Eastburn family murders
The Eastburn family murders were the murders of Kathryn "Katie" Eastburn and her daughters, Kara and Erin, which occurred in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in May 1985. In 1986, United States Army Sergeant Timothy Hennis was tried and convicted for the three murders. In 1988, Hennis's conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted the following year.
In 2006, the Cumberland County Sherriff's Office obtained DNA evidence linking Hennis to the crime. Despite the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause prohibiting retrials after acquittals, the United States Army was able to initiate prosecution and trial proceedings against Hennis under the dual sovereignty doctrine. In 2010, Hennis was tried and convicted by an Army court-martial for the triple murders and sentenced to death.
Background
Eastburn family
The Eastburn family was a military family that lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Gary Eastburn was a Captain in the United States Air Force. He had met Kathryn "Katie" Eastburn during the 1970s, with the couple marrying in 1975. Gary and Katie subsequently had three children: Kara, Erin, and Jana. In 1983, the Air Force sent Gary and his family to Pope Air Force Base, where he served as air traffic control chief. In May 1985, Eastburn was undergoing training at a squadron's officer school in Montgomery, Alabama, with his wife and children remaining in Fayetteville.Timothy Hennis
Timothy Baily Hennis grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, and graduated from Mayo High School in 1976. His father, Robert Hennis, was a manager at IBM Rochester during the 1970s. Hennis worked in Rochester until he joined the United States Army in 1980. Hennis later married. He and his wife, Angela, had a daughter in 1985. Around May 1985, Hennis worked as a parachute rigger at Fort Bragg.Murders
Since the Eastburn family was planning to relocate to England so that Eastburn could take up a liaison job with the Royal Air Force, Katie made arrangements to rehouse the family's English Setter Dixie, posting an advertisement in the local newspaper Beeline Grab Bragg. On May 7, 1985, 27-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant Timothy Hennis responded to the ad, visiting the Eastburn family home. Hennis's young family owned a spitz at the time. After chatting with Katie, Hennis took Dixie home.On May 11, Katie did not respond to her husband Gary's routine phone call. On May 12, a concerned neighbor named Bob Seefeldt and a police officer visited the home, where they discovered the remains of Katie, Kara, and Erin. Katie had been stripped to the waist, raped, and stabbed 15 times. Semen was also found inside her body. Kara had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest, while Erin had been bludgeoned in the chest and back. The youngest child, Jana, survived the attack, but was dehydrated and suffering from diarrhea.
Investigation
Detectives Robert Bittle and Jack Watts of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office were in charge of the homicide investigation. While combing the house, investigators found fingerprints and hair. A luminol test of the walls and master bathroom indicated that somebody had tried unsuccessfully to clean up the crime scene. After returning to Fayetteville, Gary Eastburn helped Bittle and Watts identify missing items, including an envelope of cash, Katie's ATM card, and a piece of paper containing her ATM password.On the first night of the investigation, a janitor named Patrick Cone approached Bittle and Watts, telling them that he had witnessed a tall white man dressed in jeans, a knit cap, and a black "Members Only" jacket exiting the Eastburns' driveway carrying a garbage bag in the early morning hours of May 10. According to Cone, the man drove away in a white Chevrolet Chevette. Based on Cone's account, investigators believed that the Eastburn murders had occurred between 8 pm on May 9 and 3 am on May 10. Cone's description of the suspect was passed onto local media. Cone also helped the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation produce a composite sketch of the suspect.
Following media coverage of the Eastburn killings, Hennis visited the local police station on May 15, where he submitted to interrogation by Watts and Bittle. When questioned, Hennis acknowledged that he had picked up the Eastburns' dog on May 7 but had no other contact with Katie apart from a phone call on May 9 discussing how Dixie was settling into the Hennis household. According to Hennis, he had driven his wife and daughter to his in-laws on the night of May 9, returning home after refueling his car. In addition, Hennis also provided investigators with blood, saliva, and hair samples and finger and palm prints. Due to his close resemblance to the composite sketch, investigators identified Hennis as the prime suspect from the onset. Cone identified Hennis during a photo lineup, leading to Hennis' arrest that evening.
