DNA evidence led to teens in Dunbar Village rape

By Missy Diaz | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
August 22, 2007

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A 14-year-old charged in the brutal gang rape of a mother and her 12-year-old son confessed his involvement to police after they told him his DNA was detected on a condom recovered at the scene, according to evidence made public on Tuesday.

The DNA of a 16-year-old co-defendant was found on the outside of the same condom, according to more than 100 pages of evidence in the case, known as discovery.

The court records provide a detailed depiction of the horrors alleged to have occurred over the course of three hours June 18 in West Palm Beach's Dunbar Village public housing complex. The case has made international headlines and shined a light on the city's crime-ridden public housing community.

The evidence was made public a day after a judge denied a request to delay the release of certain parts of the investigation. Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek argued that the ongoing investigation could be jeopardized and additional suspects could avoid arrest if photo lineups and portions of police reports were made public. Circuit Judge Sandra McSorley declined to privately review that evidence, ordering discovery to proceed as usual.

Four males — ages 14, 15, 16 and 18 — have been charged as adults in a 14-count indictment that could send all of them to prison for life. Defense attorneys have argued that the victims failed to identify the same suspects from photo lineups and that they identified fillers — people not involved in the case — as perpetrators. In some instances they identified different people as the same person.

Four masked males
Hoping to steal money and jewelry, Avion Lawson, 14, said he and someone else wore masks when they entered the 35-year-old woman's apartment that night, according to the documents. Once inside, Lawson said, he and his accomplice, whose name is blacked out on the report, encountered the woman in bed with three other masked males around her. Lawson told police he sexually assaulted her and stole two video games and a truck.

Police later found the video games inside the Dunbar Village apartment of Lawson's grandmother, Jonnie Mae Wilkerson, with whom Lawson often stayed.

The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.

After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman's clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.

Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and lightbulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.

Before leaving, the males looked for a lighter to set the two on fire but couldn't find one, she told police. They ordered the pair to stay in the tub and took off. About 30 minutes later one of the males returned to sexually assault the mother one last time. Before leaving, he scribbled a man's name and 6-CO, a gang, on a piece of paper and told the woman he hangs out on Sixth Street and that's where he could be found. He grabbed a Sony PlayStation 2 before fleeing.

Mother livid
During a six-hour interview with police, Lawson, the first to be charged in the case, confessed his involvement after being told his DNA was inside a condom found in the victim's home. En route to the Juvenile Assessment Center, Lawson called some friends and did not sound remorseful, according to police. His lawyer, Bert Winkler, declined to comment on the evidence.

The next to be charged was Nathan Walker, a 16-year-old who dropped out of the seventh grade after three attempts to pass. Walker's latent fingerprint was found at the scene along with his DNA on the outside of the same condom linked to Lawson, according to the documents.

Walker became so agitated at the police station that he had to be placed in handcuffs and leg restraints after he began throwing chairs at the walls and door, according to documents. His lawyer, Robert Gershman, has asked for a mental health evaluation of his client.

Jakaris Taylor, 15, was arrested July 12. A resident of Dunbar Village, he said his brother played with the 12-year-old victim, though Taylor denied ever being in the apartment. His mother, Jacqueline Minor, encouraged Taylor to give police a DNA sample. Lab results showed Taylor's latent print inside the home, near Lawson's and Walker's.

Minor was livid at her son, according to police.

"Jacqueline yelled at Jakaris and told him she hoped he would never get one night of sleep and that he sees [the victims] every night when he tries to sleep," a report stated.

On Thursday police charged Tommy Lee Poindexter, 18, with the crimes after physical evidence linked him to the scene.

The suspects are due back in court Oct. 31.

Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5505.

Controversial DNA scientist retires

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Thu Oct 25, 11:45 AM ET
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NEW YORK - James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among blacks, retired Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution.
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Watson, 79, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York announced his departure a week after the lab suspended him. He was chancellor of the institution, and his retirement took effect immediately.

Watson shared a Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. He is one of America's most prominent scientists.

In his statement Thursday, Watson said that because of his age, his retirement was "more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired."

Watson, who has a long history of making provocative statements, ran into trouble last week for remarks he made in the Sunday Times Magazine of London. A profile quoted him as saying that he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

He said that while he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true." He also said people should not be discriminated against because of their color, adding that "there are many people of color who are very talented."

Watson later apologized. But by then, London's Science Museum had canceled a sold-out lecture Watson was to give there, and London's mayor had branded the comments "racist propaganda."

In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said Watson was promoting "personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science." And the Cold Spring Harbor lab said its board and administration "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."

The lab suspended Watson's administrative duties last Thursday.

Watson had served at the lab for nearly 40 years, having been named director in 1968. He was its president from 1994 to 2003.

DNA pioneer Dr James Watson dumped after Africa insult

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ONE of the world's top scientists, DNA pioneer Dr James Watson, has been dumped from his job after he said Africans were less intelligent than other people.

Dr Watson, who jointly won the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the double helix structure of DNA, was suspended from the top US laboratory where he was chancellor.

