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Lee says in call from jail

By Todd Cooper - Omaha.cpm

May 4, 2012

So much for the whodunit.

In the course of her first-degree murder trial this week, Monique Lee’s defense has been questioning whether prosecutors could prove that Lee killed her landlord, Karen Jenkins, a college instructor and businesswoman.

However, one person didn’t question who did the killing: Lee herself.

In a December 2010 phone call from jail — played by prosecutors Thursday afternoon — Lee told her sister that she killed Jenkins.

“I admit, I did it,” she said at one point.

At another, she blubbered, through her tears, how she did it.

Pressing Lee about why she was charged with first-degree murder, sister DeShawndra Boatman asked Lee whether she shot or stabbed Jenkins, 48.

Lee didn’t respond.

“C’mon, Monique, just tell me,” Boatman said. “I won’t tell nobody. I won’t tell mom. ... Did you drug her?”

“I didn’t drug her,” Lee said, sniffling. “I choked ... I strangled her. I strangled her, Shawndra.”

Douglas County Public Defender Tom Riley has left little unturned as he has questioned whether someone else — namely Lee’s brother, Gary Lee — could have killed Jenkins.

But that part of the defense was undermined Thursday as his own client’s words reverberated through the courtroom.

In addition to the jailhouse phone calls, prosecutors say, Lee has made admissions to both of the psychiatrists who have evaluated her.

And her brother Gary Lee is expected to testify Friday that he helped Monique Lee after she became upset that she was being evicted.

All of those things may mean the defense soon will turn to the second prong of their strategy: their argument that Lee was insane at the time of the killing.

The three phone calls — made two months after Jenkins was found dead — show a desperate woman. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine and Chief Deputy Brenda Beadle said it’s a woman covering her tracks — and trying to deflect blame for strangling Lee with a vacuum cleaner cord.

Riley, on the other hand, likely will point to some elements of the phone calls as signs that Lee wasn’t all there.

Throughout the phone calls, Lee seems consumed with her children — and with the consequences she might suffer.

In the second phone call that day, Lee adamantly denies acting alone — or out of anger for getting initial eviction papers.

“I admit, I did it,” she says. “It wasn’t based off of what everybody thinks it is. My kids was being threatened.”

By who? Boatman asked.

Lee refers to a mysterious man at a nearby body shop — and to a yellow truck parked in the neighborhood.

“All I know is his name is Black,” Lee said. “I would get phone calls, messages telling me what clothes I was wearing ... like they was watching me. I was being threatened. My brother was being threatened.”

Lee tells her sister that Jenkins’ body was moved by the unnamed man and his friends. Gary Lee is expected to testify he helped his sister hide the body.

“He kept threatening me,” she said. “He started telling me, ‘Do it or die. So I did it.’”

Authorities noted that Lee provides more details with each phone call. In the first phone call, Lee says she strangled Jenkins. In the second call, her sister asked what role their brother, Gary Lee, played.

“Gary watched,” Lee said. “He just stood there and watched. And he held her down.”

In the third phone call, she vents to Boatman about their little brother cooperating with police — and pinning the motive on the eviction.

“Gary throw all this (expletive) on me,” Lee says. “You mean to tell me, I been letting you live in my house and then you going to throw this (expletive) on me? ... This is my blood.”

Courtroom spectators were spellbound by the tapes. A few of Jenkins’ family members and friends dabbed away tears. One buried her head in her hands.

At one point, Lee’s mother left the courtroom in a huff. She shot a glare in her daughter’s direction before flinging open the courtroom doors.

Two jurors scribbled furiously as Lee made her admissions. Another closed his notebook and leaned back in his chair.

A female juror tried to stifle tears as Lee repeatedly asked about her 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

Lee: “Have they asked about me? ... I need to hear them.”

Boatman: “They’re fine. I just told ’em ‘Mom has to take a vacation.’”

Finally, Boatman — who now has custody of the children — puts the daughter on.

“Hi, baby. Hey, baby,” Lee says, her singsong voice muffled by tears. “You take care of your little brother, OK? I love you.”

“I love you too,” her daughter says.

Later, Lee asks about the life sentence she could face for murder.

“They probably are going to try to give you life,” Boatman says. “They might give you 20 years.”

“Well, 20 is a lot better than life,” Lee says. “As long as it’s not forever. As long as I can get out and see the kids.”

She pauses.

“If I could change this, Shawndra, I swear to God I would. I can’t stand being away from my babies.”

Did woman in landlord slaying know right from wrong?

By Todd Cooper - Omaha.cpm

May 2, 2012

Monique Lee was mentally ill on Oct. 17, 2010 — the day her landlord, Karen Jenkins, was killed after Lee received eviction papers.

On that point, both sides agree.

But as Lee's first-degree murder trial began Tuesday in Douglas County District Court, prosecutors and defense attorneys disagreed on whether that long-standing mental illness made her unable to comprehend the consequences of her actions.

In short, prosecutor Brenda Beadle said, Lee was capable of understanding right and wrong.

Karen Jenkins often offered reduced rent to Lee and other tenants — sometimes even hiring them to work off their rent. However, Lee had used up those chances, Beadle said.

Upset that she was being evicted, Lee and her brother Gary Lee set out to set up Jenkins, the prosecutor said.

