Death penalty 'too easy' for Gabrion - Federal

[SoulTrainOz]

Grand Rapids Press

Robert Allen's sister, Crystal Nichols, 67, of Middleville, doesn't want another trial, but she also doesn't want Marvin Gabrion Jr. put to death. "The death penalty is too easy for him," she said. "I'd rather him rot in prison."

Her brother was a transient who likely met Gabrion in the Heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids, where they lived in the mid-1990s. Allen, then 55, was reported missing in 1995, about the time Gabrion assumed his identity and started cashing his Social Security checks.

Gabrion, who had a history of identity theft, eventually was convicted of federal fraud in the case, but he was never charged in Allen's disappearance. Allen's body was never found.

After Gabrion's conviction, Allen's family held a private memorial service and placed a small grave marker in the shade in a cemetery near Wayland, saving a spot there for his remains, if they're ever found.

Nichols said she wants her brother remembered not as a homeless alcoholic: He was the fifth of seven children in a family raised in Grand Rapids' Burton Heights neighborhood, a happy child who grew up to work factory jobs, married and divorced twice. He is survived by a grown daughter.

His sister has no doubt he's dead. "My brother was a survivor. He hitchhiked everywhere, but he always found his way home."

Source : Grand Rapids Press

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[SoulTrainOz]

spare Gabrion from death row'

By Ken Kolker, The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- Through a video hookup on death row in Terre Haute, Ind., Marvin Gabrion Jr. is expected to watch as a prosecutor he calls a "murderous cat" tries to persuade a judge he calls "corrupt" that he should remain on death's waiting list.

Kim VerHage, a Rockford bookstore owner whose baby granddaughter was presumed killed by Gabrion, said she will watch from the back of the federal courtroom in Grand Rapids, "scared to death" Gabrion somehow will prevail.

Those who have been scarred by Gabrion's evil -- he is suspected of killing five people in the mid-1990s just to get rid of them -- said they fear the worst: that U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell will rule next month that Gabrion should not have been tried in federal court for the death of 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman.

If that's the case, he would be removed from death row, which means he would have to face trial all over again, this time in a small courtroom in Newaygo County.

There would be no chance for the death penalty.

"I would call it a high-stakes hearing," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan E. Meyer (Gabrion's so-called "murderous cat"). "There's a lot at stake, to the extent that losing it would mean a cold-blooded killer's conviction for murdering a 19-year-old woman would be vacated."

And if that happens, could he somehow escape justice altogether? The relatives of his victims wonder. A member of Gabrion's team of appellate attorneys said he does not want to predict how the judge will rule in theappeal of Michigan's first death sentence case in 65 years.

"It's a very powerful issue," said Kentucky-based attorney Kevin McNally. "I don't want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Life goes on

More than a decade after Gabrion's killing spree began, the survivors of his five presumed victims said they continue to suffer.

A mother says she has contemplated suicide; a grandmother has fought depression; a family has placed a grave marker for a victim, hoping someday his remains will be found. So far, only two of the bodies have surfaced.

And life has gone on.

Shannon VerHage, Rachel Timmerman's missing baby girl, has a little sister who is 5 and often is reminded that strangers can steal kids.

The little sister is the daughter of Shannon's father and another woman.

With lots of free time on death row, Gabrion, 52, keeps coming up with new theories for how all those people died, and new insults for just about everybody tied to his case.

For instance, Gabrion claims an "international drug ring" involving local authorities is behind the baby's disappearance. Others are called schoolyard names like "fatso."

His mother, Elaine Gabrion, 79, of White Cloud, convicted in 1980 of smuggling a marijuana-packed cake into jail for one of her sons, has been his only death row visitor.

She recently suffered her fourth heart attack and has a quarter of her heart left, she said.

"I'm sure he's innocent. He tells me so," she said. "I would like to see him freed, but if he did the crime, he should be punished.

"But no death penalty. I don't believe in it."

A question of jurisdiction

For now, Gabrion's fate comes down to a technical question: Did the federal government have the jurisdiction to prosecute him?

Rachel Timmerman's body was discovered in a secluded, marshy lake in the Manistee National Forest in northeast Newaygo County in July 1997 -- nearly a year after she accused Gabrion of raping her.

The federal government prosecuted the case, leading to the death sentence in March 2002 -- the first since 1937 in Michigan, which doesn't allow capital punishment under the state constitution.

However, a document recently discovered by Meyer, and turned over to defense attorneys, raises questions about whether the federal government obtained legal jurisdiction when it took over the land from the state 67 years ago.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati in April ordered the case returned to federal court in Grand Rapids so Judge Bell could consider the new documents and the question of jurisdiction.

Gabrion's attorneys claim the documents show Michigan did not grant federal authorities jurisdiction over the Manistee National Forest when the land was acquired in 1939 and that the federal government did not want it.

Meyer said she believes the documents are nothing more than "policy papers, which means they don't have the force of law. The government is arguing law; the defense is arguing policy," she said.

"In my opinion, the statutes are clear that the federal government has jurisdiction."

She points to the 1996 case of a man convicted of federal crimes after his arrest for drunken driving in a national forest in North Carolina. The case, she says, set a precedent.

Judge Bell earlier this month ordered reluctant government attorneys to give Gabrion's lawyers access to U.S. Forest Service employees, as well as documents, to learn more about the history of the Manistee National Forest.

One of the lead detectives on the case, recently retired Newaygo County Undersheriff David Babthingy, said if the federal case is overturned, a new trial would be almost unbearable for Newaygo County taxpayers. The federal investigation and trial cost more than $1 million.

Not only that, it would be difficult to round up all the witnesses to retry the case.

"It would be a miscarriage of justice to go back now at this point," Babthingy said. "What a circus."

Source : Grand Rapids Press

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