Category: Marcus Wesson

Marcus Wesson committed the worst mass murder in Fresno’s history — killing two adults and seven young children.

Neighbors’ accounts led police to believe that Wesson controlled his family in a cult-like manner, and that he possibly had fathered several of the deceased children with his own daughters and nieces.

Several of Wesson’s sons initially rose to his defense, but in tonight’s ABC Primetime they tell ABC News correspondent Jay Schadler that only now, years after the crime, can they see their father for what he was: psychotic, delusional and narcissistic.

FRESNO, Calif. – The house where a convicted murderer molested and killed nine of his own children was demolished on Monday. Marcus Wesson, patriarch of the cultlike clan that lived in the home, was sentenced to death in 2005 on nine counts of first-degree murder, and to 102 years in prison for sexually abusing the minors in his care. Police broke into the home in 2004 after a prolonged standoff brought on by a family dispute. They found nine bodies in a back room and ten white coffins in the living room. Since then, the house has stood empty, a

February 2, 2006 – A judge has denied a request by the wife of Marcus Wesson to give back hundreds of items seized from the family’s home in Central Fresno. There is an automatic appeal on the way for Marcus Wesson, and some of that evidence could come back into play. But even now, the battle to get the items returned isn’t over. “Imagine if somebody came to your house, took everything you owned and basically sat it in a locker somewhere and said, ‘you can’t ever have this back,’” said Elizabeth Wesson’s attorney Douglas Foster. Foster says some of

The trial of condemned mass murderer Marcus Wesson cost Fresno County more than $1 million that could have paid for law enforcement or to fix up parks and rural neighborhoods. The $1,095,479 figure released Tuesday by Wes Merritt, chief county counsel, does not include the expenses for Wesson’s entire time in the jail, nor the cost of the Fresno Police Department’s massive investigation. Wesson was transported Tuesday to San Quentin State Prison’s death row. Sheriff’s officials said Wesson arrived at San Quentin shortly after 5 a.m. The trip from Fresno to the prison, which is near San Francisco, takes about

Judge R.L. Putnam rejected Marcus Wesson’s requests this morning for a new trial or a reduced sentence from the death penalty to life in prison. Wesson, 58, could be formally sentenced to death by lethal injection this afternoon for slaying nine of his children inside his Fresno home on March 12, 2004. Fresno’s worst mass murderer also was found guilty of 14 counts of sexually abusing his daughter and nieces. In Context Nine bodies found in Fresno home; suspect in custody Polygamist Charged With Fresno Murders The Many Portraits of Marcus Wesson Fresno father goes on trial in deaths of

Defense lawyers want Judge R.L. Putnam to grant Marcus Wesson a new trial or reduce his death sentence to life in prison, according to Fresno County Superior Court documents made public Tuesday. In a 17-page legal motion, lawyers Peter Jones and Garrick Byers said Putnam didn’t give a fair recitation of the law when he instructed the jury before it began deliberations. In Context Nine bodies found in Fresno home; suspect in custody Polygamist Charged With Fresno Murders The Many Portraits of Marcus Wesson Fresno father goes on trial in deaths of nine children Father convicted of murdering 9 of

FRESNO, Calif. – Marcus Wesson‘s defense attorney addressed the men and women who found his client guilty of slaughtering his children and pleaded for his life, saying Wesson was a flawed man and his crimes were inexcusable, but his death would not bring back any of those he killed. If sentencing Wesson to die by lethal injection could “undo the harm done,” Wesson attorney Pete Jones told the jurors on Monday, “your job would be simple.” In Context Nine bodies found in Fresno home; suspect in custody Polygamist Charged With Fresno Murders The Many Portraits of Marcus Wesson Fresno father