VICTIM: Ryan Patrick Heer -
   2 years and 2 months
MURDERER: Patrick Kent Little
DOC ID: TDC # -00764600
HEARING: May, 2000

Patrick Little was convicted in August of 1996, of 'injury to a child', while having been incarcerated since June 11th of 1995.  The original charge was 'Capital Murder' but this charge had been negotiated down to the lesser charge.

On the 5th of June, 1995, young Ryan Heer was hit in the stomach by Patrick Little while Little was taking Ryan out of the bath.  Ryan died a few hours later.  Patrick Little, because of what he had done, took flight although he ultimately turned himself in to the police.

Patrick Little, no relation to the young child whom he has been convicted of killing, was a boyfriend of Ryan's mother.

The review date for Little is scheduled for May of 2000.

Please send your letter, in opposition to this parole action, today.

SEND LETTERS:
Parole Board:
Raven Kazen, Director
TDJC Victim Services Division
P. O. Box 13401
Austin, TX 78711

Be sure to include Little's inmate number, TDC # 00764600
 

This request for assistance is being made by the grandparents of Ryan Heer; Al and Camille Bergeron.

VICTIM: The Phillips family -
Bishop & Esther Phillips,
their son Elmer & Martha his wife,
their 3 yr old son Jason Phillips
MURDERER: Linda May Burnett
DOC ID: TDC # -362395
HEARING: Dec., 1998

This woman came to the public eye, again, when she granted an interview in support of Karla Fay Tucker receiving clemency. Burnett was originally convicted of Capital Murder and sentenced to death. In a retrial, she was sentenced to life.

Burnett was convicted of capital murder in 1978 for her part in the brutal slaying of five family members, including 3 year old Jason Phillips, his parents Elmer and Martha, and grand parents Bishop and Esther Phillips. They were driven to a pre-dug grave on July 1, 1978 where they were shot in the head.

The review date for Burnett is December, 1998. In an interview with the Associated Press in January of this year, Burnett said, regarding her parole, "I expect to get it". Please send your letter, in opposition to this parole action, today.

SEND LETTERS:
Parole Board:
Raven Kazen, Director
TDJC Victim Services
P. O. BOX 13401
Austin, TX 78711

Be sure to include Burnett's inmate number, TDC # 362395

I include this article, to provide additional details, from Huntsville, TX
While there is some very good color here, I don't see anything which compels me to be sympathetic to this campaign for freedom on the part of Mrs. Burnett.      - - - J. Richmond - - -      

This is from the Huntsville Item, January 27, 1998, by Michael Graczyk, AP.

Inmate says Tucker should be spared

Gatesville - Linda May Burnett, convicted in a heinous crime that left five people dead, thinks Karla Faye Tucker should live.

"If I can do this, come in the prison system, and I can live in peace with other people and I can reach out and help out younger people around me, I believe in my heart Karla can," says Mrs. Burnett. "I think Karla is a better person than I am."

Ms. Tucker, set to die Feb. 3 for her part in the pickax killing of two people in Houston in 1983, would be the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.

"Karla is a crusader. She's a person who can reach out and talk to you, if you even think of going in the wrong direction, she can pull you back," Mrs. Burnett says.

Sent to death row almost 20 years ago, Mrs. Burnett believes she is proof people can change.

If the governor wants me to get on my knees, if the parole board wants me to get on my knees for her, then I'll get on my knees because it's not just saving Karla, it's saving everybody Karla touches," she said.

Mrs. Burnett, who could be released later this year, said it was her concern for Ms. Tucker's life that prompted her to break a nearly two-decade long public silence.

"She won't do it but I will. I'll beg for her life," she told The Associated Press from the visiting area of the Mountainview Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Mrs. Burnett, who turns 50 on the day Ms. Tucker is set for execution, spent four years on death row for killing 3 year old Jason Phillips, one of five family members abducted, bound, shot and buried in a mass grave near Fannett, west of Beaumont.

The Woodward, Okla. Toddler, his parents Elmer and Martha Phillips were visiting the boy's grandparents, Bishop and Esther Phillips, when all five were driven to the pre-dug grave July 1, 1978 and then shot in the head.

Mrs. Burnett and a partner, Joe Dugas, were sentenced to death. Bishop and Esther Phillips were Dugas' former in-laws and he blamed them for the break-up of his marriage.

