Charges against dark demon serial murderer dismissed on technicality

[White Sail]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...F?OpenDocument

St. Clair County prosecutor drops murder charges against alleged prostitute killer in East St. Louis
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
02/13/2009

Murder charges claiming Donald E. Younge Jr. killed three prostitutes in East St. Louis were dismissed Friday after the prosecution raised doubts about the credibility of a key state witness against him.

Younge, who was up for trial next month in St. Clair County Circuit Court, continues to be held pending trial on an unrelated murder charge in Utah.

Seeking dismissal of the Metro East case, State's Attorney Robert H
aida wrote, "The state's attorney's office has become aware of credibility issues with an essential state witness involved in the collection and chain of custody of evidence."

Circuit Judge Milton Wharton granted the motion.

Haida's motion did not name the witness.

Post-Dispatch stories last year raised questions about billings to the Illinois death penalty defense fund made by Alva Busch, a Belleville-based private investigator. Busch previously was an Illinois State Police crime scene investigator, who collected evidence in the prostitute killings.

Prosecutors originally had said they would seek Younge's execution, but dropped that after a key witness, Antonina Brummond, was murdered in 2004 in what authorities said was a crime apparently unconnected to Younge.

Younge still faces charges in Salt Lake County, Utah, of murder and aggravated kidnapping in the 1999 stabbing death of a University of Utah student. If convicted, he could face the death penalty there.

nHe was accused here of slaying three prostitutes. The body of one was dumped under a railroad bridge in East St. Louis. The bodies of two others were found stuffed into garbage bags in the same area .

Younge had insisted he was innocent.

[Rasp]

Originally Posted by White Sail

Younge still faces charges in Salt Lake County, Utah, of murder and aggravated kidnapping in the 1999 stabbing death of a University of Utah student. If convicted, he could face the death penalty there.

Younge had insisted he was innocent.

Nigger pleads not guilty in 10 year old murder of White woman

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A man accused of killing a University of Utah student more than ten years ago is finally arraigned for the crime.

Today Donald Younge pleaded not guilty in the murder of Amy Quinton.

She and her roommate were attacked in their avenues apartment in 1999. Prosecutors say one of the women that survived identified Younge.

He had been in prison in Illinois for the murder of three women there, but those charges were dropped and he was brought back to Utah.

He'll be in court next on January 15th.

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Victim photo here, plus video

In court during his preliminary hearing Tuesday, the two women who were in Quinton's apartment that night testified against Younge. Erin Warn and Lynn Drebes both testified they remember Younge breaking into the apartment then holding all three of them in Quinton's room.

Warn said Younge gave her duct tape to tie everyone up, but she refused to take it. Drebes said Younge held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her.

At one point, one of the women called 911, but Younge took the phone and hung up. When 911 called back, Drebes said Younge answered the phone and told the dispatcher that the call was a mistake and that everything was OK.

Drebes said when she asked Younge what he wanted, he said money.

Warn and Drebes left Quinton's room to get their wallets, but they say after doing so, Younge went into Quinton's room. They heard her scream four times. Younge then ran out of the apartment. Drebes and Warn say that's when they found out Quinton had been stabbed.

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Donald Eugene Younge is charged with attacking and raping a University of Utah student in 1996.

13 years later, woman describes rape

Thirteen years ago, the University of Utah student was walking home from class when she heard leaves crunching. She turned around and saw someone running toward her.

That person hit the woman "full force ... like you see on the football field," she testified Monday. The man would go on to beat and rape her in an alley near campus.

After the rape, while medical staff were treating the woman, they found DNA material from her attacker. With evidence of the crime in hand but no criminal, prosecutors in 2000 charged a "John Doe" with two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of robbery in order to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring. It wasn't until 2002 that a law enforcement database determined the DNA matched a sample taken from Donald Eugene Younge.

Now a Salt Lake County jury has to decide whether Younge and "John Doe" are the same man. If he's convicted, it could be a landmark case for Utah. Younge is the first person to be tried for crimes charged to a "John Doe."

The attack occurred about 9 p.m. on Nov. 7, 1996. After the tackle, the attacker punched the woman repeatedly in the left side of her face, she testified Monday. The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify victims of sexual assault.

"What it felt like was explosive pain," the woman, who is now in her mid-30s, told the courtroom, "but I was so scared that [pain] was almost secondary."

She believed the attacker was going to kill her, she testified. She tried to scream but felt her throat constricted.

The attacker demanded her money and she gave it to him, she said. The woman marked a map to show a state court jury she was near 1200 South and Douglas Street (1240 East) when she was tackled. Then the woman drew a line to a nearby alley, where she says her assailant dragged her.

The woman said she blacked out and when she awoke she was naked in the alley on a concrete slab. She saw the man running away, throwing her clothes over a fence. She got up and ran away from him. But the man caught her and dragged her back to where she was, she testified.

