When you use lethal force on an intruder, don't bury their body in a shallow grave

pipmaster1971

pipmaster1971

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http://pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070801/NEWS01/708010383

SHERBURNE -- Chenango County Sheriff Thomas J. Loughren said Wednesday the district attorney will decide whether a murder charge will be filed against Robert R. Reynolds, 42, in the shotgun death of an Otsego County man.

The victim was positively identified as 32-year-old Joshua D. Richheimer of the Town of Pittsfield. His body was recovered Tuesday morning from a freshly dug grave across the road from Reynolds' house at 476 Pleasant Valley Road in the Town of Sherburne.

Loughren said he expected the district attorney's office to present the shooting case to a grand jury to determine the charges. The district attorney, Joseph A. McBride, was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Reynolds will face additional felony charges of weapons and marijuana possession as a result of drugs and guns recovered from his residence, Loughren said. Police said they believe a shootout between Reynolds and Richheimer occurred July 24 at Reynolds' house.

Richheimer, who had been missing since July 24, was identified during an autopsy conducted Wednesday in Binghamton by forensic pathologist Dr. James Terzian. The cause of death was a gunshot blast to the midsection, Loughren said. The wound was made with buckshot from a .12 gauge shotgun owned by Reynolds, according to Loughren.

Reynolds told sheriff's investigators he shot Richheimer in self-defense after he broke into Reynolds' house armed with a sawed-off shotgun, Loughren said.

Richheimer also fired his weapon, Loughren said. Richheimer was struck once while Reynolds was not hit, the sheriff said.

"The indications are Richheimer went to the house armed with a shotgun to rob Reynolds of drugs and money, kicked in the door around 9:45 p.m. and the shootout followed," Loughren said. "The deceased appeared to be the aggressor, although we believe Reynolds fired first."

Police recovered both of the weapons. Reynolds' weapon was recovered from his house while Richheimer's was buried with him in the 4- to 6-foot-deep grave in a wooded area about one-third of a mile from Reynolds' house.

Reynolds and a neighbor, Nicholas Simonds, 21, also of Pleasant Valley Road, were charged with felony evidence tampering and sent to the Chenango County Correctional Facility in lieu of bail. Bail for Reynolds was set at $100,000 and bail for Simonds was set at $10,000. Both remained at the jail Wednesday night. The evidence tampering involved moving the body from the shooting scene, authorities said.

Simonds was not in the house when the shooting occurred but helped Reynolds dispose of the body, Loughren said.

Felony hearings have been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today in Town of Sherburne Court to determine if there is sufficient evidence to hold the pair for grand jury action.
Click to expand...

This is an interesting story. Certainly I don't want to get into an argument of whether drugs (espc. pot) should be illegal or not (my opinion, what you put into your body is your choice). However, should this guy be charged with murder? Yes, he was engaged in an illegal activity, and there would (likely) have been no invasion if he wasn't a drug dealer. But to me it sounds like a case of justifiable force. He probably shouldn't have burried the body in a shallow grave; so the only crimes I see are the drugs charges, evidence tampering, possibly violation of firearms laws (if he was a felon) and maybe some environmental laws.

Discuss...
 
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Well if he called the cops after shooting the guy he might have just gotten drug charges but since he tried the old shoot, shovel and shut up he should face some kind of heavier charges but I don't know what it would be.

This is not the 1920’s; you can't do something like this and get away with it. The police and technology has gotten too good. So unless you have Mob connections call the cops if you shoot somebody.
 
MagnumMike said:
Well if he called the cops after shooting the guy he might have just gotten drug charges but since he tried the old shoot, shovel and shut up he should face some kind of heavier charges but I don't know what it would be.
Click to expand...

If he flushed the drugs before he called the cops, he might not be facing any charges - although the article said that he was facing "weapons charges" whatever that means.
 
There is obviously more to this story...Like how did they know this guy was buried across the street. How did they know to look at this Reynolds guy for this? I think it would be hard to make a judgement based on what we know.
 
Agreed with most of the opinions. The guy was a dumbass for not calling the cops. But I still think a murder charge is too much.

On a side note...what he should've done is called this guy:

Ford_alan.JPG


You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together....

...And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig".
Click to expand...
 
If he had just shot someone, what kind of moron was he to continue having the drugs at his house. Was he that delusional that he thought he'd kill an intruder, then just continue toking up and never hear about it again?
 
Man a ".12 Guage shotgun"....that has to be close to the size of a punt gun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kdG2dwNb60
[rofl]

Weather we think its right or wrong, drugs are currently illigal, and those drugs should be enforced....but even a drug dealer/user has the right to defend his life.

That all goes out the window when he ignored the law and didn't call the police.

I'd say because of his prvious actions its just as likely to be cold-blooded murder as self defence.
 
The problem he has, even if it was a legitimate act of self defense,
he's going to have a hard time selling that because of his actions
overall. It's even worse if there were no witnesses- because by
moving the body, etc, he's destroyed a lot of the evidence that
existed. (EG, if the cops show up and find the guy dead in his
front yard with the sawed off lying near the body, self defense is
somewhat more plausible, if the physical evidence supports the
defender's statement. )

So, this only leads me to two things....

-This guy was in the wrong and he knew it; so he tried to cover
it up.

-This guy is just an idiot

I'm betting mostly on the latter, but it's possible its a combination
of the two. [laugh]

-Mike
 
How do you get forensic evidence to tie a load of buckshot to a particular shotgun? Unless, of course, it really was a .12 guage.
 
Arioch said:
How do you get forensic evidence to tie a load of buckshot to a particular shotgun? Unless, of course, it really was a .12 guage.
Click to expand...



You don't, but I doubt the paper is looking to help this guy. So they will say whatever crap comes to mind, mostly because they don't know anything about firearms.
 
I still wonder about the circumstances....drugs in the house, someone dead, shallow grave...reeks of some other situation going on. I simply can't imagine someone using legit self defense and burying the BG in a grave with his weapon, ya know?

My spidey senses scream "murder" to me.
 
Based on the article, it seems the police are buying the guy's self defense story.

A person's actions before a crime can dictate what kind of crime they're guilty of (premeditation, etc). INAL, but I don't think actions after the fact have an affect on charges (although they can be an indication of intent).

EddieCoyle said:
If he flushed the drugs before he called the cops, he might not be facing any charges - although the article said that he was facing "weapons charges" whatever that means.
Click to expand...

Gun was a sawed off shotgun, plus (being a drug dealer and all) there's a good chance the gun wasn't registered or was stolen and the guy wasn't licensed.

Based on the article, I'm inclined to believe the guy was just an idiot. He probably figured:

a) he's a criminal (drug dealer), so he's already one step behind
b) even if it was 100% justifyable self defense, he's guilty of several other offenses (drugs, illegally modified weapon, etc)
c) he was probably under the influence at the time, or at least had drugs in his system

So he thought if he could dump the body, he could walk away scot free.

But he's an idiot, and only managed to commit one more crime in the process.
 

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