Fla. Men Guilty In Homeless Beating Death
2 Fla. Men, Who Were Teens When They Assaulted Victim, Found Guilty Of 2nd Degree Murder
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Officials released the surveillance video from Florida Atlantic University showing two men beating one of the victims with what appear to be bats. (CBS)
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Brian Hooks, 18, is escorted into the Broward County Jail, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale. (AP)
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Thomas S. Daugherty, 17, is escorted into the Juvenile Assessment Facility, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP)
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Murder Suspects In Custody
Only On The Web:Trish Regan reports from Florida, where two teenagers suspected of killing a homeless man and beating two others turned themselves in to authorities.
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Arrests Made In Beating Case
A video tape released last week showed the brutal beating of a homeless man with a baseball bat. As Trish Regan reports, two suspects are now in custody.
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Teens Surrender To Fla. Cops
Two South Florida teens suspected in the beatings of three homeless men, which was caught on tape, turned themselves into police. WFOR's Shomari Stone reports.
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Surveillance video of the 2006 rampage captured Brian Hooks, 21, and Thomas Daugherty, 19, repeatedly hitting one of the victims, causing national outrage among the homeless community.
Hooks and Daugherty were found guilty of second-degree murder as well as two counts each of attempted second-degree murder with a weapon for beating two other homeless men.
Prosecutors said Norris Gaynor, 45, was sleeping on a park bench when the men, who were then teens, beat him to death. Prosecutors said Hooks and Daugherty were drunk that night, concealed the bats in their pants and then hide before sneaking up on their victims.
The surveillance footage shows a surviving victim desperately trying to cover his body from numerous blows.
Defense attorneys had argued the teens never intended to kill Gaynor and urged the jury to consider a lesser charge of third-degree felony murder.
They also tried to cast doubt on earlier testimony from William Ammons, 21, who pleaded guilty in May to felony murder and aggravated assault in the beatings. They said Ammons had a "biased interest to fabricate facts in the case to save" himself and has admitted lying to police 80 times.
Ammons will face between 10 and 20 years in prison. He is awaiting sentencing.
Jacques Pierre, 61, was assaulted first in the attack captured on video.
Ammons confessed to hitting a third man, 51-year-old Raymond Perez, with a plastic sword and admitted that he fired shots from a paintball gun at Gaynor. A prosecutor said Ammons did not hit anyone with a baseball bat or other deadly weapon, a key factor in his plea to lesser charges.
©MMVI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
I hope their life is full of misery until the day they die !!!
Its sad to think that someone could have the heart
to beat a homeless person at all.
And for what????
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by txpatriot4us
September 21, 2008 6:29 PM PDT
- They are going to be girl freinds for the first two big fellas to show up with a carton of cigarettes.
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Reply to this comment
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See all 13 CommentsI hope their life is full of misery until the day they die !!!
Posted by humppy
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Good Ole TYRONE 6''5 350 lbs will surely make their aquaintenance....but alas it is a NO Smoking World Now
only the Trustee'' who can find smokes get to sneak em LOL