Ex-Con Kills Pen Pal & Encases Him in Cement

A 41-year-old ex-con pleaded guilty in San Diego to first-degree murder for killing an 80-year-old Hemet man, encasing the body in concrete and using the victim’s credit cards to go on a spending spree.

According to KTLA News, Thomas Jeffrey Brooks also admitted to numerous counts of second-degree burglary, and will be sentenced to 75 years to life in prison by San Diego County Superior Court Judge David Gill on June 22.

Brooks was in federal prison when he became pen pals with victim Edward Clayton Andrews, San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Dino Paraskevopoulos said. The defendant was released in 2007, moved into a Hemet mobile home with Andrews and began a same-sex romantic relationship with him, the prosecutor said.”After that he was never seen again,” the prosecutor said.

An ATM surveillance camera at a bank in Orange County recorded Brooks withdrawing $500 from Andrews’ account that night, he said.

The burglary charges stemmed from Brooks buying hundreds of dollars of goods with the victim’s credit cards at various stores at the Citadel outlet mall in Los Angeles, the Glendale Galleria and various businesses in Los Angeles and Orange counties over the next week.

The prosecutor said Brooks withdrew $24,000 from the victim’s accounts and took money from $108,000 in phony check deposits.

Brooks had been allowed to build a concrete centerpiece for a rock garden at his landlord’s Alabama Street home in San Diego. When his North Park neighbors learned he’d been arrested on financial fraud charges, they partially broke the concrete and discovered a human foot, according to Paraskevopoulos.

Andrews, who died of asphyxiation, had been wrapped in a blanket and plastic tarp, with duct tape and chicken wire used to secure the remains in the homemade tomb, the prosecutor said.

Violent Sex Offender Gets Free Home

Steven Willett, 57, has a criminal record that includes four felony convictions for sex crimes: rape and two instances of attempted rape involving adult women, and lewd and lascivious acts with a 13-year-old girl.

He was declared a sexually violent predator by a judge. Because California is one of 20 states to allow civil commitment of violent sexual offenders determined to have mental disorders likely to cause them to strike again, we are financially responsible for this monster.

“The worst of the worst,” says Riverside County, Calif., District Attorney Rod Pacheco. Willett wears a Global Positioning System ankle bracelet and his days are mostly spent alone in his mobile home, where he has satellite television.

He makes trips for treatment and the occasional accompanied outing to a store. Over the course of the first year, the costs associated with Willett’s conditional release are expected to total about $126,000, including ongoing treatment at $2,000 a month, about $34,000 spent to prepare the property for a mobile home and about $44,000 for around-the-clock security guards that were used in the first eight weeks.

That figure does not including travel expenses for treatment, which she says are higher than usual because of his remote placement, according to Nancy Kincaid, assistant director of the California Department of Mental Health.

Football Thrown Into State Prison Lands Two In Jail

On March 2, two footballs landed in the prison grounds at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. It was reported that a Norco correctional officer saw the footballs being thrown over the fence. After calling for help and investigating the two footballs, Gayle Washington-Varela , 21 of San Diego and Carlos Spencer of Escondido were arrested.

The two footballs were found deflated, wrapped with packing tape and inside contained marijuana, tobacco , cell phones with chargers and instructions.

Washington-Varela and Spencer were booked and charged with smuggling contraband into a state prison, transportation of a controlled substance, and conspiracy.