Tim Hennis trial in full swing in Fayetteville, NC - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Thinman · 04-07-2010, 08:05 PM

I know it was never profiled on UM, but there has been a fair amount of discussion here about the case, so I thought I would make an exception.

Timothy Hennis, Army Master Sergeant, is back on trial for his life for the MacDonald-esque massacre of a family in Fayetteville, NC in 1985. Lots of good articles here on the case.

http://fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/04/07/989371

BuffaloBill · 04-08-2010, 02:25 PM

Jury find NC soldier guilty in 1985 triple slaying
By KEVIN MAURER (AP) – 2 hours ago

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A soldier who was acquitted in civilian court more than 20 years ago has been convicted by a military jury of murdering a North Carolina mother and her two children in 1985.

Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was found guilty of three counts of premeditated murder Thursday. The jury had deliberated less than three hours following three weeks of testimony in the case.

The jury will next decide if Hennis should be put to death. Those deliberations start Friday.

Hennis showed no reaction to the verdict. Relatives of his victims hugged and cried.

Hennis was first convicted in state court, but won an appeal and was acquitted in a second trial. He couldn't be tried in state court again, so the case was turned over to the Army after investigators examined DNA evidence that couldn't be tested in the mid-1980s.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — A soldier who was acquitted in civilian court nearly 25 years ago has been convicted by a military jury of murdering a North Carolina mother and her two children in 1985.

Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was found guilty of three counts of premeditated murder Thursday. The jury had deliberated less than three hours following three weeks of testimony in the case.

The jury will next decide if Hennis should be put to death. Those deliberations start Friday.

Hennis showed no reaction to the verdict. Relatives of his victims hugged and cried.

Hennis was first convicted in state court, but won an appeal and was acquitted in a second trial. He couldn't be tried in state court again, so the case was turned over to the Army after investigators examined DNA evidence that couldn't be tested in the mid-1980s.

(This version CORRECTS time period in lede.)

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BuffaloBill · 04-08-2010, 02:50 PM

Now having been found guilty of this crime a second time, the score stands 2 to 1 for the prosecution. I'm amazed that it only took 3 hours to convict this guy, when he was previously was aquited years ago. Years and years of evidence , and were talking alot of years ! All done in 3 hours. I cannot see there not being a forth trial. I just think the whole thing smells from this guy even getting a fair trial again here. Anyone have additional thoughts ?

Thinman · 04-08-2010, 03:16 PM

His DNA inside the mother does it for me. Hennis is guilty. Way to go, jury.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 01:03 AM

Except Thinman, it does not do it for me. They got it wrong. Three hours, pathetic. Yeah, Hennis will be getting death again. The military did not even have the authority to try this case. Yes, I agree, Hennis, I hate to say it, when he got into military court, I knew he was going down. Certainly in North Carolina, yeah, it is just not good.

I could tell from what the members or as they are called in the civilian world 'jurors' that they all pretty much assumed that someone accused of killing a child was guilty. Also, the DNA did not actually match Hennis. That is the thing that I find amusing. People are like oh it matches case closed. Actually it did not match. It was inconclusive. It was not nearly as solid as many of the pro prosecution people like to make it seem that it is.

I don't know, I in some ways cannot and do not want to believe the prosecutors got away with this crap again. Even though he was not actually the prosecutor this time, the state prosecutor that lost the case back in 1989 was behind the whole thing. This was the only murder case he probably ever lost and he was always angry about it and always vowed to get even with Hennis.

Yeah, it is just a shame. I still find that mighty interesting how the cops claim they could allegedly not test this so called DNA until 2006? Why not send it out much earlier? Heck Hennis was in the Army until 2004. But yeah, if I were Hennis I would not have even gone back to the Army. He still could have potentially been charged in federal civilian court but had he not gone back to the Army, specifically had he not retired from the Army and been collecting benefits, the Army could not have recalled him to active duty to charge him. I don't know, something about this whole mess just does not seem right.

Incredible to me. Only in this country could a guy get convicted, get sent to death row, then get a new trial, get acquitted. Go back to his family and his career for so many years and then 16 years after his acquittal get charged again and 21 years after his acquittal get convicted again of the same crime in a completely different court. I certainly would not want to go on trial in the military, I imagine that they have higher conviction rates than civilian courts do but I cannot say that for sure. It just seems military law and the members selected to serve which it is a mixture of enlisted and officers correct would be more conservative?

