The Wichita Massacre
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The Wichita Massacre[1], also known as The Wichita Horror[2], was a murder/assault/rape/robbery spree perpetrated by two brothers in the city of Wichita, Kansas in the winter of 2000. The unusually brutal string of crimes they committed in just under a week left residents of Wichita shocked and terrified.[citation needed]
[edit] Crime spree
The Carr brothers, 22-year-old Reginald and 20-year-old Jonathan Carr, already had serious criminal records when they began their spree. On December 8, 2000, having recently arrived in Wichita, they committed armed robbery against 23-year-old assistant football coach Andrew Schreiber. Three days later, they shot and mortally wounded 55-year-old cellist and librarian Ann Walenta as she tried to escape from them in her car.
Their crime spree culminated on December 14, when they invaded a home and subjected five young men and women to robbery, humiliation, and murder. The brothers broke into a house chosen nearly at random where Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander, Jason Befort and a young woman identified as "H.G.", all in their twenties, were spending the night. Initially scouring the house for valuables, they forced their hostages to strip naked, bound and detained them, and subjected them to various forms of sexual humiliation, including rape and sodomy, as well as forcing the men to engage in sexual acts with the women, and the women with each other. They then drove the victims to ATMs to empty their bank accounts, before finally bringing them to a snowy deserted football field and shooting them execution-style in the backs of their heads, leaving them for dead.
Only H.G. survived (thanks to her metal hairpin having deflected the bullet), after running naked for more than a mile in freezing weather to report the attack and seek medical attention. In a much-remarked point of tragedy, she had seen her boyfriend Befort shot, after having learned of his intention to propose marriage when the Carrs, by chance, discovered the engagement ring hidden in a can of coffee beans.
The Carr brothers, who took few precautions, were captured by the police the next day, and Reginald was identified by Schreiber and the dying Walenta. The gruesome crimes shocked Wichitans, and purchases of guns, locks, and home security systems subsequently skyrocketed in the city.
Law enforcement decided that the Carrs' motive was robbery, despite the other aspects of the crime.
[edit] Trial and aftermath
During their trial, the defense offered weak alibis including an unused Amtrak ticket and hearsay that the judge barred.[3] The prosecution's forensic evidence and the testimony of witnesses and surviving victims, along with the testimony of the Carrs' own female friends and family members, weighed heavily against them. The brothers were convicted of capital murder, and after a penalty phase where their attorneys argued that the brothers had had a rough childhood, and were therefore deserving of clemency[4], sentenced to death on November 15, 2002. They were also sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 20 years, for the death of Walenta. In addition, Reginald Carr was sentenced to 47 years in prison for his conviction on other crimes, and Jonathan Carr was sentenced to 41 years on other convictions.
In 2004, the state of Kansas paid out a total of $1.7 million to the relatives of the victims, in response to a lawsuit filed by the latter against the state, alleging that Kansas had erroneously let Reginald Carr out of prison earlier than he should have been released. A few months later the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty in Kansas, reinstated in 1994, was unconstitutional. This decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Marsh v. Kansas that the state death penalty statute was constitutional, reversing the lower court decision and keeping the existing death sentences in Kansas intact.
In 2005, Andrew Schreiber and H.G., the two survivors of the crime spree, were married. They now reside in a different area away from Wichita.