Dugas, en route from death row to testify at her trial, was fatally shot by detectives who were transporting him and who said he was trying to escape.

In early October 1982, Mrs. Burnett asked that all appeals in her case be dropped and that she be executed. The decision, she says, was the result of extreme depression.

Three weeks later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, saying some evidence improperly was allowed at her trial, threw out her conviction and gave her a new trial.

Mrs. Burnett was convicted again, but this time the jury decided on a life prison term.

"My legs turned to jelly," she said of the second verdict. "My knees got weak. I was trying to look at my mom but all I could see is tears. Most of the people are sent back to death row on second trial and I was prepared to go back."

This year, on December 26, she becomes eligible for parole, the only former female death row inmate still in prison in Texas among some 10,200 general population women prisoners.

"I expect to get it," she said of her parole. "I'm not a threat to anyone. I have lived by all of TDC's rules. I have a Christian base I'm going to. I'm working with people who have dealt with inmates a great deal and will be in their company."

Richard Hughes, the former Jefferson County assistant prosecutor who tried her the second time, said Monday her parole eligibility was news to him, but that he had not been aware of her behavior in prison.

Asked if he thought she should be freed, he replied, "Based on what I saw at the trial, and I haven't kept up with it since '83, my answer would be 'definitely not.' "

She says she has worked with young inmates and counseled them on the value of getting an education while behind bars. She got her high school equivalency diploma while in prison and is now 19 hours short of a college degree. Mrs. Burnett says if she can change, so can others, particularly Ms. Tucker, the born-again former child prostitute and drug addict she befriended in prison.

The fate of Ms. Tucker, like Mrs. Burnett, rests with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"Even if you believe in the death sentence, surely you can see that this woman could be locked up the rest of her life if the parole board doesn't want her out," she said. "She can do nothing to anyone if she is locked up. Give her a chance!"

"She could be stopping people from committing crimes. And I believe in my heart she would do this, through the ministry."

As for her own case, Mrs. Burnett insists she's innocent, that she was not at the scene of the shootings, that she was beaten, raped and the lives of her three children threatened by Dugas, who got to know her at the donut shop where she worked, and a companion.

Both demanded she be their alibi for the five killings, she said. The companion, like Dugas, also is now dead, Mrs. Burnett said.

"That's the first time I've ever heard that," said Hughes, adding that it was clear to him that she was present when the five people were shot.

"They were together," he said of the woman and Dugas. "They were compadres, working together. It was an extremely nasty case, one of the worst we've had in this county."

"I was the typical abused woman who would not fight back," Mrs. Burnett said. "Now I stand up for what I believe in."

************************

VICTIM: Kenneth Lee Carlock
MURDERER: Theodore Allen LeLeaux, Jr.
DOC ID: D-08846
HEARING: Nov. 22, 1998

This is the fourth parole hearing for murderer, Theodore Allen LeLeaux Jr. He was convicted for the murder of Kenneth Lee Carlock in 1984. This was an especially brutal murder and when apprehended, LeLeaux had his victim's heart in his pocket.

SEND LETTERS:
Parole Board:
Mr. James Nielsen, Chairman
Board of Prison Terms
428 'J' Street, 6th floor
Sacramento, CA 95814

Please send a copy to the family:
Mrs. Helen Carlock
1917 S. Chestnut Ave., 26-A
Fresno, CA 93702

VICTIM: Dewayne Stafford
MURDERER: Tonya Stafford
DOC ID: 3737
HEARING: Unknown

"Dear CAH,
    The last three years Citizens Against Homicide has helped the Stafford family with a parole hearing. It's sad to say but we need your help again. Each year it is harder to get people to sign our petitions and to write letters."

SEND LETTERS:
Parole Board:
Post-Prison Transfer Board
Attn: Mr. Leroy Brownlee
323 Center Street, Suite 1700
PO Box 34085
Little Rock, AR 72201

Please send a copy to the family:
Mrs. Jane Stafford
PO Box 4023
Little Rock, AR 72214

FELON VOTING BLOCK:
H.R. 568
Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan)

Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
E-MAIL Address:
john.conyers@mail.house.gov

Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Detriot Office:
Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
669 Federal Building
231 West LaFayette
Detroit, MI 48226
PH: (313) 961-5670
FAX: (313) 226-8085

Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Washington, DC Office:
Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
PH: (202) 225-5126
FAX: (202) 225-0072