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Live from the Marko trial: closing arguments

February 2nd, 2011, 8:58 am by

Robert Hull Marko, left and Deputy Public Defender Deana Feist. Gazette photo by Mark Reis.

Good morning court watchers,

This is John Ensslin, legal affairs reporter for the Gazette, coming to you live from Division 5, where closing arguments are about to begin in the first-degree murder trial of Robert Hull Marko.

Marko, a 23-year-old Fort Carson soldier, is accused of first-degree murder and sex assault in the October 2008 death of Judilianna Lawrence, a 19-year-old woman whose naked body was found 2.7 miles up Old Stage Road. Her throat had been slit.

Marko has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

If the nine-woman, three-man jury convicts him of the first-degree murder charge, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. If the jurors find him not guilty by reason of insanity, he faces an indefinite commitment to the Colorado State Mental Health Institute in Pueblo.

In an unusal move, there are two judges on the bench. Fourth Judicial District Judge Larry E. Schwartz has a cold and has all but lost his voice. Thus Judge Thomas Kane is sitting along side of him and reading the instructions to the jury.

Deputy District Attorney Deb Pearson. Gazette photo by Mark Reis.

Deputy District Attorney Deb Pearson begins her closing argument that Marko had control of the crime scene and all the evidence on Oct. 10, 2008.

“This is the point in time when the community takes control of his actions,” Pearson said.

She quickly takes aim at Marko’s insanity defense.

“He made a decision to do what he did,” she said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

Pearson takes the jury through the various versions that Marko gave to El Paso County Sheriff’s investigators after Lawrence’s mother reported her missing.

She details how at first he denied knowing her. Then later he admits to dropping her off at a mountain location. Then how he had sex with her. How he pushed her off a cliff.

Pearson then plays excerpts from the video statement where Marko admitting slitting Lawrence’s throat with his knife.

“In one swift move, I did it,” Marko says on the taped interview with Detective Cliff Porter.

Pearson adds: “Hardly sounds like someone who has amnesia.”

This last comment is aimed at Marko’s later claim that he had no memory of the details of Lawrence’s murder and came too standing over her body.

Pearson also dismisses Marko’s claim that he retreated into a violent alternate persona of “Rex 290″,  a black raptor who took control of his actions that day.

She goes over his actions after the murder, when Marko went to a 7-Eleven and went to a haunted house and movie with his girlfriend.

“He doesn’t say, ‘please call me Rex.’ He consistently idenitifies himself as Robert Marko because that’s who he is,” Pearson said.

“He thinks he can outsmart law enforcement. But eventually they catch up,” she added.

Pearson shows the jurors a picture of Lawrence.

“Judi was a member of our community,” she reminds them. She didn’t deserve what happened to her, she adds.

Pearson points to Marko and asked the jurors to find him guilty of her murder.

Deputy Public Defender Dan King. Gazette photo by Mark Reis.

Deputy District Attorney Dan King begins his closing argument by showing a picture of Marko in his military uniform with the words “Robert Marko” and “Rex 290″ next to the photograph.

“I’m a pure-blooded black raptor born as a human,” King says, quoting from Marko’s writing. “I am a cold-blooded killer.”

King faces his client.

“This man is Robert Marko,” King said. “He’s damaged. He’s disassociative. He’s damaged.”

“He slit Judi Lawrence’s throat up on top of that mountain for no reason,” King continued.

“The prosecution has suggested a theory to you of how this case took place,” he added. “The problem is that their theory makes no sense.”

“The prosecution theory provides no explanation of what happened or why it happened,” King added. “It just doesn’t make sense when you ignore Mr. Marko’s severe mental illness.”

King shows the jurors a photograph of Lawrence.

“I’m concerned that this young lady was left to die…bleeding to death,” King told the jury. “That is horrible! Horrible!”

“She did nothing to deserve this,” King said. “Her family did nothing to deserve the torture and torment they are going through.”

King talked about how it’s a natural response to be sympathetic to the victim and her family and to find someone responsible for her death.

But King said his concern is that “because of the senseless horror of this crime, that you will not follow the law.”

“We are asking you to do something that’s going to be very difficult if you follow the rules,” King said. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

He reminded jurors that soldiers such as Marko are fighting every day to protect basic freedoms and the rule of law.

“That is meaningless unless you as jurors respect that law.”

