ORLANDO, FLorida–Former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one felony count of burglary to a conveyance and to one misdeameanor count of battery.

In a packed Orlando courtroom, victim Colleen Shipman, who in 2007 was competing with Nowak for the affections of NASA astronaut Bill Oefelin, told the court she knew in her heart that Nowak was going to kill her back in February 2007.

Nowak had driven from Texas to Florida and followed Shipman to her car at an Orlando airport while wearing a trench coat, dark glasses and a wig. Nowak, who was carrying a steel mallet and knife in her duffle bag, sprayed pepper spray into Shipman's vehicle.

In sentencing Nowak, Judge Marc Lubet reserved adjudication on her guilty plea, ordering her to serve one year of supervised probation. Additionally, she must complete 50 hours of community service and must write a letter of apology to Shipman within 10 days.

Nowak was facing life in prison.

–Jean Casarez, IN SESSION correspondent

ORLANDO, Florida – In Session has confirmed former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak will plead guilty today in an Orlando, Florida court.

Lisa Nowak

A source close to the prosecution tells me that a plea deal was reached after Nowak agreed to plead guilty to one feonly count of burglary of a conveyance and one count of misdemeanor battery.

Alleged victim Colleen Shipman has arrived from the west coast and will take the stand to give a victim impact statement. Nowak has flown from Texas to be at today's hearing.

Nowak will be allowed to have the court withhold adjudication at today's hearing. Upon successful completion of a probationary period, there will be no conviction at all on her record.

Nowak is charged with attempted kidnapping, burglary and battery after driving from Texas to Florida to confront Shipman, who had started dating Nowak's love interest, former NASA astronaut Bill Oefelein.

–Jean Casarez, IN SESSION correspondent

GRUNDY CENTER, Iowa–On Thursday afternoon, after approximately one and a half hours of deliberation, a jury in Grundy Center, Iowa convicted defendant Michelle Kehoe of the first-degree murder of her two-year-old son Seth in October, 2008. Kehoe was also convicted of attempted murder for assaulting her seven-year-old son, Seth. Both boys had their throats slashed by their mother.

Kehoe now faces a mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole. She will be officially sentenced on December 15.

–Michael Christian, IN SESSION senior field producer

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa–Michelle Kehoe suffered from severe depression for 12 years before she killed her toddler son, attempted to kill her other son and tried to kill herself in October 2008.

A psychiatrist who evaluated Kehoe for her defense to murder and attempted murder charges testified on Tuesday that Kehoe’s thinking was “so colored by depression” that she did not have the capacity to know right from wrong. She is asserting an insanity defense.

Dr. William Logan was the first defense witness. He recounted Kehoe’s childhood trauma in Missouri, where both of Kehoe's parents were alcoholics. Her parents separated when she was four and her father died when she was six years old. Between second and seventh grades, Kehoe was the victim of incest by her stepfather, her stepfather’s nephew and a neighbor.

When she finally told her mother about it, her mother sent her to live with an aunt in Iowa. She appeared to adjust well to her new life, but had her first depressive episode in the fall of 1996. She began to take an antidepressant, though it was effective for only a year or so.

Kehoe attempted suicide a number of times, the first being in March 1998. She drank “Heet” and inhaled carbon monoxide. Her next suicide attempt was a year later, in February 1999, when she checked herself into a hotel and cut her femoral artery. Kehoe was hospitalized after each suicide attempt. Her on-again/off-again therapy included up to 44 electroshock treatments.

Kehoe’s oldest son, Sean, was born in September 2001. She had miscarriages between 2003 and 2005. Her second child, Seth, was born in October 2006.

In December 2007, Kehoe’s car skidded into the Iowa River. She and her two sons were rescued by four men who witnessed it. According to Dr. Logan, Kehoe began to experience post-traumatic stress disorder after the river incident. Her condition worsened throughout 2008 following stressors that included her husband losing his job and her ill mother moving to Iowa.

From July to October 26, 2008, Kehoe had thoughts of suicide as “the only way out,” according to Dr. Logan’s evaluation of her. As in the past, she didn’t vocalize her suicidal thoughts to her husband or to those around her. Kehoe began to think that her children might be better off dead, fearing that they may have inherited her mental illness. She plotted to kill her sons and herself for two months before carrying out the acts on Sunday, October 26, 2008.

Three days after killing Seth, attempting to kill Sean and while recuperating from her own self-inflicted slash to the throat, Kehoe said that the December 2007 river incident was a suicide attempt but no one realized it at the time. She also said it was an unforgivable sin.

Jurors saw photographs of the gaping wound to Kehoe’s neck. It was a deep cut across her entire throat, through her windpipe. There were other smaller cuts across a portion of her neck.

