Kimberly Cates Machete Slaying Causes Uproar in Small New Hampshire Town

October 22, 2009

All is not baseball and apple pie lately in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire.  The residents of this small, quaint New England town of about 2,000 people are in an uproar over the recent random attack of nurse Kimberly Cates, 42, and her 11-year-old daughter, Jaime, in an unprovoked incident believed to have been carried out sometime prior to 4 a.m. on Sunday, October 4, 2009.

The plan to rob a home at random was purportedly hatched the night before when a group of four teenagers got together at the home of William Marks, 18, one of the alleged planners.  The other three teens included Steven Spader, 17, Christopher Gribble, 19, and Quinn Glover, 17.  One of the teens, Gribble, described by friends and acquaintances as a home-schooled Mormon with aspirations to do missionary work, apparently told friends that he saw himself as a "destroying angel."  He also allegedly told a friend that he hated his father and wanted to kill him, and once told someone that the most difficult of the Ten Commandments to follow was "Thou shalt not kill."

"He comes out and says the hardest commandment to keep is murder," said the friend.  "You just don't want to think that your friend could ever do something like that.  They say things about killing someone and you don't know they are going to do it.  You just brush it off and hope he's going to get help.  Really, we should have been calling the police."

The plan, according to prosecutors, was to kill anyone who was at home at the time of the invasion.  After the plan had been set, Spader allegedly drove the other three teenagers to Cates' neighborhood and the group chose Cates' home because it was on an isolated road.  Cates' husband, David, was out of town on business.

Spader has been accused of cutting Cates’ head, torso, arms and legs with a machete while she was in bed, and Gribble has been accused of stabbing her with a knife.  Spader and Gribble were also accused of attacking Cates' daughter, Jaime, by slicing her throat open.  After allegedly taking valuables from the residence, Spader acted as the getaway driver.  Prosecutors have implied that Spader may have been the group's ringleader.

After the four teenagers left the home, Jaime Cates was able to call 911 for help.  Thankfully, she survived the attack and was being treated at a Boston, Massachusetts hospital.

Later that same Sunday morning, Spader and Gribble walked into a store at the Pheasant Lane Mall, both seen smiling and calm, where they allegedly sold gold necklaces and chains believed stolen during the robbery of Cates' home.  Gribble provided his name and address to the store's clerk, which undoubtedly assisted police in identifying the suspects in the Cates' case so quickly.  All four of the suspects were arrested the next day, and made brief court appearances on Tuesday, October 6.  None of them entered pleas at that time.  Authorities have released very few details about the case, and have sealed the affidavits that support the charges.

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The Bizarre Case of Henry Terry-Bogus Cop

June 16, 2008

Henry Terry, 24, was a con man and a scammer who deceived nearly everyone in a Long Island neighborhood into believing he was a cop.  He gained a reputation as a friendly policeman who hit the streets each day, in uniform, to supposedly make the neighborhood a safer place for its residents to live.  Some days he played the part of a police sergeant; other days he was a parole officer.  He was known to pass out a fake business card that labeled him a district commander of a police unit that did not exist.  He was quite the charmer—he even duped his roommate into believing that he was a cop.  He also wore 9/11 commemorative patches on his fake uniform.

"He had me fooled the whole time," said a young man who shared an apartment with Terry.  "He told me he was a state police officer….He was doing police duties.  He would pull people over, but never wrote tickets."

"He had the kids idolizing him like he was a super police officer," said one of Terry's neighbors.  "He would come out in his uniform every day, like he was going to work.  He would flash his lights for the kids.  He would let them play with the siren."

In actuality, Henry Terry was an unemployed convicted criminal who was on probation for arson, and he went out every day using his fake uniform, fake gun, fake car, fake badge and handcuffs to shake down drug dealers, hookers, and anyone else from whom he could get a payoff.  He was very convincing, and he reportedly made significant money from his scams.

"He always had stories," said another neighbor.  "It was like watching an episode of 'Cops.'"  The neighbor said that Terry entertained the locals with his stories about his busts, arrests, and the supposed heroism that went along with his made-up actions.

Although he typically drove a late-model Ford Crown Victoria, outfitted with lights, siren, and a public address system, he was known to sometimes commandeer a vehicle for "police business."  On one occasion Terry...

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The Bizarre Case of Stanley Lusty and Sara Tuckey

April 28, 2008

In a bizarre case involving pedophilia, prostitution, and homicide that was wrapped up earlier this year, Stanley Lusty, 64, a father of seven, has been locked up for life in the United Kingdom for murdering his Gloucester prostitute roommate, Sara Tuckey, 34, in April 2007 to prevent her from telling what she knew about his life as a pedophile.  Lusty allegedly bludgeoned Tuckey to death in the Parliament Street home they shared, using a sledgehammer after she threatened to go public about his history as an abuser of young girls.  He also stabbed her in the throat.  According to court proceedings, Lusty had been threatening to throw Tuckey out of their flat, purportedly because of her drug use and the fact that she ruthlessly took advantage of his concerns about his past in order to have a place to live.  Lusty attacked Tuckey as she slept.

On the last few days of Tuckey's life, she and Lusty had quarreled over a camera of Lusty's that Tuckey had purportedly pawned.  Lusty also claimed that she had attacked him and had given him a black eye, which is when he had asked her to leave in no uncertain terms.  But she refused, and the angst continued to build between them over the next few days.  On the day that she died...

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