King takes aim at the sex assault charge against Marko by showing the jurors the exchanges between his client and Lawrence on the MySpace pages.

“It’s obvious when you read this that they were having sexual contact with each other,” King said. “These two people were seeing each other.”

In addition to the issue of consent, King noted there was no DNA or sperm found in Lawrence’s body after her body was discovered. Nor were there any defensive wounds.

“It’s just not proven that there was a struggle,” King said.

King describes the abuse that Marko suffered as a child and how his mother abandoned him.

He talks about how Marko was diagnosed as a child with post traumatic stress disorder.

“This was a child with severe mental illness at age nine,” King said.

He talks about how an Army doctor described Marko as have a “schizotypal personality disorder.

“He’s about as schizotypal as you can get,” King said.

King addresses the conflicting psychiatric evidence in the case. Experts called by both sides disagreed on whether Marko was legally insane at the time of the slaying.

King said Dr. Hal Wortzel, the prosecution witness “is a nice guy.” But he suggests that he’s young and “that he pretty clearly has some bias.”

He also argued that Wortzel failed to watch a video tape of Marko’s interview with Detective Porter.

“It’s not right and it’s not reliable,” King told the jury.

Watch the video. Just don’t accept what’s being foisted on you,” he tells the jury.

The battery on my computer is about to run out so I’m going to stop this blog here.

Stay with gazette.com later today for the full story.

Posted in: murder • sex assault • Uncategorized • • • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Scenes from the Lovato trial

January 26th, 2011, 7:36 pm by

The defense in the child abuse trial of Jeremiah Lovato quickly acknowledged that the 40-year-old El Paso County man bears some culpability for his adopted teenage son’s injuries.

But that doesn’t mean that some of the 24 counts filed against Lovato won’t be closely contested.

That much was evident moments after Deputy District Attorney Mike Ringle began his opening argument by talking about the events leading up to Lovato’s arrest in January 2010.

“When this systematic torture came to an end…,” Ringle started saying.

That sparked an objection from Lovato’s attorney Shimon Kohn.

After a sidebar with Fourth Judicial District Judge Robert Lowrey, Ringle continued but made no further comments about torture.

Instead he told the jury, “Ladies and gentleman, what (the boy) suffered at the hands of Jeremiah Lovato was the epitome of child abuse.”

* * * *

Ringle went on to describe how the boy had been living with a foster family in Oklahoma when Lovato visited them as a prospective adoptive single dad.

The adoption went through. Lovato bought the boy an Xbox game system and brought him back to Craig, Colo.

For the first two weeks everything was fine, Ringle said, but then Lovato required the boy to clean the small apartment every day and if not he was hit with a belt.

“The boy will also tell you of an incident where because he wasn’t serving food quickly enough, Jeremiah hit him in the head with a meat tenderizer,” Ringle said.

The beatings usually happened in the basement of Lovato’s house whenever the boy failed to properly do his household chores, Ringle said.

He showed jurors a picture of a notepad recovered from the home that listed 15 chores the boy was to do.

He also showed them handwritten apologies the boy wrote for not being a good son, for not doing his chores quickly enough and “for interfering in Jeremiah’s life,” Ringle said.

* * * *

Kohn described how the adoption officials erred in placing the boy with Lovato in the first place.

But he didn’t use that as an excuse for his client’s actions.

“There have been a lot of mistakes made up until this point,” the defense attorney said. “But Mr. Lovato doesn’t dispute that the biggest mistake was made by him.”

Kohn went on to note thought that one evaluator noted that because of Lovato’s lack of experience as a parent, that children with special needs would not be appropriate.

And yet that’s exactly what happened, said Kohn, describing the boy as having ‘significant mental health issues.”

* * * *

El Paso County Sheriff’s investigator Cliff Porter testified Wednesday. He’s the lead investigator in the case.

Porter described how investigators found drops of blood spattered across the basement of Lovato’s apartment.

Blood drops were found on the sofa, the carpet, the side of a desk, a set of dumbbells and on the floor joists, Porter testified.

“We found it all over,” he said.

* * * *

The trial is set to resume at 1:30 p.m. Thursday when the boy is expected to testify. Stay tuned to the Sidebar blog for details.

