Tornado victim should be able to leave Joplin High School with his classmates

One folding chair was empty that day in May of 1997 as proud parents, friends, and community members shoehorned themselves into the Tabler Gymnasium in Jasper.

Having covered five or six graduations per year for nearly 20 years, the details of that day are no longer clear in my memory. I don't remember who the valedictorian and salutatorian were or what angle I used when I wrote my article on the ceremony.

The only thing I remember about the ceremony was the graduate who wasn't there.

Her name was Jessica Jo Lynn. Jessica was nine years old and a fourth grader at Jasper when she was killed in a house fire. I covered that story for the Lamar Democrat. Eight years later, I was working for a different newspaper and the name of Jessica Jo Lynn hadn't crossed my thoughts in years.

I had forgotten her...but her classmates never did.

Her name was mentioned in one of the speeches and I noticed a few tears among her classmates, who had continued their path to adulthood while Jessica's ended in fourth grade.

Children never forget their friends and including them in the important events of their life, like their high school graduation, is a wonderful way to keep them in their memories. It is also a way to let the families of those who left too early know that their loved one has not been forgotten.

Sometimes it is done through a mention by one of the speakers, I have attended graduations where seats, sometimes holding a cap and gown, are reserved for the former classmate.

This year will be the year that Zach Williams would have graduated from Joplin High School. His school days ended when he was only 12 years, 11 months, and three days old, less than a month from becoming a teenager, when he was killed May 22, 2011, in the Joplin Tornado.

I never knew Zach. He would have been one of my students in the 2011-2012 school year. I had seen him in the hallways, but I had never had a conversation with him. I learned quite a bit about him during the following year, as students brought his name up from time to time.

One eighth grade girl who talked to me felt his loss deeply. "The last time we talked; we got into an argument. It was over something silly. I don't even remember what it was then I heard he was missing after the tornado. I wish I could talk to him one more time. It was the last thing I said to him and it was something mean. And he was my friend. I wish he knew how I really felt."

I learned yesterday that there may be an obstacle to allowing the Joplin High School Class of 2016 to include Zach Williams in its graduation ceremony.I received a message from his mother Monday saying that she had been told that Zach would not be honored in any way at the ceremony because other students and teachers had died that day.

I certainly hope there was some misunderstanding, but thankfully, there is time to make sure that Zach is remembered in some way at what would have been his high school graduation. Whether that is done by school officials, parents and district patrons, or by those who knew Zach at East Middle School, does not matter, but Joplin High School is not too big that it cannot take the time to remember those who could not be there.

His classmates should be able to show Joplin that while the years pass and memories fade, Zach Williams, forever 12, will remain a member of the Joplin High School Class of 2016.

Execution date set for strip club killer

A May 20 execution date has been set for Richard Tabler, one of two men responsible for the 2004 murders of four people connected to the Teazers strip club in Killeen, Texas.

The other man convicted of the crime was 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Pqyne of Granby. Payne was a soldier at Fort Hood at the time of the murders. He was sentenced to life in prison. Witnesses said Payne videotaped the murders.

Strip club killer's mother, sister enter guilty pleas

The mother and sister of death row inmate Richard Lee Tabler, the Killeen, Texas, strip club killer, pleaded gulity this week in a Texas court to sneaking in contraband to Tabler,

The contraband in question was buying minutes for a smuggled cell phone that Tabler used to make a threatening call to a state senator:

Gina DeBottis, director of the Huntsville-based Special Prosecutions Unit that handles prison crimes, said Lorraine Tabler, 61, and Kristina Martinez, 36, pleaded guilty in a Polk County state court and received a sentence of 10 years deferred adjudication.

Under that sentence, both women will remain on probation for 10 years and will have their record cleared ofd the charges if they do not commit new crimes in the meantime, officials said.

Tabler and Timothy Doan Payne, an East Newton High School graduate, were convicted of killing two people connected to the Teazers strip club in Killeen. Payne is serving a life sentence.

Strip club killer threatens senator from death row

Richard Lee Tabler, who teamed with East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne in the 2004 killings of four people connected with a Killeen, Texas, strip club, is back in the news again- this time for threatening a state senator from death row:

In a statement released Thursday, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said he is upset that Tabler continues to get messages out from death row, some of which threaten him and his family.

Less than 11 months ago, Whitmire, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, led a sweep of the Texas prison system for contraband after Tabler called him on a cell phone.

