Need Any Ostriches?

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He told the operator that his business partner, Frank Horner, had just shot his wife and himself. Stenson was forty years old and had been born in 1953. He was a cocaine dealer who ran a five-acre exotic bird farm stocked with ostriches, emus and rheas, and he also taught martial arts. this part of the story is covered for now He had been placed on inactive probation in 1987 and had also collected $350,000 in insurance when his boat, the Dragon Weir, sank on 11 July 1989.

Stenson lived at Dakota Farms with his wife, Denise Ann Stenson, who was twenty-nine, and their three children, aged six, four and one. Frank Horner, born in 1960, laid carpet and had put $50,000 from the sale of his house into Stenson's bird business. His wife was also called Denice, which the hosts made much of. Frank had been pressing for the birds or his money back, and Stenson's accounts were in trouble.

When police arrived at about four in the morning, Stenson met them outside and led them first to the downstairs guest bedroom, where Frank Horner lay face down with a gunshot wound to the head and a revolver resting beside his hand. He then took them to the master bedroom, where Denise was in bed, shot in the head but still alive. She was airlifted to Harbour View Hospital and died the next morning.

Stenson said the two men had been in the office building behind the house signing insurance papers for ostriches when Frank became glum at being told to raise the birds at his own home, went into the house to use the bathroom and did not return. Stenson said he found Frank dead, heard moaning upstairs, found his wife shot, and called 911. He suggested Frank had been upset about sexual problems in his marriage and had been sweet on Denise.

At 5.28 a.m. Stenson signed a consent form for a search, and at 11.16 a.m. a superior court judge issued a warrant. The autopsies undermined the murder-suicide story. Frank had been struck on the head with a rectangular blunt instrument hard enough to stun or knock him out, and gravel from the Dakota Farms driveway was embedded in his back and buttocks, suggesting he was beaten outside and dragged in. He had been killed by a single close-range gunshot. Denise's wrists bore marks consistent with being bound.

Investigators found Frank's blood in the driveway and laundry room, a bloody fingerprint of Stenson's on the freezer, blood spatter on Stenson's jeans matching a protein profile found in only 2.2 per cent of the white population, ammunition matching the murder weapon in the garage and gunshot residue inside his right trouser pocket. Nunchucks on his office wall were consistent with the head wounds. Frank's $50,000 had been booked as bird deposits, but only one purchase of two small birds for under $2,000 had been made. Dakota Farms had about $3,400 in the bank, and Stenson had bought $400,000 of life insurance on Denise, including a $300,000 policy benefiting the farm's owner and $100,000 payable to himself.

details of the account remain covered until revealed The state sought the death penalty. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it A week later his lawyer, Leatherman, moved to withdraw, saying the relationship had broken down. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed