EXCERPTS FROM AUGUST NEWS:...[Retired Deputy Zellnar] Hicks worked as a sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles for 23 years... shoved both women to the ground, went to the garage and grabbed a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson that he carried as a backup weapon while in service in Los Angeles...
Hicks started shooting the gun at close range firing at least five shots. [stepdaughter Sharon] Lindlief was hit once in the chest and Hicks' wife [Donna Hicks] twice in her chest.
Lindlief was able to get to the phone, but her stepfather came after her as she grabbed a butcher knife, resulting in a struggle that ended when Lindlief was stabbed in the abdomen, severing her aorta and killing her... Prosecutors must prove he stabbed her intentionally... Zellnar Hicks referred to Lindlief as a "parasite"...
EXCERPTS FROM SEPTEMBER NEWS:
It wasn't a unanimous verdict, but jurors on Friday acquitted a retired Los Angeles sheriff's deputy of a murder charge in the shooting and stabbing death of his stepdaughter, instead convicting him of manslaughter... Hicks fired at least five shots... Lindlief was hit once in the chest and Donna Hicks twice in the chest. Hicks also stabbed Lindlief with a serrated knife... The defense argued that Hicks acted in self-defense as Lindlief grabbed the knife first. Two lawyers staged a re-enactment in court of the struggle that ended when Lindlief’s aorta was severed. After the verdict, defense attorney Jacques DeKalb said he thought that may have swayed the jury. Prosecutors told jurors the re-enactment was meaningless because Lindlief was small, already wounded and in shock.
“She weighed 100 pounds,”
Donna Hicks blurted out
during DeKalb’s demonstration...
Besides manslaughter, which carries a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence, Hicks was found guilty of attempted murder, assault and weapons charges
Mum Hicks sentenced to 17 years
ReplyDeleteDefendant quiet at sentencing;
KTVZ, OR
By Molly Hendrickson and Eric Rucker
Sep. 8, 2006
...Hicks could have faced many more years behind bars, if the jury had found him guilty of murder, but three jury members insisted they did not believe he intend to kill either woman... For a murder conviction (and minimum 25-year prison term), all 12 jurors would have had to find Hicks guilty. Intent was something jurors argued over the next day and a half. "The fact that he had to bend down and shoot his wife Donna in the chest, so close that she had powder marks on her clothing," Browning recalled. "And Sharon, the muzzle was directly on her skin. So to me, that's more than intent to kill"...
http://www.ktvz.com/story.cfm?nav=news&storyID=16573
Poor Sharon. Poor Donna. If we could just go back to 1970...everyone would be alive and well.
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