Heather Rich, a 16-year-old Waurika, Oklahoma high school student, was murdered on the night of October 2, 1996 in Montague County, Texas by three young men, two of whom had sexually assaulted and raped her. Rich was shot nine times and thrown into a creek. All three men were convicted after trials featuring conflicting testimony and recanted plea bargains, leaving lingering controversy over the eventual verdicts and the identity of the particular man who pulled the trigger. The case received national coverage.
Video Murder of Heather Rich
Crime
Rich was a high school cheerleader in Waurika, Oklahoma, successful academically and a popular student. She had exhibited some troubled behavior in the weeks before her death, and had been suspended from the cheerleading team for drinking alcohol.
Late on the evening of October 2, 1996, Rich left her home without her parents' knowledge to meet 17-year-old Joshua Bagwell in a trailer at the home of Bagwell's grandfather. Bagwell had already been drinking with friends Curtis Gambill and Randy Wood, who left Bagwell and Rich alone for an hour. When they returned Rich was intoxicated and largely insensible; Bagwell said they had had consensual sex. According to Wood's later testimony he had assaulted Rich before Gambill had sex with the semi-conscious Rich; Gambill then decided to kill Rich and persuaded the others to help him. They dressed Rich and drove her a deserted location in Belknap Creek, Texas. Bagwell carried Rich to a bridge where Gambill shot her several times in the back and head with a shotgun. Rich's body was thrown into the creek below, where it was discovered by a rancher on October 10.
Maps Murder of Heather Rich
Arrests and trials
Curtis Allen Gambill, a 20-year-old high-school dropout with a criminal record; Josh Bagwell, a classmate of Rich's from a comparatively affluent background; and Randy Wood, another classmate and Rich's ex-boyfriend, were arrested two weeks after the body was discovered.
Gambill was tried in October 1997 and Bagwell in February 1998. Having first blamed Wood, Gambill then entered into a plea bargain under which he admitted to shooting Rich and agreed to testify against Bagwell in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. During Gambill's trial, a prison guard who had known Gambill during a period of juvenile custody in 1992 testified that Gambill had told another inmate of a desire to "kidnap and rape a beautiful young girl, then 'blow her head off'".
Gambill was found guilty and sentenced to a life term. However, when Wood gave testimony at Bagwell's trial, identifying Gambill as the murderer without the incentive of a plea bargain, Gambill rejected his own agreement with prosecutors and changed his story, minimizing Bagwell's role in the affair and testifying that Wood was Rich's murderer. This opened the way for a further prosecution, on a charge of conspiracy to commit capital murder, which took place in February 2002 and resulted in a second life sentence for Gambill.
Wood initially accepted a similar plea bargain to that offered to Gambill, in exchange for his testimony at Bagwell's trial in February 1998. However, in a surprise move hours before he was due to give evidence, he changed his mind and rejected the bargain, testifying against Gambill without preconditions despite advice from his lawyer that he risked a longer prison sentence or the death penalty if convicted. Wood was quoted as saying that he did it for his own peace of mind, for the benefit of Rich and her family, and also to improve the credibility of his testimony. "I knew it would make people see I was telling the truth." Wood was eventually tried for capital murder later in 1998 and received a life sentence, with no possibility of parole until aged 57.
Bagwell refused to admit complicity in the murder. He claimed his sex with Rich was consensual, that he believed they were driving Rich around to sober her up, and that he was unaware of the plan to kill her. He blamed Wood for the actual shooting, claiming not to have been on the bridge at the time, and admitted only to helping cover up the crime after the event. For this reason the prosecutor offered plea bargains to Gambill and Wood in exchange for their testimony against Bagwell. Bagwell was convicted of capital murder and conspiracy to commit capital murder in February 1998 and sentenced to a life term.
In 1999 Rich's father sued the store that sold the shotgun's ammunition to Bagwell and Gambill, alleging violation of state law by supplying weapons to minors.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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