Posted in: assault • child abuse • sex assault • • • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

Live from the Oliver trial: “Buddy” testifies

December 6th, 2010, 3:06 pm by

Aylais "Buddy" Oliver

Hello court watchers,

This is John Ensslin, the Gazette’s legal affairs reporter, coming to you live from the first-degree murder trial of Aylais “Buddy” Oliver, the 77-year-old Security man accused of shooting his son to death last Thanksgiving.

Oliver is testifying in his own defense.

He recalls driving home that day and decided to talk to his 49-year-old twin sons Keith and Kyle about their inability to support themselves.

Oliver says it had been about five years since they last talked about the subject.

At some point during the conversation, Oliver and his son Keith clashed verbally and his wife Marjorie separated them.

“He stood back all bristled up, he had his fist balled,” Oliver says.

Oliver says he was afraid his son was going to hurt him.

“He’s 30 years younger than me and I knew he’s going to get the better of me,” Oliver says.

The father then describes going upstairs to retrieve his revolver then coming back down stairs with the gun at his side.

When he confronted Keith in the garage, Oliver said his son said, “I stand up to you and now you want to shoot me?”

“We kept arguing for awhile,” Oliver adds.

He says Keith told him, “OK. I’m leaving. But I’ll never speak to you again.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Oliver says. “So I turned to walk away.”

As he walked back toward the house, Oliver says he felt his son coming up behind him.

“I turned and pointed the gun at him and the gun went off,” Oliver says.

Oliver’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Amanda Philipps asks if he intended to fire the gun.

“No,” Oliver replies. “Why would I want to kill my own son?”

“I heard Marjorie scream, ‘you shot my baby!’” Oliver says.

“How did that make you feel?” Philipps asks.

“Bad,” Oliver replies. “I had a bad feeling in my heart. Everything was confused. That’s the way it was,” he says.

Philipps asks Oliver if he had once told his wife that she should never pick up a gun unless she intended to use it.

Yes, Oliver replied.

Did he intend to use the gun when he picked it up that day, she asks.

“It was a different circumstance,” Oliver replies. “I was going to use it as a deterent. That was to keep him from jumping on me. It was a bad decision.”

Philipps asks Oliver about a later interview with Sheriff’s Investigator Cliff Porter. In that interview, Oliver said he wasn’t afraid of his son.

“I was scared of him,” Oliver says.

Then why did you say otherwise, Philipps asked.

“I don’t think any parent wants to admit that they are scared of their own child.”

Oliver describes himself as feeling numb and confused in the aftermath of the shooting.

“I didn’t want to talk to nobody,” he says.

“Why” Philipps asks.

“I was hurting inside. That’s all. “It was a hell of a feeling that I had.”

He said it took about another two weeks before that “numbness” wore off, he says.

“I was able to realize what had happened,” he said. “That I had shot my boy.”

Deputy District Attorney Jim Bentley has started his cross-examination.

Bentley asks about the gun.

Oliver says he has owned it for about 40 years and fired it about 50 times.

Bentley stands in front of Oliver, about the distance between the father and son in the den that day when the argument broke out.

“He could’ve slugged you this close,” Bentley says. “He was only about two feet away. If he wanted to, he could’ve punched you.”

“He wanted to,” Oliver says.

But he didn’t, Bentley counters.

Later Bentley suggests that Oliver didn’t really think his son was going to assault him.

“Hell I didn’t” Oliver replies.

Bentley notes that the son headed for the garage by the time the father came back downstairs with the gun.

“If someone’s walking toward you with a loaded revolver, you’d walk away from him,” Bentley says.

“Yes,” Oliver replies.

Next , the prosecutor asks about the moment when Oliver claims the gun misfired.

“By the time you shot Keith, you’ve got your finger on the trigger?” Bentley asks.

“I don’t know,” Oliver replies.

“He’s backed up against the overhead door,” Bentley later says. “And you’re still angry.”

“Yes,” Oliver says.

“And he’s still angry,” Bentley says.

“Yes,” Oliver replies.

“This is father and son going at it on Thanksgiving,” Bentley says.

Later Bentley asks “What were you trying to make your son feel by chasing him out into the garage?”

“I wasn’t trying to make him feel anything,” Oliver replies.

I’m going to stop this live blog here  for now to write my story. Stay with gazette.com for that story.

The trial has recessed until tomorrow morning, when I’ll resume this live blog.