She told the court that the attacker then made her perform oral sex.

In the courtroom, the woman began to cry as she described the oral sex, but she declined an offer to pause her testimony.

"I can do this," she said, clutching a tissue.

The man then raped her, she testified.

After the attack, she stayed on the concrete, stunned for a few moments, then she began to panic, thinking the man had taken her student identification card and would know where she lived. She found her identification and books, searched in the dark until she found her bra and the tights, put them on and ran home.

The woman said she entered her apartment through her bathroom window because she was worried the attacker was watching.

"I just wanted to hide," she testified. "I didn't want him to see me or where I lived."

She took a shower then called her sister in Utah County and told her to come pick her up.

The sister also testified Monday. She said she knew her sister had been raped, even though her sister hadn't told her. She took her sister to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.

A nurse on Monday testified a physician and a nurse examined the woman and found a semen sample.

The jury consists of eight men and one woman. One of the men began to cry as the prosecution showed photographs of the woman in the hospital with her face bruised and swollen. Younge showed no reaction during Monday's testimony.

The trial will continue today.

[Rasp]

Nigger found guilty of rape, still faces murder charges

Shïtskin convicted of 1996 rape of U. student

Donald Eugene Younge was convicted Wednesday of beating, robbing and raping a University of Utah student 13 years ago.

A 3rd District Court jury deliberated for an hour and a half before finding Younge, 43, guilty of two counts of first-degree felony aggravated sexual assault and one count of second-degree felony robbery.

He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 15 by Judge Deno Himonas.

The victim, who was 23 when she was assaulted the night of Nov. 7, 1996, was never able to identify the man who attacked her. Younge's conviction was based entirely on a DNA profile developed from seminal fluid collected at the time of the attack.

Defense attorney Michael Misner attacked the reliability of that evidence from start to finish, claiming the sample degraded because of improper storage, could have been contaminated during testing and that the real attacker was someone else who shares Younge's DNA profile.

Misner told jurors that DNA can be powerful evidence in support of fingerprints or eyewitness identification, but that it should not used as the sole basis for convicting someone.

Prosecutor Cristina Ortega countered that DNA is used in everyday life to confirm paternity, identify fallen soldiers and even exonerate those who have been wrongly convicted.

"DNA -- it's reliable," asserted Ortega, noting that only Younge's twin brother could share his profile, and Younge has no brother.

Ortega also insisted that the "chain of evidence," meaning the integrity of the collected sample as it was passed from a hospital nurse to a police officer to the lab, was documented at every step.

The testing was done at the Utah State Crime Lab, which uses the national standard of requiring matches at 13 locations on a chromosome to confirm two samples are from the same person.

Gabriel Bier, who preformed the tests, testified that he found a 13 "loci" match in the Younge case.

Misner also said the state crime lab standard for another part of the test is lower than that used by some other labs. He asserted that if the testing had been done by one of those other labs, Younge would not have been charged and put on trial.

Earlier in the trial, the victim testified she was walking home from a night class when she was tackled by a man who beat her about the face and demanded money. She handed him $16 and blacked out.

She awakened naked in a nearby alley, where the man forced her to perform oral sex and then raped her. After the attack, she found her bra and tights, put them on and ran home.

The woman called her sister, who took her to a hospital, where rape evidence was collected that was later used to develop a DNA profile.

In 2000, Salt Lake County prosecutors took the unprecedented step of using that DNA profile to charge "John Doe, an unknown male" with the rape and robbery -- a strategy that prevented the statute of limitations from expiring.

Two years later, the profile was linked to Younge through a law enforcement database. In March, Younge was brought from Illinois to Utah to stand trial.

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Younge also faces murder charge

In a separate case, Donald Eugene Younge is charged with capital murder and eight other felonies. Younge is accused of stabbing to death Amy Quinton, 22, near the University of Utah in 1999. No trial date has been scheduled in that case. Younge's Utah cases had been delayed because he was charged with three murders in Illinois, but the Illinois charges have been dismissed.

[Whitebear]

Black sentenced to prison for rape of University of Utah student


Donald Younge

A man accused of killing a University of Utah student is going to prison for the rape of another.
Friday, Donald Younge was sentenced to 31 years to life.

Thirteen years ago the rape victim was walking home from a night class when Younge tackled her, beat her and demanded money. She says she handed him sixteen dollars and then blacked out. The next thing she remembers she woke up naked in an alley.

DNA evidence linked the crime to Younge, and he was brought from Illinois to Utah to stand trial earlier this year.
Younge is also charged with capital murder in the stabbing death of University of Utah student Amy Quinton in 1999. A trial date for that case has not yet been set.

Black Sentenced in Brutal 1996 Rape; Murder Trial for 1999 Incident to Follow


Donald Younge (from video at link)