News: Fathers’ Rights, Child Support, Custody

Note: Here is a case where the mom is allowed to move away with father’s child.  Now mom is dead.
Jurors convict two men in vicious slaying of woman and her father on CourtTV.com

LAS VEGAS — Jurors convicted John Chartier and David Wilcox Friday of murdering Chartier’s ex-wife and her father at their home on Aug. 18, 2004.

The same jury will return Monday to decide whether the men deserve to be executed for the stabbing deaths of Rachel Bernat, 43, and Carlos Aragon, 65.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment on the case until the conclusion of the penalty phase.

Prosecutors offered incriminating evidence during the three-day trial, including a letter written by Chartier asking Wilcox to “take out” his wife and father-in-law.

Prosecutors said Chartier wanted his wife dead because of a “nasty divorce and bitter custody battle” over the couple’s then-4-year-old son, Ezekiel.

The custody battle ended with a family court judge granting an order allowing Bernat and Ezekiel to move to New Mexico. The move was scheduled to happen two days after the day police found Bernat stabbed to death.

Chartier, the former treasurer for the Clark County Republican Party, was also allegedly angry that Bernat had filed a complaint seeking to have his accounting license revoked because he was not making child support payments.

Prosecutors also convinced jurors that David Wilcox, a former marine who earned a Purple Heart while serving in Beirut in the 1980s, carried out the murders at Chartier’s written request.

In the letter, Chartier instructs Wilcox to “take out Mom and Grandpa,” and to “burn this [letter] once you have committed it to memory.”

The outside of the note reads, “Do not let police get this.”

However, during closings arguments, Chartier’s attorney, Joseph Sciscento, told the jury that “all the prosecution has is speculation. They’re hanging their hats that a motive is enough.”

Sciscento said the letter was written two years ago and shows nothing more than that Chartier was depressed. He contended that Wilcox acted alone.

“[Wilcox] did it. The DNA shows he did it, and he did it because he’s a sick bastard,” Sciscento said.

He continued: “The only person that was a friend to him was in trouble,” so he bought a knife in San Diego and returned to Las Vegas to murder Bernat.

Prosecutor Robert Daskas presented evidence that David Wilcox purchased a four-inch buck knife at a San Diego K-Mart eight hours before Bernat and her father were slain.

Scisento claimed that Chartier was in bed with his mistress at the time of the murders, and that the only reason he is charged with murder is because of his friendship with Wilcox.

Public defender Scott Coffee, however, told the jury that if Wilcox weren’t friends with Chartier, there would be no murder charges against him.

“Loyalty can be costly,” he said.

The sentencing hearing Monday will be shown live on Court TV Extra.

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