Richard Tuite - alleged murderer of Stephanie Crowe

[Doyle]

Evidence that a slain Escondido girl's blood was found on a white T-shirt worn by a transient the night the victim was killed six years ago will be allowed at the defendant's trial next month, a judge ruled today.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040114-1725-tuite.html

[Doyle]

Six years after slaying, Tuite case goes to court
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040201-9999_1n1tuite.html

[Sabrina]

Truite walked out of court Monday, boarded a bus and was apprehended 15 miles away.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040202-1350-tuite-escape.html

[Babcat]

Incredible! :furious:

Oh yeah... don't bother to keep close security on a man accused of stabbing a twelve-year-old girl to death. There is so many other more important things they can do with their time. :rolleyes:

You can bet if they had succeeded in railroading Stephanie's 14-year-old brother, there would have been high security on him.

[Doyle]

Prosecutors in the Richard Tuite case said the fact that he escaped custody speaks to his guilt, 10News reported. Tuite, who is accused of murdering 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe in 1998, escaped from the courthouse Monday
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2819328/detail.html?treets=sand&tml=sand_7am&ts=T&tmi=sand_7am_1_09000102052004

[Doyle]

Fantasy writings by Stephanie Crowe's brother and statements to police that he didn't like his sister can be introduced in the trial of a transient accused of the girl's murder, a judge ruled Friday.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040206-1846-tuite.html

[Doyle]

Six men and six women were selected Monday to hear the trial of a diagnosed schizophrenic accused of stabbing 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe to death in her Escondido home more than six years ago.
http://www.kfmb.com/topstory22195.html

[Doyle]

More than six years after Stephanie Crowe's murder, opening statements are scheduled tomorrow in the trial of a transient and diagnosed schizophrenic charged with stabbing the 12-year-old girl to death
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040216-0234-tuite.html

[Doyle]

A transient charged with killing Stephanie Crowe more than six years ago had an "obsession" to find an ex-girlfriend and stalked and harassed other girls who looked like her, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
http://www.kfmb.com/topstory22431.html

[Doyle]

Richard Tuite's obsession with a friend named Tracy – and his increasing frustration at being unable to find her – led him to kill 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe in her Escondido bedroom, a prosecutor told jurors yesterday.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040218-9999-2m18tuite.html

A transient's sweat shirt and undershirt stained with the blood of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe could have been contaminated by a police tripod or crime scene investigators, a defense attorney told a jury today.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040218-1754-tuite-late.html

[Casshew]

Isn't this the guy who escaped the courthouse a few weeks back?? Has he been caught yet??

[Sabrina]

He was caught the same day in a shopping center about 15 miles away. He offered the cop who handcuffed him $200,000 if he would let him go.


The snickers wrapper is NOT a match. Tuite's wrapper was a regular size Snicker bar, the Crowe's had only miniature Snicker bars in the house.

The trial is being televised locally on a cable station. Updates will be not only published in the S.D.U.T., but available on the local network websites.

http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/index.html

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/index.html

http://www.kfmb.com/

[Ghostwheel]

The snickers wrapper is NOT a match. Tuite's wrapper was a regular size Snicker bar, the Crowe's had only miniature Snicker bars in the house.
Where did you read this? (I checked the links, and didn't find that anywhere there) Last I read, it was a match because the Crowes had full size bars cut in half, and the wrapper was from a cut half of a full size snickers bar. (but reports have been known to be wrong in the past...)

[Sabrina]

Where did you read this? (I checked the links, and didn't find that anywhere there) Last I read, it was a match because the Crowes had full size bars cut in half, and the wrapper was from a cut half of a full size snickers bar. (but reports have been known to be wrong in the past...)


Brad Patton's (Tuite's defense attorney) opening statement. Maybe I got it mixed up and Tuite's was a mini bar...? Anyway, he said it was not a match...I have to be at the courthouse next week and hope to get in to the trial for a few hours.

[Ghostwheel]

Aha! Never believe an opening statement. Feldman out and out lied in his (I'd have to go back and dig it up, but there were two specific things he said that were completely false.)

[Sabrina]

Aha! Never believe an opening statement. Feldman out and out lied in his (I'd have to go back and dig it up, but there were two specific things he said that were completely false.)

I know Feldman lied, as many defense attornies do, but this was physical evidence and Patton showed photos.

[Babcat]

There were also cough drops, as I recall, from Stephanie's house. They found wrappers from the same cough drops.

Two shirts, both had Stephanie's blood. Now the defense says the police contaminated them... even though the police were hell bent on proving Stephanie's 14-year-old brother killed her. So hell bent that it took years to even charge Tuite because they were so ego bruised that they got it so wrong.

If I hear one more prosecutor or "experienced detective" say "no sign of an intruder," I'm going to hurl. How many of these crimes do they have to get wrong? How many families do they have to destroy?

[Up2theminute]

That's what I have never understood about the insinuation that the evidence was purposely contaminated. By whom? Because the police for sure were hell bent on blaming the brother and friends, so where would the motivation have been for them to have tried to contaminate evidence implicating Tuite? Also, if I remember correctly from San Diego Tribune info on this case, the defense attorneys (meaning Michael's and his friend's attorneys) didn't even get the opportunity to look at the evidence for awhile, so no one else would have had access to that evidence except the people who wanted to prosecute Michael et al. And I also remember the information about the split in half candy bars.

[Ghostwheel]

I know Feldman lied, as many defense attornies do, but this was physical evidence and Patton showed photos.Can you help me out with a link? I cannot find ANYTHING on the Internet regarding this, but maybe I'm using the wrong search criteria. Was this just something you saw at the trial?
Thanks for the help.

[Ghostwheel]

If I hear one more prosecutor or "experienced detective" say "no sign of an intruder," I'm going to hurl. How many of these crimes do they have to get wrong? How many families do they have to destroy?Well, gee, we all know intruders are going to TRY to leave evidence of themselves behind, right? They don't wear gloves, or go in unlocked doors or windows, or try to cover up what they have done. There should be TONS of evidence of an intruder in every single case!

[Up2theminute]

Not to mention the fact that if an insider was going to commit this crime, why was her body left there in a bloody mess on the floor with her obviously in a final state of crawling on the floor towards her bedroom door before she died? Would an insider have left her still struggling towards the door so as to possibly alert the other family members? I think not. Wouldn't an insider have tried to remove all traces of the crime, including the body itself from the home so as to draw attention AWAY from the scene of the crime? I think so. If we are to assume that two of Michael's friends who had nothing to gain but everything to lose assisted him, then why didn't they do more in assisting him to get rid of the body, hide the crime, etc? How did none of Stephanie's blood end up on any of them? How did they manage to walk away without leaving a trace anywhere else in their own homes or Michael's room or in a bathroom, assuming they'd be washing all that blood off of them? There was no evidence of blood in the drains of that house, so where did it all go? The blood went out the door because the person who commited the crime was not from there, didn't belong there, and the traces of blood left with them, on clothing if not anywhere else. The way that crime was commited screams deranged, disorderly chaos and Tuite is one sick mentally ill individual.

[Babcat]

And the most bizarre part of the whole thing was that police based their stupid assumption that Michael killed his sister on the premise that there was no signs of anyone but the family being in the house. But... by the time they got done bungling this case they had placed not one "intruder" in the house, but at least two! They had this house teaming with clumsy fourteen and fifteen year-old kids while everyone else slept. And they saw nothing wrong with the logic that two other teenagers had to enter that house without waking anyone, yet they based their "insider theory" on the fact that ONE intruder could not have entered.

[Sabrina]

Can you help me out with a link? I cannot find ANYTHING on the Internet regarding this, but maybe I'm using the wrong search criteria. Was this just something you saw at the trial?
Thanks for the help.


Yes. It was also on tv, you might find something about it in the archives from the San Diego TV news stations.

You must all remember that no blood was found on Richard Tuite's shirts when originally turned in. I have not made up my mind yet as I want to learn about all the evidence, but I do have to tell you, that an acquittal is NOT an impossibility. Right now, I have ALOT of reasonable doubt! (and I am usually pro prosecution) Most everyone I have spoken to in the legal and l.e. community is not convinced Tuite did it, and many think he is being made a scapegoat.

[Ghostwheel]

Yes. It was also on tv, you might find something about it in the archives from the San Diego TV news stations.

You must all remember that no blood was found on Richard Tuite's shirts when originally turned in. Thanks, I'll give that a try. I have scoured Signonsandiego, but nothing is there. I'll try the others.

Was the bit about the shirt on trial news? Because I have an old article that says the blood WAS there when originally turned in, but they didn't bother to test it. They assumed it was his. That was before they considered him a suspect.

[Sabrina]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I have scoured Signonsandiego, but nothing is there. I'll try the others.

Was the bit about the shirt on trial news? Because I have an old article that says the blood WAS there when originally turned in, but they didn't bother to test it. They assumed it was his. That was before they considered him a suspect.

Sorry, I meant to say Stephanie's blood. There also was the tee shirt issue.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20031212-9999_1n12tuite.html

[Ghostwheel]

Thanks for the link. That one says that
"Tuite, 34, was wearing the T-shirt under a red sweat shirt, which also had the victim's blood on it, according to earlier testing. Both shirts were taken from him by Escondido police Jan. 21, 1998, the day the girl's body was found."

It doesn't say WHEN the earlier testing was, though.

