A jury of seven men and five women found Robert E. Lee guilty Thursday night of the dismemberment murder of Ellen Marks.
After six hours of deliberations, the jury entered the courtroom and handed Monroe County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Todd the statement. He read the verdict.
Lee appeared to be holding back tears, his lips pressed tightly together, hands trembling. Six uniformed Bloomington police officers and five Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies flanked the courtroom as the verdict was read.
Special Prosecutor Stanley Levco requested an additional hearing for sentencing. Levco filed a petition alleging Lee is a habitual criminal offender. The jury will return at 10 a.m.today for sentencing.
Two hours before the verdict was announced, John Stein, the victim’s cousin, issued a statement expressing his feelings about the trial.
“I, for one, am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Robert Lee acted out a horrific, murderous fantasy on a random female who happened to be my cousin,” the statement said.
Stein has been present throughout the trail and has worked closely with Levco and police during the trial.
“Much attention has been given in the press and in the trial to the quality of the police investigation in this case,” the statement said. “Some of it was inept, and some was worse, and I have long feared that it would jeopardize the course of justice in this case.”
Stein is the deputy director of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, a Washington-based agency that aids victims of violent crimes.
Before the jury left to begin deliberations about noon Thursday, Levco urged it to consider all the evidence and witnesses’ testimonies and to weight them in light of each other.
“The only question in this case is did he (Lee) do it,” Levco said.
Levco asked jurors to think back to September, before any suspects were named. He said they probably would suspect a person who lived nearby and knew the victim or showed signs of having some intention to commit the offense.
“Lee had been planning this crime for three years,” Levco said, calling attention to the note Lee wrote in 1983.
The note was presented earlier as evidence. It described the mutilation and killing of an unnamed woman. Levco said some statements in Lee’s note match what was done to Marks.
Levco also called Lee’s supposed reason for writing the note “absurd.” Lee told police he has written the note to scare James Burks, an acquaintance of Lee’s who was named as a possible suspect during the trial.
Levco said he was unsure what the defense was trying to prove in presenting evidence against Richard Wilson and Burks.
Defense attorney Clarence Frank began his remarks by stating that Lee’s note was a “disgusting, revolting, obnoxious piece of literature.”
Frank criticized the Bloomington Police Department’s investigations of the case. He said the police deliberately disregarded any information about any other suspects
except Lee.
He spoke of Lee’s alibi, saying it would have been rather difficult to carry out the crime during the few hours of dark when Lee wasn’t at work at the 7-Eleven on W. 11 th Street.
“You ought to have doubts in your mind,” Frank told the jury. He said these doubts should concern the way the police investigation was conducted and the reason why no other leads were investigated.
Defense attorney Michael Hunt, who assisted Frank by taking notes during the trial, spoke briefly about the presumption of innocence.
“We don’t know much about this case,” he said. “There is a lot of evidence, but it doesn’t mean much.”
He told jurors they were left with one question: Who killed Ellen Marks?
“The answer is who knows?” Hunt said. “And when you’re stuck with who knows, you must vote not guilty.”