But yeah, I would be surprised if Hennis does not get the death penalty again. The odds that he would ever actually be executed are slim. However I would not be so quick to assume this thing is over. I do think there will be a fourth trial in this instance. I think eventually the U.S. Federal Court will rule that the military did not truly have the jurisdiction to even prosecute this case. In fact, the trial judge in this case, the Colonel, he instructed the jury on unpremeditated murder as a lesser included offense when he could not even legally do that as at that time the statute of limitations on that charge was 3 years.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 01:12 AM

But like I said, the DNA did not actually match Hennis as was falsely reported. It was inconclusive. That means maybe his, maybe not aka this case should have ended in an acquittal. In fact the DNA sample that they got, like I said, could not be matched to Hennis. While he could not be eliminated it could not be matched to him either.

The odds also considering how advanced modern DNA testing is, the odds that they got in this sample were and are not in fact very impressive. One out of every 426 white male would match the DNA sample. One out of every 329 black males would match the sample and one out of every 200 hispanic males would match the sample. Now that was the military who tested this at their lab and strangely could not link Hennis to any of this.

However here is what did Hennis in. The military when they could not find a match to Hennis after they had used up most of the sample in the first testing, sent what little was left to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. She claimed that Hennis's DNA was inside Mrs. Eastburn's body. However she did admit that the skin from under Mrs. Eastburn's fingernails and the blood found on the bloody towel at the Eastburn home, that DNA did not match Tim Hennis and he was eliminated as the contributor in both those instances.

Basically this case was botched. Even if Tim Hennis did have sex with Mrs. Eastburn, that hardly makes him a murderer. I would not blame him for lying knowing how it would look. The pro prosecution people say oh, well if he is truly innocent why not just admit that you had sex with Mrs. Eastburn. But you know what they would say if he said that or claimed that? They would twist it and say that he was just saying that to justify his DNA being there.

However no one could have committed this crime without there being blood on them. Mrs. Eastburn struggled for her life and scratched the hell out of her assailant yet the skin from underneath her fingernails did not match Hennis! The blood on the towel that the perpetrator used to wipe himself off, that blood did not match Tim Hennis he was eliminated to 100 percent certainty in both of those instances! So there was plenty of reasonable doubt here. The show CSI has done more damage to criminal justice than one could possibly fathom.

Thinman · 04-09-2010, 07:56 AM

Please provide some actual sources to back up your claims. Everything I have read says that the DNA sample could not be conclusively identified back in 1985, but that it can be now. Where are you finding that it was inconclusive from 2006-present? If that were the case, there is no way there would have been a conviction.

BuffaloBill · 04-09-2010, 08:57 AM

The most alarming thing as that in a military trail like this, If I'm understanding it correct that it only has to be a majority vote to convict, so in other words if there are 14 jurors all you need is 8 to convict. So assentionally you can put Hennis to death with an 8-6 vote. Why not just hand a gun to the judge and shoot him right after the verdict.....GREAT SYSTEM for a capital murder case. As usual you hit the nail on the head
kadrmas15, sore looser prosecutor, questionalable DNA, VERY VERY BAD police work.

Thinman · 04-09-2010, 09:57 AM

Define questionable DNA. It either matches or it does not. You are trying to say that with the technology we have available today, they really are not sure? They just think it might be Hennis's DNA? Cases that are much older, with less-preserved DNA samples have been solved in the past few years. Look no further than Cold Case Files and Forensic Files for evidence of this.

Spare me the whole Hennis was having an affair with Kathryn Eastburn. I can understand why the lawyers would try that defense since his DNA was left inside of her. But if that was true, why did Hennis not take the stand and go into great detail about their love affair and pretend to be devastated by the horrible death of his mistress? He claims he never saw her again after adopting the dog.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 10:32 AM

Okay thinman, I am not going to argue with you about whether Hennis is guilty or innocent. You think he is completely guilty, you always have and always will so there is no reason to beat that dead horse. However in terms of the DNA, first off, I do not have to provide you a source. What do you think I am pulling facts out of my rear end and just making them up? Come on. I read it in the Fayetteville Observer Newspaper. It was in an article dated March 26th, 2010. Now, I would give you the link but you will have to go to the archives if they even exist on the newspaper's website to find it.