[Doyle]

A woman a transient was looking for the night Stephanie Crowe was killed testified today that she asked Richard Tuite if he was the perpetrator during a phone call after the murder – then the line went dead.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040223-2236-tuite-staff.html

Responding to a 911 call about a suspicious person in the area, Escondido police Officer Scott Walters drove up to the Crowe house off Valley Center Road shortly before 10 p.m. on Jan. 20, 1998
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040223-2236-tuite-staff.html

[Up2theminute]

I know the reason why you brought up the Crowes and meth. I didn't say I didn't know why it came up in conversation. My point was that even if the police were trying to bring up the parents' recreational drug use to paint them in a bad light and to possibly even include Michael as having some access to their stash, it's still leaving two people who were in the home that night completely out of that picture. How do they explain the fact that both Shannon and Grandma didn't hear anything either? We're to believe the whole multi-generational family was under some drug-induced haze? Somehow I doubt that. Otherwise what is the point of mentioning the parents and meth? To say they're irresponsible and had no control over their children? All of that is really no different than when the Van Dams swinging lifestyle was brought up by the defense, now is it?

Also, regarding something else you said about LE doing the family a favor by not doing anything about the meth found, are you aware that both Michael and the younger sister Shannon were taken out of the home and put into some children's home away from the parents immediately after the investigation? He had been at the Polinsky Children's Center in Kearny Mesa, where he and his other sister, Shannon, 10, were being kept under protective order, away from their parents http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/reports/crowe/crowe2.html
Now, while they claim that is routine in in-home murder cases (which I'm not too sure I've seen happen in most cases), I don't see how anyone can say that the police did this family a favor after the investigation. They were trying to tear this family apart right from the get go whether or not they pursued official drug charges, of course presuming the gossip was true and that there were actually drugs in the house.

To read the events that were going on in the house that night, I don't think they exactly sound like a wild bunch. Not to say that they were perfect but I also didn't see any indication that Michael despised his sister either. He had helped her with homework and they had sat watching tv together eating snacks, giggly, joking around with each other so loudly that their grandmother who was trying to get to sleep came out to ask them to quiet down. That hardly sounds like a brother and sister who hate each other, to me. Secondly, Michael had been sick, home from school that day and a couple of days before and his friends (actually only one of them) did not even talk to him until they called to find out where he had been since he wasn't in school those last few days. It's not like he had been in school that day or even for the previous few days where they could have talked about it while they were away from the family. So when exactly did they concoct this elaborate plan to tear Michael's sister to shreds? During the very brief conversation where he called to see why he hadn't been in school, Michael told him he was sick but that he should be back the next day, buh bye? Somehow I don't see the conversation about, oh yeah come over tonight and help me kill my sister having time in there.

Sabrina, Could you fix the quote in your post please? Thanks.

[Babcat]

And I was not saying that the bit of drugs found at the Crowe house when searched did not exist. I was protesting the term or label "meth users". I suppose there are those who would characterize anyone found with any drug substance, no matter how miniscule, "users" of that particular drug. And technically it would not be a false statement. However, to say the Crowes were "meth users" seems like an attempt to label them and put them in the same category as Richard Tuite, a die hard "user". I have a friend who does not smoke cigarettes and never has. But if she goes "out on the town" and she is drinking and partying, which is like once every six months perhaps, she will smoke cigarettes. I've seen her go through a half to three quarters of a pack of smokes, which is a substantial amount for a person who does not smoke on an everyday basis. Then for the next six months between nights on the town she never touches a cigarette. So if someone said she was a "smoker" I would disagree. She has smoked cigarettes, yes, but she does not regularly smoke. The same is true for people who will drink an excessive amount of alcohol at perhaps a wedding, but then not touch alcohol for months following. If someone says that person is a "drinker", a reasonable person would disagree.

Could the lab have been wrong about the substance? It could have. Is that likely? No... not if blood tests showed two weeks later that amphetamines were present in the Crowes' blood. Amphetamines are drugs that are in and out of the system. Even residule amounts are unlikely to last more than 72 hours in the blood. For both tests to be wrong it would have to be a railroad job... and I don't see the police doing that to the parents when making a case against the brother. I would have been more suspicious if Michael's blood had tested positive. And it did not.

The family WAS mistreated. It is NOT standard practice to remove the children from the parents in cases like this. The children were removed BEFORE the substance was found in the house that was believed to be meth... and long before the test results on that substance came back. The children were removed for the purpose of ILLEGALLY questioning Michael Crowe. If they had only removed him and left Shannon with her parents, it would have tipped the parents off that they were looking at Michael as a suspect. The parents would have kept on top of the location of their son at all times. By removing both children and claiming it was routine they did not arouse suspicions in the Crowes who were already in a state of shock.

[Sabrina]

Uptotheminute,

It was the D.A.'s decision not to charge the Crowe's. You can go back and look in the articles and I believe there should be some quotes by Paul Pfingst or one of the deputy D.A.'s. It was their decision, and perhaps you can read for yourself what they said their reasons were. I neither agree or disagree, I only paraphrased some of what was said in court. I did not say LE did the Crowes a favor!

Does anyone actually know the extent of the Crowes' drug use? Do you? 2 grams were found in the house along with several articles or paraphanelia, it was found in their bloodstream a few weeks later, I think meth disappears after 48 to 72 hours. Do you know the Crowes' precise drug use habits, and do you know Truit's drug use habits? Did you live with them and write it down in a diary?

Meth and smoking cigarettes cannot be compared. Go read up on methamphetamine, and in particular crystal meth. There are presumptive tests law enforcement utilizes for drugs including meth with immediate results. Just like luminol. One does not keep drug paraphenelia to use aspirin. One does not carry white aspirin powder in vials in their purse or white aspirin powder in baggies. I do not know the exact time when the drugs were found, but I believe it was within the first few hours of the search.

One can drink one drink and not get drunk. One will only smoke,snort or shoot meth to get high.. Meth is a dangerous drug, one of the most dangerous out there. You cannot compare the two. Apples to oranges.

Yes, I know the kids were taken to the Polinsky children's center for a few days, and no, it was not to railroad Michael. Believe that if you want to, it's often done when there is a violent crime such as this with no sign of forced entry. The Crowe's themselves were suspects initially. I have been to the Polinsky center many times and it's not "any children's center," it's actually a lovely place, and has been a model for other shelters in the country.

Perhaps the Crowes were mistreated, but then again, so are many other victims. I sympathize with them on the death of their daughter, and there have been some recent deaths and illnesses in their family.

Although you have every right to your opinion, it is wrong to make up your minds before you have heard all of the evidence and the arguments of this case. There certainly is alot of reasonable doubt, and there is a very strong possibility Truite could get acquitted. We have been fed information on this case for years,but the details outside of San Diego have been limited. You are reading short newspaper articles from one paper, the trial transcripts are not available on line as far as I know. Local TV has covered part of the trial,but to my knowledge, national TV is not covering it in any sort of depth. You are not getting the entire trial or facts, only exerpts.

For example,I mentioned something I heard in court and on the news and was jumped on for relaying "tabloid news," and accused of posting misinformation.

It was posted "the lab was so screwed up they probably messed up on the drug tests." If anyone thinks this is an intelligent, informed statement they need to learn about drug testing,crime scene and evidence collection,DNA testing and how crime labs function. I am only attempting to inform people of some facts which they may not be aware of,are horribly misinformed about, and show a high degree of bias as cited above.

I really cannot say much more,but I don't think I will comment on this case any further. Richard Truite, offensive as he is, deserves a fair trial.

[Ghostwheel]

The amazing part about the blood was initially when tested, it was only Tuite's blood on his shirt. It wasn't until later that Stephanie's blood was found on the shirt as well.
The original testing was done by the Escondido Police Department, who was already sure they had their killer (Michael Crowe). I'm afraid I will have to take that with a grain of salt. Subsequent testings by OTHER than Escondido, showed something else. Has to make you wonder, at least, since it was proven that Escondido botched the testing.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/reports/crowe/crowe6.html
"When Durgin tested the sweat shirt in April 1998, he also took pictures of it. Digital enhancements of those photos showed that the blood was on the shirt then -- three months before Attridge had examined the clothing at the police station."

BOTH the F.B.I. and the investigative team composed of not only Escondido police, but other agencies mentioned above, believed that someone held Stephanie under the comforter while another person stabbed her. However, also keep an open mind that a person who is cold will often tuck a comforter in around themselves (I do it frequently) like a mummy. You would not need anyone to hold down a comforter in that case, the victim is already pinned in. It was 44 degrees that night, cold by Escondido standards.

[Babcat]

If you actually read my post you would see that I was not comparing smoking cigarettes to using meth. Actually my post was VERY FAIR to your viewpoint of the drug situation yet you persist in referring to my statements in posts to Up2 without addressing me. I was merely using cigarettes as an example to explain the difference between a person "who has used a drug" (in this case meth) once in awhile, or even predictably but only casually, and someone who uses around the clock... therefore a "meth user". It is just my perspective on things. There are men who have a couple of beers on weekends watching football and then one or two nights during the week watching television. And then there are men who drink a case of beer a night. If you can't see the difference there is no sense in further debating it.

BTW... the police claim they found 1.7 grams of meth in the Crowe home, which is less than 2 grams if we are going to get picky. However, this information did not come out until 13 months after the substance was found... nobody ever defined "drug paraphenelia"... B&C Headache Formula is an OTC drug that comes in powder form... One of my daughter's asthma medication is distributed in vials... and prosecutor Paul Pfingst said that the small amount of meth found would have resulted in a sentence of mandatory counseling and nothing more.

