Word: gebhardt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1964-1964
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Late one August night in Miami, Mrs. Charles Worthington, 67, heard a call from her stepson Richard. She hurried to his room and was slugged to the floor by Richard's pal, Joel Gebhardt, 20. As Joel smothered her screams, Richard beat Mrs. Worthington to death with an iron bar. For three hours the youths sat around discussing how to split the Worthingtons' $40,000 estate. Then they crept into the bedroom of Richard's father, Charles Worthington, where Joel killed the sleeping contractor by firing a .22 rifle bullet into his brain. Next day the youths...
Spelled out in all its grim detail in Joel Gebhardt's confession to the Dade County (Miami) grand jury, the Worthington slaying seemed to promise that the two young men would soon be facing trial on two counts of first-degree murder. Not so: the grand jury has indicted only Richard Worthington-leaving "Witness" Gebhardt to go completely free as soon as his friend's trial is over...
Bargain Justice. Gebhardt's amazing escape from prosecution has shocked Miami and roused a hot debate over the uses of "copping a plea," that familiar bargaining system between accused criminal and District Attorney that governs so much of U.S. criminal justice. Never declared illegal or unconstitutional, it is often the D.A.'s only means of solving crime or showing mercy, yet it has been abused by D.A.'s more interested in convictions than justice...
Unhappily for defendants, copping out is not binding on judges, who sometimes hit the prisoner with a tougher rap than the D.A. promised. In cases like Gebhardt's, however, the D.A. may be so strapped for evidence that his only chance of conviction is to get one criminal to testify against his accomplice. The squealer's price may be complete immunity from prosecution...
Soon after the Worthingtons' bodies surfaced, Gebhardt and young Worthington were arrested as prime suspects, but the evidence was all circumstantial and neither man would confess anything. Then Gebhardt's lawyer, who under Florida law had no way of learning the strength, or weakness, of the case against his client, offered the deal that did the police's work for them. "It was half a loaf or nothing," insisted Prosecutor Richard Gerstein. "In addition, the one who initiated the murder was killing his own parents and would inherit their estate if not convicted of murder." Unless Worthington...