Okinawa sailor sentenced to 65 years for murder

Wednesday, June 29, 2005


http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=30029

Okinawa sailor sentenced to 65 years for murder
Second Camp Hansen dental technician admits to role in slaying

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Trembling with each word, Seaman Tiffany Brooks found it hard to apologize in court Monday to the family of the friend she murdered in February.

“What I done was undeserving,” Brooks sobbed as she stood, her written statement shaking in her hand. “It was uncalled for.”

Brooks, 21, a dental technician from Carthage, Miss., was sentenced to life in prison without parole for her part in the Feb. 2 slaying of Seaman Adam Palecco. She pleaded guilty in Keystone Judicial Circuit Court to murder, conspiracy to commit murder and obstruction of justice. The plea was part of a pretrial agreement that saved her from a death sentence.

In her stipulation of facts, answers to Daugherty’s questions and a video re-enactment she made of the crime, Brooks said she plotted with two other dental technicians to kill Palecco, 21, because they feared he was going to inform on their shoplifting ring. The trio lured Palecco to a darkened area of Camp Hansen at night. Seaman Audley Evans II, 20, of Royal Palm Beach, Fla., grabbed Palecco from behind and slashed his throat, Brooks said. Then she and Seaman Robert Person Jr., 19, of Turrell, Ark., took turns stabbing their co-worker. All four were assigned to the Camp Hansen Dental Clinic.

You got that right.

I hope there is no possibility of parole in those 65 years, for any of these wastes of good oxygen.

Look I wish in a lot of years she does get a chance at parole. I know it's unpopular but I think people deserve a second chance. Some people can be rehabilitated. Maybe she'll change and maybe she won't. i just hate to see lives wasted even if they have committed such a crime.

.... I agree with you. But there are certains instances where I just cannot muster a shred of sympathy for the perpetrator.

First, they cut a man's throat and stab him repeatedly in a gruesome premeditated crime.

Then, she gets in front of the court and says it was "uncalled for".

Sorry, that comment sent me over the edge. I hope they lose the key.

But I feel two lives were taken. Twenty years of prison goes by, in our justice system it might be worse then death, then a middle aged woman comes up for parole. Facing hardcore pols, she begs for mercy. No, not in this case, shes 19 and the military. I'm sure Ill get flamed, but I really think maybe we should think about it. I'm sure I'm gonna get ragged but man, I dint hate. 20 yrs 30 40 50. Maybe its not the same person. Yes, she should be punished. Mercy is American too, and I would prefer rehabilitation. Anyway flame away because I prefer compassion.

she's not a waste of oxygen.

I POSTED THIS TO SHOW THE HIGH STANDARDS IN THE RECRUITING COMMAND.. NO PSYCH TESTS AT ALL.

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Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were moved to the Joliet penitentiary. In 1936, Loeb was slashed and killed with a razor in a showroom fight with James Day, another inmate. Leopold rushed to the prison hospital to be at his old friend's bedside as he died. Day claimed that he was resisting Loeb's sexual advances, while prison officials called it a deliberate and unprovoked attack. Day was acquitted by a jury. Leopold managed to keep intellectually active in prison. He taught in the prison school, mastered twenty-seven foreign languages, worked as an x-ray technician in the prison hospital, reorganized the prison library, volunteered to be tested with an experimental malaria vaccine, and designed a new system of prison education. In the 1950's, an elderly and now retired Robert Crowe reportedly offered to write a letter to the Illinois Parole Board urging his release. In 1958, after thirty-four years of confinement, Leopold was released from prison. To escape the publicity accompanying the release of Compulsion, a movie based on the 1924 crime (and which Leopold and his lawyer, Elmer Gertz, challenged in a lawsuit as an invasion of privacy), Leopold migrated to Puerto Rico. He earned a master's degree, taught mathematics, and worked in hospitals and church missions. He wrote a book entitled The Birds of Puerto Rico. Despite saying in a 1960 interview that he was still deeply in love with Richard Loeb, he married. Leopold said he often found himself wondering during his years in Puerto Rico at what point the thirty-four dark years in prison became balanced by the subsequent sunshine of freedom. Leopold died following ten days of hospitalization on August 30, 1971. The next morning his corneas were removed. One was given to a man, the other to a woman.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/Accountoftrial.html

Here's Clarence Darrow's courtroom speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/cdarrowpleaformercy.htm

pnorman

were gonna get flamed hard if our posts arent pulled pnorman but I read it thank u. :)

I see feathers ruffled and tempers raised, but by and large, the discourse is amicable. Ultimately, we're a lot closer to what could be called "truth" than what we started with.

I hope everyone else here realizes what a TREMENDOUS resource this DU is, especially in times like the present. It's the collective wisdom and insight of a good selection of people who CARE and THINK. I try to put into DU what I get out of it, but I could never possibly come close.

pnorman

but there's a great collection of speeches at that site, including some in MP3 format. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/newtop100speeches.htm

pnorman