[Up2theminute]

Sabrina, I thought we were all having a discussion and you were trying to take the side of the defense as far as debating their points. Yes? No? :confused: You seem to be getting upset that people are bringing up points to this case that contradict the defense argument. Did you not expect that to happen? You say that you are just bringing up the things that will come up in trial as points that the defense will try to make..well, that is exactly what the other side of the conversation is bringing up too in connection with the prosecution arguments. As far as your claim that all we have to go on with those arguments are news/media, well, you have cited the San Diego Tribune a few times yourself so I'm not sure how exactly you feel that everything you're saying or using as an example is coming directly from the trial either. I also have no idea why you avoid addressing Babcat directly with the things that you don't agree with written by her and instead include them in your posts to me as if I was the one who originally wrote it. I don't mean that you can't bring up the points she mentioned that you didn't agree with but you seem to be writing as if we are the same person. And could you please fix the quote in the post at the top of the page, my quote is still blended in with your posts. Thanks.

[Up2theminute]

2 women describe their fright at being shadowed by Tuite

By Mark Sauer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 2, 2004

Two young women who were about the same age as Stephanie Crowe at the time of her slaying testified yesterday that they were so frightened by encounters with Richard Tuite that they called the police.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040302-9999-1m2tuite.html

[Sabrina]

Sorry if I am getting the two of you mixed up.

The problem I have is this; I don't think it's fair for people in Kansas or wherever you are to call me liar because I relayed something I saw and heard in court which was not online and you may have not known about. I also don't think it's fair to say I am spreading tabloid rumors when I stated a fact which has been in the media for years and was the subject of pre trial motions. To prove my source was not a tabloid, I found an article which mentioned it in the Union Tribune, which is really the only outlet covering the trial in any depth online.

I also do not see how anyone can compare illegal crystal meth use with alcohol and tobacco. The sole purpose of crystal meth usage is to get high.It is produced in labs for this purpose only, and is not produced for medicinal or any other value. When I have a glass of wine or smoke a cigarette, I do not use it for the purpose of getting high. Anyone who uses crystal meth is using it to get high. Plus it's illegal.

If you want to disregard drug use, fine, but compare it to other illegal similar substances such as cocaine or heroin, do not compare meth to alcohol or tobacco, or even marijuana which is another classification of drug altogether.

By the way, 1.7 grams of crystal meth, has a street value of around $170-$200. This is not the price of a 6 pack or even a carton of cigarettes.

People go to jail for possessing drug paraphanelia. This was ridiculed. In case you don't know, this can be pipes, syringes, etc. It's illegal to posess or offer for sale in retail outlets. Look up the California codes.

I know of a case where the defendant plea bargained for 30 days in jail and 2 years probation for possession of drug paraphanelia. A pipe with meth residue.

Finding and confiscating drugs in the home, then having it show up with positive results in a blood or urine test 2 weeks later shows drugs were used 24-72 hours prior to the test. The evidence is there that these people are not using the drug for the first time since there are now 2 instances where it was discovered in their possession over a 2 week period.

It was suggested on this forum that the lab was wrong with the drug tests because the lab was screwed up. This is a ridiculous statement and I was only pointing out how silly it was to even state this.

I am not an advocat for Richard Tuite or the defense. I am squarely on the fence and want to learn about all the evidence. I could honestly say I was sure Westerfield did it before his trial started because I had knowledge of the plea bargain. I am only an advocat for fair trials, no matter how offensive the defendant may be. Personally, I am of the opinion that Tuite is not competent to stand trial but since the court psychiatrists seem to think he is, then I guess my perception is legally incorrect.

Patton showed photo evidence and outlined some of the witnesses he would be presenting, along with what they would testify to, and I was only relaying that information and got jumped on. If Patton comes through, which I have reason to believe he will, there will be alot of reasonable doubt raised. The majority of people I have spoken to in San Diego about the case feel like Tuite is being railroaded and an aquittal is a strong possibility.

It's easy to dislikel Truite and think him guilty because he looked like the classic "boogie man" everyone wants to think commits the unspeakable.

There is a reason(s) why Pfingst would not issue an arrest warrant for Truite, and the case. Largely because of pressure from the civil case and Crowe's lawyers, it was transferred to the attorney general who almost never prosecutes homicide cases. This case was also grounds for contention during the D.A. election. The civil case seems to be diminishing as much of the plantiffs' case has been ruled inadmissible. But I guess you all know this.

In the case of a violent crime in a home where the parents have not been ruled out,(they were suspects initially too) and there was no sign of forced entry, the children may be taken to a shelter. Maybe this isn't a procedure in your county, but I know of other cases where it's been handled this way in San Diego county.

I can't comment any further on the case or specific evidence until it's over.

[BirdieBoo]

I didn't live in San Diego at the time this happened, but I did work in a local TV newsroom when I first moved here, and when I first heard the story about the re-enactment the police did, some of my coworkers told me that they still thought the boys did it.

I think part of it may be the demeanor of the Crowe family, I did meet them on one occasion (at the time I didn't know who they were) and they did not strike me as being very personable, but I know this does not mean Michael is a murderer.

When Tuite escaped, I made a comment that if I were a member of the Crowe family, I would be out there hunting him down personally, And one of my friends told me that she STILL didn't think Tuite did it, at least not on his own, and thought the boys might have had something to do with it .
This was just a few weeks ago, and my friend is a very intelligent, level-headed person. Maybe she is privy to some off the record info that I don't know, as she still works in the news biz. Or maybe it is just her personal opinion. I don't know. But most of the people I have talked to in my personal life seem to feel that Tuite is the one being railroaded.

I myself haven't watched this case closely enough from the beginning to decide.

[LovelyPigeon]

Jury hears DNA evidence

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040308-1745-tuite.html

[Up2theminute]

Former lab chief questioned about bloodstains in Tuite case

By Mark Sauer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 16, 2004

The critical question of how Stephanie Crowe's blood got on the red sweat shirt worn by Richard Tuite the night she was slain was the focus of testimony yesterday, as the trial of the former transient entered its second month.

SignOnSanDiego (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040316-9999-news_1m16tuite.html)

[Up2theminute]

Stephanie Crowe's parents testify in Tuite trial

SIGNONSANDIEGO NEWS SERVICES
5:58 p.m. March 16, 2004

SAN DIEGO – The mother of Stephanie Crowe testified today that she twice heard knocking or banging noises in her home the night her daughter was killed but didn't get up to check them out.

SignOnSanDiego.com (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040316-1758-tuite.html)

[Doyle]

Murder victim Stephanie Crowe's brother was quiet and playing with an electronic game in the minutes after his sister's body was found in their home, Escondido police officers testified today. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040318-1328-tuite_thurs.html

[Up2theminute]

I fail to see how this most recent police testimony about Michael's demeanor is making anything better for Tuite. If anything, it shows how they were immediately focused on the family and interpreting any and all behavior as hinky. In one instance, his behavior is "odd" because he was quietly playing with a video game while the family was sitting there waiting in the living room. This is supposed to be suspicious because it could be indicative that he just didn't care and was emotionally, mentally, etc. 'removed' from the situation. But yet right after this, they describe another point where Michael puts his head on his mother's shoulder and despite the fact that this is completely contradictory to where they were trying to go with the point about him playing the video game (trying to make him appear detached) they still have to find something "odd" about that behavior...because..hmmm..uhh..gee...it was indicative that Michael was "dealing with things in another way." :hand:

[Ghostwheel]

Let's see, they "were ushered into the living room and told not to talk". So what's a 14 year old boy supposed to do? He's in shock, I would think. How many guys do you know that lose themselves in a video game when they are stressed? (my answer is about 95%, but we're all geeks)

Doesn't seem too weird to me.

Yet they think a schizophrenic who is eating chicken out of a dumpster would have to be acting differently how? if he just killed someone. A schizophrenic doesn't have a grip on reality, so could easily not be upset in the slightest if he had killed someone.

[Doyle]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20040319-9999-news_7m19tuite.html
Richard Tuite's attorneys yesterday began building their case that Michael Crowe engineered a plot to kill his younger sister. The defense offered testimony from several Escondido police officers who investigated the January 1998 slaying of Stephanie Crowe.

[Doyle]

The original lead investigator in the Stephanie Crowe murder case testified today he may have been "wrong" when he told a grand jury that blood was found on a knife thought to be the murder weapon.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040325-1430-tuite-early.html

After sitting through two days of interrogation videotape, jurors in the Richard Tuite trial yesterday heard the lead investigator in the Stephanie Crowe slaying say he had good reason to harshly question a teenager overnight.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040325-1430-tuite-early.html

[Ghostwheel]

"At Tuite's preliminary hearing last year, Treadway testified that Claytor also told him off camera that if he went to prison he would be beaten, raped and traded among inmates for cartons of cigarettes. Treadway said the conversation took place as he was being processed at the police crime lab.

He testified that it was to avoid prison at any cost that he finally told Claytor and other detectives an elaborate tale of conspiracy and murder using the only tool available – his imagination. "

How many 15 year olds (or even adults, for that matter) wouldn't have done anything to stay out of jail at that point. How could you ever be sure you got a true confession. Kind of like beating the testimony out of slaves in the old days.

[Doyle]

A "Best Defense" knife found under the bed of one of three teenagers originally charged with Stephanie Crowe's murder is consistent with the weapon that killed her, a defense expert testified Monday.

