GUILTY FL - Sharra Ferger, 9, raped & murdered, Blanton, 3 Oct 1997

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Lured out of her home on a school night, she was stripped naked below the waist.

Hysterical, clad only in her favorite T-ball shirt, she cried in the dark.

Then her attackers took turns raping the 9-year-old girl, and one viciously bit her shoulder.

To silence her, they used a knife and maybe an ice pick or screwdriver. There were 46 stab wounds, nine to the head. She was scratched and beaten.

After giving jurors that graphic account of Sharra Ferger's death eight years ago, Assistant State Attorney Jim Hellickson then pointed to the accused, Gary Steven Cannon.

Cannon did more than just take part in the sexual assault and murder of a child, the prosecutor said.

He enjoyed it.

"Cannon (told a witness) the sexual act he commited on the little girl would gratify him for a long time," Hellickson said.

Cannon and the victim's uncle, 39-year-old Gary Elishi Cochran, were indicted on first-degree murder charges in 2001. Cochran, who faces the death penalty, goes on trial in December.

The state's evidence: hair found on the victim that the state says matches Cannon's DNA, the bite mark matched to Cochran and jailhouse informers who say they heard both confess.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/15/Pasco/Slain_girl_s_agony_la.shtml
 
He was creepy. There was a stigma to him. No one in jail liked him.

Randy Kernan said he stuck up for Gary Steven Cannon anyway. They were cellmates sharing a Pasco County jail pod, later friends.

And what Cannon told him, Kernan testified Thursday in court, shocked and disgusted him.

Over and over again in 1999, Kernan said, Cannon shared explicit, ugly details about the rape and stabbing death of 9-year-old Sharra Ferger two years earlier.

"(He said) the sex he had with her that evening would last him a lifetime," Kernan said.

The witness could barely control his emotions. He bickered with prosecution and defense alike. His eyes teared up. His voice rose in anger. It seemed, at times, as though he were baiting Cannon.

His testimony sent Sandi Christy, the widow of Dale Morris Jr., the man once accused in the Ferger case, running out of court, crying.

Cannon, being tried on a charge of first-degree murder, buried his head at the defense table.

Jurors edged forward in their seats.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/16/Pasco/Cellmate_retells_stor.shtml
 
Gary Steven Cannon told fellow inmate Lewis Moores that he participated in the rape and slaying of Sharra Ferger because he was high on crack, Moores testified.

Prosecutors called Moores and five other witnesses to the stand Friday, the fifth day of Cannon's first-degree murder trial.

Cannon, 25, of Zephyrhills, will be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty. His co-defendant, Gary Cochran, 39, of Dade City, also is expected to go to trial this year.

Melissa Suddeth, crime lab supervisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tampa, testified that two hairs found on Sharra's buttocks were tested in 1997 and matched Cannon's DNA profile.

Two other hairs found on the girl's buttocks, also tested in 1997, showed a DNA profile consistent with a mixture of Cannon's and Sharra's DNA, Suddeth said.
http://pasco.tbo.com/pasco/MGBZ9H39PDE.html
 
That poor little girl. I just don't understand how anyone could enjoy hurting a little girl like that. One of the guys was her uncle??? I think they should both get the death penalty. Why aren't they? They tortured that little thing. It hurts just to think of what they did to her. Her mom will have nightmares for the rest of her life. If anyone deserves the death penalty these two do.
 
Prosecutors spent last week trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gary Steven Cannon took part in the rape and stabbing death of 9-year-old Sharra Ferger eight years ago.

Witnesses told jurors he disappeared the night she was lured from her home. He showed up at the house he'd been staying in the next day with a bloody shirt; a knife he had borrowed from a witness was missing. Former jail inmates said he not only confessed to the crime, but said he enjoyed it. Forensic experts linked his DNA to her body.

Monday was the defense's turn to put on its case.

"What says the defense?" Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper said.

"Your honor, at this time the defense rests," attorney Danny Hernandez said.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/20/Pasco/Defense_rests_its_cas.shtml
 
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/21/Pasco/Man_draws_life_term_i.shtml

Man draws life term in slaying of Sharra
By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
Published September 21, 2005

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

DADE CITY - After his 2001 indictment in the rape and murder of Sharra Ferger, Gary Steven Cannon returned to the county jail in a fury. From inside his cell he raged at the inmate and former friend who helped build the case against him.

"You back-stabber, how could you do this?" the defendant screamed at him four years ago, Randy Kernan testified before jurors in Cannon's trial last week.

"Did he ever call you a liar?" asked prosecutor Jim Hellickson.

"No, he never ... heh, no he never did call me a liar," Kernan said. "I never even thought of that."

Eight years after one of Pasco County's most infamous crimes, it took one hour and 36 minutes for a jury to convict Cannon of first-degree murder.

Immediately afterward, he was sentenced to life in prison.
 
This is absolutely disgusting, these men should have their penises cut off.

:furious: :furious: :furious:
 
I think I am going to be sick the rest of the day after reading this, that poor little girl.



:furious: :furious:
 
I can't understand how anybody could hurt somebody like that, especially a CHILD. That poor little girl never did anything to anybody, she was totally innocent and these perverts take her away from her home and do these disgusting things to her to satisfy their sick depraved disgusting fantasies.

If there was any justice in the world, the parents would be able to take these creeps into a room without windows and beat them both to death.
 
That poor girl !! I had never heard of this case before !! I am at a loss for words....
 
Dannysgirl said:
...these men should have their penises cut off.

:furious: :furious: :furious:
And, they should be bitten and stabbed all over and in the head. How sick, and to brag to another inmate about this horrific crime. I just don't know what makes people like this.
 
Oh my Goodness i have not heard about this , i am totally heartbroken for this poor girl and her family, they should all be executed. And let her mother have the honors, that is SICK!!
 
From December 2006:

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/28/Pasco/Uncle_sentenced_in_Sh.shtml

Gary Elishi Cochran faced the death penalty in the murder of his 9-year-old niece in 1997. Prosecutors trying his case faced a nine-year time lapse, the deaths of some witnesses and the uncertainty that comes with any jury trial.

This week, the two sides reached a deal.

Cochran pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Sharra Ferger in the northeast Pasco community of Blanton on Oct. 3, 1997, and will spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole.
 
Watching an episode of Forensic Files about Sharra. Thinking about this little sweetheart and her family.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 

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