The jury deliberated after lunch and into the early evening. By 5:00 P.M., they had not come to a decision.
Thursday, October 21, 2004, 8:45 P.M.,
Harris County Courthouse,
1201 Franklin Street,
Courtroom #337,
Houston, Texas.
The jury had reached its decision in the morning. They were called into the courtroom by Judge Cosper. The tension was not that thick; everyone was tired and not expecting any surprises.
“Has the jury reached its verdict?” Judge Cosper asked.
“We have, Your Honor,” jury foreperson Larry Pechacek answered.
“If you would please hand the form to the bailiff.”
Pechacek handed the verdict over to the bailiff, who, in turn, passed it on to the judge.
Judge Cosper looked at the paper with the verdict on it.
“This is State of Texas versus Anthony Allen Shore.
“We, the jury, find the defendant, Anthony Allen Shore, guilty of capital murder, as charged in the indictment.”
Tony Shore simply kept his head down the entire time. He showed no emotion whatsoever.
There was not a lot of commotion in the gallery. Mainly, the spectators were relieved that nothing unusual occurred.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this concludes the guilt/innocence phase of the trial,” Judge Cosper noted. “We will be moving into the punishment phase of the trial. We are going to begin tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.”
CHAPTER 59
Friday, October 22, 2004,
Harris County Courthouse,
1201 Franklin Street,
Courtroom #337,
Houston, Texas.
The jury of twelve Houston citizens had no idea what they were in for next. They rightfully assumed that this was a one-off murder case. Little did they know what type of nightmare they were about to enter.
Kelly Siegler was going to make sure they knew.
“Evil lives among us,” the prosecutor informed the jury, “and sometimes evil comes in the form of someone who looks completely normal, who we live with and talk to and work with, and never have any idea what they’re really like.”
Siegler told the jury that they were about to see and hear some of the most shocking evidence and testimony over the next few days.
“I expect there won’t be a whole lot of cross-examination.” Siegler nodded toward the defense table. “I would like to compliment these guys. They’re some of the best lawyers that Terese and I know, but their hands are going to be tied by the evidence because there’s not a whole lot of questions they can ask.”
Siegler mentioned the names of Tony Shore’s other victims to the jury for the first time. Only now did they know they had just convicted a pedophile, incestuous rapist, and serial killer.
After laying out her game plan, Siegler closed with, “You’re going to believe when we’re all done, that if Anthony Shore doesn’t belong on death row, they might as well tear down the walls.”
Next up was Siegler’s counterpart, defense attorney Alvin Nunnery. Siegler was right; Nunnery was hamstrung by his client.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be very short,” declared the polite African American defense attorney. “The Bible says that if you confess your sins, God said I’m faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you of all your unrighteousness.”
Nunnery looked directly at the jury. “Something unusual happened yesterday . . . when you returned your verdict of guilty in this case. Mr. Bourque and I may have been dissatisfied with the verdict.” He turned to his client and gestured. “Anthony was quite satisfied.” Nunnery looked back at Shore’s peers. “Against our advice, against our better judgment, against forty years of experience, Anthony has asked on his behalf that we ask you to answer those questions in such a way that he’s sentenced to death.”
An audible gasp could be heard from the gallery.
Nunnery continued to address the jury. “I find that a very, very troubling thing, but it is his life. It is where he is and it is what he thinks should happen to him based upon how he lived his life.
“Ms. Siegler talks about control and she talks about manipulation,” Nunnery continued. “I disagree that this is the final instance of manipulation or control.”
Nunnery attempted to paint a picture of a reformed Anthony Allen Shore. “From the time he got placed on probation . . . he accepted a different lifestyle. That is one where he accepted the Lord in his life, never with the courage to come forward, but with the realization that one day he was probably going to get caught.”
In other words, jailhouse conversion minus the jail time.
“While he would ultimately be free from the pain of sin, that is, eternal damnation,” Nunnery continued, “he has to pay the consequences of what he has done. And he believes . . . that [the] ultimate penalty is death by lethal injection.”
Nunnery looked slightly exasperated as he addressed the jury one last time. “As difficult as that is for me to tell you, that is where he is. So throughout the course of this [penalty phase of the] trial, Mr. Bourque and I are going to sit silent because we, too, agree that maybe the victims in this case need this forum to have their say.”
Indeed, Tony Shore’s victims would have their say.
The prosecution made sure to bring forth many witnesses on behalf of the slain girls—from the detectives, such as Bob King and John Swaim, to the families and friends of the victims.