Dr. Werner Spitz testified in the Richard Tuite murder trial that the "Best Defense" knife could have been used to inflict two deep knife wounds into the victim.
http://www.kfmb.com/topstory23892.html

[Doyle]

Stephanie Crowe was "a targeted victim" and was controlled during the knife attack, probably by "multiple assailants" familiar with the house, according to an FBI analyst who testified on behalf of the defense yesterday in the trial of Richard Tuite.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040409-9999-1mc9tuite.html

A transient charged two years ago with killing Stephanie Crowe suffers from mental illnesses including schizophrenia, organic brain syndrome and methamphetamine abuse, a psychiatrist testified today. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040408-1734-tuite.html

[Doyle]

Michael Crowe took the stand Monday in the Richard Tuite murder trial, 10News reported. He was the prosecutor's first witness in their rebuttal case.
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2997887/detail.html?treets=sand&tml=sand_break&ts=T&tmi=sand_break_3356_03260104122004

[LovelyPigeon]

Under oath before a grand jury the lead investigator "tried" to tell the truth about blood that didn't actually exist on the found knife. My guess is that the lies he told Michael while interrogating him became his "truth" and was hard to shake off even when testifying in court. What a horrible and false web LE wrapped around Michael and his friends.

I haven't heard anything yet to make me think Tuite's sweatshirt got Stephanie's blood on it any way except when she was being killed.

[Doyle]

Michael Crowe is testifying again today in the Richard Tuite murder trial. He is the prosecution's first witness in their rebuttal case.Crowe's sister, Stephanie, was stabbed to death six years ago at the family's Escondido home. Monday, Crowe told the jury about his state of mind during the murder and how his relationship with his sister improved in the months before her death.
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2997887/detail.html?treets=sand&tml=sand_break&ts=T&tmi=sand_break_3355_10560104132004




personally, I am still on the fence on this...

[Doyle]

Michael Crowe was distraught and crying at times on the witness stand yesterday as he watched himself go through an apparent emotional breakdown during a videotaped police interrogation administered the day after his sister Stephanie was found stabbed to death.

"I don't like remembering that," Crowe softly said, crying hard in the tense courtroom of San Diego Superior Court Judge Frederic Link. "I wish they wouldn't have done that to me."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040414-9999-1mi14tuite.html

[Doyle]

Crowe Breaks Down During Testimony
Crowe Was 'Scared, Wanted To Go Home
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/3001874/detail.html?treets=sand&tml=sand_break&ts=T&tmi=sand_break_3356_11090104142004

[Ghostwheel]

personally, I am still on the fence on this...I am curious, how so? Do you think that maybe someone other than Richard Tuite did it, or more than one person, or that Michael Crowe and his friends may really have done it, or some other idea? I lean more toward Richard Tuite, but this case has been so messed up from the beginning, I'm open to other possibilities.

[Doyle]

I am just not convinced that Michael Crowe and friends were not involved.

This case has been messed up from the beginning however.

[Doyle]

An angry, brooding loner with a passion for violent video games is how the defense attempted to portray Stephanie Crowe's brother during his cross-examination yesterday in the trial of Richard Tuite.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040415-9999-1mc15tuite.html

[Doyle]

Michael Crowe, the brother of murder victim Stephanie Crowe, resumed testimony Monday in the trial of Richard Tuite.
Tuite's defense team emphasized Crowe's inability to recall what happened six years ago.

Crowe, a 20-year-old college student, said he lied to police about his relationship with his sister because he was just trying to give them what they wanted.

Last week, Crowe testified tearfully that he lied to Escondido police detectives about killing his 12-year-old sister in 1998 because they told him he could get treatment -- and avoid jail time -- if he did.
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/3018855/detail.html?treets=sand&tml=sand_break&ts=T&tmi=sand_break_3354_11030204192004

[Babcat]

Michael Crowe, the brother of murder victim Stephanie Crowe, resumed testimony Monday in the trial of Richard Tuite.
Tuite's defense team emphasized Crowe's inability to recall what happened six years ago.

OK... now think carefully... anybody... what went down last night while you were asleep? No asking the cat either!

Sometimes I am dumbfounded by an attorney's ability to make no knowledge of a crime appear to indicate guilt rather than innocence. Sometimes I am even more astonished that a judge would allow such misleading garbage in front of a jury when it is simply designed to confuse them... a desperate "Hail Mary" in the last 4 seconds of the game. And yet it is still a commonly used tactic.

[Ghostwheel]

Michael Crowe, the brother of murder victim Stephanie Crowe, resumed testimony Monday in the trial of Richard Tuite.
Tuite's defense team emphasized Crowe's inability to recall what happened six years ago.
****Sarcasm alert on****
Boy howdy, I know I can tell you exactly what happened six years ago, when my sister was murdered, and I was in shock, and was stuck in a room with some pretty mean policemen who were convinced I had killed my sister, and all I wanted was my parents, and my "friends" were telling stories that made no sense to me. I'd sure as anything be trying to remember such a wonderful time in MY life.

****sarcasm alert off****
:rolleyes:

[Ghostwheel]

I am just not convinced that Michael Crowe and friends were not involved.

This case has been messed up from the beginning however.Which part makes you think they might have been involved? What part makes you go, Hmmmmm?

[Up2theminute]

Why would the friends have gotten involved and done all of that for (or with) Michael? And wasn't one of the friends not even really on speaking terms with them at that time? I thought I remember reading that Aaron Houser hadn't even really been talking to or friends with Michael lately at that time.

[Babcat]

This is the just what I was discussing once before. The total lunacy and complete lack of common sense (on the part of the police) in their metamorphosis of a "theory".

The original logic given for focusing on a 14-year-old gifted student who had never been in trouble prior to this, was that the father was an obvious "no", there was no disturbance, and no sign of an intruder in the Crowe home (that phrase is so overused... like a drone... by police everywhere that it actually makes me cringe. It is almost as if you can picture them at the academy, as if in boot camp, being forced to repeat over and over again "No sign of an intruder. No evidence of forced entry."... *shudder*)

So they focus on an easy target... a child. They lie to him about evidence that does not even remotely exist. Of course they can legally do this with adults... but a child will accept what a policeman says without question. That is why it is the LAW that a PARENT be informed of the questioning and be allowed to be present. An adult guardian also can choose to hire an attorney for the child, something the child CANNOT do by law. No one under the age of 18 in most states, 17 in some states, can enter into a legal contract. That is why you do not question a child without a parent's informed consent. It is not only the law... it is a matter of law enforcement ethics.

By the time they got finished manipulating Michael Crowe, they had a total of at least THREE awkward teenage boys fumbling around in this house while the rest of the family slept right through it. They had Joshua Treadway sitting patiently at the dining room table, (in full view of any family member who might wake up to use the bathroom) waiting for Aaron Hauser to "finish off" Stephanie, after her violent struggle with her own brother, so he could then walk another five miles back home. :rolleyes:

But there was "no sign of anyone being in that house other than the Crowe family." :bang:

One small... skinny... uninhibited by drug use... seen at every other house on the block that night... prior convicted criminal... absolutely could NOT have managed to breach the Crowe home and stab Stephanie.

BUT... three inexperienced... clumsy by design... two of them exhausted from walking five miles in record time... teenage boys... could have EASILY converged upon the Crowe home and "group murdered" a twelve-year-old girl?? And then waltzed right back out disturbing no one?? A girl, nearly as large as they were... who would have recognized all three of them... and would have almost certainly yelled out their names in an effort to make them stop. Whereas the same 12-year-old child, confronted by a near thirty-year-old man she had never seen in her life, would most likely have been paralyzed by fear, and never got the chance to make a sound.

[Ghostwheel]

BUT... three inexperienced... clumsy by design... two of them exhausted from walking five miles in record time... teenage boys... could have EASILY converged upon the Crowe home and "group murdered" a twelve-year-old girl?? And then waltzed right back out disturbing no one?? A girl, nearly as large as they were... who would have recognized all three of them... and would have almost certainly yelled out their names in an effort to make them stop. Whereas the same 12-year-old child, confronted by a near thirty-year-old man she had never seen in her life, would most likely have been paralyzed by fear, and never got the chance to make a sound.Ah, but could ONE of the boys have done it? As a bizarre theory, could Joshua Treadway, the one who accused Michael, have actually have done it? He would know the habits of the family ( doors locked or not, what times they went to bed, etc). He could describe it so completely because he did it? Not that I believe that, BTW, just thinking of other possibilities.

I don't believe that a person, sound asleep in bed, being stabbed awake would necessarily scream, either, but I always find it hard to believe people can walk around in a house and no one wakes up. My kids move and I wake up (I keep hoping I'll outgrow that-I haven't had a decent night's sleep in four years) Must be the house layout.

[Doyle]

The exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies Michael Crowe told Escondido detectives during his interrogation following the killing of his sister were part of a desperate attempt to avoid jail, he testified yesterday.

On the stand for the third day in the trial of Richard Tuite, Crowe said in response to questions from defense attorney Brad Patton that he made up things in an effort to give detectives what he thought they wanted to hear.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040420-9999-1m20tuite.html

This is part of what makes me go hmmmm... why would he start lying.

