222UMKYhttp://doenetwork.us/cases/222umky.htmlhttp://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:5bUCGqM...2&hl=fr&start=1 KSP, Medical Examiner's office working John Doe case in Henry Co.
FRANKFORT – The State Medical Examiner's Office and the Kentucky State Police are working with the Henry County Coroner's office to identify scattered skeletal remains that were found in a rural area near the city of Pendleton in February.
Dr. Emily Craig, state forensic anthropologist, has created a facial reconstruction on the skull of the victim. Photos of the john doe facial reconstruction can be obtained from the Kentucky Justice Cabinet Website at www.jus.state.ky.us/photo.html under the heading of "Photo Gallery."
"It is important to note that the photo of the facial reconstruction is not a portrait of the victim," Dr. Craig said. "It is an approximation based on generalized facial features and skeletal anatomy. We are hoping someone recognizes this individual or believes the facial reconstruction resembles someone who has been missing for several months."
The skeletal remains found in Henry County are those of a male who was within an estimated age range of 30 to 50 years old. He had short, dark brown/black hair and was approximately 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 1 inch tall.
He was wearing 33 X 34-inch denim jeans, a dark blue short-sleeved mesh shirt and brown leather sandals. A gold bracelet was found near his body. He had extensive dental work, including a gold crown and porcelain bridges.
Authorities estimate that he was killed in the late summer or fall of 1998; he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Anyone with information regarding this investigation should contact Detective Brad Bates with the Kentucky State Police at the LaGrange Post at 502-222-0151 or 1-800-222-5555. Information can also be given to Jim Pollard, the Henry County coroner, at 502-845-4791.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:FBL4LyM...2&hl=fr&start=1 OLDHAM/JEFFERSON
La Grange man jailed over 1998 homicide
Officials seek victim's identity
By SHANNON TANGONAN, The Courier-Journal
Although the identity of the homicide victim is still unknown, a La Grange man has been charged with complicity in the slaying of a man whose skeletal remains were found in Henry County two years ago.
Patrick W. Meeks, 30, of 404 E. Jefferson St. in La Grange, was arrested Wednesday night by state police Detective Jim Griffin. Meeks was in the Jefferson County Jail last night on charges of complicity to commit murder, conspiracy to commit murder, complicity to tampering with physical evidence and complicity to first-degree robbery.
The arrest was the result of a joint investigation of the Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, Jefferson County police and state police.
Police said they believe the man was killed in Jefferson County. A hunter found the remains of the victim -- a white or Hispanic male -- on Feb. 21, 1999, three miles west of Pendleton. The man died of gunshot wounds and suffered a blunt-force injury to the head.
Dr. Emily Craig, the state's forensic anthropologist, estimates that the man died in the late summer or fall of 1998. Craig reconstructed the man's facial features based on his skeletal remains. The reconstruction can be viewed at www.unidentifiedremains.net -- a site that provides information on cases of the State Medical Examiner's Office.
Craig said she hopes people in Jefferson County may come forward with leads in light of new information about where the man was slain. Previously there had been no connection to Jefferson County.
"This victim will be fairly easy to identify if we have a lead because he had a lot of extensive dental work," Craig said. That work included a gold crown and porcelain bridges, she said.
According to information on the medical examiner's Web site, the man was likely in his mid-40s to mid-50s and 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall. He had dark brown or black hair, possibly with some gray, that was about 2 inches long.
He wore blue GUESS jeans, size 33 by 34, and a dark blue short-sleeved mesh shirt with a zipper at the neck and a Dallas Cowboys logo star. He wore leather sandals, a brown leather braided belt with a metal buckle and a gold bracelet.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:rRLgnqp...2&hl=fr&start=1 Trial opens for 3 charged in drug supplier's death
Two defendants may face death penalty if convicted for '98 crime
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Gregory A. Hall
ghall@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Two men could face the death penalty if convicted in the July 1998 murder of a drug supplier whose identity still isn't known, but whom prosecutors have dubbed ''Juan Doe'' because he may have been Hispanic.
Both defendants, Patrick W. Meeks, 32, and Michael Anthony ''Tony'' Peak, 33, have pleaded innocent. Attorneys made opening statements in their trial yesterday.
A third defendant, Leann E. Bearden, 31, also on trial, testified yesterday as a prosecution witness under a deal that would give her a chance at parole if she's convicted.
All three defendants are charged with complicity to murder, conspiracy to commit murder and robbery. Meeks and Peak also are charged with tampering with physical evidence.
Prosecutors say the deceased man was a cocaine supplier.
In a scheme to rob the man of a kilo of cocaine, prosecutors say Peak waited at a vacant farmhouse in eastern Jefferson County in July 1998, while Meeks and Bearden went to get the man and an unknown woman who was in town with him. Meeks and Bearden were to bring them to the house under the guise that they had a buyer for the man's cocaine. Peak was to kill the man and Meeks was to kill the woman, prosecutor Sandra McLeod said in her opening statement.
The woman refused to go with Meeks and Bearden. Her identity and whereabouts are unknown, McLeod said.