However, the above facts I told you were mentioned, at least in the Fayetteville Observer newspaper so unless they are lying too. The expert that said those things might have got it wrong but that was from the military's own expert. The military's own lab person said this stuff. Yes DNA can still come back as inconclusive, especially if it is an old sample and the stuff you are testing is degraded. Just because it happens to come back no problem in some cases does not mean it always does. This stuff is over 25 years old, and was tested more than once for DNA before, who knows what happened with contamination and the like? It was tested back in 1989 when DNA was in its infancy.

Also, you are rather simplistic when you say that DNA is such an exact science. In fact it is not. You can exclude someone by DNA to 100 percent scientific acceptability. We all agree on that. The problem is when you try to include people. That is when you run into problems. At least according to the military expert, this DNA test result was not even close to implicating Hennis. It was inconclusive. Again, he was not eliminated as the donor of that DNA, but he was also not linked in any way via the DNA either. The odds are not very impressive at least when you go by the military's own guy. 1 out of every 426 white men matching that sample? I mean do you have any idea how many white men that would leave that would match the sample?

So with those less than stellar numbers the military went to the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation's lab. Suddenly, what a shock the same state who had once got Hennis convicted and then lost on retrial and was angry about it ever since claims that it was Hennis's DNA. However this person also claimed the odds of it being anyone else's DNA was 1 in 12 trillion. Okay except for one problem, clearly it can't be both. So which one is it? That presents a problem to me. I would think it would even be a problem for you pro-prosecution thinman, that both of the prosecution's experts are coming up with two very different numbers and neither could for sure 100 percent say that it was in fact Hennis's DNA. They would say it was his DNA, well the military expert said he was '95 percent sure' and the civilian expert said she was 100 percent sure. However both admitted that the DNA samples did not rule out that it literally could be someone other than Hennis's DNA.

Also, lets look at the other evidence which you glossed over. First off Hennis does not have to take the stand. That is in a little thing called the constitution. Also, you as a juror are not supposed to hold it against a defendant for not testifying or assume guilt either before trial or because a defendant did not testify during trial. Now interestingly the military and civilian experts disagreed on these points as well in regards to the evidence. The military expert, claimed that more than one man's DNA was underneath Kathryn and Erin Eastburn's fingernails, but he said he could not link or eliminate Hennis. There was DNA on a glove tip in the Eastburn home, again
he could not link or eliminate Hennis as the contributor of the DNA but there was DNA from more than one person in the glove tip as well. The bloody towel according to the expert had DNA from three people on it, one of them male, Hennis was eliminated to 100 percent acceptability as the donor of the unknown male DNA on the towel.

Now, the civilian expert, here is what she found for the same evidence. She eliminated Tim Hennis to 100 percent acceptability as being the donor of the unknown male DNA underneath Kathryn and Erin Eastburn's fingernails. She also like the military expert eliminated Hennis as the donor of the male DNA found on the bloody towel. She also eliminated Hennis as the donor of the DNA that was found inside the glove tip.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 10:45 AM

Well you should be proud thinman, the members seemed to do what you did, pick one piece of evidence and say guilty when much of the other evidence that also should have proven this did not prove it but in fact eliminated Hennis. I mean to me, that is reasonable doubt even if one were to believe it was his DNA inside Mrs. Eastburn.

I mean for as vicious of a crime as this was, all the blood and all that, the skin underneath the fingernails, the bloody towel, there is no way the perpetrator was not bloody, there is just no way. Yet none of Tim Hennis's blood or skin was found in that house. Not one bit. Where is it? I mean no one is smart enough to just wipe up their own blood and pick up their own skin cells but no one else's. I mean the thing is, you can't actually place him in the house. That is a problem.

His DNA allegedly being inside Mrs. Eastburn is not really this discovery of the age that you make it to be. I mean how do you know he was not having an affair with her? How do you not know he never had sex with her? Are you saying that it is not at all possible that he had an affair with her or had consensual sex with her? Just because you believe his DNA was there does not mean he must be the one that raped and murdered Mrs. Eastburn and two of her daughters. You can't place him in the house where the killings took place on the night the killings happened. That is a problem.