[Ghostwheel]

This is part of what makes me go hmmmm... why would he start lying.I understand what you are saying. For myself, that does not make me go Hmmm only because I saw what the police did to my murdered friend's boyfriend. They told him they could prove he did it, but it was a lot of hooey. Until he finally produced his witness (he was out of town), they didn't leave him alone. IMO, a fourteen year old would have said anything to make them stop badgering him after a few hours of being told that they can prove he did it. What he says in the article makes sense to me.
"The meaning to him, Crowe testified, was that "if I could answer their questions and explain everything to them I would be able to go to the mental health place instead of to jail." " If I was up against authority who thought I was guilty, and they told me I was either going to jail or to a mental institution, I might have tried for the mental institution, too. (maybe not)

Your body and brain are pretty messed up when you are 14, again IMO. Remember that glorious time when your hormones are jerking you all over, you're too old to be a kid and too young to be an adult?

[Babcat]

Doyle,

Have you seen the tapes of the interrogation the police did of Michael Crowe? They are truly painful to watch. My oldest daughter will be fourteen in two weeks. Kids of this age are nearly as big as adults. It is deceptive to those who don't have kids that age yet, or have first hand experience with kids that age, because it is easy to treat them as you would an adult. It is hard for most people to remember being that age. They might remember events, friends, etc., but they don't remember how they reasoned then compared to now. They don't remember how they reacted emotionally to things compared to how they react as an adult. It is very difficult to remove yourself from yourself, essentially, and remember back to a time when you didn't know what you know now.

Kids at 14 are soooo gullible. They are like peacocks, spreading out their feathers and puffing out their chests trying very hard to be "grown-up", and not allow others to see that their brain still functions as a child. If you don't have a kid that age, but you can find a neighbor kid or relative you know well who is comfortable with you, try an experiment. It really doesn't matter if the kid is a boy or a girl, but keep in mind that boys are even LESS mature at age 14. Boys will puff out that chest and spread those feathers wider than girls will, yet they are even MORE gullible as a general rule. (This is why there is such a problem with girls of thirteen and fourteen attempting to sneak "dating" boys of 16, 17, even older, because boys their own age are so far behind them.)

Anyway... the experiment. Try very seriously and straight faced telling a kid of 14 an Urban Legend that you know would make your friends your own age roll their eyes. If it isn't widely told, (and therefore already known to the kid as an Urban Legend) watch how fast they buy it. Or try this... tell the kid that you were watching Animal Planet while they were at school and it was so interesting. Explain how the Aborigines in Australia had found a way to breed kangaroos with mountain goats and make phenomenal pack animals. (I'm making this up as I go along just as an example.) Tell him/her you can't wait to go to the website about it... then watch the kid's reaction. An adult would wait curiously and play along, but would be expecting a punchline at the end if you brought up a website. They would be expecting a stupid cartoon or doctored photo as the finale of this joke. But the 14-year-old would be buying this hook, line, and sinker. If the website actually existed, and the cartoon appeared, it would literally take them by surprise.

This has NOTHING to do with intelligence. My nine-year-old is a gifted student. She is a year ahead in school, attends a special program one day a week, reads on a high school level, solves complex puzzles and algebra problems. She also starts crying if she drops the ball during a softball play. She always has mysterious ailments come upon her when she's told to clean her room. She needs to be sent back upstairs several mornings a week and "reminded" to brush her teeth. She may have the reading comprehension of age 15, but she has the maturity of age nine.

Michael Crowe was plenty intelligent enough to understand what the police were saying and implying, more so than most 14-year-old boys. But he had the maturity level of a 14-year-old boy. The combination of these two factors made his interrogation even MORE painful to watch. It was like watching my own daughter Shannon (the nine-year-old) be interrogated. Because of the superior intelligence they have an insight ability that others their age do not have. And most of them also have a strong desire to please their teachers, parents, or anyone they see as an instructor. They can see the end of the puzzle as the interrogator starts laying out the pieces. They WANT to solve it, because it is their nature. But they do not have enough life experience to recognize a trap. It nevers enters their mind that the adult may be lying, or just wrong. And to make matters worse, they are gullible, because all emotionally immature people are. And all children are emotionally immature. But those who feel an obligation to solve the puzzle try to assimilate what they know with what they are being told. When the two scenarios cannot be justified, the child becomes anxious because they cannot solve the puzzle. This is when they begin to doubt their own knowledge of an event rather than doubt what the adult is telling them.

It is similar to having a dream and trying to tell the dream to someone else the next day. Dreams never entirely make sense, so almost all people will fill in the details that are missing in order to piece together a coherent story. They aren't intentionally lying. They are piecing together a puzzle to make a picture appear. Michael Crowe was trying to draw on what he knew to be the truth, and yet make the "facts" the police were telling him somehow fit together. There was no plausible way to do that without changing the truth. The police were not accepting the truth. In his immature mind he had no choice but to create a bridge between his own knowledge and what he believed was their knowledge.

[Doyle]

where are the interviews available to look at... I have not seen them.

I am partially from Missouri and would like to see them.

[Babcat]

Hmmm... I'll have to see if I can find some on the net to view. I have seen them repeatedly on different shows. Court TV had a documentary about it. Not the movie... the actual tapes. American Justice on A&E had an hour long program that showed a good deal of the tapes. Of course they are excerpts since the entire interrogation was hours long. But the part of the interrogation where Michael makes his "confession" has been shown repeatedly... I know I have seen it dozens of times. I don't tend to get emotionally involved easily in true crime stories since I watch and read so much of it that I would be depressed all the time. But this tape makes me cry. And it makes me terribly angry.

I cannot imagine what kind of fury it would produce in me if I were Michael's mother watching these grown men deceive and bully this child and tear him apart emotionally just hours after my daughter was butchered by someone they photographed then showed him the door. THREE grown men so totally clueless about children it boggles the mind. Maybe that particular police department could benefit from hiring more homicide detectives so these men could be home more often and actually get to know their own children. Then maybe they would get a clue. At least one child psychologist saw the tapes and called it the worst case of child abuse he ever saw in his life.

[LovelyPigeon]

Doyle, you could check this page at Court Tv weekly and maybe you'll catch the next showing of "The Interrogation of Michael Crowe":
http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/thesystem/

[Ghostwheel]

Here's one:

http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/mugshots/indepth/crowe.html

Also, try this
http://nbcsandiego.feedroom.com/iframeset.jsp?ord=570152There are bits and pieces of Micheal's interrogation all over.

Go to the last page of the videos. Joshua Treadway's interrogation should be there.

[Doyle]

thanks guys,

I will look at these.

[Doyle]

Prosecutors in the Richard Tuite trial called classmates, Crowe family members and friends to the stand yesterday in an attempt to counter the defense's portrayal of Michael Crowe as a brooding, anger-filled loner from a dysfunctional family who wanted his sister, Stephanie, dead.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040421-9999-1mi21tuite.html

When detectives wouldn't accept the truth for an answer and said he could be charged with Stephanie Crowe's murder, Joshua Treadway said he resorted to making up a conspiracy tale to please his interrogators and stay out of jail.

Treadway, whose initial interrogation came on his 15th birthday in January 1998, testified yesterday in the trial of Richard Tuite that detectives convinced him they could prove the knife found under his bed was the one used to kill the 12-year-old Escondido girl.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040422-9999-1mc22tuite.html

[Doyle]

For Joshua Treadway, the message from Escondido police detectives throughout his 12-hour, overnight interrogation was clear:

Michael Crowe was jealous of his sister and wanted her dead; his friend Aaron Houser was evil; and police could prove the knife found under Treadway's bed was used to kill Stephanie Crowe.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040423-9999-1mc23tuite.html

[Doyle]

One of three teens originally charged with murdering his friend's sister testified today he had no reason to kill the girl and never heard the brother talk about it either.

Aaron Houser, 21, was called to the stand in the trial of transient Richard Tuite.

Houser told jurors he was mad at Michael Crowe and wasn't speaking to him in the months before 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe was stabbed to death Jan. 21, 1998.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040427-1651-tuite.html

[Doyle]

At the insistence of detectives who were listening in, Joshua Treadway placed a phone call and read questions from a script in an effort to incriminate Aaron Houser in the murder of Stephanie Crowe.

That "controlled call" on Jan. 28, 1998, one week after the Escondido 12-year-old's body was found in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor, was the subject of intense testimony in the murder trial of Richard Tuite yesterday.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040428-9999-1mi28tuite.html

Aaron Houser, a member of the teenage trio once accused of the murder of Stephanie Crowe, calmly testified Tuesday that he was not involved in the 1998 slaying of the 12-year-old Escondido girl.

Houser also tried to explain statements he'd made and the emotions he felt during a phone call between him and friend Joshua Treadway, a taped conversation that Treadway had made at the behest of the Escondido Police Department.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/04/28/news/inland/20_20_494_27_04.txt

[Doyle]

Though prevented by the judge from giving his opinion, an expert on false confessions and police interrogations gave jurors plenty of dots to connect during testimony yesterday in the Richard Tuite murder trial.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040429-9999-1mc29tuite.html

[LovelyPigeon]

I'm of the opinion that what LE did to those 3 teenagers is reprehensible. I've seen nothing so far in this trial that does anything but strengthen that opinion.

[Doyle]

A forensic expert testified yesterday that it was "virtually impossible" for Stephanie Crowe's blood to be transferred from a camera tripod onto Richard Tuite's shirt when it was examined at a police crime lab.

