Battle Creek Enquirer from Battle Creek, Michigan • Page 1

350 Tuesday Dec. 15, 1992 1992, Battle Creek Enquirer WEATHERSCENE A little sunshine1 2B irmTnor Battle I Creek JLJL Juror: Bradford King's story and his gun convinced the jury that he kffled his wife THE KING FILE It has been nearly two years since Bradford King called local police and told them he found his wife. Diane, shot to death outside their farmhouse south of Marshall. On Monday. Bradford King was convicted of the murder.

THE VICTIM When Diane Newton King died in February 1991. she was 34. married to Bradford, the mother of two children and the morninganchorwoman for WUHQ-TV. Channel 41 in Battle Creek. (The station is now WOTV).

The Michigan native joined WUHQ in February 1989 after working at a television station in Grand Junction. for two years. She was a Native American and a member of the Mohawk Nation. Diane King THE KILLER 'j j.r. i 4- A it -1 Bradford King.

45, is a former police officer and college instructor. He served in the Pontiac Police Department from 1969 to 1983. He and Diane moved to Colorado in 1987 after she took a job with a television station there. In the fall of 1989. Bradford King began teaching criminal-justice classes at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

He was dismissed from that job after his wife's death, and moved with his son and daughter to Denver. Bradford King THE CRIME It was just after sunset on Feb. 9. 1991 when Diane King and her two young children returned home to rural Michigan after visiting her family in Sterling Heights. As she stepped out of her Jeep Wagoneer, she was shot twice.

Bradford King said he was taking a walk in the fields and woods around their house at the time of the slaying police arrived, the Kings' two children were still in their car seats. I' Marshall jf i Michigan Diane King -i slain at her vtosSSS home I Division 1 THE ARREST Jim SanchezEnquirer AFTER THE VERDICT: Bradford King looks down after the guilty verdict is read in court Monday. The jury convicted King of murdering his wife. By Trace Christenson Staff Writer His gun and his story convinced a jury to convict Bradford King of murder. Fifteen hours after they began deliberating, six men and six women decided no one but Bradford King could have killed his wife, Diane, nearly two years ago.

"The last thing that we marked off was the stalker theory," juror Tamra Henri-ques said Monday. "We didn't know how it could be someone else. "There were a lot of things that just don't make a lot of sense for someone else to have done it. It just didn't add up." Henriques, an insurance agency service representative and mother of three, voted Monday afternoon to convict King, 45, of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The verdict came after three days of deliberations, and about an hour after the jury notified Calhoun County Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt that it was deadlocked.

Sindt ordered the jury to continue deliberations. Henriques told the Battle Creek Enquirer in an exclusive interview after the verdict that several of the jurors still had reservations Monday morning about a guilty verdict. One juror was crying and comforted by another as the panel announced its decision, but Henriques said jurors agreed they would not reveal who had been holding out. Other jurors could not be reached for comment. The murder weapon Henriques had difficulty listing the exact points that swayed her verdict, but said the weapon would be one.

Jurors were convinced the Remington Scoremaster rifle found stuffed in the mud of a creek near the Kings' rural Marshall home was the murder weapon. A ballistics expert said a shell casing found in the loft of a barn overlooking where Diane King was shot, was fired from the gun. Two bullets found in her body were probably fired by the rifle, but were badly deformed and couldn't be conclusively tied to the weapon. King told police he sold a .22 in 1984, but Henriques didn't believe it. "It appears that was his gun.

There were seven people who said they saw that gun in his possession and that is a big pinpoint," she said. And when Marshall hardware store owner Tom Darling testified that King told him in the fall of 1990 that he owned a .22, that also helped convince Henriques. The location of the murder weapon also hurt the defense. Said Henriques: "It was awfully unlikely that someone else would have placed it Bradford King was arrested in Denver on Jan. 30.

1992. nearly a year after the slaying. He was charged with open murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. THE TRIAL The selection of the King jury began Nov. 3.

On Nov. 12. the first witness testified. The prosecution and defense presented their closing arguments to the jury last Wednesday, and deliberations began Thursday. A verdict was returned Monday after nearly 15 hours of deliberations over three days.

THE DEFENSE Defense attorney John Sims argued that there wasnt evidence to show that Bradford King was the killer. He said it was possible that someone had followed Diane King home, killed her and fled. jp We didn't know how it could be someone else. There were a lot of things that just don't make a lot of sense for someone else (other than Bradford King) to have done it (killed Diane Newton King). It just didn't add up.

Tamra Henriques, juror Doug AllenEnquirer THE PROSECUTION Calhoun County prosecutor Jon Sahli argued that Bradford King was the only person who could have killed Diane. He said both circumstantial and direct evidence pointed to King as the murderer. THE VERDICT At 2 p.m. Monday, the jury of six men and six women convicted Bradford King of first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. King's attorney Sims said the case will be appealed.

