A murder in Grain Valley

By JEFF MARTIN

jeff.martin@examiner.net



A Grain Valley teen accused of stabbing a woman to death said the victim’s son asked him to help kill his mother and father, and that their plans had been disrupted on two prior occasions before the night they finally succeeded in killing Pamela Marquez.

That claim was one of several made by attorneys in the opening arguments against Eddie George, 18, accused of killing Pamela Marquez. George, along with Taylor Marquez, the victim’s son, face charges including first-degree murder, assault, auto theft and two counts of armed criminal action in connection with the July 15, 2006, stabbing death. Taylor is expected to go on trial in late summer.

Both defendants are now 18.

Tim Dollar, special prosecutor, said Tuesday before Judge W. Stephen Nixon, 16th Circuit Court, that George told Grain Valley detectives that Taylor asked him to help kill the couple, who had married a couple years before.

Dollar said George told detectives he agreed to kill Joe Marquez, who was then a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City, while Taylor agreed to kill his mother.

When detectives asked George why he agreed to kill the couple, he is reported to have said, “I didn’t want Taylor to think that I was a (expletive).”

Dollar said there were two other times before July 15 when the plan was nearly carried out, but two unplanned occurrrences – an unexpected phone call and a visitor – disrupted the act.

But on July 15, after the two 16-year-old boys had spent the day together, they both agreed that the time was right, prosecutors say.

Having turned down an invitation to attend a birthday party earlier in the day, they spent most of the day together. By evening, they returned home, stopping out front of the Marquez home and asking Joe if Taylor could spend the night with Eddie. Joe, Taylor’s adoptive father, said it was fine but that he had to ask his mother. Inside, Taylor left Eddie in the kitchen and asked his mother, who disagreed and said they “had things to do.”

In the family room downstairs, prosecutors said, Eddie listened while Taylor, Pamela and her youngest son, Mike, got into an argument about the computer. The mother scolded Taylor, and he then emerged into the kitchen before leading Eddie upstairs toward his bedroom. Pamela soon followed, going to her own bedroom.

It was now about 9:50 p.m.

“Pamela did not know, could not have known, what was about to happen,” Dollar said.

After cleaning the garage, Joe began watching television in the downstairs family room. Suddenly he felt a cut along his neck, and he struggled to stand.

In the process, Eddie was cut length-wise along his inner forearm. When Eddie, standing with the knife, ran upstairs, Joe called 911 while taking Mike by the arm and leading him to the door, telling him to run to the neighbor’s house.

A recording of the 911 call was played for the court, and during the 20-minute conversation, Joe is clearly distraught, telling the dispatcher that his son’s friend has just attacked him with a knife. Screaming is clearly heard in the background.

Nearing the stairs that would deliver him to the main floor of the house, Joe said he saw Eddie on the landing. On tape, Joe can be heard yelling at Eddie to get out of the house.

Taylor, meanwhile, stood near his friend and “motions with his head” toward the upstairs bedroom.

Joe yelled at the two of them, “What did you do to my wife?”

When Joe reached the bedroom, he discovered Pamela lying face up on the floor, unresponsive and bleeding profusely from her chest. She died shortly after.

Dollar said when Eddie climbed the stairs to the bedroom after attacking Joe, the boy realized Taylor hadn’t killed Pamela. Dollar said Eddie told investigators that he got onto the bed and told her that “Joe was hurt, you need to get up.” When she did, Eddie struck her, knocking her to the floor, stabbing her seven times.

Dollar said forensic reports show, as did photographs presented to the court, that Pamela sustained heavy bruising on her head and other areas. 

John Picerno, George’s defense attorney, said Taylor was in the master bedroom for a moment when Pamela was murdered. That appeared to be the focus of Picerno’s argument, telling jurors and the courtroom that the space of approximately one minute from when Eddie attacked Joe, as planned, and emerged on the main level in the living room, “is the question that everyone wants to know.”

Picerno echoed Dollar’s statement concerning what Eddie told Grain Valley detectives, that Taylor asked Eddie to help kill his parents. Picerno said the plan was for Eddie to kill Joe, while Taylor killed his mother. But Picerno said during his opening arguments that Taylor was in the master bedroom “for some amount of time during the stabbing and that there was blood on him and his clothing.

The boys fled the house, leaving behind four knives – two upstairs in the master bedroom, one on the kitchen counter and another on the sidewalk stoop. Pictures displayed to the court show two knives on the bedroom floor, one larger knife and a smaller steak knife whose handle had broken off, apparently, prosecutors say, from when Eddie broke the blade off inside Pamela.

After fleeing the house, Taylor and Eddie stole the family car and drove to Colorado, where they were apprehended in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver. The boys had abandoned the car after mechanical problems, and a restaurant manager notified police when he saw them eating breakfast together on July 18. They were taken into custody shortly after.

Picerno painted a troubled portrait of Taylor, a boy who wanted to find his real dad and who had discipline problems in school. Meeting when they were14 years old, the two boys “became inseperable” and that “they did not get good grades, and that they smoked marijuana.”

In 2005, Taylor was placed in juvenile custody after he reportedly threatened to kill his father.

Immediately following that incident, Joe went to one of his neighbors, Jeremy Dickstein, an officer and detective for the Blue Springs Police Department, and told him. Both Joe and Pamela filed charges against the boy.

Their relationship was troubled from the start, Picerno said.

“Eddie George idolized Taylor Marquez,” Picerno said, describing Eddie as “not as smart as Taylor, and not as crafty as Taylor.”

The computer seized from the Marquez home showed a message that Taylor posted to his girlfriend on his MySpace account.

“I love you, and if I ever get back to you, I’ll tell you why I said this.”

Remaining evidence was expected to be presented today.