Accused 'ninja' killer: 'I've already been ... convicted by the media'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

Accused 'ninja' killer: 'I've already been ... convicted by the media'
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 28, 2010 7:31 p.m. EDT

Pensacola, Florida (CNN) -- A jury weighed the fate Thursday night of a man accused of leading a band of men dressed as ninjas into a Florida home then killing a couple execution-style, even as the defendant declared his outcome in another arena.

"I've already been tried and convicted by the media," Leonard Gonzalez Jr. said as he was escorted out of an Escambia County courtroom early Thursday evening, after the jury of 11 women and one man got answers to two questions they'd asked during their deliberations.

~snip~
When the case went to the jury, hours earlier, Gonzalez winked at his wife Tabitha and nodded twice to the family of the late Byrd and Melanie Billings. Prosecutors argued during the first-degree murder trial that Gonzalez shot Byrd once in each leg, then led he and his wife into their master bedroom where he killed them while unloading seven more bullets.

The jury has since asked to again watch a 14-minute surveillance video, which shows footage from 16 cameras around the Billings' large Beulah, Florida, home that were set up to keep tabs on the 13 special-needs children the couple had adopted and were there the night of July 9, 2009.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/28/florida.couple.slain.case/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

[boppers]

1. Man who led 'ninjas' into Florida home guilty of first-degree murder

New headline.

[Beaverhausen]

2. good

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for that. n/t

[boppers]

4. NP. He seemed guilty as hell to me.

His defense team, confronted with no less than 3 confessions (including his own), video of his vehicle at the crime site, tried a defense of "well, they were unreliable people making confessions". Frankly, I don't know why the defense didn't bother to just plead without a jury, unless the DA was out for a death sentence, and refused life without parole.

[Frank Booth]

5. "then led he and his wife into their master bedroom"

I guess I shouldn't expect anyone at CNN to actually know how to write a proper sentence, but this is kind of pathetic.