The testimony by John Thornton, a retired forensic-science professor at the University of California Berkeley, called into question the defense's explanation regarding a key piece of evidence against the mentally ill former transient.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040430-9999-1mi30tuite.html

[Doyle]

Theories of police interrogations and contamination of evidence took a front seat in court last week as prosecutors tried to rebut accusations that Stephanie Crowe's murder came at the hands of her brother and two of his buddies.

The theories were the topic of expert testimony as prosecutors continued to argue that the Escondido Police Department took a wrong turn early on in the investigation of the 1998 slaying of the popular 12-year-old girl.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/05/02/news/top_stories/19_22_095_1_04.txt

[Doyle]

After 14 weeks, 169 witnesses, 30 hours of interrogation videotape and countless crime-scene photos and exhibits, testimony ended yesterday in the trial of Richard Tuite in the 1998 slaying of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe of Escondido
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040505-9999-1mi5tuite.html

On the hit TV show "CSI," the crime lab is a place of perfection, the technicians godlike in their ability to find and interpret blood drops, fingerprints and knife wounds.

By the time Gil Grissom and his crew have finished running evidence through their high-tech gizmos in Las Vegas, in fact, there's never any question about what happened – or about the identity of the bad guy.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040504-9999-lz1c4csi.html

A forensic expert testified yesterday that the knife Richard Tuite's attorneys say was used by three teenagers to kill Stephanie Crowe does not match cuts in the girl's comforter.

Barton Epstein, a Minnesota criminalist, said the tests he did on Stephanie's comforter using a Best Defense knife caused certain tearing not found in the roughly 1-foot-square swatch through which the Escondido 12-year-old was stabbed.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040504-9999-1m4tuite.html

[Up2theminute]

One of three teens originally charged with murdering his friend's sister testified today he had no reason to kill the girl and never heard the brother talk about it either.

Aaron Houser, 21, was called to the stand in the trial of transient Richard Tuite.

Houser told jurors he was mad at Michael Crowe and wasn't speaking to him in the months before 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe was stabbed to death Jan. 21, 1998.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040427-1651-tuite.html

This is one of the things I pointed out a page back. If they hadn't been talking, then how does the defense propose that they even planned this out? I mean, surely the cops would have been able to trace phone activity between these three. From what I remember, there was only one phone call between Michael and Johsua Treadway when Joshua called to find out why he wasn't in school that day. Other than that there was no indication that there had been some great big plan going on between the three of them. And then Aaron Houser suddenly being mad at Michael for months, on the outs with him..just all of a sudden decides to help him carry out some plan to kill his sister. I can't believe it. Interesting article about the knife too and how it doesn't match the knife marks and cuts made on the bed.

[LovelyPigeon]

I can't help but wonder--if the 3 teens had gone to trial, would there be believeable expert testimony that the knife didn't match the cuts on the comforter, etc? Would the defense and any of their experts have been derided by posters?

If I were juror, I would vote guilty for Tuite.

[Love_Mama]

Believe me all of you, this is a very strange case. I live in San Diego and watched this from the beginning. I honestly at this point don't know what to think.....Know this link has been posted....but thought I'd just copy this part of it. I'm going to print this one out!
xxxxxxxxo
mama

Evidence: Tuite's red sweat shirt.
In CSI's hands: Using state-of-the art technology, investigators examine it closely right away, find any bloodstains and test it for DNA. Reality check: Escondido police put the shirt in a paper bag and don't examine it until three months after the slaying. They see no blood on the shirt and spray it with fluorescein, an uncommon blood-detection technique. Still nothing. Months later, an independent lab finds stains on the shirt, determines they are blood and does DNA profiling that links the drops to Stephanie.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Tuite's white T-shirt.
In CSI's hands: Immediate examination, location of all bloodstains, DNA testing. Reality check: Examining it three months after the slaying, detectives see blood stains on the front of the shirt, circle them with black pen, and send the garment to another lab for DNA testing. That lab identifies circled stains as Tuite's blood, and does no further examination. Five years later, a third lab looks at the entire shirt and finds more bloodstains by the bottom hem; DNA testing links them to Stephanie.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Blood-stain interpretation.
In CSI's hands: Technicians determine from the size, shape and pattern of the stains how they got on the shirts. This helps tell them how the stabbing happened. Reality check: Experts agree that the stains on the white T-shirt are smears, but they disagree about the red sweat shirt. Prosecution witnesses say the stains appear to be spatter, as would be seen when blood is cast off a knife during a stabbing, and a defense consultant says it could be dried blood that was rehydrated – as in flecks falling off a tripod and then being sprayed with fluorescein.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Best Defense Knife.
In CSI's hands: Knife, found under Treadway's bed, is tested for blood, compared to Stephanie's wounds and conclusively ruled in or out as the murder weapon. Reality check: Police spray fluorescein on knife, think there might be blood, send it to another lab. No blood is found. Medical examiner says knife is consistent with some of the wounds, inconsistent with others – as would be an untold number of other knives.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evidence: Items found in Tuite's pockets.
In CSI's hands: Technicians examine Snickers wrapper, cough-drop wrapper, matchbooks and coins to see if they can be linked to the Crowe house by fingerprints or other evidence. Items are saved. Reality check: Police take photographs of the items but don't fingerprint them and give them back to Tuite when he is released after brief questioning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Fingerprints at the Crowe house.
In CSI's hands: If the suspected killer left fingerprints, technicians find them, lift them cleanly, positively identify them. Reality check: Police lift approximately 90 fingerprints but are able to positively identify less than half of them because of "insufficient ridge characteristics." None match Tuite (or Treadway or Houser).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Bloody shoe print.
In CSI's hands: The print, found on a piece of paper on the floor of Stephanie's bedroom, is compared to shoes worn by the suspected killer in an attempt to link him to the house. Reality check: The shoe belonged to a police evidence technician, who accidentally stepped in the blood.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evidence: Hairs in Stephanie's hands.
In CSI's hands: Hair is linked through DNA to a suspect. In a flashback, viewers see Stephanie pulling it from the killer's head during a struggle.
Reality check: Hairs are not positively identified. Some appear to belong to animals. Police eventually conclude she probably got them in her hand as she crawled along the floor after she was stabbed.

[Babcat]

Well... one place she did not get those hairs was from her brother's head, or anyone else's head, in the process of being killed. Hairs retrieved in that fashion would have been forcibly pulled from the scalp and most likely contain enough NUCLEAR DNA to match conclusively to one person. Hairs that lay on carpet for even the short period of time of 24 hrs appear under a microscope as in the first phases of drying out, and beginning to become brittle to some degree. Hairs pulled during a defensive attempt on the part of Stephanie would be still moist and appear recently shed. Even if they could say through Mitochondrial DNA that the hairs belong to a child in the home or to Cheryl or Cheryl's mother (which is the best profile MDNA can give) it means nothing since they all lived there at the time of the crime. With MDNA only Stephanie's father could be ruled out in the family. If nuclear DNA existed on the hairs, such as skin fragments from the scalp, a definitive match to a certain family member could be made. And yet since that member would live there... there would still be wiggle room... but not enough to convince a jury it is unrelated IMO. If there is any nuclear DNA present clinging to the hairs then it has been horribly irresponsible of the police if they haven't had a profile made.

As far as Tuite's sweatshirt... some of the greatest blood spatter experts in the nation have firmly taken the stand of this being a spatter pattern, not a chance contamination.

We could make this into a Westerfield convoluted explanation about Stephanie playing truth or dare with Richard Tuite at an earlier time and coincidentally getting a nosebleed. And then coincidentally blowing her nose without the aid of a tissue, therefore spraying blood on the poor unsuspecting fellow, who would coincidentally surface as a suspect despite the railroad job done on three young teen boys.

Tuite killed Stephanie. There is no reasonable doubt.

[Doyle]

Urging the jurors to use their common sense and reason, a state prosecutor argued yesterday that "dynamite" DNA evidence in the case against Richard Tuite proves he killed Stephanie Crowe.

"There is no other reason for the blood on his clothing," Assistant Attorney General David Druliner said as closing arguments in the trial began in San Diego Superior Court.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040511-9999-1m11tuite.html

[Up2theminute]

Love Mama, that is a very interesting comparison of how things should of or would have happened had they been in the hands of a skilled CSI Team in comparison to how the Escondido police handled it. So true too!

[Ghostwheel]

Evidence: Blood-stain interpretation.
In CSI's hands: Technicians determine from the size, shape and pattern of the stains how they got on the shirts. This helps tell them how the stabbing happened. Reality check: Experts agree that the stains on the white T-shirt are smears, but they disagree about the red sweat shirt. Prosecution witnesses say the stains appear to be spatter, as would be seen when blood is cast off a knife during a stabbing, and a defense consultant says it could be dried blood that was rehydrated – as in flecks falling off a tripod and then being sprayed with fluorescein.
Flecks falling off a tridpod, then sprayed with fluorescein? Wow, they are reaching. Try taking some dried blood, putting it on a piece of sweatshirt, and "re-hydrating" it. The pattern is not even similar to blood spatter. (Remember, I make stained glass. I've cut myself, spattered myself, dried blood on myself, smeared blood on myself, "re-hydrated" blood on myself and done the same to everything around me-you should have seen the time a very pointed piece of glass hit the vein in the top of my foot)

[Doyle]

Pointing to the lack of fingerprint, hair or fiber evidence, a defense attorney told jurors yesterday that prosecutors have failed to prove Richard Tuite killed Stephanie Crowe.

