

Judge Brigette Officer entered a not guilty plea for Pinkney, who's also charged with assault, and ordered him jailed without bond until a preliminary examination Dec. 1.

"This is something that's hard to deal with for all the parties concerned, including the police," police Chief Ted Caldwell said afterward. "Highland Park is a small city. These are people who have been members of the community for years."

Caldwell said the sexual misconduct allegation that led to the confrontation wasn't part of the police investigation.

The shooting happened Monday night in a vacant lot in the once-prosperous city of 16,000, where decay, abandonment, fires and demolition have eaten away at many of the sprawling homes. Highland Park recently exited years of state financial oversight.

Visitors built an impromptu memorial at the shooting site. Two votive candles sat amid 10 stuffed animals, including two white teddy bears with red hearts embroidered with, "I love you."

The boy's mother, Lazette Cherry, told the Detroit Free Press that her son told her he had improper sexual contact with the girl.

"I called and told his father. This isn't something you sweep under the rug," she said.

Cherry said the elder Pinkney arrived at the home with a gun, ordered his son to strip and marched him outside despite her protests.

"He got on his knees and begged, 'No, Daddy, No,' and he pulled the trigger," Cherry said.

Cherry did not immediately respond to a message Wednesday from The Associated Press seeking comment. ..Source.. David N. Goodman

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Dad arraigned in son's killing; mom says she sought help for teen

11-18-2009 Michigan:

Jamar Pinkney Sr. stood stoically in a Highland Park courtroom today, silent as a judge ordered him back to jail without bond, accused of shooting his 15-year-old son in the head execution-style.

With waist-long dreadlocks, the postal carrier didn't flinch as his son's great-aunt wailed and had to be led from 30th District Court.

"This is the most horrible thing that's ever happened to him," Pinkney Sr.'s lawyer, Corbett O'Meara, said after the hearing, not addressing whether Pinkney feels any remorse about Monday's shooting. Pinkney Sr.'s preliminary exam is scheduled for 9 a.m. Dec. 1 in 30th District Court in Highland Park.

"He's calm," O'Meara added. "He appears to understand what's going on."

Investigators say Pinkney was reacting with rage when he stripped his son naked, marched him outside the home of the boy's mother and executed him Monday afternoon.

Lazette Cherry, Jamar Jr.'s mother, said she wanted to get her 15-year-old son help when he came to her and said he had acted inappropriately with his 3-year-old half-sister.

There wasn’t a rape, Cherry said her son told her. But he confessed to his mother that he knew lying on top of the baby was wrong, she said.

So she called her son's father and told him what she believed happened in his home on Newport on Detroit’s east side.

“I called and told his father this isn’t something you sweep under the rug,” the devastated mother said today.

His father showed up at the house Monday afternoon with a gun, she said.

“He started beating him right here,” Cherry said from her living room. “I said, ‘No, please stop!’ ”

But the father marched Jamar Jr., a sophomore at Martin Luther King High School, outside.

“He got on his knees and begged, ‘No, Daddy! No!’ and he pulled the trigger,” she said. “There wasn’t nothing that my son wouldn’t do for his father. He loved his father so much."

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office charged Pinkney Sr. with first-degree murder, punishable by up to life in prison. He's also been charged with three counts of felonious assault for pointing the gun at Cherry and two other people at her home before the shooting.

"No individual has the right to exact the death penalty on another no matter how reprehensible the behavior -- that is why we have laws," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said today in a statement announcing the charges.

“I hope he rots in jail,” Cherry said of the man she met while they worked at the post office. “He did not deserve that,” she said of her son.

As white teddy bears with red silk hearts bearing the words "I love you" sit on the grass next to her home where her son died, candle wrappers from a vigil held Tuesday night scattered around, Cherry still can't believe what happened.

"There's no justification for what he did, you know, downright shoot your child," she said, wondering aloud about her ex. "He didn't rape her or anything. So why did you have to come and take matters into your hands? We said we were going to get him help."

A fund has been set up to help the family with burial expenses for Jamar Jr. Donations can be made at the Charter One Bank branch in Highland Park. ..Source.. TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA, FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

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Father gets 35-80 year prison term for murdering 15-year-old son

4-15-2010 Michigan:

Jamar Pinkney Sr. was sentenced this morning serve a 35- to 80-year prison term for murdering his son because he believed the boy had molested his half sister.

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan also ordered Pinkney to serve an addition two years for using a firearm in a felony.

Pinkey, 38, was convicted last week for the fatal shooting of his son, Jamar Jr., in November.

The elder Pinkney beat and stripped the 15-year-old boy naked and forced outside his Highland Park home into a vacant lot where he shot his son in the face at point-blank range.

Pinkney was charged with first-degree murder, but the jury came back with the lesser verdict after about three hours of deliberation.

Testifying in his on behalf, Pinkney said he lost control and felt he was having an out-of-body experience. He said his son admitted trying to have sex with his 3-year-old sister.

However, his mother Lazette Cherry said the boy never admitted anything more than “humping on” the little girl.

Two doctors testified that they did not find sure evidence of penetration. ..Source.. JOE SWICKARD, Free Press Staff Writer