Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 2:19:31 GMT -5
Couple surrender in videotaped rape-killing
A couple accused of videotaping the rape of an Independence woman and killing her were in custody Thursday night after spending several days on the run, Jackson County prosecutors said.
Richard Davis, 41, and Dena Riley, 39, had a 5-year-old girl with them when they turned themselves in earlier in the day, said Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman in Kansas City, Missouri.
"We believe this girl was taken from her home in Pittsburg, Kansas, and the FBI is investigating this as a kidnapping case," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Pittsburg, in southeast Kansas, is less than 20 miles from Lamar, Missouri, where Davis and Riley turned themselves in.
Lanza said authorities were trying to determine any possible relationship between the girl and the couple. He also said authorities would try to determine whether she was a victim of a sex crime.
Davis and Riley each were charged Monday with 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree assault, kidnapping, forcible rape and 2 counts of forcible sodomy in the death of Marsha Spicer. Her naked body was found May 15 in a shallow grave near Bates City, east of Kansas City.
Police interviewed the couple last week, but they fled soon after, before authorities obtained a search warrant and found the videotape.
Police said a video found on a TV stand in the couple's apartment shows Spicer, 41, with duct tape over her eyes and her hands behind her back. She is beaten, raped and sodomized as she pleads for the attack to stop, police said.
The room portrayed on the tape matches their bedroom, police said, and detectives noted the couple had a camcorder aimed at their bed when officers interviewed them. Officers also say a notebook at the home made references to "sexual desires," "choking," "chasing" and "victims."
Several family members and friends of the suspects have told detectives the couple had hopes of carrying out similar acts on others, but police say they're unsure how valid those claims are.
Jackson County Prosecutor Mike Sanders said his office would review the case and decide whether to pursue the death penalty.
Spicer's sister, Jackie Schumacher, called Davis and Riley "demented perverts that shouldn't live."
"Nobody should do what they did to Marsha or anybody else," said Schumacher, of Blue Springs. "People don't deserve to be treated the way that she was treated. I haven't seen the tape. I don't want to see the tape, but I've heard -- and nobody, nobody should be treated the way she was treated."
Sanders expected the couple to be returned to Independence by Friday.
After the couple fled, the Missouri State Highway Patrol had followed them to Perryville, a town south of St. Louis where they interviewed a woman Sunday about their disappearance. Authorities say they later learned the couple had been hiding in the back room of the woman's apartment and escaped after officers left. The woman, Susan Summers, has been charged with 2 counts of hindering prosecution.
(source: Associated Press)
A couple accused of videotaping the rape of an Independence woman and killing her were in custody Thursday night after spending several days on the run, Jackson County prosecutors said.
Richard Davis, 41, and Dena Riley, 39, had a 5-year-old girl with them when they turned themselves in earlier in the day, said Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman in Kansas City, Missouri.
"We believe this girl was taken from her home in Pittsburg, Kansas, and the FBI is investigating this as a kidnapping case," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Pittsburg, in southeast Kansas, is less than 20 miles from Lamar, Missouri, where Davis and Riley turned themselves in.
Lanza said authorities were trying to determine any possible relationship between the girl and the couple. He also said authorities would try to determine whether she was a victim of a sex crime.
Davis and Riley each were charged Monday with 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree assault, kidnapping, forcible rape and 2 counts of forcible sodomy in the death of Marsha Spicer. Her naked body was found May 15 in a shallow grave near Bates City, east of Kansas City.
Police interviewed the couple last week, but they fled soon after, before authorities obtained a search warrant and found the videotape.
Police said a video found on a TV stand in the couple's apartment shows Spicer, 41, with duct tape over her eyes and her hands behind her back. She is beaten, raped and sodomized as she pleads for the attack to stop, police said.
The room portrayed on the tape matches their bedroom, police said, and detectives noted the couple had a camcorder aimed at their bed when officers interviewed them. Officers also say a notebook at the home made references to "sexual desires," "choking," "chasing" and "victims."
Several family members and friends of the suspects have told detectives the couple had hopes of carrying out similar acts on others, but police say they're unsure how valid those claims are.
Jackson County Prosecutor Mike Sanders said his office would review the case and decide whether to pursue the death penalty.
Spicer's sister, Jackie Schumacher, called Davis and Riley "demented perverts that shouldn't live."
"Nobody should do what they did to Marsha or anybody else," said Schumacher, of Blue Springs. "People don't deserve to be treated the way that she was treated. I haven't seen the tape. I don't want to see the tape, but I've heard -- and nobody, nobody should be treated the way she was treated."
Sanders expected the couple to be returned to Independence by Friday.
After the couple fled, the Missouri State Highway Patrol had followed them to Perryville, a town south of St. Louis where they interviewed a woman Sunday about their disappearance. Authorities say they later learned the couple had been hiding in the back room of the woman's apartment and escaped after officers left. The woman, Susan Summers, has been charged with 2 counts of hindering prosecution.
(source: Associated Press)