Alex Baranyi #788490
Clallam Bay Corrections Center
1830 Eagle Crest Way
Clallam Bay, WA 98326
(Infamous "Gothic Murders" killer responsible for 4 murders)
Here are some excerpts from an article writtten by Gary Boynton about the crime. You can find a link to the complete article below in the source information:
"On Jan. 4, 1997, two boys were playing in a park in Bellevue, WA., an upscale suburb east of Seattle, when they spotted what they thought was a pile of clothes concealed by shrubs about five feet off a trail. When the boys returned to the park the next morning they soon realized what they had seen was a body. They ran home; one of their mothers called the Bellevue Police Department.
At 11:30 a.m., Bellevue detectives responded to the scene, where they found the body of a young woman, dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt and "waffle-stomper" boots. Although she did not appear disheveled, as if she had been involved in a struggle, there was a cord wrapped around her neck, with which she obviously had been strangled.
Identification on the body indicated that the victim was Kimberly Wilson, age 20, and that she lived only a few blocks from the park.
After securing and processing the crime scene, Det. Jeff Gomes, an investigator from the King County Medical Examiner's Office, and Senior Prosecutor Patti Eakes proceeded to the victim's home. Gomes, although he'd been a cop for 23 years, was dreading informing Wilson's family of her death as he knocked on the front door of the white, two-story, wood-frame house.
Even though there were three cars parked in front, and the outside Christmas lights were on, the inside of the house appeared dark. When no one answered, Gomes went to a sliding-glass door on the side of the house. Finding it unlocked, he opened it, leaned into the house and called out. Again receiving no reply, Gomes drew his gun and stepped inside.
What he found upstairs was unlike anything the veteran detective had ever seen. Blood was spattered on walls and ceilings. In the master bedroom, the body of a middle-aged woman was lying in her bed, where she evidently had been attacked. Her head had been crushed by repeated blows from a heavy, blunt object, and her throat had through-and-through stab wounds. Near the foot of another bed in the same room, lay the body of a middle-aged man. Heavy blows, too, had crushed his skull, and he, too, had suffered numerous penetrating stab wounds to the face, neck, and head.
Just down the hall, in another bedroom, lay the body of a teenage girl. Unlike the other two victims, she had apparently been able to struggle against her attacker. She had defensive injuries to her hands (stabbing and slashing wounds) and her arms (bone broken by blunt impact). She, too, had been beaten repeatedly in the face and head, and her throat and head bore numerous stab wounds.
Interviews with neighbors soon identified the victims as Kim Wilson's 17-year-old sister, Julia, and their parents, William and Rose Wilson.
Although Kimberly Wilson was not a Goth herself, several of her friends were part of such a group who liked to hang out late at night at the Denny's Restaurant in Bellevue's Eastgate neighborhood, not far from the Wilson family home. This "Saturday Night Denny's Club" liked to talk about role-playing games and their underlying themes of eroticism and death. Detectives learned that two fringe members of the "Saturday Night Denny's Club," Alex Baranyi and his best friend, David Anderson, both 17, had often talked about committing murder.
Investigators contacted Baranyi and Anderson at their residences. Both youths claimed to have been together playing video games at Baranyi's home all night long on the night of the murders. Because the police were looking for a distinctive shoe-tread pattern discovered at the scene, each was questioned about their shoes. Baranyi showed the detectives a pair of brown work boots, which he claimed were his only pair of shoes.
Detectives sought to confirm the statements of Baranyi and Anderson. They learned that witnesses at the home where Baranyi lived disputed their claims that they stayed home on the night of the murder. Police also learned from another friend of Baranyi's that Baranyi had a pair of boots with tread similar to the one that had left a blood impression at the crime scene. Bloody footprints found in the Wilson residence indicated there were at least two individuals involved in the murders.
Detectives again spoke with Baranyi five days after the murder. After he was advised of his Miranda rights, acknowledged that he understood them, and waved them, he told the detectives that he and an accomplice, whom he refused to name, murdered all of the Wilsons.
Baranyi told detectives that he had been planning to murder someone for over a year, because he was "in a rut" and felt that he was becoming "decadent."
[ David Anderson was later named as the second assailant ]
"Although both defendants were 17 at the time of the murders, they were charged with first-degree murder as adults. Prosecutors planned to try them together. The trial began in October 1998, but jury selection was soon halted when the Washington State Supreme Court made a ruling that made it easier for defendants to offer a diminished-mental-capacity defense.
In light of the new ruling, Baranyi's attorneys re-filed a motion to allow the expert testimony of a San Diego-based psychologist, who had diagnosed Baranyi as suffering from bipolar disorder, also know as manic depression, which is characterized by moods alternating between extreme excitability and withdrawal.
King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman ruled that under the new guidelines, Baranyi was entitled to pursue a diminished-capacity defense, and that in order to do so fairly, he and Anderson should be tried separately. Spearman also ruled that Baranyi's confession was admissible, but that any references to an accomplice must be edited out, in order not to prejudice the case against Anderson. Believing that such a redacted version would wrongly give jurors the impression that Baranyi committed the murders alone, prosecutors decided not to use the confession at all.
Prosecutors resumed presenting their case against Baranyi, linking him with Anderson, whom they believed had instigated the plan to kill Kimberly. Three weeks after the trial began, the jury quickly found Alex Baranyi guilty of all four counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Two months later, Baranyi was sentenced to four consecutive life terms, without possibility of parole."
[End of excerpts from the article]
Anderson later received the same sentence;.
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