Tears


Courtney	LeBlanc	12	link: The 12-year-old Denham Springs girl had been dead at least five days when Gerald "Jimmy" Bordelon, 40, her stepfather and a three-time convicted sex offender, led investigators to the body Tuesday afternoon. link: according to homicide detectives, Gerald Bordelon didn't go to work the day Courtney Leblanc was murdered. It was raining that Friday November 15th. he worked for a concrete company. In these court documents detailing his confession, he drove by Leblanc's trailer in Denham springs early that morning. Her mother and his wife, Jennifer Bordelon, was not home. so, he parked his car in a wooded area and went in through the back door. Gerald says it was easy to get into. He saw Courtney sleeping on the couch. He shook her by the arm and told her to wake up. Bordelon says he went into the kitchen to get a knife. he grabbed the 12 year-old by her arm and told her to come on. He told the girl if she said a word he would kill her. His confession continues with them getting in his car, driving through Clinton and into Mississippi. During the drive, he had her take her underwear off. He started fondling her. The confession says he drove down a gravel road. the knife was still on the seat. It says he forced her to perform a sex act on him. They left Mississippi around 9 that morning. They came back to Baton Rouge where he drove in a field next to Florida Blvd. near the Amite river. He told detectives he followed her down a dirt path. The knife was tucked away in his back pocket. Bordelon says Courtney asked "where are we going?" He told her "to the river." He says then, he pushed Courtney down. She fell on her face. He says she rolled over. He straddled her body and choked her. She managed to bite him on his left thumb. It started bleeding. The blood was on her shirt that somehow came off during the struggle. He choked her until she died. Bordelon told detectives he took the body into a wooded area 15 to 20 feet from where he killed her. He returned to his car where he took the victim's panties that she removed en route to Mississippi and threw them out. Then, he called his sister, Cindy Landry. He went to her house where he washed his clothes that he used during the murder. The knife had fallen out of his pocket when he walked back to the car. A fisherman discovered it and gave it to detectives. When asked what were Courtney's last words, Bordelon says she asked "why do you like the river?" marvin hurst wbrz news 2 louisiana.


Christina	Tedder	12	March 18, 2005, 03:57 PM MST -Jeffrey Voss is facing the death penalty for allegedly killing a young Indianapolis girl last Christmas Eve. A jury will hear the case in about a year. Voss whispered to his attorneys during Friday’s initial court hearing,but he didn't say anything else. He did not make eye contact with the mother of his alleged victim, but News 8 has learned he did make contact last month. Voss wrote a letter to Michelle Tedder from jail, violating his "no contact" order. Tedder told News 8 what Voss claimed in that letter. “[Voss said] he didn't rape my daughter, which has been proven since that he did. [He said] he didn't torture her. I looked at her autopsy. She was tortured,” said Tedder. Tedder says Voss also tried to give her advice. “’Don't kill yourself; go on with your life. Don't let this bring you down,’” she said. Voss is accused of snatching 12-year-old Christina Tedder from a Shell station near her apartment on Indianapolis' east side. He allegedly molested and strangled her, then dumped her body in a creek on Christmas Eve. Voss is charged with kidnapping, murder and molestation. Now he could face the death penalty. Voss was on parole at the time he allegedly killed Christina. Also, a sexual assault occurred. Both are aggravating factors that have prompted Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi to pursue the death penalty. News 8 asked Voss' attorney, Robert Hill, about his client's state of mind. “He's scared, remorseful. I think he's…you can imagine this whole thing is overwhelming,” said Hill. Police were holding Voss at the Hamilton County jail, but he told authorities someone threatened his life so they moved him to the Pendleton correctional facility. The judge scheduled Voss' trial for June 2006.


Jessica Rae	Delatorre	8	SIOUX FALLS, S.D., April 10, 2005 An 8-year-old girl was kidnapped from her grandmother's trailer home, driven to a remote area of Hanson County and raped and killed on Saturday, authorities said. Sioux Falls police arrested the grandmother's live-in boyfriend, Murray James Jones, 41, of Sioux Falls, on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree rape and kidnapping, said police Chief Doug Barthel. Jessica Rae Delatorre and her two brothers, ages 4 and 11, were spending the night at their grandmother's trailer in Pine Meadow Mobile Home Park in Sioux Falls. The grandmother was away for the night, and Jones was left to watch the children, Barthel said. He said the grandmother and Jones had been in a relationship for several years. "It's not uncommon for the children to spend the night at their grandma's, and this was just one of those nights," he said. Barthel said while Delatorre's brothers were sleeping, Jones kidnapped the second-grader, drove her to a spot off a gravel road just east of Fulton and raped and killed her. Authorities found Delatorre's partially clothed body at about 2 p.m. under some trees at the site, about 65 miles west of the trailer park. "Initially, when we had information where the child was at, there was some hope that maybe she might still be alive," Barthel said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the case." Delatorre and her two brothers live in Sioux Falls with their mother, Barthel said. The grandmother called police just before 8:30 a.m. Saturday after she returned home and found her granddaughter missing. Investigators started working Delatorre's disappearance as a missing person's case and had talked about issuing an Amber Alert, but their interest quickly turned to Jones, Barthel said. Jones cooperated with investigators and eventually led them to the girl's body in Hanson County, he said. If he had not cooperated, "it could have been quite some time before she was found," the Argus Leader quotes Barthel as saying. Barthel said the medical examiner will determine Delatorre's cause of death, but it didn't appear a weapon was used. Investigators were obtaining a warrant Saturday to search the trailer for evidence. The state's attorneys from Minnehaha and Hanson counties decided that Jones would be charged in Minnehaha County, Barthel said. The state Department of Criminal Investigation and sheriff's offices from Davison and Hanson counties assisted on the case.