Whitmire said then that Tabler made threatening comments to him and Whitmire vowed to clean up the Texas prison system and rid it of smuggled cell phones. But now Tabler has apparently found a new way to communicate and threaten people.

Since May, he has had a letter posted on an Internet blog for inmates. In the letter he inquires about the health of one of Whitmire’s family members and writes “that just because I’m on death row does not mean that you cannot be gotten to … or your family.”

Payne was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the murders.

Texas case brought widespread attention to prisoners' cell phone use

The New York Times has an article about efforts to jam signals from cell phones that have been smuggled into prisons.

National attention was brought to this problem after a situation involving death row inmate Richard Lee Tabler, who along with East Newton High School graduate Timothy Payne, was responsible for the murders of four people connected to a Killeen, Texas, strip club. Payne was sentenced to life in prison:

In 2008, Richard Tabler, a death row inmate in Texas, called State Senator John Whitmire directly on his cellphone. Mr. Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, is chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee.

“He wanted to talk about conditions on death row,” Mr. Whitmire said. “In my mind, I thought I was talking to a concerned guard. I said, ‘Where are you?’ And he said: ‘I’m on death row. I’m an inmate. I’m on a cellphone I bought for $2,100.’ ”

After several more calls from the inmate, Mr. Whitmire told law enforcement officials about the contraband phone, which they confiscated. They found that it had been used by nine other death row inmates for a total of 2,800 minutes. Officials locked down the entire state system, conducted a search for other cellphones and found about 400, Mr. Whitmire said.

Texas strip club killer indicted in cell phone case

Richard Tabler, who along with East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne was convicted of the murder of two men connected to the Teazers strip club in Killeen, Texas, has been indicted by a grand jury for smuggling cell phones into prison.

Tabler's mother and sister were also indicted.

Tabler, a death row inmate, used the cellphones to threaten a state senator. He was also indicted on a felony retaliation charge for that action.

Payne was sentenced to life in prison. At Payne's trial, testimony was offered that the Granby man, who was a soldier at Fort Hood at the time, videotaped Tabler murdering the two men and two women who were also connected to the strip club.

Strip Club killer thwarted in suicide attempt

Killeen, Texas strip club killer Richard Tabler has been moved to a psychiatric unit after attemptng suicide earlier this month.

Tabler was sentenced to death for murdering two people connected to the Teazers Strip Club in November 2004. His accomplice in the crime, 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne, a soldier at Fort Bragg at the time, was sentenced to life in prison.

Tabler was also at the center of a recent controversy concerning cellphones being smuggled to prisoners.

(KEYE photo)

Strip club killer wants to die quickly

Richard Tabler, convicted in 2007 of the murders of two people connected to the Teazers strip club in Killeen, Texas, wants to waive his appeals so he can receive the death penalty:

But Appeals Attorney Karl Krug says Tabler won’t get his way until two proceedings take place. One of those, a jury trial, is already over. But the Court of Criminal Appeals is currently deciding the case.

“So whether he wants to get executed right now is irrelevant,” Krug said.

Tabler has used multiple tactics to help seal his own fate. One of the most widely publicized was when he used a smuggled cell phone from inside his prison cell to call a State Senator from Houston, John Whitmire, to make threats against Whitmire’s family. The incident prompted Governor Rick Perry to order a lockdown of all state prisons.

“The object of those calls is not to intimidate these people, the point is to get himself executed as quickly as possible,” Krug said.

Two others were also allegedly murdered by Tabler and his partner in crime, 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne of Granby, who was a soldier at Fort Hood at the time. Payne recently lost his appeal after being convicted and sentenced to life for his role in the murders.

Court rejects Granby man's appeal in strip club murder case

The Texas Third District Court of Appeals last week rejected convicted killer Timothy Doan Payne's appeal.

Payne, a 2004 graduate of East Newton High School, was one of two men convicted in connection with the Thanksgiving 2004 death of two men connected to the Teazers strip club in Killeen, Texas:

An appeals court Friday rejected the appeal of Timothy Payne, 22, who was convicted last November of capital murder in the Thanksgiving 2004 deaths of Haitham Zayed and Amine Rahmouni.

Payne, a former Fort Hood soldier, videotaped the shootings carried out by Richard Tabler, who received the death penalty in April 2007 for the slayings.

According to Tabler, Payne was with him during the shootings and knew that Tabler planned on killing Rahmouni. Tabler also stated that Payne later helped destroy the videotape of the shooting.