Peak shot the man repeatedly, but he didn't die immediately. McLeod said the man also was stabbed and beaten with what investigators believe was a tire iron.
The body was then put in the farmhouse's cellar while the farmhouse was cleaned. Meeks and Peak later enlisted the aid of another man, Mike Cissell, who helped dispose of the body, wrapped in a Mickey Mouse blanket, in Henry County, in a ditch near Meeks' parents' farm.
''You don't find a lot of bodies wrapped in a Mickey Mouse blanket,'' McLeod said.
Hunters found the body in February 1999, but police were stymied until Cissell was arrested in October 2000 on unrelated charges and told prosecutors details of the slaying.
''They almost got away with murder,'' McLeod said.
Cissell has received immunity for tampering with physical evidence, McLeod said. However, if his involvement is greater than what he stated, she said he could still be charged.
Cissell's story led to the arrests of the three defendants.
Investigators have blood-sample DNA from the farmhouse, McLeod said, but forensic investigators couldn't match it with the man's remains because they were too badly decomposed.
Don Major, who is Meeks' attorney, used his opening statement to point to the lack of physical evidence and the prosecution's reliance on testimony by ''criminals'' with motives to lie that are ''almost beyond comprehension.''
Among them, he said, is Bearden, whose motive ''is her life itself.''
Meeks and Bearden devised a plan to steal the cocaine -- a plan that resulted in the drug supplier's death, Major said.
Representing Meeks, attorney Frank Mascagni asked the jury to acquit his client of the murder, saying that no one disputes that Peak was the shooter.
Meeks believed the plan was only to rob the man, Mascagni said.
Bart Adams, the attorney for Bearden, said that Meeks and Peak devised the plan to kill the drug supplier and that they forced Bearden to become involved after she initially told them not to buy from the man because she believed he was a law officer.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:53S0jND...2&hl=fr&start=2 Jury urges life terms in death of drug dealer
3rd defendant receives sentence of 20 years
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Gregory A. Hall
ghall@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
A jury recommended life sentences without the possibility of parole for 25 years for two men who had faced the possibility of the death penalty in a 1998 murder.
After jurors recommended the life sentences for Michael Anthony ''Tony'' Peak, 33, and Patrick W. Meeks, 32, prosecutors reached an agreement on sentencing a third defendant found guilty in the murder, Leann E. Bearden, 32.
Bearden, who testified as a prosecution witness, received a 20-year sentence in the murder case, to be added to 15 years she received in plea agreements in two drug cases. She will be eligible for parole in about 13 years.
All three were found guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and robbery in the death of a man described at trial as a drug supplier.
Prosecutors said Bearden and Meeks took the man, who still has not been identified, to an eastern Jefferson County farmhouse under the pretense of meeting a buyer for more than two pounds of cocaine. Peak was waiting inside the house, where he shot the victim, prosecutors said.
Peak and Meeks also were found guilty of tampering with physical evidence for discarding the body in a Henry County ditch.
Although formal sentencing for the men is scheduled for Feb. 7, Jefferson Circuit Judge Thomas Knopf sentenced Bearden yesterday as he chastised her from the bench.
Knopf referred to testimony from the trial that the plan to rob the man was hatched over a period of about four days.
''You had that opportunity for four or five days to walk away and say, 'I'm not going to be a part of killing another human being,' '' the judge said to Bearden.
Knopf also said he hopes that whenever Bearden is released, she tells people about the horrors of drug use.
Given a chance to make a statement, Bearden said, ''A man died, and, you're right, I could have done something to stop it and I didn't.''
Afterward, prosecutor Sandra McLeod said Bearden deserved a break to send people a message that they should cooperate with police, and because without Bearden's help and testimony the case might have been lost. ''She sealed the deal for everybody,'' McLeod said.
Attorneys for the other two defendants said they are glad jurors did not recommend death sentences for their clients.
''Certainly there is relief that the death penalty was not imposed,'' said Peak's attorney, Don Major, who told jurors that the victim was not an innocent person and was participating in a felony by being at the farmhouse that night.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty in the monthlong trial because the victim was murdered during an armed robbery and because they said the defendants sought to take something of value from him.
Some attorneys in the case and Meeks' father, Jim Meeks, expressed surprise that jurors recommended what amounts to the same sentence for Peak and Meeks, when they found Peak guilty of intentional murder and Meeks and Bearden guilty of wanton murder.
''I thought it'd be a lot less than Tony's,'' Jim Meeks said.
Jurors recommended more years for Peak than Meeks for the offenses other than murder, but because of the life sentences the difference is moot, said prosecutor McLeod and Meeks' attorney, Frank Mascagni.
At trial, prosecutors said Peak shot the victim repeatedly, but he didn't die right away. They also said he was beaten with what investigators believe was a tire iron and stabbed.
Meeks and Peak later enlisted the help of another man, Mike Cissell, who helped dispose of the body. The gun was thrown into the Ohio River, according to testimony.
Hunters found the body in February 1999, but police were stymied until Cissell was arrested in October 2000 on unrelated charges and gave details of the murder. Cissell, who testified at the trial, received immunity.
