Sipsey Street Irregulars: Oooo-kay. . . I guess she didn't see THAT one coming.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Oooo-kay. . . I guess she didn't see THAT one coming.

Sometimes ya just gotta laugh.

So the fortune teller didn't foretell her own murder. Okay, I get that. But you have to admire the brutal honesty of the prosecutor:

"Balleste dismissed Reed's defense, and told jurors that Zamora wasn't smart enough to mastermind the murders – or even find gay sex partners on his own."

Ouch.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/nelson-233700-smith-fortune.html

Prosecutor: Fortune-teller, daughter killed over prediction

Published: Feb. 10, 2010
By RACHANEE SRISAVASDI
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A Westminster fortune-teller and her daughter were brutally murdered by a client because the fortune-teller wasn't able to grant a wish, a prosecutor told jurors today.

Tanya Nelson – who is standing trial for the killings of Ha "Jade" Smith and her college-aged daughter, Anita Vo – was upset at losing her lover and blamed Smith, Senior Deputy District Attorney Sonia Balleste said.

"For some reason, this defendant believed in fortune-telling,'' Balleste said.

The fortune-teller wrote a letter to Nelson and apologized for not being able to change anything, Balleste said. That letter was found in Nelson's home.

Nelson, 45, of North Carolina was angered that the fortune-teller wasn't able to change reality, and decided to travel to Orange County to kill her, Balleste said.

"Somehow, it's all Ha Smith's fault,'' Balleste said.

Jurors listened to closing arguments today in the death penalty trial of Nelson – who is accused of persuading her accomplice Phillipe Zamora to take part in the murders by promising to fix him up with gay sex partners.

Nelson is charged with two counts of murder plus the special circumstances of committing multiple murders, murders for financial gain, and murders during the commission of robbery, burglary and by lying in wait.

If convicted, she could get the death penalty.

The bodies of Smith and 23-year-old Vo were found repeatedly stabbed and – for an unknown reason – covered with white paint inside their home on April 21, 2005.

Their home was also ransacked, with Nelson stealing credit cards, cell phones, jewelry and designer luggage, according to Balleste.

Nelson also took a pair of diamond earrings – worth $35,000 – off Smith's dead body, the prosecutor said. She also used Smith's luggage to travel.

"That is the nerve of this defendant,'' said the prosecutor, glancing over at Nelson. The defendant seemed composed, and took notes during closing statements.

Zamora, who pleaded guilty last year to two counts of first-degree murder with a potential sentence of 50 years to life in prison, was the prosecution's key witness against Nelson. He testified Feb. 1 that Nelson wanted Smith dead because she was angry about her fortune.

Nelson's defense attorney, Ken Reed, will give closing arguments at 9 a.m. Thursday. During his opening statements, the lawyer said Zamora acted alone in the killings, and testified against Nelson in hopes of getting parole one day.

Balleste dismissed Reed's defense, and told jurors that Zamora wasn't smart enough to mastermind the murders – or even find gay sex partners on his own.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: I'm assuming that there is an outrage against unregistered stabbing instruments and calling for legislation to protect us from ourselves.; February 17, 2010 at 9:04 PM
Qi Ji Guang said...: So Zamora wanted gay sex partners, eh?

Well, looks like he got his wish...He is going to have many, many to please every day for the rest of his life, if the state doesn't execute him.; February 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: "Balleste dismissed Reed's defense, and told jurors that Zamora wasn't smart enough to mastermind the murders – or even find gay sex partners on his own."

If Zamora gets a full 50-year jail sentence, he will have numerous opportunities to locate a homosexual partner amongst California's prison population. ;^)

MALTHUS; February 18, 2010 at 11:52 AM
patrick henry said...: Prison would be giving this POS what he WANTS.

Either execute him or give him life - in a women's prison.; February 19, 2010 at 2:31 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Oooo-kay. . . I guess she didn't see THAT one coming.

4 comments:

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