Jon Sahll THE SENTENCE there, someone that didn't know the property." She said King's story that he was walking near some hay bales, away from the location of the gun, also didn't match the evidence, because footprints were not found in snow. And she said jurors didn't believe someone could have come onto the property without Bradford King knowing it. His calm disposition King's actions affected the jury. "I have to say that demeanor was the last thing," Henriques said. "But when it came to the final decisions, he wasn't a concerned husband." She cited testimony that King seemed only mildly concerned about harassing phone calls that his wife received at the television station months before her murder and about a threatening letter she found in their mailbox on Oct.

30, 1991. The phone calls were probably from an admirer, she said, "but I feel and others felt that the letter she received in her mailbox was from Brad. He played upon the groundwork that was already being laid to create this fear and lead away from him." The day of the murder, King told police Please see JUROR, 5A Bradford King will be sentenced Jan. 6, 1993, by Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Conrad Sindt. Michigan law requires that King be sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder and two years in prison for the charge of using a gun in the commission of a felony.

Story, 5A THE REACTION The family of Diane King says it is relieved. Area residents of Calhoun County are speaking their minds about the conviction. Story, 4A, 5A THE KING CHILDREN Marler. 4, and Kateri, 2. are living with Diane King's parents, Freida and Royal Newton of Sterling Heights.

They plan to seek permanent custody. Child begs Santa to help his family Operation Restore Hope The Associated Press Convoy heads for hard-hit city IMPRESSIVE WIN FOR U-M: After a season of high expectations, Michigan's super sophomores were supposed to be just that super. But it took four games and a visit from Cleveland State on Monday night to renew those high hopes. IB JUDGING BY THE COVER: No child's holiday haul is complete without at least one good book. And good hick walking out of a bookstore with only one this year's crop of children's books has produced so many wonderful and useful ones that it's nearly impossible to choose.4B DEATHS The Associated Press 3 -to 3x V.

r. PORT ANGELES, Wash. Thad wrote to Santa seeking food for his mom, a job for his dad and help getting to "Heven" so his parents won't need to feed him. Many people are now hoping to rescue Thad and his family- If they can only locate them. "We'd sure like to find him," Clallam County Sheriffs SgL Monty Martin said Monday.

"I think this is the time of year that everyone goes out to make Christmas happy. We'd sure like to make this kid's Christmas happy." Educators who have seen the letter guess the writer, who only signed the name "Thad," is a child between third and fifth grade age. People called on Monday to say they think they may know Thad's family, and officers hope to follow up on the leads today, Port Angeles police records clerk Denise Heassler said. There is nothing to indicate the letter is a hoax, Heassler said. People from around the country and Canada have called to offer money and other gifts for the family.

Some callers were moved to tears by Thad's story, Heassler said. The unstamped letter was dropped off in a mailbox by the Clallam County Courthouse. Samuel J. Byler James W. Clark Mary A.

Curisinger Irving E. Eifler Richard Gallop Earl F. Greiner Adelbert J. Kill Margaret Lingeman Clifford M. Robbins Katheryy Starkey Page 2A UX-sanctioned mission of mercy, but the looters who had long plagued the capital have begun to return.

The bandits' resilience and obstinacy presages the difficulty foreign troops could face in securing this city of 80,000 people, about half of them refugees from ravaged rural areas. Although Baidoa was generally quiet overnight, in the past weeks it has seen repeated attacks on relief agencies' compounds. The assaults escalated in recent days as the looters apparently sought last-ditch windfalls before the troops arrived. The escalating violence forced some relief centers to close, leaving desperately ill children without daily care. Relief workers say Baidoa's daily death toll cupped below 50 last week from its high point of about 300 but has risen to about 100 a day since the Marines landed.

BAIDOA, Somalia A heavily armed convoy carrying hundreds of U.S. Marines and French Legionnaires left Mogadishu today on the road to this bandit-besieged town in the heart of Somalia's famine belt U.S. special envoy Robert Oakley indicated they would arrive Wednesday. Securing Baidoa considered a key move in the multinational, U.S.-led force's mission to ensure that food aid is protected from marauding gunmen. CoL Fred Peck, a Marine spokesman, said that the convoy's destination was Beli Dogle, an airstjnp halfway between Baidoa and the capital, where the first units of Operation Restore Hope arrived seven days ago.

But reporters overheard other officers saying the convoy would only spend the night at Befi Dogle before proceeding to Baidoa. And Oakley told INDEX Movies 9A Nation 6A Obituaries 2A.8B Opinion 8A Sports 1-3B State 2-3A Television 5B Weather 12B World 6A Ann Landers 5B Bridge 11A Business 9-10A Classified 9-11B Comics 11A Features 5B Horoscopes 12B Lifestyle Local 2-5A Associated Press WAITING: A crowd of refugees beg at a relief site. journalists in Baidoa, "After midnight tonight, be very, very careful." Security initially- improved in Mogadishu after the Marines arrived on a Please see SANTA, 2A I.