Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

Ok monkeys, this one is in Reno, the town I live in.  The brief story here doesn't give a whole lot of details.  I was listening to the radio this morning and they say Briana disappeared between 4:30 am and 9:00 am Sunday morning from a friends home.  The home is located in the University of Nevada Reno area.  From what I know it is not "on-campus" like a dorm but one main street divides the homes, apartments and dwellings of most of the housing areas for students so it is very close to being on campus.  Her phone and some ohter personal effects were left at the home and blood was found on her pillow.  This article doesn't state it and I wish I had a pic but she is petite and has long brown hair and blue eyes.  I will update as updates are available.

http://www.krnv.com/global/story.asp?s=7750893

Reno Police detectives are asking for help to find a Reno teen who has been missing for more than 24-hours. Police say 19-year old Brianna Denison was last seen around 4 o'clock Sunday morning at a home on Mackay court.

Denison is described as 5-feet tall, 98 pounds and was last seen wearing pink sweats and a white tank top.

If you have information please call secret witness as 322-4900

I have mapquested the area and it is very close to campus as i suspected.  The area it shows is populated by students mostly and located just a few miles North of the downtown area.  This area is known for housing students and is dense with apartments and older homes. It is within walking distance of the campus itself and is a few streets away from the main dorms, the sports complexes and the education buildings.  More as I get more info......

Reno Police say the disappearance of 19-year-old Brianna Denison is suspicious.

Brianna's aunt is presently organizing a team of family and friends who will be heading out a bit later today, Monday morning, to post flyers around town.

Denison was last seen around 4 a.m. Sunday. A family member says Denison had been out with friends, and went to a friend's house to sleep on the sofa. A few hours later, Brianna had vanished.

Brianna's aunt says blood was discovered on Brianna's pillow. She also says Brianna's cell phone and purse were left behind at the friend's house. That house is near Mackay and College, not far from the UNR campus.

Brianna is a student at Santa Barbara College. She has family in Reno.

She is five feet tall, 98 lbs, has long dark hair and blue eyes. She may have been wearing light blue or pink sweat pants and a white tank top. Anyone with information is asked to call Secret Witness at 322-4900.
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/13942957.html

Thank you Nut.  Every bit of info we find is key now.  Unfortunately we are being hit with some snow right now and it is supposed to keep coming through Thursday. 

>>>>Snipped>>>>

Cops are looking for a tan-colored, later-model GMC or Chevy Suburban and a white male, about 45 years old, who might be of Latin descent.

"He's certainly a person of interest. We're treating him as a person of interest, not a suspect," McDonald said.

The man driving the vehicle had picked up a friend of Denison's earlier that evening from the party both were attending when the friend was trying to hail a cab and dropped her off without incident at Mackay Court, the residence where she lived and Denison was staying, McDonald told FOXNews.com.

"We don't know who he is," McDonald said. "We know he was outside the residence, but he could have come back. ... Maybe he saw something or knows something that might be of interest."

Denison, who is from Reno, is described as white, 5-feet tall, 98 pounds, with long dark brown hair and blue eyes.

Investigators say she may have been wearing light blue or pink sweat pants, a T-shirt and no socks or shoes when she disappeared. Her purse and cell phone were found in the house, but a brown stuffed bear that belonged to Denison is also missing, police said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324345,00.html

By DAVID SCHOETZ
Jan. 21, 2008
   
 Police in Reno, Nev., want to talk to a man they believe may have information about a 19-year-old woman's "suspicious" disappearance Sunday.

Brianna Denison was last seen around 4 a.m. Sunday when she went to sleep on the sofa at a friend's house near the University of Nevada in Reno. The two had been at a party at the Sands Regency Hotel Casino earlier in the night. The friend gave Denison a blanket and pillow before going upstairs to bed.

When the friend came downstairs later in the day, Denison was missing and a bloodstain the size of a "silver dollar" was on the pillow she had been using, Lt. Robert Macdonald, a spokesman for the Reno Police Department, told ABC News.

The blood caused some alarm for police, Macdonald said, but the bigger concern was that it appeared Denison had disappeared wearing no shoes and only the sweats and a light shirt she'd worn to bed. Her cell phone and purse had also been left behind.

"It's all very suspicious at this point," Macdonald said. "She hasn't attempted contact with any family members or friends." Denison's mother, her only surviving parent, has been in contact with authorities and her boyfriend, who lives in Oregon, was in his home state Saturday night.

The search intensified today when authorities announced that they wanted to talk to an unnamed man in his 40s who may have information on Denison's whereabouts.