Buffalo Bill, thanks for the kind words man, could not agree more. But I do need to correct you one thing, from what I read, military verdicts have to only be 2/3rd majority. It has to be more than just a simple majority but does not have to be unanimous. A death sentence though for that to be handed down does have to be unanimous under military law. However from what I understand, all 14 jurors did believe Hennis was guilty even though with 2/3rds, how many would that be? At least 10 would have to believe Hennis was guilty?

Looking at the panel, some officers some enlisted but at least 1/3 of the jury would have to be enlisted personnel. I am trying to get the final numbers. As of March 13th, 10 jurors had been seated. Of the 6 final perspective jurors that were interviewed on the 13th. 3 were Colonels and 3 Sergeants I believe. Okay as of Friday March 12th, of the 10 jurors seated, 5 were officers and 5 were enlisted. Jury selection is always a huge part of any trial and from what I am reading about some of the panel, I am not exactly encouraged.

Thinman · 04-09-2010, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kadrmas15

first off, I do not have to provide you a source. How convenient.

What do you think I am pulling facts out of my rear end and just making them up?

Probably.

Thinman · 04-09-2010, 11:28 AM

When did I ever say that Hennis was required to take the stand? I just said that if the supposed affair actually existed, he would be singing about it like a canary. What did he have to lose? His attorney (assuming he is worth his salt) would want him to give a detailed explanation to sway the jury.

It's laughable that you use the blood excuse when it is convenient for you. So, it is inconceivable that none of Hennis's blood was found in the house. Yet, it is perfectly logical how 4+ hippies left no blood in the MacDonald household.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 11:42 AM

Thinman, I am not going to talk about the MacDonald case with you, that is why we have a thread for that. I told you to go to the Fayetteville observer and look up the March 26th, 2010 article. That is absurd that you would think I would make up numbers. If I was going to make them up I certainly would pick better numbers than these. That is what the article said, so unless they were lying that is what the numbers were.

Actually Thinman, I never was using the blood excuse as an excuse when it was convenient for me as you falsely claimed. I was merely pointing out that for as much blood as was there and as viciously as these people were stabbed I would think the killer would cut himself and since the killer was scratched that the killers skin cells and blood would be in the house and possibly on the victims. None of Hennis's blood was there.

Also to a reasonable person you implied that Hennis was guilty if he did not take the stand. You did not actually say the words 'Hennis is guilty if he does not take the stand' but you might as well have because that is what you were getting at. There were plenty of reasons for Hennis not to take the stand. His demeanor would not help him. Also if he took the stand and repeated the thing about an affair, if he said that, you would not believe him anyway so what would be the point of sticking him on the stand? Just to solidify the idea even further in your mind that he is a murderer and a liar? Does not make a whole lot of sense to me but that is just an opinion. No competent lawyer would put their client on the stand in that situation. It is easier for you to say in hindsight after he was already convicted, oh well he should have testified he had nothing to lose. He had a whole hell of a lot to lose. He has already lost his freedom and he might lose his life before it is all said and done. That is a lot to lose. Maybe you can run your mouth about it if you are a criminal defendant in a capital murder case sometime.

Again, go to the Fayetteville Observer and look it up yourself. I am not making up nothing, I have no reason to. I was merely repeating two prosecution experts disagreed and quoted the exact figures that were given verbatim in the article. If you do not like or agree with them that is your choice but just because you do not like or agree with them does not make me a liar. You never even bothered to look for it or do your own research. You disagree with and dislike my opinions so you assume I am a liar.

kadrmas15 · 04-09-2010, 11:45 AM

Also thinman you might want to study basic American jurisprudence, it is not on the burden of the defendant to prove anything. It is on the burden of the prosecution to prove that Hennis was in that house. How can you prove a man killed three people if you cannot even prove that he was in the house?

