Opening statements begin Monday in the Texas murder trial of handyman Paul Devoe, accused of killing six people during a cross-country shooting spree.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Devoe, 46, who has a long criminal rap sheet in New York and a history of alcohol and drug abuse.
Authorities say Devoe’s murderous rampage began in central Texas in August 2007. His first alleged victim was 41-year-old bartender Michael Allred, shot in the chest at O’Neill’s Sports Tavern in Marble Falls on the night of Aug. 24. Then Devoe allegedly drove to the home of his ex-girlfriend, Paula Griffith, in Jonestown. There, prosecutors say Devoe shot and killed Griffith, 46, her boyfriend, Jay Feltner, 48, Griffith’s daughter, Haylie Faulkner, 15, and Haylie’s friend Danielle Hensley, 17.
After the killings, authorities say Devoe fled Texas and was on the way back to Shirley, when the sixth alleged victim met her fate. After experiencing car trouble near State Line, Pa., Devoe shot and killed 81-year-old widow Betty Jane Dehart, and stole her vehicle, according to prosecutors.
Devoe, who worked as a handyman on painting and carpentry jobs, was arrested in Shirley, on Aug. 27, 2007.
In the trial that begins in State District Judge Brenda Kennedy’s court Monday, Devoe will face capital murder charges for the deaths of the two teenage girls, Faulkner and Hensley. Travis County prosecutor Gary Cobb said he’s seeking the death penalty against Devoe because of the nature of the crimes and the defendant’s criminal past.
“We look at the circumstances of a person’s criminal history and the circumstances of the offense itself,” Cobb said. “All of those things added up to a decision by our office to seek the death penalty.”
Tom Weber, one of Devoe’s attorneys, did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press.
Cobb said he expected to offer up “several dozen witnesses,” including some from New York and Pennsylvania. He said the trial, which has received extensive publicity, would take at least two weeks.
“We wouldn’t have indicted him if we didn’t believe he committed the offense of capital murder,” Cobb said.
Devoe spent several weeks in a Texas psychiatric hospital before being declared competent for trial in March. Law officers have testified that Devoe offered details about murders and shootings in Texas and Pennsylvania within hours of his arrest last year.
According to court testimony, he asked one police officer, “Do you know how many bodies they found?” A cellmate also contends that Devoe told him he killed six people.
“I just snapped,” Devoe allegedly told a former house mate, according to court testimony.
Devoe’s decades-long criminal history, which contains numerous arrests and convictions, is detailed in a pretrial document filed by Travis County prosecutors. The filing, indicating that prosecutors intend to introduce Devoe’s criminal history at the trial, lists 49 items compiled by authorities in New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Prosecutors alleged in the document that Devoe sexually abused his 11-year-old daughter in 2001 and had committed numerous assaults, acts of burglary, criminal harassment and trespassing. Devoe was convicted of driving while intoxicated at least five times between 1988 and 1997, court records indicate.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.