Before Dr. Logan’s testimony, the State called its final witness, the deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Seth Kehoe. Jurors saw a deep gash across half of Seth’s throat and multiple bruises on the left side of his head, ear, and left lower extremity, indicating recent impact of blunt force. Periodically, Kehoe glanced at the autopsy photos of her little boy and dabbed her eyes.

Testimony continues Wednesday on In Session.

–Beth Karas, IN SESSION correspondent

WATERLOO, Iowa – The Florida attorney who defended Cynthia Sommer in 2007 against murder charges that she poisoned her Marine husband in San Diego was disbarred last Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court. His disbarment is unrelated to Sommer’s case.

Cynthia Sommer

Robert Udell, who is licensed in California as well, was initially hired by Sommer in Florida. She was arrested in November 2005 in Florida where she had moved with her four children after her husband’s death in 2002. Her January 2007 murder trial ended in a conviction of first-degree murder. She was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sommer then hired a new attorney, Allen Bloom, to fight for her life.

The trial judge, Peter Deddah, ordered a hearing on Bloom’s motion for a new trial. In late 2007, Udell testified at that hearing and admitted that he erred at the trial by “opening the door” to Sommer’s conduct which the judge had previously ruled inadmissible. That conduct in the months after her husband’s death included spending a small portion of her husband’s life insurance money on breast implants, dating Marines on the base, and participating in a wet tee shirt contest in Mexico. Udell opened the door to the admission of that evidence when he elicited testimony from a friend of Sommer’s that she was a grieving widow and wasn’t receiving appropriate support from the Department of Navy.

Judge Deddah ordered a new trial on the grounds that Sommer received ineffective assistance of counsel by Udell. Months later and before a new trial was held, she was freed when the District Attorney tested additional tissues from her husband that were subsequently found to be arsenic-free. Those test results cast doubt on the source of the original laboratory findings of toxic levels of arsenic in other tissue samples. Sommer has always maintained her innocence.

Udell was disbarred from the practice of law in Florida for cases he handled in that state, not for his representation of Sommer. The allegations were that he improperly handled legal fees between 2004 and 2008. He reportedly voluntarily agreed to the disbarment without admitting any wrongdoing.

Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

WATERLOO, Iowa –The Iowa trial of Michelle Kehoe, accused of slashing the throats of her two young sons then her own, will wrap up later this week. The State presented most of its evidence last Thursday and Friday at the Grundy County courthouse. The trial was moved from Buchanan County as a result of massive pretrial publicity.

Michelle Kehoe

Jurors heard from fifteen witnesses, thus far, whose factual accounts went largely unchallenged by the defense. Kehoe is asserting an insanity defense which means the issue for the jury is not whether Kehoe committed these acts, for she admits she did, but whether she should be held criminally responsible for them. Psychiatric experts for both sides are expected to testify this week.

Kehoe purportedly set out for a two-hour drive on Sunday morning, October 26, 2008 with her two young sons to visit her mother at a nursing home. But she and her sons never arrived. Instead, fewer than two hours after leaving home, Kehoe pulled into a wooded area by a pond. She took her older son, Sean, out of the family’s minivan, duct-taped his eyes, nose and mouth, and slashed his throat with a hunting knife she had purchased the previous month. Sean fought and kicked his mother who left him on the ground. She then removed two-year-old Seth from his car seat and also bound him with duct tape. Sean heard his baby brother cry as Kehoe slit his throat. Kehoe then went into the woods and slit her own throat. Sean managed to remove his duct tape and sneak into the van where he locked himself inside, apparently unbeknownst to his mother.

Kehoe’s husband and father of the two boys reported his family missing at 8:45 p.m. that evening. The following morning, Kehoe dragged herself to a home a quarter mile away to summon help. She concocted a story that a strange man had abducted them, killed her sons, and tried to kill her. Police found Seth’s body on the ground some distance from the vehicle. Inside the minivan, they found Sean, bloody, dirty, shivering but alive. They also located a note that Kehoe had written and left in the van in which she detailed the abduction. She wrote the note in the present tense as though she were writing it as the events unfolded.

Investigators confronted her with Sean’s statements that she had cut him and his brother, then herself. It wasn’t long before Kehoe confessed to the acts and admitted she had planned it in the prior two months, purchasing the knife and duct tape and drafting and redrafting the note found in the minivan.

Kehoe told investigators that what she did “is unforgiveable.” She confessed: “I can’t explain it. I can’t face anyone. I want to die…Please just finish it for me…I’m so sick. I don’t feel that I can ever be healthy.”

