You can't fix stupid!
Deon Anderson from NFLDS:
Had several off-the-field issues that eventually led to his dismissal in 2005. He was charged with exposing himself in public, had a dorm incident with a girl, another dorm issue where he was kicked out of housing for fighting with another student (stated he was defending a teammate) and was ordered to meet with a psychiatrist and probation officer once a month in 2005.
Is stupidity genetic?
06.03.2004
The Carjacking Murder Trial: Final moments described
* The prosecution tells the jury that defendant Kenneth D. Day said at the scene, "They saw my face. We have to kill them."
By Edward Fitzpatrick
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE - In the middle of the night, at a desolate golf course construction site, college students Jason Burgeson and Amy Shute clutched each other in fear, begging for their lives.
Gregory J. Floyd brandished a gun while four other men debated whether he should pull the trigger. While one urged him not to do it and another seemed indifferent, two of the men urged Floyd to shoot.
Kenneth D. Day said, "They saw my face. We have to kill them."
Samuel Sanchez said, "Hurry up. What's taking you so long? Give me the gun -- I'll do it."
Day repeated, "They saw my face."
"As Jason and Amy sat crying, pleading, and Amy pulled Jason closer to her, Floyd did it," prosecutor Gerard B. Sullivan said yesterday as Day's murder and carjacking trial began in state Superior Court.
"With the sound of the victims' pleas in one ear, and Kenneth Day's opinion in the other ear, Floyd just did it," Sullivan said. "He pulled the trigger of his .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol three times. He discharged three metal-jacketed hollow-point bullets into the heads of Jason Burgeson and Amy Shute and ended their lives."
During a 25-minute opening statement, Sullivan presented the prosecution's account of how Shute and Burgeson were carjacked in Providence and killed at a Johnston golf course on June 9, 2000.
Day's defense lawyer responded with a five-minute opening statement that zeroed in on the credibility of Floyd, the state's key witness.
"The government in this case will call 38 or so witnesses," Joseph L. DeCaporale Jr. said. "I tell you now: You should believe 37 of them because, you see, the government's case is based solely on the testimony of Gregory Floyd."
And, DeCaporale said, "I will argue that his testimony is totally unworthy of belief. His testimony will show he lied on three or four prior occasions."
DeCaporale said there's little disagreement about who committed the crimes or what the forensic evidence will show. But, he said, "in order to convict Kenneth Day you need to believe Gregory Floyd beyond a reasonable doubt."
DeCaporale noted Floyd will not appear in person at Day's trial. At a pretrial hearing on Tuesday, Floyd refused to testify, even refusing to raise his right hand and swear to tell the truth. But Superior Court Presiding Justice Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. ruled that the prosecution could introduce Floyd's prior testimony.
Day, 25, of Providence, is the only one of the five suspects who hasn't pleaded guilty. Floyd, Sanchez and Harry Burdick received life sentences in federal prison, while Raymond Anderson received a 30-year sentence.
A judge dismissed a federal carjacking case against Day in 2002. But in 2003 he was indicted on nine state charges of murder, carjacking, robbery and conspiracy. And now the state jury will hear the testimony that Floyd gave at Day's federal trial.
Sullivan began by saying that June 8, 2000, was a day like any other for Burgeson and Shute. It was a day, he said, "filled with family, friends and fun -- one of those endless summer days perhaps enjoyed best by the young."
Burgeson, 20, of Lakeville, Mass., was attending St. Cloud University in Minnesota and was home for the summer, working at United Parcel Service while dreaming of becoming a disc jockey. Shute, 21, of Coventry, was a La Salle Academy graduate who was attending the University of Rhode Island and working as a receptionist during the summer.
"Amy and Jason were friends -- maybe more," Sullivan said. "But they would never have time left to find out."
That night, Burgeson arranged for friends to get together at Tommy's Place restaurant on Westminster Street and then go to Bootleggers dance club on India Street, the prosecutor said.
"Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a very different group of acquaintances and associates was gathering," Sullivan said. "Gregory Floyd, recently out of prison, living with Kenneth Day, this defendant, a man he described as like a brother to him, was sharing a room -- a very small room -- at 94 Taylor St."
"While Jason Burgeson told others to bring their friends, Kenneth Day told Gregory Floyd to bring his gun," the prosecutor said. "And he did."
Floyd, Day, Burdick, Anderson and Sanchez "began prowling the streets of Providence looking for victims to rob," Sullivan said. They first looked for a drug customer that Day knew to be carrying money, but couldn't find him. They tried to rob a man near Challenger's bar but a larger group of people appeared.
The five then tried to rob two women and a man at an ATM near Hemenway's restaurant, but a security guard saw them on a video monitor and left the building to show his presence, Sullivan said.
He said a Textron security camera captured the group at 1:23 a.m. as they headed back to Saki's Pizza to pick up Sanchez's car.
"Jason's and Amy's night was winding down, too," Sullivan said. After Burgeson handed out dance fliers at Bootleggers, friends drove the couple back to Tommy's to get Burgeson's white 1991 Ford Explorer, and a patrol officer recalled seeing the couple on the steps of the Arcade at 2:10 a.m., he said.
The five men spotted Burgeson and Shute as Sanchez drove down Weybosset Street. "It was not the first time they had seen that couple or that car that night," Sullivan said. "But now they were alone and it was later at night -- they were easy targets."
Sanchez pulled around the corner and parked by a florist on the other side of the Arcade. "The mission was redefined," Sullivan said. "A plan was now hatched that targeted this young couple and their Explorer."
A security camera picked up Floyd and Burdick heading down an alley that runs between the Arcade and a cellular phone business, leading to the parking lot in front of Tommy's restaurant. "One of the clearer frames shows the time to be 2:09:59 -- seconds away from the beginning of the end of Jason's and Amy's lives," Sullivan said.
Floyd and Burdick approached the couple and demanded money. "Jason didn't want to part with money so hard earned. He said he had none. The medical examiner would later recover $78 in cash from his sneaker," Sullivan said.
Floyd brandished his gun and they took the Explorer, with Burgeson and Shute inside. Sanchez, with Day and Anderson aboard, drove behind them and eventually took the lead, heading for the Button Hole golf course on the Providence/Johnston line, Sullivan said.
The course was then under construction, with sand and gravel being graded into fairways and greens. At night, it was "particularly remote, desolate and inaccessible," Sullivan said.
The men stopped at the entrance and talked about killing the couple.
"Kenneth Day said Amy was pretty," Sullivan said. "Kenneth Day said he wanted to rape her. Officers would later recover an opened condom wrapper at the scene of this crime. . . . inexplicably, Floyd, the man who would later execute the victims, would not allow the rape to occur."
They drove the Explorer farther into the construction site, and Anderson sat them on the ground near hay bales. Then came the debate, and three shots rang out. The five men left the scene in two cars, splitting up $18 in change found in the Explorer, using half the money for gas, the prosecutor said.
Sullivan concluded by saying, "After robbery attempts at which Day was present and participated in, after Day helped search the Explorer, after Day suggested rape, after Day urged Floyd to commit murder, Floyd killed the victims in cold blood with a gun that Day encouraged him to bring -- on a day filled with promise, on a day filled with fun, friends and family for Jason and Amy."
Before prosecutors showed a police videotape of the crime scene, several members of the victims' families left the courtroom. In the video, the students' bodies are slumped against hay bales. Shute is almost completely obscured behind Burgeson, her arms around him. A round of live ammunition rests on Burgeson's left sneaker, and a diamond ring rests in Shute's left hand.
Shute's mother, Carol, later testified that she had given her daughter that diamond solitaire ring. Burgeson's father, Ernest, testified that his son left home with the Ford Explorer that night and never returned. As a photo was shown of a smiling Jason Burgeson, dressed in a tuxedo, his mother, Nadine, broke down.
