Skitterpop
11-16-2006, 02:06 PM
Jury: McCowen guilty of killing Christa Worthington
BARNSTABLE - A jury today convicted Christopher McCowen of Hyannis of raping and killing Christa Worthington in her Truro home in January 2002.
He was found guilty of murder in the first degree with extreme atrocity, guilty of aggravated rape and guilty of aggravated and armed burglary.
Sentencing is scheduled for 2 p.m. today, Judge Gary Nickerson said.
Shortly before noon, defense attorney Robert George had scanned the faces of the jury as its members filed in, shaking his head once no, as if anticipating the guilty verdicts.
As the jurors were polled, McCowen looked down, rocking from side to side, shaking his head, and clenching his eyes at times to hold back tears.
Riveted by the revelations about murder, sex, drugs and relationships in a small Cape town, trial watchers changed their daily routines to attend court, read online blogs and stories, track reports in local newspapers, and to watch the gavel-to-gavel nationally televised Court TV.
An hour and 45 minutes after delivering their verdict, the jurors and Judge Nickerson assembled behind a podium at the courthouse in front of reporters, including 15 to 20 television cameras. In a prepared statement, delivered by the jury foreman, the jurors asked the media and the public to respect their privacy and declined to take any questions.
Escorted by court officers and state police, they drove away as the media was kept at bay. Read the full statement (http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/update/jurysays16.htm)
The jury’s decision came on the eighth day of deliberations in the fifth week of the murder trial followed by many since the single mother was found slain, her two-year-old daughter near her mother’s body on the floor of the Truro home. The decision came halfway through the third day of deliberations since a new juror was placed on the jury, which was sequestered each night since Monday.
By note to Nickerson on Monday, the jury said its members were deadlocked and asked what to do next. He reassured them and sent them back to resume deliberations. Later that day, he suddenly sequestered the jury, which would stay in a hotel until the trial's end.
The jury began deliberations anew Tuesday after a juror was dismissed because of her phone calls with a boyfriend jailed in connection with an unrelated case - a shooting in East Falmouth on Saturday. The new jury reached a verdict after 15 hours, 24 minutes of deliberation.
In order to find McCowen guilty, the jury had to find that the prosecution proved its case "beyond a reasonable doubt." That's the case, Nickerson said, "if, after you have compared and considered all the evidence, and there is an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true."
It's not enough, he said, for the prosecution to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is guilty, he said.
McCowen, 34, of Hyannis, who picked up trash at Worthington’s house weekly, was arrested in April 15, 2005, after long-delayed tests showed his DNA on her body. When shown the DNA report during a police interrogation, McCowen said, "It could have been me," an incriminating statement that became a major prosecution point.
To undermine that case, McCowen’s attorney George questioned the many other suspects questioned by police after the murder - the ex-boyfriend who discovered the body, the ex-son-in-law of the once-hidden father of her child, a man fingered by McCowen as the killer.
The so-called confession, George claimed, was by a man high on marijuana and Percocet at the time of his self-incriminating statements during an unrecorded interrogation with state troopers after his arrest.
Earlier today, George filed a motion for a hearing about the Nov. 13 jailhouse phone calls to the juror who was later dismissed. The defense is seeking information about jail policies and to question the boyfriend to see if he got any special privileges to contact his girlfriend on the jury, according to the motion, a copy of which was obtained by the Cape Cod Times.
Read more about today's verdict here and complete coverage of the verdict and trial in tomorrow's Cape Cod Times. Check out Eric Williams' trial blog. (http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/edits/cctblogs/el/)
- By staff reports
BARNSTABLE - A jury today convicted Christopher McCowen of Hyannis of raping and killing Christa Worthington in her Truro home in January 2002.
He was found guilty of murder in the first degree with extreme atrocity, guilty of aggravated rape and guilty of aggravated and armed burglary.
Sentencing is scheduled for 2 p.m. today, Judge Gary Nickerson said.
Shortly before noon, defense attorney Robert George had scanned the faces of the jury as its members filed in, shaking his head once no, as if anticipating the guilty verdicts.
As the jurors were polled, McCowen looked down, rocking from side to side, shaking his head, and clenching his eyes at times to hold back tears.
Riveted by the revelations about murder, sex, drugs and relationships in a small Cape town, trial watchers changed their daily routines to attend court, read online blogs and stories, track reports in local newspapers, and to watch the gavel-to-gavel nationally televised Court TV.
An hour and 45 minutes after delivering their verdict, the jurors and Judge Nickerson assembled behind a podium at the courthouse in front of reporters, including 15 to 20 television cameras. In a prepared statement, delivered by the jury foreman, the jurors asked the media and the public to respect their privacy and declined to take any questions.
Escorted by court officers and state police, they drove away as the media was kept at bay. Read the full statement (http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/update/jurysays16.htm)
The jury’s decision came on the eighth day of deliberations in the fifth week of the murder trial followed by many since the single mother was found slain, her two-year-old daughter near her mother’s body on the floor of the Truro home. The decision came halfway through the third day of deliberations since a new juror was placed on the jury, which was sequestered each night since Monday.
By note to Nickerson on Monday, the jury said its members were deadlocked and asked what to do next. He reassured them and sent them back to resume deliberations. Later that day, he suddenly sequestered the jury, which would stay in a hotel until the trial's end.
The jury began deliberations anew Tuesday after a juror was dismissed because of her phone calls with a boyfriend jailed in connection with an unrelated case - a shooting in East Falmouth on Saturday. The new jury reached a verdict after 15 hours, 24 minutes of deliberation.
In order to find McCowen guilty, the jury had to find that the prosecution proved its case "beyond a reasonable doubt." That's the case, Nickerson said, "if, after you have compared and considered all the evidence, and there is an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true."
It's not enough, he said, for the prosecution to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is guilty, he said.
McCowen, 34, of Hyannis, who picked up trash at Worthington’s house weekly, was arrested in April 15, 2005, after long-delayed tests showed his DNA on her body. When shown the DNA report during a police interrogation, McCowen said, "It could have been me," an incriminating statement that became a major prosecution point.
To undermine that case, McCowen’s attorney George questioned the many other suspects questioned by police after the murder - the ex-boyfriend who discovered the body, the ex-son-in-law of the once-hidden father of her child, a man fingered by McCowen as the killer.
The so-called confession, George claimed, was by a man high on marijuana and Percocet at the time of his self-incriminating statements during an unrecorded interrogation with state troopers after his arrest.
Earlier today, George filed a motion for a hearing about the Nov. 13 jailhouse phone calls to the juror who was later dismissed. The defense is seeking information about jail policies and to question the boyfriend to see if he got any special privileges to contact his girlfriend on the jury, according to the motion, a copy of which was obtained by the Cape Cod Times.
Read more about today's verdict here and complete coverage of the verdict and trial in tomorrow's Cape Cod Times. Check out Eric Williams' trial blog. (http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/edits/cctblogs/el/)
- By staff reports