by blondie 25 Replies latest jw friends
During the trial, prosecutor Burke Strunsky described Jarka as a man so enamored with his upper-middle-class lifestyle and position within his congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, that he was willing to sacrifice the life of his loving wife to maintain it.
Pretty sad when you're willing to kill your wife to maintain your 'position' in the congregation---especially as there's not supposed to be any hierachy amongst God's Chosen Ones.
That's just an argument. Maybe he just wanted the money.
The circumstancial evidence made him look pretty bad. But remember folks, it's all about what you can prove, and how much doubt you can input. The defense couldn't even put a "shadow of a doubt" in the heads of the jury.
What doesn't look good for Jarka is that the alternative doesn't really seem probable....someone breaks into the home and decides to kill her using a blunt object? Why not a gun? Why do it in broad daylight? Why wouldn't she just submit and let him take the stuff, as JWs are trained to do? Wouldn't a thief's best interest lie in just grabbing the loot and leaving? I don't think Murrietta is a high-crime area--or at least, an area where this sort of violent crime is bound to happen.
The bottom line with my questions is that I really don't think his explanation had a considerable probability of occurring. I don't know enough about the area to make a better judgment. But the evidence--despite its circumstancial nature--doesn't make him look good.
"Free Jarka!"
I read their entire site and found nothing of substance to acquit him. At least OJ and Petterson had some interesting spin to ponder. Most of their stuff was 'he was persecuted' so you can't trust the authorities.
Truthseekeriam wrote: "We had Legal Correspondent Jim Avila and a camera crew interviewing one of our attorneys for a piece on 20/20 today.
Could be interesting. Jim Avila was raised a witness. I met him just once at his father's funeral in the mid-90's. His father was an elder in my congregation. Not sure if Jim himself was ever baptized. I am not aware of his ever mentioning his JW background on camera but have seen him cover a number of JW-related stories.
-Aude.
That should be intresting.
I didn't know about Jim Avila having a JW background.
This is from the news section in the Free Jarka link.
October 16, 2009 – A reporter from ABC’s 20/20 interviewed Kelle. At the same time, Kelle’s oldest sister, Aquilla Schafer, and her husband, Bill, were also interviewed. The story is expected to air sometime in November.
November 6, 2009 – The sentencing hearing took place at the Riverside County Courthouse in Murrietta, CA. The Judge started the proceedings with comments from both families. Bill Schafer, representing the family, went first to give hope to Kelle and to encourage him. Bill finished his comments by saying he was proud of Kelle for his faith and for not wavering from the truth and knows that one day Kelle will be exonerated. Isabelle’s sisters also commented. With anger and emotion they continued to lash out at Kelle, calling him a monster. After the statements, the judge gave the ruling of the maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. Since ABC’s 20/20 were in the courtroom filming the hearing, the judge appeared to be grandstanding in making his own comments before he read the sentence. The Judge’s unnecessary comments caused pain for Kelle’s family as he called Kelle “evil” and kept repeating that the evidence was overwhelming, even though there was no evidence at all.
As soon as the sentencing hearing was over, the Public Defender’s office filed the appeal paperwork to get the process started.
November 7, 2009 – Website is updated to continue the efforts to defend Kelle. To date, tens of thousands have viewed this site.
November 14th, 2009 - ABC News 20/20 expected to air Kelle's story within next two weeks.
Love the way they say the Judge was grandstanding when he got the chance to make his ruling.
Hello!!! He was the Judge who sat through the whole trial and got to see everything that made it in and didn't. If he says the evidence was overwhelming over and over and the defendant is Evil he must have felt that way.
I was watching an old 20/20 episode on the ID channel. I had no idea this about this case. Now that I've read up a little bit it is really disturbing - AIDS, elder visits at midnight and a congregation rallying around a murderer.
