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KCTV5
July 25, 2014
The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday overturned the death sentences of two brothers convicted of capital murder in a crime spree in Wichita in 2000 including robbery, rape, forced sex and four fatal shootings in a snow-covered soccer field.
The court also struck down three of the four capital murder convictions each against Jonathan and Reginald Carr. It upheld one capital murder conviction for each of them.
Their cases will return to Sedgwick County District Court for further hearings.
The court’s majority overturned their death sentences because the presiding judge did not hold separate proceedings for each man. In overturning most of their capital convictions, the majority said the instructions to jurors were flawed.
The justices on Friday issued a separate ruling for each brother.
The Carr brothers’ crimes are among the most notorious in the state since the 1959 slayings of a western Kansas family that inspired the classic book, “In Cold Blood.”
The victims in the December 2000 attacks that culminated in a bloody scene in a snowy field were: Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka, 27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25. Another woman who was shot in the head survived and ran naked through the snow to seek help, becoming a key witness at the brothers’ trial.
Prosecutors said the five friends were in a Wichita home when two armed intruders forced them to engage in sex with each other and later made them withdraw money from automatic teller machines. The two women were raped repeatedly before the five were taken to the soccer field and shot while they were kneeling.
The Carr brothers also were convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of a 55-year-old cellist, Ann Walenta of Wichita, only days before the spree that left four dead.
