California Man Kills 9 Children, Found Guilty

[Cpl Kendall]

CBC.CA

California man found guilty of killing 9 children
Last Updated Fri, 17 Jun 2005 18:40:59 EDT
CBC News

A California man who was the leader of an incestuous clan was convicted of killing nine of his children following a police standoff last year.

Marcus Wesson, 58, was found guilty on nine counts of first-degree murder, and was also convicted on 14 counts of raping and molesting seven underage daughters and nieces. He could face the death penalty.

Police found the nine bodies in a pile in a bedroom at the family home. They had all been shot in the eye.

Defence lawyers had argued Wesson's 25-year-old daughter, Sebhrenah Wesson, pulled the trigger and then committed suicide.

Prosecutors argued that even if Wesson did not pull the trigger, he should be found guilty if he encouraged his daughter to kill the victims, who included her siblings and a one-year-old son she had with her father.

Jurors agreed with prosecutors, finding Wesson guilty even though they said the state didn't prove he pulled the trigger.

Witnesses testified Wesson had repeatedly coached his children to kill one another if the police tried to break up the clan.

Police were called to the family's Fresno home after two of Wesson's nieces who had escaped tried to return to collect their children. Wesson was the father of both children.

Wesson spoke to police officers at the front door before shutting himself in a bedroom for more than an hour. He emerged covered in blood.

Police said they didn't hear gunshots, but other witnesses said they heard shots.

People in the community said the family usually wore all black and travelled in groups, avoiding eye contact. Women in the family were home schooled and had jobs to support Wesson.

A very bizarre and twisted tale, anyone know if California has the death penalty?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Yes it does

He could face the death penalty.

[frigidmagi]

Good riddence, someone reserve some pain for him first.

[Cpl Kendall]

Good riddence, someone reserve some pain for him first.

I'm sure that he'll get his his quota of "fun" on death row before he actually kicks off.

[Ace Pace]

I just can't understand how this comes along.
First incest, controlling the family then killing them.

I wish him death, and not a quick painless one.

[Josh]

I just can't understand how this comes along.
First incest, controlling the family then killing them.

I wish him death, and not a quick painless one.

While I wouldn't bat an eye if this guy was anally raped for the next twenty years before California executed him... (Assuming that the People's Republic of California ever actually grew a pair and executed somebody), we have an obligation as a society that when we do kill, we do so as quickly and cleanly as possible.

That is what separates us from the barbarians.

[B4UTRUST]

Some might argue that by allowing the individual to experiance grevious bodily pain before his well deserved shuffle from the mortal coil we aren't worse then barbarians but more enlightened for it.

As it stands now our criminal justice system is rather lax overall. While sure, prisoners are placed in cramped cells shared with other people and give up their freedoms there is not a lot done to really sink home the point of what they did as wrong. I mean they get 3 square meals a day and a bed to sleep in, hot showers and tv if they're behaved. All the books they could read from the library and a great chance to better themselves through schooling. I mean hell we have hard working, honest people in this country who can't even get that!

The only real punishments we offer is solitary confinement and the death penalty. And the death penalty isn't offered anywhere, nor is it neccessarily given in every case where it is legal.

"The degree of civilization can be judged by its prisoners." -Dostoyevsky
If we are judged by the above we are in a sorry shape indeed. Our prison systems across the nation are often overcrowded, in some areas dangerously so. A good percentage of the inmate populace aren't 1st time offenders here, some are back for the 2nd, 3rd, or more times. And not all of them are white collar criminals. Some are your convicted murderers, rapists, etc, the dredges of society you could say.

And yet they know that all they have to do is bide their time, behave well in prison and sooner, rather then later, they'll get out on parole and then they can go off to do it all over again. They don't learn their lesson in most cases, or obviously they wouldn't be in there again anyhow. Instead they mooch off the taxpayers of the country, live better then a lot of people I could name who work honest jobs for a living, and then get to go back into society to fuck up again at their leisure.

Obligation to give them a quick, painless death? Why? Why should they be granted the mercy that they refused to give themselves? Why should they not suffer the same fate as that they inflicted upon others? While, granted, they won't get the same effect as that which they preformed, it would be an effective message to others; 'You fuck up like they did and you're going to suffer for a long time before you die.' You start to break people down mentally and then physically then you render them into broken shells of what they were then you kill them. You make them suffer and beg for forgiveness and atonement for their crimes. You cause a person to really pay their debt, hand over their pound and pint.

But that will most likely never happen because this country is rather soft on such issues because we're firm believers in the SEP principle. Sombody Else's Problem. You can do whatever you want to anyone else in the country, as long as it doesn't directly affect me. But God help you once you mess with them or theirs, then they're all over you and demanding that you suffer. But if it aint them, they don't give a damn. *sighs and shakes his head*

It's all well and good to have the noble, humanitarian outlook on life, the moral high point in the situation. The firm notion that these hardened criminals are just desperate individuals, products of society and their environment, they're a fountain of misplaced rage. Name your cliche; Mother held him too much or not enough, last picked at kickball, late night sneaky uncle, whatever. And people keep this idea right up until the moment where the innocence and life of their precious child, their dear spouse, their loving parent is snatched away from them by someone. Then watch the calls for justice and vengance fly, the shouts and wishes of death and the flames of hell. It comes with the fury of a wakened giant harboring nothing but ill will, and God help anyone in between them and the justice they feel they need for closure.

But any other time and you'll never hear a peep out of most people save for activists demanding greater freedoms for those poor misbegotten souls behind locked bars. I guess it's fortunate that people like me aren't in charge of things or else the world would be a much harsher place I suppose...

[Josh]

B4-

First off, bonus points for a Con Air reference. :)

Now, on this-

Obligation to give them a quick, painless death? Why? Why should they be granted the mercy that they refused to give themselves? Why should they not suffer the same fate as that they inflicted upon others? While, granted, they won't get the same effect as that which they preformed, it would be an effective message to others; 'You fuck up like they did and you're going to suffer for a long time before you die.' You start to break people down mentally and then physically then you render them into broken shells of what they were then you kill them. You make them suffer and beg for forgiveness and atonement for their crimes. You cause a person to really pay their debt, hand over their pound and pint.

You do not make a right with the use of force. At best, you prevent future wrongs.

The obligation is not to the prisoner- as I said, I could give a damn if the aforementioned bastard suffers great and miserable excruciating agonies before his demise. When somebody has been declared worthy of execution, it is a statement that they are beyond salvage as a human being. Well and good.

However, the duty then turns back to society to preserve our own humanity by making it as clean as possible, for the health of our people. Yes, there are those of us who would be willing and able to make a very miserable passing for this guy, but the mindset involved in both being willing to do so and doing so is not something we should be inculating in our executioners, as it were. This guy has removed himself from human society by his actions, but the people who have to deal with him as part of the penal system have not.

Make it clean, make it quick, move on and take care of the living.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Um, I just wonder why they called him "California man"? I mean, I still remember a science-comedy movie of the same title about a caveman ressurected in California. Does this guy actually look like a caveman or something?

EDIT: I know my question sounds stupid but I just wonder why he's called "California man".