Posted in: murder • Uncategorized • • • • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Detective requests sit down with ex-partner

August 13th, 2010, 5:06 pm by

Jerald Day

This is the transcript of a letter written by El Paso County Sheriff’s Detective Cliff Porter on Sept. 16, 2009, two days before a hearing on whether to loosen a restraining order against his former partner, Jerald Day. The letter is part of the court file in the case against Day, who is accused of pointing a gun at several Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies during a standoff on Feb. 28, 2009

To Those Involved Parties:

I know that September 18th will likely prove critical in regards to the restraining order and as to whether Jerry can return to work with the Sheriff’s Office. It should be noted that I am writing this because it may be Jerry and I are working together at the Sheriff’s Office again in the near future and I believe the following information could be helpful.

It is my understanding that the Sheriff would like to employ Jerry Day as a Security Technician.

  1. If the restraining order is altered and if the Sheriff hires Jerry, he would be in a position to control access in a detention facility in situations where I might call for cover or help, where I might need inmates to remain secure and separate from me for my safety, where I might need quick and expedient access our of the facility.
  2. I am concerned for my safety in these regards.
  3. I believe that these concerns might be resolved if I could sit down and meet with Jerry in a private, one on one meeting.
  4. Before Jerry’s situation in Douglas we were partners and friends for many years. I believe it is not unreasonable to ask for a short sit down to determine if my safety concerns can be alleviated.
  5. Sixty-five percent of communications is non-verbal. This is why I would like the sit down. I would like to hear from Jerry that we are going to be okay, that he is going to be able to perform his job without creating situations that could cause me harm. I, likewise, want to utilize my perception skills as a senior detective to determine that Jerry is being honest and frank. I want to hear from Jerry that he does not want to kill me or any members of my family anymore and that he is healing.
  6. It seems to me a very bad idea to leave these answers to chance or a random meeting at the office as a very bad idea.
  7. It would seem to me that if Jerry does not feel ready for such a meeting, this is a clue that he might not be able to perform the functions of his job where I am involved and I will be involved as I frequent the detention facility on a very regular basis.
  8. I recommend a neutral location and sitting down for a cup of coffee. I think a coffee shop down town would be fine.
  9. Again, I think the meeting should be private, unrecorded and in a neutral location.
  10. For this purpose, I would like a onetime exception to the protection order so that Jerry and I can talk on the phone, set up the meeting and have the sit down.
  11. After this I believe I can communicate to the court more accurately the situation and my position on it to the court.
  12. Without such a meeting I remain concerned for my safety.

Posted in: Uncategorized • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Jury watches Sylvester interrogation video

April 1st, 2010, 12:51 pm by

Marc Thomas Sylvester

Jurors in the first-degree murder trial of Marc Thomas Sylvester have been watching a video in which a man and his story crumble before their eyes.

On Thursday, the jurors watched about two-thirds of a three-hour interrogation of Sylvester by El Paso County Sheriff’s investigator Cliff Porter on Feb. 11, 2009.

That’s two days after a young girl on a school first spotted the body of Rebecca C. Warren in a field east of Schreiver Air Force Base in eastern El Paso County.

 Warren, 35, of Colorado Springs had been shot in the head a close range with a high powered rifle in what one prosecutor described as an execution.

On the tape, Sylvester initially tells the detective he blacked out that night while riding east on a dirt road between Warren and a mysterious man he could only identify as “Issac”

About mid-way through the tape, Porter pulls his chair up directly across from Sylvester, leans forward almost knee to knee and asks the suspect to “picture yourself staring into the darkness,” asking him to relate any flashback of what he sees right before Warren was shot.

Sylvester, a 38-year-old former trucker, slaps the palm of his hand twice against his forehead.

“I don’t know. I can’t see her getting out of the truck.”

The video is a significant piece of evidence in the trial. Prosecutors contend it will show that Sylvester admitted killing Warren because she was a snitch.  Sylvester’s public defenders contend the tape shows their client was a broken man at the end of the interrogation and gave the detective a false confession.

On the tape, Sylvester recalls that Warren denying that she snitched on anyone

But Sylvester seems to question his own recall of that night.

“Why would that guy be driving my truck and why would I be sitting in the middle?” he asked Porter. “I was really drunk.”

 ”There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense,” Sylvester added.

He described reaching in the car side door for his wallet and pulling out a Taser.

