GUB'NER PERRY,THE E.U. AND THE DEVOE CASE

Recently the European union sent a plea to our gub'ner admonishing him to place a moratorium on the death penalty (cause,you know everything is bigger in Texas,and that includes the state sanctioned body count).Perry said,through a spokesman,to the E.U.-"fuck off,the death penalty is why we broke with you 238 years ago and came here,so we could execute tons of people.Some guilty,some decidedly not,but hey,our death penalty statutes are modeled after the charter of the lottery commission...sometimes you win,sometimes you lose".Or words to that effect.

Enter Paul Devoe...

The rampage began Friday in Llano County, where officials say Devoe held a woman at gunpoint and fired several shots in her home.

Police say he then drove the woman's pickup to Marble Falls, where he fatally shot bartender Michael Jay Allred, 41, at O'Neill's Sports Tavern on Main Street.

His next stop, officials said, was an ex-girlfriend's home in Jonestown, where police say Devoe killed four people. Among the dead were Devoe's former lover, Paula Marie Griffith, and her 15-year-old daughter, Haylie Marie Faulkner, a member of the victims' family said.

The other two victims were identified late Monday as 17-year-old Danielle Hensley and 48-year-old Jay Feltner, who was described in a police affidavit as Griffith's boyfriend.

Officials say the four were planning to go to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio for the day Saturday. Hensley's father told police he had not heard from his daughter for an unusual amount of time and asked them to check on her. Travis County sheriff's deputies eventually discovered the four bodies in Griffith's home.

According to Devoe's arrest affidavit, the bullets discovered by medical examiners at Griffith's home were jacketed hollow-point bullets similar to the ones recovered after the Marble Falls incident.

Davoe told a Travis County sheriff's informant in a phone call Saturday, "I've killed six people and I'm getting the ... out of here," the affidavit said. It also says he told his mother over the phone that he had killed five people.

A carpenter and Harley-Davidson enthusiast with a criminal record, including jail time for drunken driving, Devoe moved to Austin two years ago from New York. Bearded and muscular with a thick Long Island accent, Devoe said in Web profiles that he was self-employed and looking for women.

As of Thursday, he was living outside Llano and doing carpentry work for Sharon Wilson, the woman he assaulted, according to Llano authorities.

Though people who knew him were aware of his criminal record, they said they were shocked by the vicious attacks police say they've connected him to in Llano, Burnet and Travis counties.

In what authorities believe was the first incident, Wilson called the sheriff's office at 7:50 p.m. Friday and reported that a distraught Devoe had held a gun to her head, threatened to shoot her and himself, and fired several shots at her home in the Wild Oak Acres subdivision.

She was able to escape unharmed and hide from Devoe, eventually calling 911 from a neighbor's house, sheriff's officials said. Devoe took off in Wilson's Dodge Dakota pickup, which was later identified at the murder scene in Jonestown, officials said

Twenty minutes later, authorities said, Devoe strode into O'Neill's in Marble Falls with a gun and in a feverish rage. They said he planned to kill a former girlfriend but instead shot bartender Allred in the chest after he intervened.

In online profiles, Devoe cultivated a ladies' man mystique while emphasizing his down-to-earth personality. He called himself "Wolf" and stressed the importance of just "being myself." On a dating Web site, Devoe wrote he was "looking to met a friend and what ever happens from there."Among his interests listed on that site were cuddling, dancing and "setting by the fire."

He also had a raunchier side. He called himself a swinger on one site, and his MySpace friends included several scantily clad women whose pages feature lewd photos and Playboy bunny icons. The youthful face of Haylie Marie, Griffith's daughter, stood out among the other women's. Her defiantly sexy pose couldn't hide her 15 years.

Griffith had dated Devoe for about three months two years ago, her ex-husband told police. Her son Jonathon said that he had warned her about Devoe but that she told him she was glad to have a boyfriend who treated Haylie well.

Eric Griffith, Paula Griffith's brother, said he thinks Devoe called on Paula for refuge after the Marble Falls killing. He thinks his sister refused and paid with her life.

Investigators say Devoe probably fled in Griffith's 2001 Saturn station wagon.

Jonathon Griffith, 29, of San Antonio, Paula's son and Haylie's brother, said the pair loved spending time at the lake and were "always kind to everybody."

Griffith and other relatives of the victims took solace in Devoe's capture.

"At least he's going to fry Texas style," said Danielle Hensley's father, Darryl Gribble.

Investigators said Devoe may have decided to return to familiar territory when he began driving to Long Island over the weekend. They said it appears he drove the Saturn as far as Greencastle, Pa., near the Maryland border. There he acquired another car, possibly after killing the owner, officials said.

He drove that vehicle to Shirley, where he has many family members, including his ex-wife, Charlene Purdoski, and their teenage son, also named Paul.

Neither was at home Monday, but a friend of the teen's, 16-year old Doug Jensen, said that the two knew Devoe was being sought in Texas and were afraid he was headed to their home to do them harm.

Devoe was captured at the home of a 61-year-old friend, Gerard Baldoni. U.S. marshals said a gun was found in the home, but they did not know if it was related to any crimes.

Devoe was charged with murder in the Marble Falls slaying and faces a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Hector Gomez said. Marshals said he was expected to be arraigned today in New York's Suffolk County.

For Doug Powell, an engineer who rented a West Austin house to Devoe from the fall of 2005 to October 2006, the violence was hard to fathom. He said Devoe was a courteous tenant who worked as a handyman and did renovations to the home on a wooded cul-de-sac near Barton Creek Elementary School. Powell's own house is on the same property.

Powell said he never saw the crowd of motorcyclists Devoe claimed on his MySpace page to have run with. He was aware of Devoe's criminal history but never saw any violent tendencies.

"I just could not believe he may have shot someone in a bar," Powell said. "But this other crime had so many other levels of terrible."

Powell was so spooked that he stayed up all night with a shotgun, he said.

District Attorney Sam Oatman, who serves both Llano and Burnet counties, said people in the area were very glad Devoe had been captured.

"This is a very dangerous person, and we are looking into other possible victims," Oatman said.

Oatman said he plans to file murder charges against Devoe in the Marble Falls killing and possibly assault or attempted murder charges because of threats made at the bar. He said he also plans to file aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder charges for shooting at Wilson.

Devoe has two warrants out for his arrest in Suffolk County for a criminal contempt charge and a charge of disorderly conduct, according to District Court records. He also had three drunken driving convictions in New York state and served about five years for his third conviction in 1997. In 2003, he was convicted of aggravated harassment and criminal trespass, according to the records.

Having some ambivalence about the death penalty myself,especially here in the killingest state in the union(Texas accounts for a THIRD of executions nationwide since the death penalty was reactivated)I have some serious problems with this asshole.
I'm leaning strongly toward the "fry Texas style" solution.