Corinne	Gustavson	6	Wednesday, May 11, 2005 Canadian Press EDMONTON -- The trial of a man accused of murder and aggravated sexual assault in the death of a six-year-old girl was adjourned for a day yesterday after one of the jurors was dismissed. "We have some issues that we are working our way through," Mr. Justice Terrance Clackson of the Court of Queen's Bench told the remaining 11 jurors before sending them home. The trial could still legally proceed with as few as 10 jury members. The reasons for the juror's dismissal were discussed in a voir dire, a trial within a trial, but those details can't be published. Juries are not told what goes on in a voir dire. Corinne Gustavson was abducted on Sept. 6, 1992, and her body found two days later lying face down in the muddy back lot of an Edmonton trucking company. She was fully dressed except for her shoes. The death of the child, who was nicknamed Punky because of her unruly hair, horrified the city and continued to haunt its residents when no suspect was arrested for more than a decade. Clifford Sleigh, 42, was charged March 14, 2003. He surprised the opening day of his first-degree-murder trial Monday when he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and acknowledged, in an agreed statement of facts, that he sexually assaulted Corinne. He pleaded not guilty, however, to aggravated sexual assault. Through his lawyer, Peter Royal, Mr. Sleigh also offered to plead guilty to manslaughter in Corinne's death, but the Crown refused to accept it. Court heard that Mr. Sleigh came to Edmonton in September of 1992 from Lodgepole, Alta., with family members who were meeting relatives at a softball tournament. The house where he was staying was near the Gustavson home. Court also heard that Mr. Sleigh took his host's car, without asking, for several hours the day Corinne was abducted. That morning, according to the agreed statement of facts, Corinne was playing with a five-year-old friend in the front yard of her home. Mr. Sleigh drove up and abducted Corinne, choosing her simply because she was closest to the fence. It's expected the playmate will testify. Two days later, Corinne's body was found by the trucking firm's owner. Prosecutor Jason Track described the cause of death as "blunt force genital trauma." Although DNA profiling had been attempted during the initial investigation, technicians could not obtain usable evidence. By 2000, however, the technology had improved and police were able to get a complete profile. Court heard that Mr. Sleigh, who earlier had been linked to the case, was served with a warrant for a blood sample. The DNA profiles matched, Mr. Track said. The chance of that occurring randomly are at least 25 trillion to one.



Emily	Rimel	7	Jane Rimel could hardly finish her testimony through her weeping and sobbing. There before her as she sat on the witness stand were photographic memories of her dead 5-year-old: the Care Bear backpack Emily Rimel wore to kindergarten every day; the Winnie the Pooh bedsheets; the purple and pink winter coat; the Bratz tennis shoes ? the only pair she had. After looking at the pictures, Rimel sobbed, "I need my daughter back." At one point during her two hours of testimony, the prosecutor handed Rimel those shoes. They were found in Emily?s Madison Township bedroom on the day she disappeared. The shoes and other items from the room are evidence that Emily didn?t walk out of the house in the middle of a cold, December night nearly three years ago, prosecutors said. Lindsey Bruce, a family friend who often crashed on the family?s couch when he was drunk, also was missing. He, too, had left in the middle of the night. Yesterday, jurors in Bruce?s aggravated murder trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court relived Jane Rimel?s frantic search for Emily after coming home from an overnight work shift at 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2004, and finding the girl missing. The search would consume her, the Madison Township police and FBI agents for 17 months. The girl?s skull was found on May 23, 2006, in Big Walnut Creek, but not until after Bruce had been convicted of kidnapping Emily in an earlier trial. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for that crime. In the same trial, however, jurors acquitted Bruce of raping Emily. The girl was last seen in her bed on the night her mother returned to a warehouse job for the first time since being laid off a few months before. Emily said she was ill, and Jane Rimel sent her back to bed with a cup of orange juice and told her boyfriend, Brent Copley, they would take the girl to the doctor the next day. "We really needed the money, and I thought she was just being paranoid," the mother sobbed into tissues. "She knew Lindsey ever since she was 2 1 /2. She had no reason to be afraid of him." Bruce, a 25-year-old mechanic, had never been anything but playful with Rimel?s two children. He was allowed to come and go. If he left the apartment, he was told to wake one of the adults so they could lock the apartment door behind him. That didn?t happen the night Emily disappeared, and Copley continued to sleep soundly nearby. Yesterday, Jane Rimel talked about this being the month that her daughter would have turned 8. And how before her girl died she had put a new pair of sneakers on layaway to give her for Christmas. Assistant County Prosecutor Jennifer Rausch told jurors that evidence will show that police found the girl?s DNA on Bruce?s penis and that he had confessed killing the girl to several fellow inmates. The state says Emily?s body was thrown into Big Walnut Creek near a park across the street from her Reinbeau Drive apartment. Jurors went to see the apartment yesterday and the creek that runs through Heisel Park. If they convict Bruce of aggravated murder, they will be asked by prosecutors to impose the death penalty. Christopher Cooper is one of Bruce?s attorneys. He cautioned jurors to test all evidence for credibility. He said the state?s case is circumstantial and weak, especially the expected testimony of several inmates, who Cooper said are testifying to ease their own prison sentences. "We must go through this process to receive a fair trial, free of sympathy, empathy, prejudice and bias," Cooper said. "It?s a difficult case, and everyone wants closure, but so does the family of Lindsey Bruce." He said there are no witnesses to Emily?s disappearance, no evidence of the cause of her death and no explanation for the DNA on Bruce?s penis.