Gori, Bethalto murders may not qualify for federal death penalty, U.S. Attorney says
Though the murder of prominent Edwardsville lawyer Randy Gori was a “senseless and brutal crime,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Illinois says, it may not meet the requirements of the federal death penalty.
U.S. Attorney Steven Weinhoeft said his office would review any federal death penalty cases it is asked to investigate, but that it cannot decide whether federal law was violated until it receives all of the facts of the case.
“The federal government is a government of limited jurisdiction, and it does not possess general police powers,” Weinhoeft said in a release Tuesday. “That is why nearly all homicide cases are prosecuted in state courts.”
The release comes after Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons announced Monday that he would request that Weinhoeft’s office prosecute multiple recent homicides in Madison County, so that the death penalty could be considered.
Those include:
- Randy Gori, 47, who was found stabbed to death in his home near Edwardsville on Jan. 4. Pharmacy student Timothy Banowetz, 28, was arrested the next day and charged in connection with the homicide. According to the charging documents, Banowetz bound the hands of Gori and two minors before using a knife to kill Gori. He’s also accused of stealing cash and two cellphones and fleeing in the family’s Rolls-Royce SUV.
- Jason Thomas, 36, was found shot to death on Jan. 9 in the 2200 block of Benton Street in Granite City. Kadeem Noland, 27, of St. Louis, and Kristine Mills, 34, of Granite City, were charged with murder in connection with his death.
- Shari Yates, 59, her son Andrew Brooks, 30, and John McMillian, 32, were shot to death in a Bethalto home on Dec. 19. A couple from Alabama — Brady Kane, 41, and Brittany McMillan, 28 — were charged with murder in connection with the triple homicide. Kane and McMillan are also suspects in a home invasion in Tennessee and a homicide in Alabama.
Gibbons said he is seeking the federal death penalty because, in all three cases, the suspects traveled across state lines to commit the crimes of which they are accused.
Gibbons said Wednedsay that his office planned on delivering the full reports of each case to Weinhoeft’s office in the next week or two.
When it does, the U.S. Attorney’s office will review the cases to see which, if any, fall under the Federal First-Degree Murder Statute, said Nathan Stump, a spokesman for Weinhoeft. It is unclear how long that could take.
“It’s very case specific,” Stump said. “It depends on what has already been done in the investigation and what it showed and what might remain to be done to determine whether a federal crime has been committed and if it lends itself to a potential death-resulting charge.”
Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, but the U.S. Congress allows the death penalty in cases of murder that can be prosecuted federally. Usually, that is because federal jurisdiction can be established either based on the status of the perpetrator or victim, where the murder happened or if the murder happened as part of another federal offense.
“Not all of these crimes are punishable by the death penalty, nor does a homicide automatically become a death-eligible federal crime simply because someone crossed the state line,” Weinhoeft said.
If federal jurisdiction is established, the case then must be evaluated by the Capital Case Section within the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in Washington D.C. The process culminates in a decision by the U.S. Attorney General on whether or not to seek the death penalty against an individual defendant.
Gibbons said his office first reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s office about the federal death penalty the day after Yates’, Brooks’ and McMillian’s murders in Bethalto.
When two more homicides happened in Madison County in less than a month, Gibbons said his office felt it was time to take a stance and pursue execution for all three cases.
“In most murder cases, we don’t have that interstate element,” he said. “Sometimes we do, but with three of them happening in less than a month, that put a really strong focus on this particular type of problem. ... We have had an ongoing problem of people coming to Madison County to commit crimes and these high-profile cases bring that into a very sharp view for us. That’s a big deal.”
Gibbons said he is grateful that Weinhoeft’s office has announced it will review what is presented and that it’s not unprecedented.
“I am hopeful that they will see the evidence and agree with us,” Gibbons said.
Last summer, the federal death penalty was sought in the trial of Brendt Christensen, a former University of Illinois student, who was later found guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering Chinese exchange student Yingying Zhang in 2017. In that case, the federal jury could not come to a unanimous decision and Christensen was given life in prison without parole.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 3:08 PM.
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