Sylvester said at some point he blacked out. The next thing he remembers is waking at a friend’s house.

Porter then asks, “I know a big chunk of this is missing for you…but do you believe that he (the other man) forced you to shoot her…to force you into their group?”

“I don’t know,” Sylvester replies. “Cause I know I’d never do something like that.”

“I was just messed up. I was drunk,” he adds. “I hadn’t been messed up like that in a while.”

Porter suggests that perhaps Sylvester’s blackout is psycho-somatic – that he was unable to remember something because it was too painful.

“I don’t know how to help you get through that wall,” Porter said.

“Just because of the emotional response you’ve had, I’m concerned he forced you to do it,” the detective added.

“I’m just so confused right now,” Sylvester replies. “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

Jurors will view the remaining portion of the tape when the trial resumes on Friday morning.

Posted in: Uncategorized • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

Closings underway in Cuneo case

February 18th, 2010, 9:58 am by

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

The closing arguments in the first-degree murder trial of former foster mom Jules Lynn Cuneo have begun.

Cuneo is accused in the October 2007 child abuse death of 2-year-old foster child Alizé Vick.

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson is explaining the elements of the charge to the jury. The courtroom is packed with spectators, include Vick’s biological mom, Ashley Susan Lindenberger.

“Ms. Cuneo had a unique position in this case,” Pearson said. “She was a foster mother.”

Pearson goes over the various statements Cuneo gave first responders who came to her home after she reported a 2-year-old girl was unconscious.

Pearson is reviewing, witness by witness, the prosecution’s case.

She recalls how Lindenberger - upon seeing her daughter that night at the hospital – said - “that’s not my girl,” describing how skinny she had become and that her hair was falling out.

Pearson recalls a statement Cuneo gave to investigator Cliff Porter, who was the lead detective in the case.

“You see those mothers on TV and now I’m in the car,” he quoted Cuneo as saying.

Pearson recalls El Paso County Coroner Dr.Robert Bux’s  testimony that Alizé died of trauma caused by blunt force.

The totality of the evidence convinced Bux the child’s death was a homicide.

“What’s there, is there,” he said of the evidence.

Pearson goes over the medical testimony in the case. Then she wraps up.

“This case is about Alizé Vick,” she said, showing a picture of the little girl. “She deserves the protection of our laws.”

“Our laws do not vary according to the kind of family you come from,” she added. “Give Alize the protection of our laws.”

“There is one person responsible,” Pearson said. “She is Jules Lynn Cuneo.”

Defense attorney Dennis Hartley (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Defense Attorney Dennis Hartley is making his closing argument.

“The prosecution has many hypothesis,” he said. “That’s all they are, hypothesis.”

“The evidence that speaks the loudest is the lack of evidence,” he said. “The evidence that could prove the prosecution’s theory is lacking.”

He reminded jurors of the 911 call that Cuneo made to the El Paso County Sheriff’s dispatcher on Oct. 9, 2007.

She told the truth in that call, he said.

“She is too panicked to make up a story,” he said.

The prosecution’s expert medical witnesses testified that they believed the girl’s injuries were not consistent with a short fall.

But Hartley said all of those witnesses agreed with him on one point: “that short fall injuries do cause death.”

Hartley recalled the testimony of a defense witness, who described “older blood” on the brain scans that were done on the child at Memorial Hospital that night.

“Older blood, older injuries,” Hartley said.

Hartley brings up a key piece of evidence against his client, the 2-hour videotaped interview she did with Detective Porter. In that interview, Cuneo changed her story.

She initially told investigators that Alizé had fallen from her lap while they were playing “bouncy horsey” and hit the back of her head on a coffee table.

That fall did happen, Cuneo said. But when the girl would not answer questions, Cuneo admitted tossing Alizé across the living room about five feet.

“I would advise you that back at the station, Det. Porter is calling her basically a liar,” Hartley said. “Finally, he gets something from a woman who is overly helpful.”

On the tape, Cuneo later said she had said something she should not have said.

“Sure she said something she shouldn’t have said, Hartley said. “She said something that didn’t exist.”

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick talks with fellow prosecutor Debbie Pearson. (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick though hammered away at the interview in her rebuttal argument.

Cusick replayed the portion of the videotape where Cuneo admitted tossing Alizé.

“This case is not about an old injury,” Cusick said.

