2y ago

Teen sent 'hobo hunting' text before killing homeless woman with pellet gun: prosecutors

www.rawstory.com

Prosecutors say that 18-year-old William Innes, who was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of 68-year-old Annette Pershal, sent the text to a group that includes his co-defendant, 19-year-old Ryan Hopkins, reported KNSD-TV.

37 comments

He is “a good kid with a warm heart” he lawyer says.
His lawyer needs to be Locked up with him.
- Lawyers have a job to do, and it's provide the best possible defense, to even the most disgusting of criminals, because our justice system relies on everyone having a right to an adversarial defense.
  
  This is not a defense. This is pandering to media.
- Because good kids with good hearts definitely launch unprovoked deadly attacks against the vulnerable /s
  
  But he wasn't meaning to murder, this good kid was just trying to quell their boredom by causing bodily injury to people they they perceive as less than a person. /s I'd bet money that if this kid isn't charged, they'll become a cop.
- I mean…. In the USA you’re entitled to a vigorous defense.
  Vilifying the lawyer isn’t going to do any good. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.
  This kid, if he did it, is a shitbird. The lawyer is doing what they’re supposed to do.
  
  I'm not a lawyer but I went and checked the ABA because I was pretty sure the term "zealous advocate" was in the duties and responsibilities. Here's what I found on the ABA site, "As advocate, a lawyer zealously asserts the client's position under the rules of the adversary system."[1]
  Lawyers, especially defense lawyers, get a lot of hate for being zealous about even the most vile client's defense, but I promise that if anyone reading this ever needs a lawyer you'll be glad as fuck that they are duty bound to not half ass your defense.
  [1]https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_preamble_scope/
- The trigger puller was Innes but that line was about Hopkins. He's being charged because he supposedly drove Innes there.
  I'd also argue that at 19 he is no longer a "kid".
  
  The driver is as guilty as the trigger puller.
- a good kid with a warm heart
  is a good way to describe a psychopath if you never actually dealt with one.
- Warm like brimstone warm ffs

Having done a fair amount of homeless outreach in my time, this is the reason why folks who have been on the streets for a while are so vulnerable to paranoia. If you don't have a place to live in America, you're under threats of assault like this all the time, from both everyday citizens and the cops. That constant fear and need to always be looking over your shoulder eats people up from the inside out.
I wish folks would realize this when discussing the homeless problem and the associated behavioral issues. Even if you're not crazy when you hit the streets, a couple of months out there will either make you paranoid or make you dead.
- Judging by the posts I see on nextdoor people with homes are ridiculously paranoid too.
  
  My neighbor started a thread because she didn’t recognize an AirBnB guests car.
  
  I had to delete that app because it made me hate my neighbors.
- They think you're expendable when you're homeless; an easy target that nobody will miss. I heard about some farmer jerk who would recruit drifters to buy cows at auctions, then plug them to absolve himself of guilt. After law enforcement found the bodies, they gave the dude the death penalty, but it took a long, long time before he was charged with anything. Can't say the motherfucker is missed.

I went looking for more info and found this much more comprehensive article.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/san-diego-teens-arrested-killing-woman-pellet-gun
These people are monsters. Imagine knowing that someone is living in absolute misery on the streets and saying to yourself, "I want to target them and degrade them even further while causing them physical pain. Sounds like fun!"

I don't even know what to say, just completely disgustingly unhinged behavior. The dehumanization of the houseless needs to stop.

And now we will spend millions of dollars on this trash while homeless people get jack shit.
Amazing how this system works!

In my city something similar is going on, three homeless people have already been stabbed while sleeping at night. I honestly don‘t understand the depravity humans get up to.
- Look up "brazen bull" and you'll get a better understanding of just how shitty our species really is.

Sadly this is all too common. I recall at my University one the frat houses got in trouble for the very same thing... i. e shooting a local homeless person everyone knew with a pellet gun. He wasnt injured thankfully, but this being the 90s there was far less outrage than you'd expect from the student body.
- Same, one of the frats allegedly used to do this to keep the homeless from sleeping out on their property. Never witnessed it, but I did hear stories. Could have also just been bs, but it was definitely unsettling to hear.

I didn't even know that you could kill someone with a pellet gun
- There's some pretty powerful air rifles out there. The one from the article appears to be a varmit air rifle (at least that's what I would call it). Here's a review I found:
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ghNp27YgJd4
  And another one that shows the targets they're hitting up close:
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VDzhK2oFDIs
- Hit the jugular vein, you can.
  
  She was shot 3 times, one of them puncturing the aorta

37 comments