* * *
The prosecution also wanted the jury to hear from one of Tony Shore’s surviving victims. Selma Janske, now twenty-five years old, was called to the stand. The attractive young woman seemed cowed by the experience of having to face the man who raped her eleven years earlier, in 1993. She would be questioned by Assistant District Attorney Terese Buess, who specifically requested to address Janske.
The young woman took the stand, was sworn in, and then ran through the usual battery of background questions. She was born in Houston, Texas. She attended Lamar High School. She graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio with a degree in biology and worked for a large medical organization in, ironically, genetic testing, including DNA.
Selma’s family, including her mother, father, and older brother, accompanied her to the courthouse. Bob King described them as a “classy family.” They were also devastated that their young daughter, once again, had to relive the nightmare that was Tony Shore.
“I want to go back in time,” Buess began. “I want to go to October 19, 1993. I know you recall that date.”
The lovely young woman quietly spoke up, replying, “Yes” as the jury focused on her.
“How old were you back then?”
“I was fourteen.”
“Where were you going to school?”
“Lamar High School. I was a freshman.”
“Tell us what kind of activities you were involved in at Lamar High School back then.”
“Mostly, I played soccer,” the young woman recalled. “I played soccer most of my life. And doing school and hanging out with my friends.”
“Was your brother living with you at the time?”
“No, he had gone off to college that year.”
“So, in your home, tell me who was living in your home on that day.”
“My mom, my dad, and myself.”
“Just the three of you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us how you got back and forth to school.”
“I had a car pool with three or four of my friends. Our parents took turns driving us to and from school.”
“What time did you normally get home from school with the car pool?”
“About three-thirty, or right around then.”
“And how would you get into the house at that point?”
“I had a key. I’d just let myself in through the front door.”
“And when you came home, would either your mom or dad be home at that time?”
“No, they w
orked.”
“What time would they normally get home?”
“Somewhere in between five-thirty or six-thirty usually.”
“And would they both come together or separately?”
“No, separate.”
“When you would come home from school on a regular school day, what would you normally do once you got home?” the ADA asked.
“I would usually come in and get a snack, probably watch some TV, do some homework.”
“TV first, then some homework?” Buess asked with a smile.
“Right.”
“Typical freshman in high school,” Buess stated as she smiled at the jury. They knowingly smiled back. Buess continued on with questions in regard to the Janske home. She then steered Janske back to the attack. “Okay, Selma. On October 19, 1993, did you come home from school on that day?”
“Yes,” Janske replied calmly.
“It was a school day?”
“Yes.”
“Got home at the regular time, about three-thirty, with a carpool?”
“Yes.”
“How did you let yourself into the house?”
“I let myself in like normal.”
“Do you recall what you had with you at the time?” Buess asked.
“I always had a backpack with me at school, and that’s probably it,” Janske answered.
“Tell me on that day what you were wearing.”
“I had on jeans, I think, tennis shoes and just a T-shirt of some kind.”
“Do you remember what color the T-shirt was?”
“I believe it was blue.”
“Underneath your shirt, what did you have on?”
“A bra.”
“Underneath your jeans, what did you have on?”
“Underwear.”
“Let’s talk about what you did when you came home. You said you came through the front door.”
“Yes.”
“And tell me what you were doing at that moment.”
“I was checking the mail because the mail slot is in the front door and it goes on the floor. So, I would always walk in and just pick it up,” the witness answered.
“What were you looking at?”
“There was a catalog in there. I had sat down on the couch and started flipping through it.”
“What did you do next?”
“I started walking through the living room and I had walked through the dining room and was walking into the kitchen watching the clock.”
“So, are you in the kitchen or almost there?”
“I’m walking through the doorway of the kitchen.”
“And what happens next?” Buess queried as all the members of the jury sat at attention.
“I heard a noise behind me,” Janske responded. “It was a voice. I think he said, ‘Hey,’ and I turned around and saw a figure standing where the table usually sat.”
“Let me stop you right there. Let me back you up a little bit. We’re going to go slowly so we don’t have to do it again. Okay?”
Apparently, a table had been moved from its normal location. “In its place, what was there?” Buess asked.
“There’s a man standing there,” Janske responded.
“When you looked at him, did you look at him in the face?”
“Yes,” Janske replied, but she was unable to do so eleven years later.
“Could you see his face?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“His face was covered with a bandanna or something on his head.”
“Could you see any part of his face?”
“I could see his forehead, maybe his eyes.”
“What could you tell from seeing that much of him?”
“That he was white.”
“When he spoke to you and he called your attention, do you recall the words he used?” Buess questioned.
“I can’t remember if he said, ‘Hey,’ or if he just made a noise to get my attention.”
“Aside from noticing the white forehead and the eyes, tell us what he was wearing.”
“He was wearing large, baggy clothes. When I first looked at him, I thought he was a scarecrow-type-looking figure.” The image seemed to cast a pall over the gallery.
“Was it a shirt or a jacket?” Buess asked. “What was it on top?”
“It was a shirt of some kind.”
“How about the pants? Could you tell what kind they were?”
“Blue jeans, I believe.”
“Did you look at his feet?”
“No.”
“Tell the jury, when you hear that noise, when you hear him talking to you or saying something and you turned around and saw him, tell us what’s going through your mind right then.”
“I thought it was a joke,” Janske responded while slowly shaking her head. “I thought someone was trying to scare me.”
“What did you do?”
“I just stood there,” Janske replied, and began to sob.
“I didn’t, I didn’t know what to do.”
Terry Janske (pseudonym), Selma’s mother, began to cry as she watched her daughter struggle alone on the witness stand. Her husband comforted her stoically.
“Did you notice or learn anything about his hands?” Buess forged onward.
“He was wearing surgical gloves on his hand,” Janske replied.
“How did you know that?”
“I just saw them as he was walking up to me.” Shore ignored Janske on the witness stand. He also would not look at the jury. He kept his head down and focused on the sheet of paper in front of him.
“What did you think when you saw those gloves?”
“I wasn’t thinking at that point.”
“Tell us what happens next. What does he say to you?”
“He said he was just breaking into the house. He wanted to steal something. He was just breaking in to find money. He didn’t know that I was going to be there and it was an accident.”
“When he says that to you, what kind of voice is he using?”
“It was very calm, very soothing, almost.”
“[Did he say], ‘I’m just here to rob your house’?”
“Yes.”
“‘I’m not here for you’?”
“Right.”
“Does that make you feel any better?”
“I believed him.”
“So what happened next?”
“I was just standing right inside the kitchen. He came over, and he said he was going to put duct tape around my eyes so that I couldn’t see him and couldn’t identify him. And he kept saying over and over again, ‘I’m just breaking into your house. It’s an accident that I’m here when you’re here.’
“And so I let him,” Janske recalled in a soft voice. “And he wrapped my whole face around in duct tape, over my mouth, around the back of my head.”
“What about your nose?” Buess wanted to know.
“Well, I could still breathe.”
“So, your nose isn’t covered?”
“Right.”
“How about your eyes?”
“Yes.”
“You say he went all the way around?”
“Yes.”
“Back then, what kind of hair did you have?”
“Pretty much like I have today, long.”
“What did he do with your hands?”
“He said that he was going to tie my hands behind my back so I couldn’t come after him. And so he tied my hands real tight behind [my] back.”
“What did he tie your hands back with?”
“Well, it was a wire of some kind. And later I found out that the alarm clock in my room wasn’t working anymore, and he had cut the wire from that and split it down in two so it was long and thin,” Janske answered.
“Just so we have a good picture of you at this point in time, your eyes are covered, your mouth is covered, you can breathe.”
“Yes.”
“Can you see anything at the time?”
&
nbsp; “No.”
“And are your hands behind you?”
“Yes.”
“He left your feet alone?”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?” Buess continued the tense questioning.
“He started walking me into my bedroom through the kitchen.” The jury watched the witness with a collective intensity.
“How is he doing that?”
“He’s leading me from behind with his hand on my—on my back.”
“So, he just kind of guided you forward?”
“Yes.”
“Because you can’t see, right?”
“Right.”
“Where did you go in the house?”
“We went through the kitchen and turned right into my bedroom.”
“On the walk through the dining room, through the kitchen into your bedroom, is he silent or is he talking?”
“No. He was—he talked the whole time.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Just repeating over and over again that it was an accident that I was there when he was there.”
“Did he tell you he wasn’t going to hurt you?” Buess inquired.
“Yes.”
“Did you believe that?”
“I had to,” Janske stated emphatically.
“You said his voice was calm and soothing. Is it still the same way?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us, Selma, when you realized that it really was about you.”
“When we were walking back into the bedroom, he lifted up my shirt and just grazed my side. And that was the first realization that I had that it might not be just about the house; that it might be about me too.”
“So, now you’re in your bedroom. What happened next?”
“He sat me down on the bed.”
“So are we at the foot of your bed?”
“Yes,” Janske replied.
“You’re sitting down at the foot of your bed?”
“Yes, with my knees over the end of the bed.”
“What does he say?”
“I don’t remember. He started taking off my pants,” Janske spoke quietly.
“Did he tell you why he was taking your pants off?”
“He said he didn’t want me to chase after him.”
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