Convicted strip club killer threatens senator, reporter

Death row inmate Richard Lee Tabler, whose possession of a cell phone brought about a lockdown at Texas prisons, is back in the news once more.

The Temple Daily Telegram reports Tabler sent a letter threatening a state senator and a reporter. Tabler was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2004 murders of two people connected to a Killeen, Texas, strip club. His partner in crime, 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne, was sentenced to life in prison:

The soap opera that is Richard Tabler continues to get messages out from death row even though his cell phone has been confiscated.
This week the message came in letter form.

Tabler, convicted of two murders in Bell County, made an indirect threat to a reporter and a state senator in a letter he sent to the official in charge of the investigation of how cell phones ended up in the hands of death row inmates.

“I took it serious,” Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said about the threat. “I’m not worried about him. I’m more worried about who he or the nine guys he let use the phone may know on the outside.”

The threat named an Austin reporter and inferred that he and Whitmire may need protection because they played a role in getting his cell phone taken away and having his sister and mother arrested.

Houston Chronicle: Death row inmates made 2,800 calls

The Houston Chronicle is continuing to examine the number of cellphones smuggled into prisoners, including those on death row. The investigation began after strip club killer Richard Lee Tabler threatened a state senator on a cell phone smuggled in to him by his mother. Tabler and Timothy Doan Payne, a 2004 East Newton High School graduate, were convicted in connection with four killings of people connected to the Teazers Strip Club in Killeen, Texas.

The Chronicle article notes 2,800 calls have been made by 10 death-row inmates:

Cell phones are just about the hottest commodity inside prisons," said the prisons' inspector general, John Moriarty, whose office has opened 743 cases involving cell phones found in Texas prisons.

Moriarty said he knew of no hits ordered from prison using smuggled cell phones, though there have been drug deals made. Mostly, he believes, inmates use the phones to call home.

But just how do smugglers get phones past a penitentiary's security?

Some visitors have been caught hiding cell phones in the heels of their shoes. Some get them through security, only to get caught later dropping them in trash bins during visitation, Moriarty said.

Last year, an inmate was discovered to have both a cell phone and charger in his rectum. Moriarty said it's not clear how many people have smuggled cell phones into prisons in their body cavity; metal detectors won't typically sound the alarm.

Until this week, when a lockdown was declared amid revelations that 10 death row inmates made nearly 2,800 calls in the past month from a cell phone, not everyone entering Texas prisons, not even all visitors, were scanned for contraband.

Houston Chronicle details capture of death row inmate's mother in smuggling case

The capture of Texas death row inmate Richard Lee Tabler, mother, Lorraine, who provided a cell phone used by her son and other prison inmates, is detailed in an article posted tonight on the Houston Chronicle website.

Tabler, along with 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne of Granby, were responsible for the deaths of four people connected with the Teazers strip club in Killeen, Texas. Payne was convicted earlier this year by a Bell County, Texas, jury, but was not facing the death penalty:

During the phone calls, Whitmire said he tried not to ruffle Tabler or arouse his suspicion. "I said, 'How did you get a phone?'" Whitmire recalled of his first conversation. "He said, '$2,100.' I said, 'How are you charging it?' He said, 'I have a charger.' "

Moriarty traced the cell phone to within the Livingston prison where Tabler is awaiting the death penalty.

The inspector also found that Tabler's mother, Lorraine Tabler, was paying for the phone's minutes from her home in Georgia. And he discovered that the same phone had been used by as many as nine other inmates, all of them known gang members, to place 2,800 calls.

Their relatives sent payments to Tabler's mother to offset the phone bill. Many of their calls went to fellow gang members outside of prison, Whitmire said. They also called relatives and anti-death penalty advocates, he said.

Monday's crackdown was hatched after Whitmire learned Tabler's mother would be landing in Austin around 9 a.m. to visit her son. While police staked out the airport, Ward got Tabler on the phone so investigators could catch him with it, Whitmire said. A random search of Tabler's cell last week had come up short. Tabler told Whitmire he had handed the phone off to a guard in advance.

As police arrested his mother in Austin on Monday, investigators surprised Tabler in his cell. Before they snatched the phone, Whitmire said, Tabler made a final threat to the reporter: "I will Google you. I can find out what you drive."

AP article offers more information on Texas prison crackdown

A lockdown on Texas prisons following the discovery that contraband items have been smuggled in, including a cell phone used by death row killer Richard Lee Tabler to threaten a legislator, is detailed in an Associated Press article:

The security measures were prompted by the arrest of a death row inmate's mother who is accused of buying minutes for a cell phone, which was given to Richard Tabler and used by him and nine other inmates in his cell block.

