GUILTY TN - Sharon 'Sherry' Acosta, 32, pregnant, Knoxville, 1 July 2005

[spygirl]

Tennessee does have life w/o parole AND the death penalty.

A DR inmate's choices of execution are lethal injection and the electric chair.

If this man is indeed guilty, these may be the choices he will face.

http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/mirror/article.php?scid=11&did=522

 

[spygirl]

This guy looks almost just like BTK!!

Terry Justus has been charged with both the murder of Sharon Acosta and her unborn child. He is being held on a $2 million dollar bond. He apparently strangled her with a black wire after an argument about the unborn child. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 5th.

"He disclosed to us that something had happened and took us to that location," McCarter said.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1211&dept_id=169689

Type in "Sharon Acosta" and scroll to "Local man charged in double slaying"

 

[SewingDeb]

This guy looks almost just like BTK!!

Terry Justus has been charged with both the murder of Sharon Acosta and her unborn child. He is being held on a $2 million dollar bond. He apparently strangled her with a black wire after an argument about the unborn child. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 5th.

"He disclosed to us that something had happened and took us to that location," McCarter said.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1211&dept_id=169689

Type in "Sharon Acosta" and scroll to "Local man charged in double slaying"

Interesting that you say he looks like BTK. In the article they mention a judge with the last name of Rader.

 

[spygirl]

Interesting that you say he looks like BTK. In the article they mention a judge with the last name of Rader.

Lol.... I didn't catch that.

 

[Bobbisangel]

It seems that it is just one pregnant woman after the other murdered and tossed away like garbage. I'm glad that this state has the law that this killer can be tried for both deaths. Every state should have it and I thought they did when the "Laci and Conner Law" was passed. Didn't President Bush sign that law? If so, wouldn't that mean that it is a law in the United States now?

This little boy is old enough to miss his mama and to understand what happened to her. I hope that Grama explains according to how much he is able to grasp. When my daughter was murdered her daughter was 4 1/2 yrs. The first phone call I made was to Mental Health. I spoke to the Children's Director and asked him how to tell my grandaughter that her mother was dead. He came and spent about 2 hours with me. He did tell me to tell her the truth...don't lie because kids are smarter then you think and if you lie to her she will never trust you again. He said when she asks for her mother...tell her what happened in an age appropriate way. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. My heart goes out to this Grama.

I'm thankful that the little boy has a dad that is a part of his life and a good Grama to take care of him.

 

[Oceanbreeze]

SEVIERVILLE - A Sevierville man charged in the July death of his girlfriend and her unborn child waived his right to a preliminary hearing Friday, allowing his case to go right to the grand jury.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14990843&BRD=1211&PAG=461&dept_id=169689&rfi=6

 

[Bobbisangel]

Why couldn't he have just plead guilty and not go to the bother of a grand jury? It's the grand jury that decide if there is enough evidence to charge a person. He led them to her body for pity sake. I hope he isn't going to plead "not guilty" so he can have a trial. When a person is caught red handed or they take you to the body he shouldn't have a choice of how to plead. He is guilty...he admitted it. Let the judge sentence the guilty person and send him on to death row. Oh, I forgot...the criminal has rights :furious:

 

[OkieGranny]

From May 2008:

http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/2008/justust_051408.pdf

The Petitioner, Terry E. Justus, pled guilty to two counts of second degree murder, and the trial court sentenced him to an agreed sentence of thirty-five years to be served at 100%...

[T]he [Petitioner] and the victim, Sharon Acosta, had been dating for some time back in 2005, and... during the course of this relationship she had become pregnant, [and]... tensions began to rise in the relationship as a result of that pregnancy... He was concerned that he didn’t want his parents to even find out that he had irresponsibly gotten her pregnant...

[Petitioner] finally admitted that, in fact, she had come to his home, that she had spent the night, that the next morning when they had gotten up that the argument ensued, again, over whether or not he should tell his parents about the pregnancy. According to him he said that she began to fight him, that she got on top of him and was holding him down and that he, in order to get her off of him, took an electrical wire that was lying on the floor where he had been doing some wiring in the home, a large piece of electrical wire, and put it around her neck, and while he was lying underneath her, choked her. That he further said that afterwards he took the body of Ms. Acosta and took it to a subdivision that was being developed somewhere nearby and had placed the body in a recently excavated hole and covered it up with some dirt.