04-07-2010, 08:05 PM	#1
Thinman Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Apr 08, 2005 Posts: 182	Tim Hennis trial in full swing in Fayetteville, NC I know it was never profiled on UM, but there has been a fair amount of discussion here about the case, so I thought I would make an exception. Timothy Hennis, Army Master Sergeant, is back on trial for his life for the MacDonald-esque massacre of a family in Fayetteville, NC in 1985. Lots of good articles here on the case. http://fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/04/07/989371

04-08-2010, 02:25 PM	#2
BuffaloBill Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Mar 07, 2004 Location: Cheektowaga(Buffalo),NY Posts: 437	Jury find NC soldier guilty in 1985 triple slaying By KEVIN MAURER (AP) – 2 hours ago FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A soldier who was acquitted in civilian court more than 20 years ago has been convicted by a military jury of murdering a North Carolina mother and her two children in 1985. Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was found guilty of three counts of premeditated murder Thursday. The jury had deliberated less than three hours following three weeks of testimony in the case. The jury will next decide if Hennis should be put to death. Those deliberations start Friday. Hennis showed no reaction to the verdict. Relatives of his victims hugged and cried. Hennis was first convicted in state court, but won an appeal and was acquitted in a second trial. He couldn't be tried in state court again, so the case was turned over to the Army after investigators examined DNA evidence that couldn't be tested in the mid-1980s. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — A soldier who was acquitted in civilian court nearly 25 years ago has been convicted by a military jury of murdering a North Carolina mother and her two children in 1985. Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was found guilty of three counts of premeditated murder Thursday. The jury had deliberated less than three hours following three weeks of testimony in the case. The jury will next decide if Hennis should be put to death. Those deliberations start Friday. Hennis showed no reaction to the verdict. Relatives of his victims hugged and cried. Hennis was first convicted in state court, but won an appeal and was acquitted in a second trial. He couldn't be tried in state court again, so the case was turned over to the Army after investigators examined DNA evidence that couldn't be tested in the mid-1980s. (This version CORRECTS time period in lede.) Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

04-08-2010, 02:50 PM	#3
BuffaloBill Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Mar 07, 2004 Location: Cheektowaga(Buffalo),NY Posts: 437	Now having been found guilty of this crime a second time, the score stands 2 to 1 for the prosecution. I'm amazed that it only took 3 hours to convict this guy, when he was previously was aquited years ago. Years and years of evidence , and were talking alot of years ! All done in 3 hours. I cannot see there not being a forth trial. I just think the whole thing smells from this guy even getting a fair trial again here. Anyone have additional thoughts ?

04-08-2010, 03:16 PM	#4
Thinman Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Apr 08, 2005 Posts: 182	His DNA inside the mother does it for me. Hennis is guilty. Way to go, jury.

04-09-2010, 01:03 AM	#5
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	Except Thinman, it does not do it for me. They got it wrong. Three hours, pathetic. Yeah, Hennis will be getting death again. The military did not even have the authority to try this case. Yes, I agree, Hennis, I hate to say it, when he got into military court, I knew he was going down. Certainly in North Carolina, yeah, it is just not good. I could tell from what the members or as they are called in the civilian world 'jurors' that they all pretty much assumed that someone accused of killing a child was guilty. Also, the DNA did not actually match Hennis. That is the thing that I find amusing. People are like oh it matches case closed. Actually it did not match. It was inconclusive. It was not nearly as solid as many of the pro prosecution people like to make it seem that it is. I don't know, I in some ways cannot and do not want to believe the prosecutors got away with this crap again. Even though he was not actually the prosecutor this time, the state prosecutor that lost the case back in 1989 was behind the whole thing. This was the only murder case he probably ever lost and he was always angry about it and always vowed to get even with Hennis. Yeah, it is just a shame. I still find that mighty interesting how the cops claim they could allegedly not test this so called DNA until 2006? Why not send it out much earlier? Heck Hennis was in the Army until 2004. But yeah, if I were Hennis I would not have even gone back to the Army. He still could have potentially been charged in federal civilian court but had he not gone back to the Army, specifically had he not retired from the Army and been collecting benefits, the Army could not have recalled him to active duty to charge him. I don't know, something about this whole mess just does not seem right. Incredible to me. Only in this country could a guy get convicted, get sent to death row, then get a new trial, get acquitted. Go back to his family and his career for so many years and then 16 years after his acquittal get charged again and 21 years after his acquittal get convicted again of the same crime in a completely different court. I certainly would not want to go on trial in the military, I imagine that they have higher conviction rates than civilian courts do but I cannot say that for sure. It just seems military law and the members selected to serve which it is a mixture of enlisted and officers correct would be more conservative? But yeah, I would be surprised if Hennis does not get the death penalty again. The odds that he would ever actually be executed are slim. However I would not be so quick to assume this thing is over. I do think there will be a fourth trial in this instance. I think eventually the U.S. Federal Court will rule that the military did not truly have the jurisdiction to even prosecute this case. In fact, the trial judge in this case, the Colonel, he instructed the jury on unpremeditated murder as a lesser included offense when he could not even legally do that as at that time the statute of limitations on that charge was 3 years.