Gov. Rick Perry's office said the phone was smuggled into the prison by a bribed corrections officer. The officer's name and whether he or she had been apprehended were not disclosed.

Authorities learned about the phone after Tabler called Whitmire and told him he knew the names of the legislator's daughters and where they lived, said John Moriarty, the prison system's inspector general.

Texas prison crackdown demanded after cell phone smuggled in to strip club killer used in threatening phone calls

Texas media sources are reporting Texas officials are demanding a crackdown on the smuggling of items into state prisons after a cellphone sneaked into death row inmate Richard Tabler by his mother was used to threaten a legislator:

Sen. John Whitmire of Houston received calls this month from death row inmate Richard Tabler, who used a smuggled cell phone.

Whitmire, who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the inmate described the lawmaker's daughters by name and where they live.

The phone was seized this week and Tabler's mother was arrested in Austin on charges she bought minutes for the device.

Whitmire, during the hearing in Austin, told prison officials he wants "zero tolerance" for contraband smuggling.

Gov. Rick Perry has ordered a system-wide prison lockdown and search.

Tabler was convicted of first degree murder and is awaiting execution in connection with the 2004 slayings of four people connected with a Killeen, Texas, strip club.

Previous Turner Report items about Tabler and his accomplice, 2004 East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne can be found at this link.

Strip club killer asks to be executed

Richard Lee Tabler, on death row for the 2004 murders of four people connected with a Killeen, Texas, strip club has asked to be executed:

On Tuesday, he appeared in front of 264th District Court Judge Martha Trudo and asked that his further appeals be blocked.

He asked the same in a letter to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, politely volunteering for execution.

"Greetings and peace be unto you!" he wrote in the letter, dated Aug. 11. "I've spoken with my appeal attorneys and they've advised me that they don't believe it's their job to notify the courts that I'd like to waive my rights to habeas corpus proceeding and volunteer for execution.

"I wish to drop all my appeals and get an execution date."

Tabler was one of two men convicted of the murders. The death penalty was not on the table for the other man, Timothy Doan Payne of Granby, an East Newton High School graduate.

All previous Turner Report posts on this case can be found at this link.

Death penalty conviction appealed in strip club murder case

Richard Lee Tabler, one of two men convicted in connection with the 2004 murders of two people connected to a Killeen, Texas, strip club, is appealing his case, according to Texas Court of Criminals Appeals records. Tabler received the death penalty after being convicted in March 2007 by a Bell County Texas jury.
His co-defendant, East Newton High School graduate Timothy Doan Payne was convicted later in 2007. The death penalty was not on the table in Payne's case. The following description of the case came from the Killeen Daily Herald:

Tabler and 1st Cavalry Division Pvt. Timothy D. Payne were charged in connection with the November 2004 shooting deaths of Teazers Gentlemen’s Club owner Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni, 25, and his friend Haitham Zayed, 28, whose bodies were found outside of Killeen and of Teazer’s dancer Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amber Benefield, 16, whose bodies were found just south of Highway 190.

Payne and Tabler used a video camera to record tape of Tabler shooting Rahmouni and Zayed, witnesses said, but the tape was later destroyed.

The shootings were part of what Bell County authorities described as a bizarre plot

The list of intended victims included eight or nine more people, Bell County Sheriff Dan Smith said after the two were arrested.

According to court records, Tabler's lawyers have a May 6 deadline to submit their briefs.

Murder conviction of Granby man among Texas newspaper's top stories for 2007

Today's Killeen Daily Herald in Texas features an article reviewing top trials of 2007 in its reading area. Among those are the trials of Timothy Payne, an East Newton High School graduate for his involvement in the 2004 strip club murders in that city, as well as the conviction earlier in the year of his accomplice, Richard Lee Tabler, the man who actually committed the murders. The following passage about Payne is included in the article:

A Bell County jury, after six hours and six minutes of deliberating, found Timothy Doan Payne guilty of capital murder on Nov. 15, the last murder trial of 2007 in Bell County.

Payne was most known for his involvement with Tabler in the killings as the follower who tagged along with the quadruple murderer, videotaping the second killing.

The jury of seven women and five men came out to announce their verdict shortly after 10 p.m. in the trial of the 21-year-old former Fort Hood soldier.