"We're not talking about innocence here – nobody is innocent," Bill Fletcher said on the second day of closing arguments in the San Diego Superior Court trial. "We're talking about whether the state has proven its case."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040512-9999-1mi12tuite.html

[Doyle]

Both sides traded closing-argument volleys in the Richard Tuite murder trial yesterday, offering now-familiar and sharply conflicting versions of who killed Stephanie Crowe.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040513-9999-1mi13tuite.html

The eight women and four men deciding the fate of murder defendant Richard Tuite spent five hours deliberating without reaching a verdict yesterday after getting the case shortly before 10 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040514-9999-1mi14tuite.html

[LovelyPigeon]

Tuite was not a neighbor of the Crowe's. He was never known to the Crowes at all, and vice versa. There is no known incidence that he was ever invited inside the Crowe home. No contact with any of the Crowes. No comparison to the Van Dam/Westerfield case.

[Babcat]

LP,

Are you answering a post of mine? I'm confused.

But whether you are or aren't... In the Crowe case:

Richard Tuite's sister went to school with Sheryl Crowe and they did know each other. There is, however, no evidence that the Crowes knew Richard, who was much younger than his sister. There is no evidence he was ever in the Crowe home by invitation.

Though Tuite was not a neighbor in the sense that he did not live in that neighborhood, he was not a transient either. And he wasn't homeless. He had lived right there in that area his entire life, and he did have "friends" (most likely drug associates) that lived in that neighborhood at one time. Whether the elusive Tracy did drugs or just hung around with people who did, she lived in that neighborhood at one time with a relative, I believe her grandparents.

In the Westerfield case:

David Westerfield was obviously a neighbor of the Van Dams and lived only a couple of doors away. However, there is no evidence they "knew" him, other than to wave in a friendly manner (as anyone would to a neighbor), or to sell Girl Scout cookies since they visited every neighbor door to door on their block. There is no evidence he was ever in the Van Dam home by invitation, just like Tuite was never in the Crowe home. In fact, Westerfield himself claimed he had "never been invited."


In both cases:

In both the Tuite case and the Westerfield case, no fingerprints or other evidence was found to prove conclusively that either had been in the "crime scene home" of either person's particular case.

In both cases DNA blood evidence belonging to the little girl victim was found on clothing belonging to the defendants with no reasonable explanation other than involvement in the victim's demise. Though both defendants had attorneys that attempted to present a convoluted set of circumstances to explain such evidence away... neither met the criteria of "reasonable". In the Tuite case there was no evidence of any prior contact with the victim at all, and in the Westerfield case there was no evidence of the victim's contact with that item of clothing, and certainly not while bleeding in any manner. In fact there was no evidence the victim ever physically touched the defendant, or his clothing, at all!

In both cases family members were openly accused in the press of being involved. In the Tuite case, Michael Crowe was first accused in the press because the police had supposedly obtained a confession, later proven to be coerced. In the Westerfield case the parents were accused because the press always accuses the parents with no basis, as we have seen time after time in case after case.

In both cases the defendants were under the influence... in Tuite's case, drugs, in Westerfield's case, alcohol.

Richard Tuite actually makes a more sympathetic defendant. He was previously diagnosed as mentally ill (schizophrenic), and the MO of leaving the victim right where she was killed and calmly walking away, tends to point to that very diagnosis. I believe it is not clear whether or not Tuite even realized, or remembered, he had murdered Stephanie Crowe. Though, on the flip side, it is clear that he was full of rage and did have the intent to kill Tracy, so it really doesn't matter who his victim ultimately was (except perhaps to Tracy herself whom I'm sure has thanked God often... and the Crowes who have to wonder how their daughter ended up the wildcard, and I'm sure often ask God "why.")

Westerfield is completely unsympathetic. He is not mentally ill. He knew exactly what he was doing as is evidenced by his extreme attempts to elude detection by use of the local cleaners, his own washer and dryer, and the remote location he chose for the dumping of the victim's body... like a piece of used up trash.

The same location he was willing to map when he thought he could make a deal to spare his life. :loser:

[Doyle]

A mistrial looms in the Richard Tuite murder case after jurors said yesterday afternoon that they were deadlocked and unlikely to reach a verdict.

The conflict apparently centers on the critical question of how drops of Stephanie Crowe's blood got on two of Tuite's shirts – through the act of stabbing her to death or through accidental police contamination.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040520-9999-1mi20tuite.html

[Ghostwheel]

Though Tuite was not a neighbor in the sense that he did not live in that neighborhood, he was not a transient either. And he wasn't homeless. Just an FYI-
"Although Tuite was homeless at the time of the January 1998 killing, he is a longtime San Diego County resident with family ties in the community, the defense attorney said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20020517-889-transien.html

And he was at least a partial transient. He lived in North County, but that consists of Escondido, Oceanside, Carlsbad, etc. (North County is HUGE) These areas are miles and miles apart, and he was spotted in at least those three. Thereby making him a transient, at least in the Oceanside and Carlsbad areas, since he didn't stay there long.

[BirdieBoo]

Tuite himself has proven that he can be sneaky and slip in and out of builings and situations unnoticed. He did after all sneak right out of the courthouse during his own highly publicized murder trial.

[Doyle]

A jury trying to decide the fate of a former transient accused of killing a 12-year-old Escondido girl in 1998 deliberated for a sixth day today without reaching a verdict.

About mid-afternoon, jurors in the Richard Tuite murder trial sent a note to Judge Frederic Link asking for some testimony to be read back to them
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040524-1715-tuite.html

[Babcat]

Does this guy have to have one eye in the center of his forehead and long spiked teeth before people are likely to believe he is a killer? What does it take to convince some people that a psychotic meth addict is more likely to commit this crime than a 14-year-old gifted student with no prior history?

"I'm not really close to anyone," Tuite told a doctor. "I just kind of drift around."

Tuite has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and psychotic disorders. One psychologist wrote, "His desires to meet his own needs are unfettered by the complications of society's norms and standards, resulting in his behaving in an unacceptable fashion frequently."

His criminal record includes convictions for attempted burglary, auto theft, drug use, vandalism and annoying children. He has been arrested several other times, including once in 1993 on suspicion of stabbing another transient with a steak knife. That charge was dropped. :rolleyes:

On Jan. 20, 1998, the night before 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe was found dead, Tuite was in the neighborhood, knocking on doors and peering in windows while searching for a friend named Tracy. Police were called but didn't find him.

Police stopped Tuite three times on the day the killing was reported, including once after he followed two women to their apartment doors. Just before 7 p.m., he was located panhandling near a supermarket and taken in for questioning. Tuite denied any involvement in the killing. His clothes were confiscated, he was photographed, hair and fingernail samples were taken, and then he was released.

Detectives and prosecutors later said they considered Tuite a bull in a china shop, incapable of killing Stephanie without waking others in the house and leaving any obvious traces behind.

Five days after the slaying, police were called to a Best Western hotel in Escondido and found Tuite looking for "the family of the kid who got killed." He was told to leave.

The next month, he was arrested after following two girls, ages 12 and 13, while they rode a bus home from a nearby mall. He tracked them to an Escondido apartment complex, where they quoted him as saying, "Tracy, all I want to do is have sex with you." He was convicted of a misdemeanor.

In March 1998, he was arrested for attempted burglary. He was convicted and sent to prison for three years. Released in February 2000 to the first in a series of halfway houses, he violated his parole five times, officials said. Once he escaped and made it 90 miles from Ontario to Escondido before he was caught. In November, he was found in possession of a knife.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20020515-056-crowesla.html


This guy loves knives... doesn't mind using them... and REALLY wanted to get at Tracy.

[Babcat]

Sad, sorry excuse for a cop. :sick: And now the jerk lives here in Oklahoma.

At Tuite's preliminary hearing last year, Treadway testified that Claytor also told him off camera that if he went to prison he would be beaten, raped and traded among inmates for cartons of cigarettes. Treadway said the conversation took place as he was being processed at the police crime lab.

He testified that it was to avoid prison at any cost that he finally told Claytor and other detectives an elaborate tale of conspiracy and murder using the only tool available – his imagination.

Patton yesterday tried to head off that testimony. Under the defense attorney's questioning, the retired detective said he shied away from talking to Treadway while he was being processed. "I wanted to make sure anything he said was on camera," Claytor said.

He said he never made any threats or inducements to Treadway at the crime lab, adding that he was gone part of the time buying the teen a soda at a downstairs vending machine. "It was a very congenial time," Claytor said.

Yeah... real congenial... as he lied to a 15-year-old child, denied him food, bathroom breaks, and told him horror stories about adult prisons and rape of young inmates. Are we suppose to believe that Joshua Treadway came up with passing around an inmate for sex in trade for cigarettes all by himself off the top of his head? My 14-year-old would have told them whatever they wanted to hear at that point... including her participation in the JFK assassination, Manson murders, and her abduction by aliens!~ :mad:

But Claytor admitted collaborating on a book about the Crowe slaying in which he and Chris McDonough, an Oceanside police detective involved in the interrogations, concluded that the three teens, not Tuite, killed Stephanie.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040325-9999-news_1mc25tuite.html


How quaint. Well, I'm just glad Stephanie can serve as supplemental income for ex detective Claytor, since he worked so hard to railroad her brother and friends, against all logic. I wonder if book sales would hinge at all on the outcome of Tuite's trial... :waitasec: Claytor can join the morally questionable ranks of Steve Thomas, the "homicide detective wannabe" (you know the kind... "As a homicide detective, Steve, you make a great meter reader!" ;) ...) , who also sought to profit from a fantasy book fraught with convoluted, embarassingly amateurish reasoning, about another dead child.

