Jurors deliberating in trial of brothers accused in nine-day killing rampage

<br>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) _ Jurors resumed deliberations Friday in the murder trial of two brothers accused of a nine-day crime spree that left five people dead. <br><br>In closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors

Friday, November 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) _ Jurors resumed deliberations Friday in the murder trial of two brothers accused of a nine-day crime spree that left five people dead.

In closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors said greed and lust drove Reginald and Jonathan Carr to commit the rampage, which ended after a wounded survivor ran bleeding and naked from a soccer field to get help.

``The crimes ended because of one girl who had the resolve to survive to tell the story,'' Deputy District Attorney Kim Parker told the jury.

Lawyers for each of the brothers, meanwhile, sought to blame the other for the crimes.

Prosecutors presented graphic pictures of four victims lying in the snow-covered field where they died.

``You have four people frozen in time _ bullets that thrashed through their brains that drew the life out of them, that froze their hearts on that field of snow. They died by criminal means and they died together at the hands of two brothers, Jonathan and Reginald Carr,'' District Attorney Nola Foulston told jurors.

The survivor of the quadruple killing sat quietly in the front row throughout the arguments, averting her eyes whenever photographs of her dead friends were projected onto the screen.

The Carr brothers are charged with numerous crimes. The most notorious involves the events during two days in December 2000, when two armed intruders entered a Wichita home. The two women and three men inside were forced to engage in sexual acts with each other and to withdraw money from ATMs. The women were repeatedly raped before the five friends were taken to the soccer field and shot.

Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka, 27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25, died. Befort's girlfriend, then a 25-year-old teacher, survived and ran a mile to find help. She identified the Carr brothers as her attackers.

Jurors are deliberating over 47 counts filed against each brother, including four counts of capital murder for the quadruple killings.

The Carrs also are being tried in the Dec. 11, 2000, attempted robbery and shooting of Ann Walenta, 55, who later died, and a robbery four days earlier in which a man was abducted and forced to withdraw cash from ATMs.

John Val Wachtel, attorney for Reginald Carr, told jurors that the crime scene contained DNA evidence he said belonged to Jonathan Carr.

Val Wachtel also focused on discrepancies in the description of Reginald Carr from the survivor of the quadruple killings.

Mark Manna, attorney for Jonathan Carr, said no evidence connected his client to Walenta's shooting or the robbery.

Neither the male robbery victim nor Walenta before her death could identify Jonathan Carr as one of the two men who attacked them _ but both identified Reginald Carr, Manna said. He said the gun tied to all the crimes belonged to Reginald Carr and that Reginald Carr had most of the property stolen from the victims of the quadruple killings.

``Reginald Carr was not alone, but the evidence will show who was playing the lead role that night _ directing things, taking things,'' Manna said.

Manna said Jonathan Carr is innocent of some of the charges.

``Don't just go back there and check the box guilty on all counts, please consider his guilt and innocence separate from damning evidence against his brother, Reginald,'' he said.