Less than a year earlier, on December 14, 2007, Kehoe says she lost control of her car when her two sons distracted her. She hit a curb, skidded on ice and plunged into the icy waters of the Iowa River. Four men helped rescue her and her sons.

Given the current allegations, many are questioning whether that prior incident was truly an accident or whether it was an attempt to kill her sons and herself.

Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

WATERLOO, IOWA –The Miami judge in Damon Darling’s trial is considering a defense motion to interview the jurors who convicted him of manslaughter and aggravated assault last month to determine if there was juror misconduct. The motion, filed two weeks by attorney Jonathan Meltz, also requests that the three alternates be interviewed. The State has not responded, yet, to the motion.

Damon Darling

Darling was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of nine-year-old Sherdavia Jenkins and the aggravated assault of Leroy Larose. Darling and Larose shot at each other in a Miami housing project. One of Darling’s bullets from the AK-47 he fired struck Jenkins in the neck and killed her almost immediately. She died in front of her mother.

The day after the jury’s October 8, 2008 verdict, Meltz received an anonymous call at his office from a man. His receptionist spoke to the man and took notes about his message. The caller said that juror “number 27, John, and Jesse” (another juror was Jesse Glass) were lifelong friends. He also said that John said they were going to “convict whomever was being judged.” It’s unclear when that statement was made—before or after the verdict—but that’s what the defense wants to explore. The caller, who was correct that juror John was number 27, may have been an alternate. If so, it’s possible the statement was made before jurors began deliberations. That could constitute misconduct as it would be a violation of the court’s instruction that there be no discussion or prejudging of the case before jurors retire to deliberate. In the motion, the defense claims the two jurors “improperly formed a fixed opinion as to guilt before the close of evidence.”

Meltz’s investigator confirmed that the grandparents of juror Jesse Glass live next door to juror Jonathan Hicks. Thus, it’s possible that the caller was correct that John and Jesse know each other. If they are friends, they did not disclose it at jury selection, though that fact, alone, is arguably harmless.

Meltz’s investigator also discovered that Jesse Glass was not truthful in one of his answers in the juror questionnaire. Question #11 states: “Have you, or a close friend or family member, ever been the victim of a crime? If so, describe briefly.” Glass’s response was “No.” In fact, on November 13, 2008, Glass was the victim of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (one of the same crimes Darling was convicted of) in Homestead, Florida. Meltz filed Glass’s questionnaire and the Homestead police report with his motion to interview jurors.

Jurors take two oaths during the selection and trial process. The first oath is to answer all questions truthfully. That’s the oath that applies to the questionnaire and any answers during voir dire. The second oath is taken when the final panel is selected where they swear or affirm that they will follow the law and the court’s instructions in deciding the case.

Judge Tinkler Mendez has ordered a presentence report for November 10 with sentencing of Darling to follow at some later time. She could grant this latest request for a hearing. If so, sentencing will be postponed while potential juror misconduct is investigated. The best case scenario for Darling is that he is ultimately granted a new trial. The best case scenario for the Jenkins family is that the motion is denied and Darling is sentenced to prison for decades. If the hearing is denied, the matter of juror misconduct could be an issue on appeal.

Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa–The trial of Michelle Kehoe, charged with murdering one son and attempting to murder another, began Wednesday in the small Iowa farm town of Grundy Center. Prosecutors claim that Kehoe meticulously planned the crimes, savagely slashing the throats of two-year-old Seth Kehoe (who died) and seven-year-old Sean Kehoe (who survived to identify his mother as his attacker) – acts she originally blamed on an unknown assailant.

To help prove its case, the State of Iowa called 10 witnesses. Most of them had contact with Sean Kehoe immediately after his ordeal. They all testified that Sean told them that his mother had driven to a remote location, covered his eyes with duct tape, and then slit his throat – after which, according to the youngster, she attacked his baby brother, Seth.

The defense has not contested the testimony of any of these prosecution witnesses; Kehoe’s attorneys concede that she is indeed the person who attacked her sons. But they will argue that Kehoe was legally insane at the time, and should therefore be acquitted.

Stay tuned to In Session for gavel-to-gavel coverage of this case.

–Michael Christian, In Session senior field producer

NEW YORK –The first criminal trial following the April 2008 raid on the FLDS ranch in Texas begins Monday in Eldorado, Texas. Raymond Merril Jessop, 38, is charged with one count of Sexual Assault of a Child under the age of 17. Jessop is also charged with Bigamy, but that trial will be held at some later date.

Raymond Merril Jessop

The raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County, Texas took place between April 3 and April 9 last year. Hundred of documents and photographs were seized including certificates of “spiritual unions” which are expected to be used to corroborate the allegations that underage marriages were taking place, birth records, dictations of prophet Warren Jeffs, and photographs of FLDS men and their numerous wives.

