Miss-Delectable
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DesMoinesRegister.com
Jury selection is to begin today in Sioux Falls, S.D. in the trial of a deaf woman charged with kidnapping, murdering and dismembering another deaf woman in the state's first capital punishment case with a female defendant.
If Daphne Wright, 43, is convicted, jurors will be asked to sentence her to death by lethal injection for the death of Iowa native Darlene VanderGiesen, 42.
VanderGiesen, who also was deaf, disappeared on Feb. 1, 2006. Wright was arrested 10 days later after a search of the basement of her Sioux Falls house yielded bone fragments, muscle and fat that matched DNA taken from VanderGiesen's toothbrush, according to court papers and testimony.
Parts of her dismembered body later were found in the Sioux Falls landfill and in a ditch near Beaver Creek, Minn. Her parents have since buried her remains at her hometown of Rock Valley, Iowa.
In a videotaped police interview shown at an earlier hearing, Wright said she and VanderGiesen had fought weeks earlier because Wright, who is homosexual, suspected VanderGiesen of trying to break up Wright's relationship with Sallie Collins.
VanderGiesen was heterosexual and was a friend of Collins, Wright said on the tape.
An autopsy determined that VanderGiesen was killed by either suffocation or a blow to the head.
If convicted and sentenced to death, Wright would be the first woman to be executed in South Dakota. Charles Rhines, Donald Moeller, Briley Piper and Elijah Page already are on death row.
South Dakota has not had an execution in 60 years. Page's execution is set for July.
Wright's lawyers have argued that although she is intelligent, executing her would amount to cruel and unusual punishment since her communication skills and control over her environment are limited because she's been deaf since she was an infant.
But Circuit Judge Bradley Zell sided with prosecutors, saying there's no state or federal law or court case indicating that deaf people are protected from capital punishment the same way juveniles or mentally disabled people are.
Zell said he found three other cases in which the death penalty was imposed on a deaf person: in Texas in 1951, Florida in 1998 and Illinois in 2006.
Jury selection is expected to take several weeks.
Jury selection is to begin today in Sioux Falls, S.D. in the trial of a deaf woman charged with kidnapping, murdering and dismembering another deaf woman in the state's first capital punishment case with a female defendant.
If Daphne Wright, 43, is convicted, jurors will be asked to sentence her to death by lethal injection for the death of Iowa native Darlene VanderGiesen, 42.
VanderGiesen, who also was deaf, disappeared on Feb. 1, 2006. Wright was arrested 10 days later after a search of the basement of her Sioux Falls house yielded bone fragments, muscle and fat that matched DNA taken from VanderGiesen's toothbrush, according to court papers and testimony.
Parts of her dismembered body later were found in the Sioux Falls landfill and in a ditch near Beaver Creek, Minn. Her parents have since buried her remains at her hometown of Rock Valley, Iowa.
In a videotaped police interview shown at an earlier hearing, Wright said she and VanderGiesen had fought weeks earlier because Wright, who is homosexual, suspected VanderGiesen of trying to break up Wright's relationship with Sallie Collins.
VanderGiesen was heterosexual and was a friend of Collins, Wright said on the tape.
An autopsy determined that VanderGiesen was killed by either suffocation or a blow to the head.
If convicted and sentenced to death, Wright would be the first woman to be executed in South Dakota. Charles Rhines, Donald Moeller, Briley Piper and Elijah Page already are on death row.
South Dakota has not had an execution in 60 years. Page's execution is set for July.
Wright's lawyers have argued that although she is intelligent, executing her would amount to cruel and unusual punishment since her communication skills and control over her environment are limited because she's been deaf since she was an infant.
But Circuit Judge Bradley Zell sided with prosecutors, saying there's no state or federal law or court case indicating that deaf people are protected from capital punishment the same way juveniles or mentally disabled people are.
Zell said he found three other cases in which the death penalty was imposed on a deaf person: in Texas in 1951, Florida in 1998 and Illinois in 2006.
Jury selection is expected to take several weeks.