In addition to Cone, Watts and Bittle utilized other witnesses and evidence. Investigators determined that Katie's stolen ATM card had been used twice, on the night of May 10 and the morning of May 11, with the two transactions amounting to a total of US$300. Investigators sought to link this to Hennis being late on his monthly rent payment and his prior convictions for writing bad checks. In addition, a female witness who visited the ATM shortly after the second transaction on May 11 had witnessed a blond man matching Hennis' description.
Hennis's alibi that he had returned home on the night of May 9 after dropping his family at the in-laws was challenged when his former girlfriend Nancy Maeser told investigators that he had made an impromptu visit to her home. Investigators also focused on the fact that Hennis had brought a black "Members Only" jacket to the dry cleaner on May 10 and his neighbors' eyewitness accounts alleging that Hennis had burned items within a barrel on the morning of May 11.
First trial and imprisonment
Hennis's first trial occurred in Cumberland County in the summer of 1986. He was represented by Fayetteville lawyers Gerald Beaver and Billy Richardson. William VanStory led the prosecution. Before the trial, the prosecution offered Hennis a plea bargain: two counts of second-degree murder, with a likely penalty of two consecutive life sentences. Hennis turned down the plea bargain.During the trial, VanStory and his team put forth the theory that Hennis had taken advantage of his wife Angela's absence to initiate a romantic relationship with the married Katie Eastburn. Katie had rebuffed his offer, leading Hennis to kill her and her two older children. In addition, the prosecution drew upon Cone and the female's eyewitness accounts and the transactions resulting from Katie's stolen ATM card. For added psychological effect, the prosecution presented several graphic crime scene photographs to the jury.
Following ten hours of deliberation, the jury found Hennis guilty of three counts of first degree murder and one count of first degree rape. On July 8, he was subsequently sentenced to death. Hennis was transferred to death row at the Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. While in prison, Hennis received an anonymous letter claiming responsibility for the Eastburn murders: The anonymous letter was postmarked on July 8, 1986 and was also sent to the Sheriff's office.
Appeal and second trial
In 1988, Hennis' defense lawyer Gerald Beaver successfully appealed Hennis' conviction at the North Carolina Supreme Court, arguing that the numerous graphic crime scene videos that the prosecution had shown the jury had unduly influenced them against his client. The judges ruled by a margin of five to two in Hennis' favor, granting him a retrial. According to Beaver, this marked the first time a prisoner on death row in North Carolina had been granted a new trial.During the retrial held in April 1989, Beaver and Richardson represented Hennis while the prosecution consisted of Calvin Colyer and John Dickson, who had replaced VanStory. The defense challenged the prosecution's witnesses and evidence, focusing on star witness Cone's criminal offenses following the first trial. They also attacked Cone's testimony that the weather on the night of the murder was fair. By contrast, a meteorologist and helicopter pilot called by the defense testified that the weather had been overcast.
Beaver and Richardson also challenged the prosecution's female witness, who had sighted Hennis near the ATM on the morning of May 11, pointing out that she had initially told the investigators that she did not see Hennis but changed her story on the eve of the trial. In addition, Beaver and Richardson presented two new defense witnesses: a newspaper delivery woman who claimed that she saw a long-haired man driving a light-colored van on the morning of May 11 and a local teenager from the Eastburns' neighborhood named John Raupaugh who was jogging near the Eastburns' family home on the night of the murder. Raupaugh resembled Hennis and also wore similar attire that night.
In addition, Beaver and Richardson presented footprints, blood, and hair samples that did not match Hennis or the victims. The defense also presented Hennis' "Members Only" jacket, which had been tested to prove there were no bloodstains. Hennis also took the witness stand during the retrial. Following a three-week trial and two days of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of all charges.
Aftermath
Gary Eastburn relocated with his surviving daughter Jana to a U.S. Air Force base north of London in 1988, taking up a liaison role with the Royal Air Force. Gary subsequently met and married an English nurse in 1991, who became Jana's stepmother. After retiring from the US Air Force, he worked overseas for several years before returning to the States, settling down in Washington.Following his acquittal in 1989, Timothy Hennis re-enlisted in the United States Army and was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. He saw service in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm and Somalia. Hennis received several awards and accolades for his service. In 1998, Hennis and his family, who were now joined by their six-year-old son Andrew, moved to Fort Lewis, Washington. Hennis became the scoutmaster of Andrew's scouting troop, leading them on hiking expeditions. In 2004, Hennis retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of master sergeant and found work at a waste treatment plant.