However Dr Watson, 79, in London to promote his new book, apologised for his remarks, saying that he did not mean to characterise Africans as genetically inferior.

Dr Watson was chancellor of New York's Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory. The lab joined a throng of other institutions and researchers in saying Dr Watson's comments were offensive and scientifically incorrect.

In a Sunday Times interview Dr Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really".

However, in apologising in London, Dr Watson said: "I am mortified about what has happened.

"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have.

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I apologise unreservedly.

"That is not what I meant. More importantly, from my point of view there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Dr Watson has previously said black people have greater sex drives and a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests found it was destined to be gay.

Dr Watson's interview prompted an outpouring from other scientists.

"The comments, which were attributed to Dr James Watson earlier this week . . . are wrong, from every point of view -- not the least being that they are completely inconsistent with the body of research literature in this area," said Dr Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health.

"Scientific prestige is never a substitute for knowledge."

Federation of American Scientists president Henry Kelly said: "At a time when the scientific community is feeling threatened by political forces seeking to undermine its credibility, it is tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonour on the profession."

- Reuters

An Update on the Young West Virginia Hate Crime victim

A TRUST FUND has been set up by Chase Bank for Megan Williams
A spokeswoman for Chase Bank said that donations to the trust fund
for Megan can be made at any Chase Bank.

The donations can also be mailed to:

Welana Megan Williams Trust Fund Donation Account
707 Virginia St. E.
Charleston, WV 25301.

View source - Link to Charleston GazetteMail

Lawmakers Seek US Action in Jena 6 Case

By DEVLIN BARRETT –
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the six black teenagers charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there — a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era.

Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor's case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

"Shame on you," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana's western district — and the first black person to hold that position.

"As a parent, I'm on the verge of tears," Jackson Lee said.

"Why didn't you intervene?" she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.

Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called for quiet before Washington spoke.

"I was also offended, I too am an African-American," Washington told the panel. "I did intervene, I did engage the district attorney. At the end of the day, there are only certain things that the United States attorney can do."

Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, "subpoena him!"

Since the Jena case made headlines, there have been a number of other nooses found in high-profile incidents around the country — in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, on a Maryland college campus, and, last week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.

The Department of Justice has created a task force to handle noose-hanging investigations in five states. It investigated the Jena matter but decided not to prosecute because the federal government typically does not bring hate crimes charges against juveniles, Washington said.

Black lawmakers and activists said more forceful action by the Bush administration was needed to squelch what they called a sharp rise in racism in the United States.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based civil rights activist, said that decision shows unfairness in a criminal justice system that declined to charge white students for a hate crime because they are minors, but initially chose to charge the six teens in the beating case as adults.

"These nooses were hung over a year ago sir. So I know that the wheels of justice turn slow, but they seem to be at a standstill," said Sharpton. "That's why we're seeing nooses all over America."

The senior Republican on the panel, Lamar Smith of Texas, said, "more than anything what we need is an effort to reduce racial tension... What we do not need is stoking racial resentment."

Several other Republicans on the panel questioned whether the white beating victim, Justin Barker, had been forgotten in all the uproar, but Rev. Brian Moran, president of the Jena NAACP chapter, said that the most pressing issue is justice for the six teens facing criminal charges.

More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered recently in Jena to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects were treated, but the cases against the Jena Six remain unresolved.

Last week, a judge sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail after a judge determined he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

Racial tensions began rising in Jena in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted.

Dunbar Village New Reports

Black Teen Marked "KKK" At Deaf School

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(AP) A group of students at a Washington high school for the deaf scrawled "KKK" and swastikas on a black student's body with a marker while holding him against his will, police said Wednesday.

District of Columbia police are investigating the Saturday night attack as a possible hate crime, Chief Cathy Lanier said. The incident began in the dorms of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, on the campus of Gallaudet University.

Seven students - six white and one black - took part in holding the black student, Lanier said.

University officials would not say whether they had been disciplined, but in a campuswide e-mail Wednesday, Katherine Jankowski, dean of the center that includes the high school, said the seven were sent home.

The school discussed the incident at an assembly Monday and has worked with students on issues of diversity and race, said Stephen Weiner, provost of Gallaudet.

"We do not tolerate any kind of action, any kind of behavior of this type," Weiner said.

Lanier said the attack began when two groups of students, one white, one black, were "horsing around" in the dorms. The groups eventually separated, but the seven students took the black student and held him for about an hour.

The student who was held contacted Gallaudet authorities, who called police early Sunday. He is at home with his family, the provost said.

No charges have been filed, but police said they have identified all seven students involved; they range in age from 15 to 19. "We take it very seriously," Lanier said.

Gallaudet, the nation's only liberal arts university for deaf students, was founded in 1864 by an act of Congress. The university had about 1,800 students last year.

About 170 students attend the Model Secondary School, with roughly 100 living in dorms on campus, Weiner said.

It is part of Gallaudet's Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, which also includes an elementary school. The center works on developing courses and teaching methods for deaf and hard of hearing students.