04-09-2010, 01:12 AM	#6
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	But like I said, the DNA did not actually match Hennis as was falsely reported. It was inconclusive. That means maybe his, maybe not aka this case should have ended in an acquittal. In fact the DNA sample that they got, like I said, could not be matched to Hennis. While he could not be eliminated it could not be matched to him either. The odds also considering how advanced modern DNA testing is, the odds that they got in this sample were and are not in fact very impressive. One out of every 426 white male would match the DNA sample. One out of every 329 black males would match the sample and one out of every 200 hispanic males would match the sample. Now that was the military who tested this at their lab and strangely could not link Hennis to any of this. However here is what did Hennis in. The military when they could not find a match to Hennis after they had used up most of the sample in the first testing, sent what little was left to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. She claimed that Hennis's DNA was inside Mrs. Eastburn's body. However she did admit that the skin from under Mrs. Eastburn's fingernails and the blood found on the bloody towel at the Eastburn home, that DNA did not match Tim Hennis and he was eliminated as the contributor in both those instances. Basically this case was botched. Even if Tim Hennis did have sex with Mrs. Eastburn, that hardly makes him a murderer. I would not blame him for lying knowing how it would look. The pro prosecution people say oh, well if he is truly innocent why not just admit that you had sex with Mrs. Eastburn. But you know what they would say if he said that or claimed that? They would twist it and say that he was just saying that to justify his DNA being there. However no one could have committed this crime without there being blood on them. Mrs. Eastburn struggled for her life and scratched the hell out of her assailant yet the skin from underneath her fingernails did not match Hennis! The blood on the towel that the perpetrator used to wipe himself off, that blood did not match Tim Hennis he was eliminated to 100 percent certainty in both of those instances! So there was plenty of reasonable doubt here. The show CSI has done more damage to criminal justice than one could possibly fathom.

04-09-2010, 07:56 AM	#7
Thinman Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Apr 08, 2005 Posts: 182	Please provide some actual sources to back up your claims. Everything I have read says that the DNA sample could not be conclusively identified back in 1985, but that it can be now. Where are you finding that it was inconclusive from 2006-present? If that were the case, there is no way there would have been a conviction.

04-09-2010, 08:57 AM	#8
BuffaloBill Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Mar 07, 2004 Location: Cheektowaga(Buffalo),NY Posts: 437	The most alarming thing as that in a military trail like this, If I'm understanding it correct that it only has to be a majority vote to convict, so in other words if there are 14 jurors all you need is 8 to convict. So assentionally you can put Hennis to death with an 8-6 vote. Why not just hand a gun to the judge and shoot him right after the verdict.....GREAT SYSTEM for a capital murder case. As usual you hit the nail on the head kadrmas15, sore looser prosecutor, questionalable DNA, VERY VERY BAD police work.

04-09-2010, 09:57 AM	#9
Thinman Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Apr 08, 2005 Posts: 182	Define questionable DNA. It either matches or it does not. You are trying to say that with the technology we have available today, they really are not sure? They just think it might be Hennis's DNA? Cases that are much older, with less-preserved DNA samples have been solved in the past few years. Look no further than Cold Case Files and Forensic Files for evidence of this. Spare me the whole Hennis was having an affair with Kathryn Eastburn. I can understand why the lawyers would try that defense since his DNA was left inside of her. But if that was true, why did Hennis not take the stand and go into great detail about their love affair and pretend to be devastated by the horrible death of his mistress? He claims he never saw her again after adopting the dog.