Following the raid, more than 400 children were removed from the ranch by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. An appellate court eventually ruled that the State did not have grounds to remove the children. Most of the children were reunited with their families in June 2008. A child named Merianne, who had purportedly married Warren Jeffs when she was twelve years old, was later sent to live with a relative. She’s now fifteen.

Child Protective Services, within DFPS, was building a number of cases of child abuse and other crimes against the parents but ultimately “non-suited” most of them. The cases were dropped after the mothers took parenting classes during which they were advised, among other things, of Texas law forbidding underage marriages. The mothers signed a “service plan” prepared by CPS where they promised to abide by the advice they learned in the classes. CPS, however, has no jurisdiction to follow up on cases that were non-suited so, aside from limited self-reporting coming out of the YFZ ranch, there is no way to know how the children are faring.

The Texas Attorney General, however, built criminal cases against 12 men following the raid. These men, who include Warren Jeffs and the current defendant Raymond Merril Jessop, were indicted in July and August last year and charged with crimes ranging from Failure to Report Child Abuse and Unlawful Marriage Ceremony of a Minor Child to Sexual Assault and Bigamy.

The alleged victim in this first trial was 15 when she was purportedly married to Jessop on August 12, 2004. She had been married to Jessop’s brother, Ernest. Ernest had been kicked out of the ranch by prophet Warren Jeffs and three of his wives were reassigned to his brother, Raymond. In this trial against Raymond Jessop, the Attorney General is seeking to introduce what is called evidence of “extraneous acts.”

The defense vigorously opposes these acts on the grounds that they cannot be proven, are highly prejudicial, and irrelevant to the charge of Sexual Assault. One of the acts, however, is about the alleged victim in this case. In a motion filed late last month, the Attorney General wrote that “Jessop placed his purported wife and unborn baby in danger by not seeking medical treatment for them.”

The alleged victim, who was 16 at the time, was in labor for three days in August 2005. She was not taken to a hospital “because of her age and the associated governmental pressures against the Prophet,” according to the motion which quotes Warren Jeffs.

Other acts the Attorney General wants to introduce include Jessop’s purported marriage to eight other women, allegations that he engaged in illegal banking activities, and aiding and abetting a fugitive when he failed to turn in Warren Jeffs while Jeffs was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List. Jessop faces up to 20 years in prison. He has been free pending the outcome of the trial after posting a $100,000 bond.

-Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK – Crime scene investigations are continuing today in two states as law enforcement pursue whoever killed little 7-year-old North Florida resident Somer Thompson.

Somer Thompson

At a mid-morning press conference, a spokesperson for law enforcement announced that all 90 registered sex offenders in the 5-mile radius of Thompson’s home have been spoken to, and at this point it is believed they have no involvement. Reporters were told the convicted offender’s homes and properties have been searched and families have been contacted in an attempt to eliminate them as suspects.

The second grader, in Orange Park, Florida, was last seen on Monday as she walked home from school with her twin brother and sister. This murder investigation has revealed that detectives are very interested in an abandoned house along the route that Thompson walked home. The home has become an active crime scene as law enforcement combs the structure for what they hope may be probative evidence. A local park, across the street, has also been of interest to these crime scene investigators.

And while law enforcement tries to find the killer of Somer Thompson, the little girl’s body that was found in a Georgia landfill on Wednesday, is still in Savannah Georgia, after an autopsy was performed on Thursday.

Investigators are asking for any information from the public on who murdered Somer, but they are also focusing on any and all forensic evidence that can be collected from locations in Florida and also from the little girl’s body.

A sexual assault or “rape kit” testing undoubtedly was performed at autopsy as well as a collection of any material under Thompson’s nails, and a collection of her clothes for sophisticated DNA testing.
A relatively new DNA technique labeled “touch DNA” allows forensic scientists to isolate foreign DNA on a person mainly from their clothes that comes from merely a touch of an assailant. That touch can leave behind skin cells. These skin cells then are analyzed to find the DNA of a possible assailant.

In 2008, touch DNA found from the clothing JonBenet Ramsey was wearing at her death in 1996, not only led to prosecutors officially clearing members of the little girl’s family, but led law enforcement one step closer to solving the murder of this 6 year old Boulder Colorado girl.
Florida authorities say they are hard at work to find the perpetrator of the horrific murder this week of Somer Thomson, not only to find justice for the elementary school student, but to also protect others in this North Florida community.

As reporters were told this morning the goal is to find that “one piece of crucial evidence” to solve the murder of Somer Thompson.

-Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent