LJWorld.com / Convict's wife pleads against death penalty

Archive for Thursday, November 7, 2002

By Roxana Hegeman - Associated Press Writer

November 7, 2002

Wichita — Mandy Carr told jurors deciding whether her husband should live or die for killing five people that she kept the couple's children away from news reports of their father's crimes.

The Dodge City woman also testified Wednesday that she'd like her children to have contact with their father, Reginald Carr, as they grow up.

Reginald Carr and his brother Jonathan Carr were convicted Monday on murder, robbery and sex crimes charges stemming from a nine-day rampage in December 2000.

Mandy Carr tearfully told jurors her husband had never held his infant daughter, who was born four months after his arrest for the killings.

Anthony began wetting the bed shortly after his father was arrested again, but he knows nothing about the specifics of the crime spree, Mandy Carr said.

"He understands his dad is in jail," she said. "He understands his dad is in trouble for not doing the right things."

Jurors returned capital murder verdicts in the Dec. 15, 2000, deaths of Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka, 27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25. All four were shot execution-style in the back of the head as they knelt side-by-side in a snow-covered soccer field.

The brothers were also convicted of attempted first-degree murder of Befort's girlfriend, then a 25-year-old teacher, who also was shot in the head but survived to testify.

The Carrs also were convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting of another woman, Ann Walenta, four days before the quadruple murder. She later died.

Earlier Wednesday, David Preston, a retired doctor and former professor from Kansas University Medical Center, testified that brain scans performed on the Carrs showed a deficit in the metabolism in the part of the brain that handles short-term memory and assigns risk to events and situations.

But he acknowledged under cross-examination that such deficits are not uncommon, and that the scans are not medically acceptable to predict or explain criminal behavior.