04-09-2010, 10:32 AM	#10
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	Okay thinman, I am not going to argue with you about whether Hennis is guilty or innocent. You think he is completely guilty, you always have and always will so there is no reason to beat that dead horse. However in terms of the DNA, first off, I do not have to provide you a source. What do you think I am pulling facts out of my rear end and just making them up? Come on. I read it in the Fayetteville Observer Newspaper. It was in an article dated March 26th, 2010. Now, I would give you the link but you will have to go to the archives if they even exist on the newspaper's website to find it. However, the above facts I told you were mentioned, at least in the Fayetteville Observer newspaper so unless they are lying too. The expert that said those things might have got it wrong but that was from the military's own expert. The military's own lab person said this stuff. Yes DNA can still come back as inconclusive, especially if it is an old sample and the stuff you are testing is degraded. Just because it happens to come back no problem in some cases does not mean it always does. This stuff is over 25 years old, and was tested more than once for DNA before, who knows what happened with contamination and the like? It was tested back in 1989 when DNA was in its infancy. Also, you are rather simplistic when you say that DNA is such an exact science. In fact it is not. You can exclude someone by DNA to 100 percent scientific acceptability. We all agree on that. The problem is when you try to include people. That is when you run into problems. At least according to the military expert, this DNA test result was not even close to implicating Hennis. It was inconclusive. Again, he was not eliminated as the donor of that DNA, but he was also not linked in any way via the DNA either. The odds are not very impressive at least when you go by the military's own guy. 1 out of every 426 white men matching that sample? I mean do you have any idea how many white men that would leave that would match the sample? So with those less than stellar numbers the military went to the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation's lab. Suddenly, what a shock the same state who had once got Hennis convicted and then lost on retrial and was angry about it ever since claims that it was Hennis's DNA. However this person also claimed the odds of it being anyone else's DNA was 1 in 12 trillion. Okay except for one problem, clearly it can't be both. So which one is it? That presents a problem to me. I would think it would even be a problem for you pro-prosecution thinman, that both of the prosecution's experts are coming up with two very different numbers and neither could for sure 100 percent say that it was in fact Hennis's DNA. They would say it was his DNA, well the military expert said he was '95 percent sure' and the civilian expert said she was 100 percent sure. However both admitted that the DNA samples did not rule out that it literally could be someone other than Hennis's DNA. Also, lets look at the other evidence which you glossed over. First off Hennis does not have to take the stand. That is in a little thing called the constitution. Also, you as a juror are not supposed to hold it against a defendant for not testifying or assume guilt either before trial or because a defendant did not testify during trial. Now interestingly the military and civilian experts disagreed on these points as well in regards to the evidence. The military expert, claimed that more than one man's DNA was underneath Kathryn and Erin Eastburn's fingernails, but he said he could not link or eliminate Hennis. There was DNA on a glove tip in the Eastburn home, again he could not link or eliminate Hennis as the contributor of the DNA but there was DNA from more than one person in the glove tip as well. The bloody towel according to the expert had DNA from three people on it, one of them male, Hennis was eliminated to 100 percent acceptability as the donor of the unknown male DNA on the towel. Now, the civilian expert, here is what she found for the same evidence. She eliminated Tim Hennis to 100 percent acceptability as being the donor of the unknown male DNA underneath Kathryn and Erin Eastburn's fingernails. She also like the military expert eliminated Hennis as the donor of the male DNA found on the bloody towel. She also eliminated Hennis as the donor of the DNA that was found inside the glove tip.