Pretending that Gary was a prospective tenant, the Lees lured Jenkins to a vacant apartment in the same building as the bar that was being renovated by Jenkins, an accomplished and well-traveled businesswoman who held a doctorate and once worked as a college instructor.

As Jenkins, 48, prepared to show the apartment to Gary Lee, prosecutors say, Monique Lee attacked her from behind.

Karen Jenkins called out: “Monique, get off of me.”

Lee then did the unthinkable, Beadle said: She strangled Jenkins with the cord of a vacuum cleaner while Lee's brother held her legs.

Monique and Gary Lee then wrapped Jenkins' body in a sheet and stuffed her in a closet, Beadle said. Hours later, under cover of darkness, they took the body across the street and disposed of it under the porch of a burned-out house near 40th Street and Ames Avenue, Beadle said.

Lee's attorney, Public Defender Tom Riley, told jurors his defense is two-pronged. First and foremost, Riley argued, prosecutors will have a hard time convincing jurors that Monique Lee killed Karen Jenkins.

Gary Lee, who has cooperated with prosecutors and will testify for them, is the only one who connects Monique to what happened in that apartment.

And, Riley said, Gary Lee has motive to lie. “He's not trying to protect his sister,” Riley said. “He's trying to lay it off on her — and she is not equipped to defend herself.”

Therein lies the second prong of Riley's defense. Even if jurors decide that prosecutors have proven their case, he said, it's clear that Lee was insane at the time of Jenkins' killing.

Prosecutors and the defense plan to call dueling doctors to debate that issue. Dr. Bruce Gutnik — an Omaha psychiatrist and frequent witness for the defense — will testify that Lee was insane and incapable of understanding her actions at the time.

Dr. Scott Moore, a Lincoln Regional Center psychiatrist, disagrees. He will testify that Lee could distinguish right from wrong.

After strangling Jenkins, prosecutors allege, Lee put Super Glue in the woman's nostrils — so much that her upper lip was glued to her nose. She and Gary Lee then stuffed tissue in her mouth.

The brother-sister duo then hid Jenkins' body.

The disappearance of Jenkins prompted a frantic search among her large and closeknit family. The family knew something was wrong when sister Cynthia — who spoke with Karen multiple times a day, every day — couldn't get hold of her.

“Karen was the baby of the family,” Beadle said. “She and Cynthia talked daily, several times a day.”

However, the last phone number dialed to Karen Jenkins' phone was Gary Lee's number — at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 17. At 10:31 a.m., Gary Lee then called or texted his sister's number, as he followed Karen Jenkins into the apartment, Beadle said.

After hiding the body — it wasn't found for six days — Monique Lee was deceptive with detectives investigating the disappearance, Beadle said.

Monique Lee initially told investigators she hadn't seen Jenkins for a while. On the Sunday in question, she said, she was at the Siena Francis House, doing community service work all day.

She later changed that story, telling detectives she was at home all day.

Ronald Ross, a Douglas County sheriff's constable, said he served Monique Lee with initial eviction papers Oct. 3. The papers indicated that Lee could contest her eviction, and a court date was set for Oct. 15.

“I didn't get the chance to get much out,” Ross said of his encounter with Lee. “She grabbed the papers out of my hand and just mumbled something, kind of upset.”

Police Arrest Brother-Sister in Jenkins Murder

By Jonathan Athens - Kptm.com

December 30, 2010

OMAHA (KPTM)--Police arrested a 19-year-old Omaha man and his 27-year-old sister and charged them both with first degree homicide in the killing of 48-year-old Karen Jenkins.

"This is an on-going investigation... police are still conducting interviews, we don't want to jeopardize the investigation," said Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine.

Kleine was speaking to reporters earlier today when police announced they arrested Gary D. Lee and his sister Monique Lee.

Jenkins disappeared on Oct. 17, two days after she filed an eviction notice against Monique Lee, who was renting a house from Jenkins.

Police discovered Jenkins' body about five days later at that house.

Prosecutors are also charging Gary and Monique Lee with use of a weapon.

Gary and Monique Lee are in jail pending a bond hearing tomorrow afternoon

 

Shelley Lynn CASTERLINE

 

Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Enraged during an argument
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: October 4, 2013
Date of arrest: Next day
Date of birth: 1973
Victim profile: Virginia Barone, 68 (her boyfriend's mother)
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife
Location: Guide Rock, Webster County, Nebraska, USA
Status: Pleaded guilty. Sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on September 22, 2014






Woman gets life sentence for killing boyfriend's mom

Lincoln Journal Star

September 22, 2014

A Guide Rock woman got a life sentence Monday for killing her boyfriend's 68-year-old mother.

Shelley Casterline, 41, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Adams County District Court in March. District Judge Stephen Illingworth sentenced her.

Prosecutors charged Casterline and her 24-year-old son, Andrew, with first-degree murder and other crimes connected to the Oct. 4 slaying of Virginia Barone at Barone's home in Guide Rock. Her body was found partially covered by boards in her home the next day. An autopsy showed she'd been stabbed twice in the back and 20 times in the chest and torso.

Barone's son, Ronald Jamilowski, was Shelley Casterline's boyfriend. Investigators had said Shelley Casterline acknowledged she killed Barone