National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Mom, daughter charged with killing 5 relatives due in court
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A mother and her adult daughter charged with killing five of their close relatives, including three children, at an apartment outside Philadelphia are due in court Tuesday to enter pleas.

Shana Decree, 46, and her daughter Dominique Decree, 20, each face five counts of homicide and one of conspiracy. Police have not yet given a motive.

The pair are due in Common Pleas Court in Doylestown.

The family members’ bodies were found in their trashed apartment in Morrisville a year ago, according to authorities.

The victims were Shana’s children, Naa’Irah Smith, 25, and Damon Decree Jr., 13, both of Morrisville; Shana Decree’s sister Jamilla Campbell, of Trenton, New Jersey; and Campbell’s 9-year-old twin daughters, Imani and Erika Allen.

Smith, Damon Decree Jr. and the twins had been suffocated, the Bucks County coroner’s office said in March. Campbell had been strangled, according to the coroner.

Authorities discovered the scene after a child welfare officer arrived for an unannounced visit and was let into the building by someone who works there, according to court papers.

Police say they found Shana and Dominique Decree “disoriented” inside the apartment, where furniture had been turned over, drywall was cracked and glass lay around. Police initially said they found four bodies, but they discovered a fifth underneath another that was next to a bed.
The apartment is in a three-story, red brick complex in Morrisville, which sits on the Dela­ware River northeast of Phila­del­phia and across from Trenton.

Mississippi
Daughter of man accused of killing 8 describes abuse
MAGNOLIA, Miss. (AP) — The daughter of a Mississippi man on trial in the shooting deaths of eight people testified Monday that he was abusive and beat her frequently.

My’Khyiah Godbolt took the stand at a courthouse in Magnolia, the Daily Leader newspaper reported, to testify against her father, Willie Cory Godbolt.

Godbolt, 37, is charged with capital murder, accused of fatally shooting eight people, including the deputy who arrived at his in-laws’ home over the Memorial Day in 2017.

Godbolt’s 12-year-old daughter told jurors that he “was very mean” and beat both her and her mother often.

 The girl, nicknamed Bubble, didn’t look at her father during her testimony but he kept his gaze on her.

Godbolt appeared agitated, shaking his head and pursing his lips together tightly when she described an attack on her with a plastic bat once when they were practicing baseball outside.

She testified that he became angry when she asked to take a break and beat her repeatedly with the bat. She called to relatives for help, and he responded by threatening her.

“If you ever embarrass me like that again, it’s going to be worse,” she quoted her father as saying.

Jurors also heard testimony from Tamayra May, the adult daughter of victim Toccara May, who hid with her 11-year-old sister in her mother’s car when the shooting began. The jury listened to her 911 call, begging the dispatcher to send help, the Daily Leader reported.

Sheena May took the stand Sunday afternoon, announcing her divorce from Godbolt was final last week.

She said she suffered his abuse for years, leaving when he beat her but coming back because he swore he’d change.

“He said, ‘I love you and I won’t do it no more,’” she said.

On the day of the shootings, she had been living at her mother’s home for two months.

“I chose my life over my marriage” she said.

Godbolt has pleaded not guilty to four counts of capital murder, four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of armed robbery. He has remained in custody since his arrest on May 28, 2017, hours after the shootings.

The killings began after Godbolt entered the in-laws’ home in Bogue Chitto and got into an argument with his estranged wife and her family over the couple’s two children, a witness testified earlier at trial, according to The Daily Leader.

The witness, Vincent Mitchell, testified that Godbolt fatally shot the responding deputy and then killed Godbolt’s mother-in-law and two other people. Godbolt then went to two other homes in south Mississippi’s Lincoln County, killing two of his teenage cousins and a husband and wife, investigators have said.

Because of pretrial publicity in south Mississippi, jury selection was conducted in north Mississippi’s DeSoto County, 285 miles (460 kilometers) north of Lincoln County. The 12 jurors and three alternates were selected Friday. They are hearing the case in Magnolia, which is near Lincoln County.


Washington
Judge refuses to delay sentencing of Trump ally Roger Stone
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday refused to delay sentencing for Trump confidant Roger Stone on his conviction for witness tampering and lying to Congress.

The decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson came after President Donald Trump tweeted in defense of his longtime ally and said Stone’s conviction “should be thrown out.”

Stone’s defense team has requested a new trial and on Tuesday lobbied to delay the sentencing. But with Stone present on speaker phone from his lawyer’s office, Jackson ruled that delaying the sentencing “would not be a prudent thing to do.” Stone is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

However, Jackson indicated she would delay the execution of the sentence, pending resolution of the motion for a new trial.

Prosecutors had originally recommended a tough sentence of between seven to nine years in federal prison. But Attorney General William Barr reversed that decision and recommended a less harsh punishment, prompting the entire prosecution team to resign from the case. At Tuesday’s hearing, two new Justice Department attorneys took the place of the original trial team.

Stone was convicted in November of a seven-count indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

Trump’s tweets about the case Tuesday came days after he earned a  public rebuke  from Barr, who had said the president’s tweets were “making it impossible” for Barr to do his job.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano’s comment that the jury appears to have been biased against Trump and calling out the judge by name, saying “almost any judge in the country” would throw out the conviction.

Trump added in a subsequent tweet. “Everything having to do with this fraudulent investigation is badly tainted and, in my opinion, should be thrown out.”