[Babcat]

Just an FYI-
"Although Tuite was homeless at the time of the January 1998 killing, he is a longtime San Diego County resident with family ties in the community, the defense attorney said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/...9-transien.html


And he was at least a partial transient. He lived in North County, but that consists of Escondido, Oceanside, Carlsbad, etc. (North County is HUGE) These areas are miles and miles apart, and he was spotted in at least those three. Thereby making him a transient, at least in the Oceanside and Carlsbad areas, since he didn't stay there long.

Just FYI back attcha Ghostwheel. ;) ... (teasing here... using sarcasm but not meant to be nasty.)

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/2829226/detail.html
The accused child killer's sister, Kerri, and mother, Linda, said that he was an innocent man with a family who has done all they can to deal with his illness, working within a system that is ill-equipped to deal with such problems. They also said he has been mistakenly portrayed by prosecutors and the press as a transient.

"He always had a home; he always had a place to come," said Kerri. "We always made sure he had money, clothes, things. He's the baby of the four of us. It's just the system -- they don't do anything for our mentally ill."

So the system is responsible as far as his family is concerned, because "the system" just doesn't do enough for the mentally ill. I have to wonder why his family didn't do more for him. If they thought their hands were tied and there was only so much they could do, what did they expect of "the system"?

And is Richard Tuite really afflicted with Paranoid Schizophrenia? I seriously doubt it.

Among meth users who smoke the drug, lung problems are common. And long-term users often suffer a host of complications as a result of poor nutrition related to the drug's appetite-suppressing quality. At drug treatment centers, counselors say, you can identify the meth users by their terrible teeth, which are either rotted away or ground down.

But meth's most profound and disturbing effects are on the brain. When used heavily, the drug can produce psychotic symptoms that are all but indistinguishable from paranoid schizophrenia. "We sometimes see similar symptoms with crack cocaine users, but it's much more prominent with methamphetamine," observes Christine Cloak, a neuroscientist at Brookhaven National Laboratories. So much so, in fact, that researchers like Cloak are hoping further study of methamphetamine abuse might shed some light on the mysteries of schizophrenia.
http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1171/article11254.asp


Richard Tuite has very normal parents and siblings who probably don't carry a gene for schizophrenia at all... as is usually required for triggering the actual mental illness. Instead, Tuite has fried his brain on meth for so long that his "schizophrenia" is actually drug induced brain damage.

[Ghostwheel]

I read that article, but I take no stock in what the family says because if his family's house was his home, why wasn't he living there? How can you call that a home if you don't live there, and it is not your permanent residence? Besides, just because your family says you can come and live with them does not mean you are not a transient. Transient means you do not stay in one place for long periods of time. A person who travels a lot is a transient.

It also doesn't matter if his family says he was welcome to be home, it does not mean he lived there, wanted to or ever did at any time. The man was homeless because he chose to be. As an example, your sister can tell you that you are welcome to stay at her house, and if you don't stay there, it isn't your home.

May be a semantics thing, but I still go by the dictionary definitions of transient: passing through or by a place with only a brief stay and homeless:having no home or permanent place of residence.

[Babcat]

It's just that I have a hard time picturing a "transient" who wanders in circles around and around the same area... the very area in which he was born and raised. And I have a hard time picturing a homeless man who can get money, clean clothes, a shower, and food, anytime he would care to, simply by going to his parents' home or his siblings' homes. And he is always in the position to do that, since he never really leaves the general area during his transient roaming. Do you see what I mean now?

I take no stock in what the family says because if his family's house was his home, why wasn't he living there?

Simple! He didn't live there because he was a drug addict. Most family members love their kin enough to give them the shirt off their back... but it is unlikely they will sit complacently and watch him do drugs. It would be pretty hard to do the amount of drugs he was doing and remain secretive about it, so as to keep the family "in the dark"... so to speak. Methamphetamines cost a great deal of money. Tuite wasn't working a regular job with steady income for any significant amount of time. Where do you suppose he got the cash to support that habit? Possibly some of it came from burglaries... (a skill that would make him most adept at getting in and out of homes quietly unnoticed, BTW.) But it is a good bet that some of that money came from well meaning family members who opted to remain ignorant to the severity of his drug use... choosing instead to believe his behavior could be explained away as "mental illness".

[Ghostwheel]

I guess what you might not understand, though, is that Richard Tuite used to hang around Downtown, Oceanside, Carlsbad and Escondido. We're talking 30-60 miles from place to place. Not quite wandering in circles, exactly, but going from place to place in the same county, where ever he felt comfortable at the time. Again, a semantics thing. Most of our homeless are considered transient, even though they sleep in the same parking lot every night, and maybe move three block from morning to night.

If your family won't let you sit around the house and watch you do drugs, you are still homeless, wouldn't you say? You don't have a home to sit and do your drugs in. But that is beside the point. He did not live there, did not get a shower there, and while I have no idea if his family gave him money, I can tell you where a lot of homeless people get their drugs (whatever their choice). They panhandle, roll other druggies and homeless, use what is leftover from someone else, etc.

I'm not familiar with the area you live. Does your city have the massive amounts of homeless that Southern California does? Many of the homeless here have families they could go to, but they are mentally ill, and CHOOSE to live on the streets. (definitely not all) They are still considered homeless, by San Diego standards.

P.S. I see what you are saying, and living here, and seeing what I have (five days a week for 10 years a while back) I cannot agree that he was not transient or homeless. From how he chose to live, he was.

[Doyle]

A jury of eight women and four men has found former transient Richard Tuite guilty of manslaughter in the 1998 killing of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe of Escondido.

The panel deliberated since May 13 in the Jan. 20, 1998 stabbing death of Crowe following a trial that lasted 3 ½ months.

After first finding Tuite, 35, not guilty of first- and second-degree murder charges, the panel found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, finding Tuite used a "deadly and dangerous weapon," a knife, to kill the girl.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/crowe/20040526-0320-tuite.html

[Babcat]

Actually... at the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me... it was probably a verdict that was as close to justice as this case could ever see. I'm quite sure the jury saw him as mentally ill, and obviously confused about the target of his actions. BUT... the fact remains that he did have a target... Tracy... and had he been correct on the residence his actions would definitely have meant intentional murder of her. But the question of WHY he would kill Tracy, his only true friend that had stood by him, is what can never be answered unless Richard himself accurately remembers and will say.

If he had been correct on the residence that night, and Tracy had been there... would he have killed her? Tracy would have known who he was and known his history of alternate reality. She most likely would have calmed him down and found out his intentions in looking for her. But since he was wrong, and Tracy was actually Stephanie, chances are Stephanie had no idea who he was or why he was there. She may have totally froze... not reacted at all to save herself or question him. In his drugged state he might have felt this was a snub from Tracy and that triggered a rage. Or maybe Stephanie DID react. She might have asked him who the hell he was and told him to get out of her house... even attempted to scream for help from other family members. This reaction also could have caused him to be very hurt, or betrayed, since he thought the girl right there in front of him was his friend, and was now pretending not to know him! She also was acting aggressively by ordering him to leave. With the help of meth, this might have also been enough to turn a "visit" into a murder, because of the rage that would build disproportionately due to the drug's influence.

In any other murder trial where the same circumstances existed, voluntary intoxication would not have qualified as mitigating. But since the jury... (and apparently a good deal of the professional people involved in the case as well)... was under the impression (flawed impression IMO) that Richard Tuite was a victim of the serious mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, Richard's actions that night could be classified as mitigating, making the charge of manslaughter valid.

[LovelyPigeon]

I can accept the verdict of voluntary manslaughter. I don't think more than that was proven by the prosecution. The blood on Tuite's shirts was the convicting evidence for me.

I don't think anyone involved with the case contests that Tuite was a transient and that he is a diagnosed schizophrenic. He wasn't convicted because of those facts, though. He was convicted on the blood evidence.

[Babcat]

The blood evidence may have been the key to conviction... but it wasn't what separated a manslaughter verdict from a murder verdict.

Transient or not... of course no one could contest that Tuite was previously diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. But true paranoid schizophrenics don't get better without anti psychotic medication. But Richard Tuite did! He would have total lucidity where there was no doubt he was in touch with reality without the aid of any anti psychotic medication. His bouts of psychosis and paranoia directly related to his binges of meth amphetamine use. Over time some brain damage would, of course, occur. But that brain damage would not present as paranoia, or loss of reality, consistent with true schizophrenia. Instead it would more resemble Alzheimers.

Mental illness diagnoses are by far the most likely to result in misdiagnosis... especially when the ill person is given this diagnosis in a prison or jail setting. To blindly accept such mass produced diagnoses, would have us to believe that half the prison population suffers from psychosis... when in fact most suffer from personality disorders that are in no way a form of psychosis at all.

[LovelyPigeon]

Tuite's mental medical history was documented from at least the time he was 20. He was age 34 at this trial, and still suffering from chronic schizophrenia. The prosecution did not contend otherwise.

Dr. Mark Kalish testified on April 8 that based on his analysis of Tuites' extensive medical evaluations between 1994 and 1998 he agreed with the conclusion that Tuite suffers from schizophrenia and organic brain syndrome.

Tuite wasn't just diagnosed at trial for the sake of his defense.