“This case is also not about short falls or two slight mishaps,” she added.

Cusick said prosecutors don’t know about an earlier incident in which Alizé tumbled out of Cuneo’s SUV face first in a Target parking lot.

But Cusick said they do know that Cuneo’s discription of an accidental fall while playing “horsey” was inaccurate.

Then she played the tape.

Jules Lynn Cuneo (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

“She wouldn’t talk to me. I was angry,” Cusick said, quoting Cuneo. “She still wouldn’t talk to me so I threw her.”

“It’s not about a lack of evidence,” Cusick said. “Think about the force it would take to cause that kind of injury.”

The statement Cuneo gave to Porter was voluntary, Cusick said.

“Nobody forced her into saying that. She talked of her own free will.”

Cusick noted that the defendant even drew pictures to explain what she did.

“She did not initially admit what happened to Alizé because she knew it was not right,” Cusick said.

Then she again showed a picture of Alizé to the juror.

“This is a case about an isolated, lonely girl who is at the mercy of this woman,” Cusick said, pointing to Cuneo.

The jury of 9 women and 3 men began deliberations around 11:30 a.m.

Stayed tuned to Gazette.com for the verdict.

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The Cuneo interview

February 8th, 2010, 10:34 am by

People have this idea from television shows like “The Closer” that interrogations with murder suspects go a certain way.

 

Usually, the detective browbeats the suspect or tricks them with a line of questioning and shazam, there’s a confession right before the commercial break.

 

In real life, it doesn’t quite go that way.

 

Take El Paso County Sheriff’s Investigator Cliff Porter’s Oct. 9, 2007 interview with Jules Lynn Cuneo. Captured on video tape, it was a two-hour plus study in patience and persistence.

 

Porter started out slow, asking a lot of open-ended questions of Cuneo several hours after she had called 911 to report her 2-year-old foster child was unconscious. The child died the next day.

 

He also obtained some interesting biographical detail, such as the fact that Cuneo had five children who died in utero. Her twins were the survivors of a set of quadruplets.

 

He began by focusing on the foster child, Alizé Vick and her biological parents.

 

Cuneo told him that Alizé was named after a brand of liquor. She told him how Alizé was afraid of people, especially men. She claimed that the girl was less playful after visiting her grandmother and couldn’t stand to be separated from Cuneo.

 

But then about an hour into the interview, Porter pivoted and confronted Cuneo with two facts that he said did not add up.

 

First the severe injuries the child had sustained were inconsistent with a two-foot-fall out of Cuneo’s lap.

 

Second there was no way all the events Cuneo described – Alizé falling in a Target parking lot, coming home, changing clothes and the fall – could have occurred over the span of 20 minutes as she claimed.

 

Porter began turning up the heat, suggesting that as a single mom with four kids – two foster children and two of her own – was under extraordinary stress and thus might have shaken the girl.

 

“No sir, that is not what happened,” Cuneo replied. “I understand what you’re saying and I’m telling you the truth.”

 

Cuneo claimed to have no reason to lie. Porter pointed out that she did: “a little two-year-old baby with major brain damage is lying in a hospital,” he said.

 

“I don’t think you’re being honest about how Alizé received her injury,” he told her point blank.

 

“So what do you want me to do? To say that I’m guilty,” Cuneo asked.

 

“I think you made a mistake and you hurt the child,” he replied.

 

They went back and forth like this for several minutes.

 

Porter told Cuneo, “I’m not here to judge you.

 

Cuneo replied, “You’re doing your job, I appreciate that.”

 

Finally Cuneo started to budge off her original story.

 

“I’m thinking back,” she said. “Am I allowed to do that?”

 

Porter quoted Carl Jung and his theory of collective unconscious. Sometimes people’s minds protect them from hard facts by creating a memory that is fuzzy.

 

He encouraged her to start over with a clean slate and tell him what happened.

 

Out it came.

 

“I…I…I pushed her,” Cuneo stammered.

 

“So you pushed her out of anger, is that fair to say?” Porter asked.

 

“Mmmm hmm,” she replied.

 

“The fact that you made a mistake doesn’t mean you’re a bad person,” he offered.

 

“Yes it does,” she said.

 

Still, the details emerged fitfully as Porter continued to prod.

 

“A throw is very different than a push,” he told her. “You and I both know that.”