04-09-2010, 10:45 AM	#11
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	Well you should be proud thinman, the members seemed to do what you did, pick one piece of evidence and say guilty when much of the other evidence that also should have proven this did not prove it but in fact eliminated Hennis. I mean to me, that is reasonable doubt even if one were to believe it was his DNA inside Mrs. Eastburn. I mean for as vicious of a crime as this was, all the blood and all that, the skin underneath the fingernails, the bloody towel, there is no way the perpetrator was not bloody, there is just no way. Yet none of Tim Hennis's blood or skin was found in that house. Not one bit. Where is it? I mean no one is smart enough to just wipe up their own blood and pick up their own skin cells but no one else's. I mean the thing is, you can't actually place him in the house. That is a problem. His DNA allegedly being inside Mrs. Eastburn is not really this discovery of the age that you make it to be. I mean how do you know he was not having an affair with her? How do you not know he never had sex with her? Are you saying that it is not at all possible that he had an affair with her or had consensual sex with her? Just because you believe his DNA was there does not mean he must be the one that raped and murdered Mrs. Eastburn and two of her daughters. You can't place him in the house where the killings took place on the night the killings happened. That is a problem. Buffalo Bill, thanks for the kind words man, could not agree more. But I do need to correct you one thing, from what I read, military verdicts have to only be 2/3rd majority. It has to be more than just a simple majority but does not have to be unanimous. A death sentence though for that to be handed down does have to be unanimous under military law. However from what I understand, all 14 jurors did believe Hennis was guilty even though with 2/3rds, how many would that be? At least 10 would have to believe Hennis was guilty? Looking at the panel, some officers some enlisted but at least 1/3 of the jury would have to be enlisted personnel. I am trying to get the final numbers. As of March 13th, 10 jurors had been seated. Of the 6 final perspective jurors that were interviewed on the 13th. 3 were Colonels and 3 Sergeants I believe. Okay as of Friday March 12th, of the 10 jurors seated, 5 were officers and 5 were enlisted. Jury selection is always a huge part of any trial and from what I am reading about some of the panel, I am not exactly encouraged.

04-09-2010, 11:28 AM	#13
Thinman Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Apr 08, 2005 Posts: 182	When did I ever say that Hennis was required to take the stand? I just said that if the supposed affair actually existed, he would be singing about it like a canary. What did he have to lose? His attorney (assuming he is worth his salt) would want him to give a detailed explanation to sway the jury. It's laughable that you use the blood excuse when it is convenient for you. So, it is inconceivable that none of Hennis's blood was found in the house. Yet, it is perfectly logical how 4+ hippies left no blood in the MacDonald household.

04-09-2010, 11:42 AM	#14
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	Thinman, I am not going to talk about the MacDonald case with you, that is why we have a thread for that. I told you to go to the Fayetteville observer and look up the March 26th, 2010 article. That is absurd that you would think I would make up numbers. If I was going to make them up I certainly would pick better numbers than these. That is what the article said, so unless they were lying that is what the numbers were. Actually Thinman, I never was using the blood excuse as an excuse when it was convenient for me as you falsely claimed. I was merely pointing out that for as much blood as was there and as viciously as these people were stabbed I would think the killer would cut himself and since the killer was scratched that the killers skin cells and blood would be in the house and possibly on the victims. None of Hennis's blood was there. Also to a reasonable person you implied that Hennis was guilty if he did not take the stand. You did not actually say the words 'Hennis is guilty if he does not take the stand' but you might as well have because that is what you were getting at. There were plenty of reasons for Hennis not to take the stand. His demeanor would not help him. Also if he took the stand and repeated the thing about an affair, if he said that, you would not believe him anyway so what would be the point of sticking him on the stand? Just to solidify the idea even further in your mind that he is a murderer and a liar? Does not make a whole lot of sense to me but that is just an opinion. No competent lawyer would put their client on the stand in that situation. It is easier for you to say in hindsight after he was already convicted, oh well he should have testified he had nothing to lose. He had a whole hell of a lot to lose. He has already lost his freedom and he might lose his life before it is all said and done. That is a lot to lose. Maybe you can run your mouth about it if you are a criminal defendant in a capital murder case sometime. Again, go to the Fayetteville Observer and look it up yourself. I am not making up nothing, I have no reason to. I was merely repeating two prosecution experts disagreed and quoted the exact figures that were given verbatim in the article. If you do not like or agree with them that is your choice but just because you do not like or agree with them does not make me a liar. You never even bothered to look for it or do your own research. You disagree with and dislike my opinions so you assume I am a liar.

04-09-2010, 11:45 AM	#15
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	Also thinman you might want to study basic American jurisprudence, it is not on the burden of the defendant to prove anything. It is on the burden of the prosecution to prove that Hennis was in that house. How can you prove a man killed three people if you cannot even prove that he was in the house?