Payne told the jury his account of the night, portraying himself as a man who got caught up in the secret revenge plot of Richard Tabler's, one that put him in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jury convicts Granby man in Texas strip club murders

A Bell County, Texas, jury found Timothy Doan Payne, Granby, a 2004 graduate of East Newton High School guilty Thursday on two counts of first degree murder:

While the jury was out, deliberations became so heated within the jury chambers that voices could be heard inside the courtroom. Bell County sheriff's deputies cleared the courtroom so that the content of those discussions could remain private.

Payne, a former soldier at Fort Hood, was charged with capital murder in the Nov. 26, 2004, deaths of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, and faces an automatic life sentence.

Payne's Granby background was employed by his attorney in an attempt to sway the jury:

"He's a farm boy from Missouri," Lee said. "He had graduated in May and found himself in Fort Hood in September. His own father was murdered. He had every reason in the world not to do it. There is no way that my client ever acted with the intent to aid in the commission of capital murder. This is a bad case."

Defense attorney Paul LePak painted a picture of Tabler as a criminal mastermind who planned every element of the operation, and attempted to pin the murders on Payne, who was young and naive.

"This is the benchmark, this kind of case. There are no greater stakes than capital murder," he said. "I'm glad KPD did such a good job on this case because there would be a lot more people dead. And it would have been Richard Tabler that killed them."

McWilliams argued that the charge sheet detailing the crime provided multiple avenues for the jury in the event they found Payne guilty. He said Payne made the decision to associate himself with Tabler, and that decision led to a chain of events that left two men dead.

McWilliams said Payne's guilt was clear. He used Payne's own testimony, namely the search for Rahmouni, to show that Payne helped Tabler bring the victims together.

Payne tells court about strip club murders

The Killeen Daily Herald offers more information about East Newton High School graduate Timothy Payne's testimonty in Bell County Texas District Court Wednesday in his trial. Payne is accused of murdering four people connected to Teazers, a Killeen, Texas, strip club. Richard Lee Tabler was convicted earlier this year and sentenced to death:

Payne retold the harrowing account of his involvement the night of the shootings and admitted he was in the car with Tabler when the 28-year-old shot Rahmouni and Zayed.

Payne said the night began with an invitation from Tabler to go on a ride, one which evolved into the execution of Tabler's plot to get revenge on Rahmouni for disrespecting him and failing to pay him money. Payne said Tabler lured Rahmouni to a remote location in Killeen on a pretense of selling stolen stereos. But Tabler's true intent became known only at the end, he said.

"(Tabler) told me that he wasn't selling Amine any stolen stereo equipment; he said if Amine didn't have the money, he was going to shoot him," Payne testified. "Then I hear two gunshots I did not know that was going to happen. I was looking out the passenger window."

Payne breathed heavily as he admitted doing as Tabler demanded.

"I was freaking out and panicking," Payne said. "Richard told me to look in Amine's pockets for money. I didn't want to reach in and touch anything, (but) I did. As I was reaching, the man's head fell forward and hit my arm, and I pulled my arm back real quick. I said, 'Richard, let's get out of here.' He said he wasn't leaving yet."

Those acts left Zayed dead in the driver's seat and Rahmouni struggling for life.

"He told me to go get the video camera – I did," Payne testified. "He asked me to pull the driver out of the vehicle. I pointed the camera towards Tabler. Richard said something to Amine. Amine was gurgling and his hand was up in the air. Then Richard shot him once in the head.

"

The murders took place in November 2004. At the time, Payne was a soldier at Fort Hood.

Testimony begins in Granby man's murder trial

Testimony began Tuesday in Bell County, Texas, in the capital murder trial of East Newton High School graduate Timoty Payne.
Payne is charged with the November 2004 murder of four people connected with the Teazers Strip Club in Killeen, Texas. Richard Lee Tabler has already been convicted and sentenced to death. Payne will face life in prison if convicted:

During opening arguments, defense attorney Steve Lee portrayed Payne as an unwilling and frightened accomplice to Tabler’s crimes.

Lee said Payne was startled when Tabler shot the two men and kept urging Tabler to leave the scene before Tabler forced him to search the bodies.

Meanwhile, McWilliams portrayed Payne as an active and willing participant who egged Tabler into committing murder.

“You don’t have to worry about who actually pulled that trigger,” McWilliams said. “Did he help Richard Tabler commit this crime? Did he encourage him? … Or on the other hand, did he believe that he was going to commit aggravated robbery that turned into capital murder?”