 

“I’m terrified,” she said. “I’m really scared right now because I don’t know what you’re going to do to me.”

 

Porter tried to be understanding.

 

“You’re no Al Capone right?” he asked. “I understand your fear….You made a mistake when you weren’t completely truthful up front.”

 

Porter encouraged her to start over again, and out came many of the statements you’ll find in my story on the trial. Click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jurors watch video of foster mom explaining girl’s injury

February 5th, 2010, 12:23 pm by
cuneo1

Jules Lynn Cuneo (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

 

Jurors in the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo today are watching a video of the former foster mom’s interview with an El Paso County Sheriff’s investigator.

 

The interview took place on Oct. 9, 2007 while 2-year-old Alize Vick was stilling clinging to life at Memorial Hospital. She would die the next day of closed head injuries.

 

In the interview with Detective Cliff Porter, Cuneo tearfully described the incident which sent the girl to the hospital.

 

She had just returned from Target with her twin daughters plus Alize and her 9-month-old brother. While loading the kids into her Ford Expedition, Cuneo said Alize tumbled out of the car and hit her head on the pavement.

 

But after wiping her face, Alize seemed to be OK, Cuneo told the detective.

 

Back at her house at 11580 Calle Corvo, Cuneo said she was getting Alize into her pajamas while her twins picked out their clothing for the next day. Alize had taken her clothes off and was in her diaper.

 

“I put her on my lap,” Cuneo said. They played “horsey ride,” she said.

 

“She wasn’t too responsive to me…I got a smile out of her,” Cuneo said. “Next thing I know, she falls off of me.”

 

“Everything happens so fast,” Cuneo said, describing how Alize’s neck and head hit a table.

 

“I scooped her up at that point because it scared me and said ‘are you OK?’”

 

“She won’t reply to me and her eyes rolled back.”

 

Cuneo said she ran to the bathroom, holding Alize and splashing some cold water on her.

 

She told her daughters, “get out of my way quick…I don’t know what’s wrong with Alize.”

 

“I noticed there’s no response and it’s almost like she went limp…I couldn’t get any response out of her.”

 

Cuneo said she laid Alize down on the bed and called 911.

 

The jury took a break for lunch and will continue watching the tape when testimony resumes.

 

The juror who fainted yesterday has returned to the 11-woman, 3-man panel which has 12 jurors and 2 alternates.

 

Stay with the Sidebar blog for more live reports on the trial.

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Prosecutor: foster mom pushed child in anger

February 4th, 2010, 10:05 am by

Jules Lynn Cuneo admitted that she pushed a 2-year-old foster child “with anger”, inflicting a head injury that would cause her death, a prosecutor said this morning.

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick talks with fellow prosecutor Debbie Pearson during the first day of testimony in the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick talks with fellow prosecutor Debbie Pearson during the first day of testimony in the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett)

 

 

 

 

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick told jurors in opening arguments that Cuneo was responsible for the fatal injuries to Alize Vick.

 

Vick was a youngster who loved Dora the Explorer. She and her younger brother Anthoni had been placed with Cuneo as foster kids.

 

Cuneo called 911 on Oct. 9, 2007 at 6:50 p.m. to report that Vick was unconscious. When the first firefighter arrived to Cuneo’s home at 11580 Calle Corvo near Fort Carson, he found her on the porch and Vick on a bed dressed in a diaper.

 

Vick was unresponsive.

 

“He knew it was serious,” Cusick said. “He knew something was seriously wrong.”

 

Paramedics rushed the girl by helicopter to Memorial Hospital, where the doctor who examined her saw the child’s pupils were fixed and dilated.

 

“He immediately recognized that her injuries were very serious,” Cusick told the jurors. “He also decided this is not the kind of injury that would happen in an innocent fall.”

 

Later Cuneo would tell Sheriff’s investigator Cliff Porter during a two-hour interview that the girl had fallen from her lap and hit her head on a table.

 

“Eventually the defendant admits that that she pushed Alize down out of anger,” Cusick said.

 

Vick died the next day. An autopsy would show that she died of a closed head injury. She had bruising and bleeding of the brain.

 

Cusick said doctors will testify that the extent of the injuries were inconsistent with the short fall that Cuneo described.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case about an isolated little girl,” Cusick said, asking them to find Cuneo guilty of first-degree murder.

 

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