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Murdered Girl's Parents Ask For Mercy - (CLEARFIELD) -- Jessica Holtmeyer has the parents of the girl she killed to thank for not receiving the death penalty. Shortly after a jury found Holtmeyer guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal killing of 15-year old Kimberly Jo Dotts, the dead girl's mother and father asked the judge not to seek capital punishment. Rick Dotts, the father, said, ``I believe everybody deserves a second chance.'' Teen-age witnesses said Holtmeyer helped hang the girl with a clothes line, then beat her face repeatedly with a rock for fear she would divulge a plan by several girls to run away to Florida. Holtmeyer awaits her sentence in the Clearfield County Jail.
Trial Begins in Teen Lynching By DAVID KINNEY Associated Press Writer CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) - A teen-ager accused of lynching a learning-disabled girl who was hoping to make friends went on trial Monday, claiming she was wrongly accused by others who made deals to save themselves from prison. Jessica Holtmeyer, 16, faces the death penalty if convicted in the killing of 15-year-old Kimberly Dotts, who was hanged in some woods in front of several teens before her head was smashed with a rock the size of a basketball. Four teen-agers and a 24-year-old woman pleaded guilty to lesser charges and are expected to testify against Ms. Holtmeyer, who along with Aaron Straw, 18, faces a charge of murder. Straw is to be tried separately. Prosecutors say Ms. Holtmeyer wanted Kimberly dead because she was worried the girl would tell others about her plans to run away from Clearfield, a working-class coal and lumber town of 7,500 about 125 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. But the defense said Ms. Holtmeyer is a victim. ``Police jumped to the conclusion that Jessica Holtmeyer committed this crime,'' lawyer Bryan S. Walk said. ``All they had were a couple of statements from a couple of people who turned out to be liars.'' Kimberly was hoping to make friends when she was invited to sleep over at one of the teen's homes in May. But the next day she found herself in the woods with a group of kids she barely knew who were planning to run away to Florida that night. Someone complained that Kimberly - short, overweight and learning-disabled - might ``snitch'' on them. A noose was pulled over her head, the other end slung over a maple branch, and Ms. Holtmeyer and Straw then yanked on the rope with all their strength, prosecutors said. Kimberly's body shook and convulsed, then went limp. On the ground, as she gasped for breath, prosecutors said, Ms. Holtmeyer smashed her face with a rock. The first witness was Straw, who agreed to testify in return for not having to face the death penalty. Straw said he wanted to scare Kimberly and admitted helping Ms. Holtmeyer, his then-girlfriend, hang the girl twice. ``Why did you do it a second time?'' Walk asked. ``To scare Kim even more,'' Straw answered. Prosecutor Paul Cherry told jurors in his opening statement that Kimberly was a quiet girl who was just beginning to reach out socially when she fell in with the loosely knit group of teens who called themselves the Runaway Gang. All but Ms. Holtmeyer headed for Lakeland, Fla., that night. Searchers looking for the missing girl found the body nine days later. Cherry asked Straw about Ms. Holtmeyer's demeanor the day of the killing. ``Weird,'' he said. ``It was like a side of her I didn't see before. Like she didn't care about nothing.''
Teen Murder Trial Begins - (CLEARFIELD) -- The trial of sixteen-year-old Jessica Holtmeyer is under way in Clearfield County. The teenager is accused of helping to kill 15-year-old Kimberly Dotts in a wooded area last May. The prosecution began its case, with two teenage witnesses saying that Holtmeyer laughed and casually walked away from Dotts' battered body. One girl testified that Holtmeyer said she wanted to keep one of Dotts' fingers as a souvenir.
Came She...
Came she like a flower,
soft and incomplete to the fashion of occasional nature...
Came she to the State where lies the great cracked bell of Liberty,
where men and women are what they appear to be.
Came she to the little town,
far flung from the vagaries of big city madness,
well removed from the grand insanity of crowded men and women...
Came she to the age of blossom,
to the years of yearning..
came she to the very threshold of friendships..
to the beginnings of blooming..
Met she with the savageness of fear,
fear of differences, fear of naiveté..
met she face to face with sadistic bullying,
mob rule and peer pressure..
met she with mind numbing boredom,
small town aloof, little village privacy,
teenage secrecy and childhood stretch for independence.
Hanged from the tree of sweetness,
not once, but twice...
tricked by her own innocence,
and her desire to please...
came she,
trusting and trussed to her doom...
finally destroyed,
almost beyond recognition
by one final act of hatred.
What criminal she..???
how deserving she??
How complacent we??
which of these women do we reflect??
and which reflect we most true??
therein lies both the dream,
and the nightmare..
what savage beasts do we rare flowers conceal,
and how fragile the restraining petals.
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