A man in a sport utility vehicle picked up one of Denison's friends around 1 a.m. Sunday at the Sands Regency Hotel Casino after she failed to find a taxi. The driver dropped her at the house where Denison was staying. While the ride was without incident and police are not calling the man a "suspect," they say that he is a "person of interest" who may know something about the disappearance. "It's a leaf that's unturned," Macdonald said.

Reno police released a surveillance image showing the man's beige or light-brown Chevrolet Suburban leaving the casino's parking lot Sunday morning. The unidentified driver is described as a white male, possibly of Latin descent, with a medium build. He was well-dressed, according to police.

Authorities also announced that a brown stuffed bear about 2 feet tall was missing from the house where the man had dropped Denison's friend. Denison's friend gave her the stuffed animal to use as an additional pillow before the two went to bed around 4 a.m. Sunday. Denison was reported missing around 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Macdonald said that there was no indication Denison had been drinking heavily or using drugs Saturday night and that none of the roommates who live in the house reported any altercations at the casino party. The house, which is rented by college students, was not locked during the night, so there is no evidence of a forced entry.

Denison is a student at Santa Barbara City College in California but is from the Reno area.

She is described as 5 feet tall, weighing 98 pounds, with long dark brown hair and blue eyes. Detectives say Denison may be wearing light-blue or pink sweat pants and a white tank top.

Santa Barbara City College Student Brianna Denison Missing in Reno, NV … Man Sought in Disappearance

(http://missingexploited.com/picture_library/Brianna_20Denison_small.jpg)

http://missingexploited.com/2008/01/21/santa-barbara-college-student-brianna-denison-missing-in-reno-nv-man-sought-in-disappearance/

(sorry, fixed the link)

19 year old white female
five feet tall
98 lbs
long dark hair
blue eyes
She may have been wearing light blue or pink sweat pants and a white tank top

Denison was last seen around 4 a.m. Sunday. A family member says Denison had been out with friends, and went to a friend’s house to sleep on the sofa. A few hours later, Brianna had vanished.

Brianna’s aunt says blood was discovered on Brianna’s pillow. She also says Brianna’s cell phone and purse were left behind at the friend’s house. That house is near Mackay and College, not far from the UNR campus

Authorities have announced that they wanted to talk to an unnamed man in his 40s who may have information in Brianna Denison’s whereabouts. The man dropped Denison off at the house where she was staying after she failed to get a taxi cab.

A man in a sport utility vehicle picked up one of Denison’s friends around 1 a.m. Sunday at the Sands Regency Hotel Casino after she failed to find a taxi. The driver dropped her at the house where Denison was staying. While the ride was without incident and police are not calling the man a “suspect,” they say that he is a “person of interest” who may know something about the disappearance. “It’s a leaf that’s unturned,” Macdonald said.

(http://missingexploited.com/picture_library/Brianna_20Denison_11_small.jpg)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4166053&page=1

Police today released surveillance image of a car driven by a man who they say may know something about Denison’s whereabouts.

“We’re treating this as an abduction case right now,” Lt. Robert McDonald of the Reno Police Department told FOX News. “A small amount of blood on her pillow is of interest to us.”

Cops are looking for a tan-colored, later-model GMC or Chevy Suburban and a white male, about 45 years old, who might be of Latin descent.

“He’s certainly a person of interest. We’re treating him as a person of interest, not a suspect,” McDonald said.

The man driving the vehicle had picked up a friend of Denison’s earlier that evening from the party both were attending when the friend was trying to hail a cab and dropped her off without incident at Mackay Court, the residence where she lived and Denison was staying
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324345,00.html

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080121/NEWS18/80121024&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Brianna's friends set up Facebook site
STAFF REPORT

Posted: 1/21/2008

Friends of missing teenager Brianna Denison have set up a "Find Bri" page on the popular social networking site Facebook.com.

The page, set up by Ashley Stern of Colorado, shows a photo of the 19-year-old who has been missing since late this weekend.

Reno police believe a 19-year-old woman who disappeared from her friend’s home early Sunday morning near the University of Nevada, Reno was abducted.

The page can be found here and encourages anyone with information about Denison to call a number listed at the bottom.

Sorry, there was supposed to be a link on the word "here"  but here is the address anyway
https://www.facebook.com/login.php

Sorry guys, i'm not on my game today.  Here is the actual page address
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22950712008

FACE BOOK PAGE:

(http://missingexploited.com/picture_library/Brianna_Denison_FB_thumb.jpg)

http://tinyurl.com/2xdkrl

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/555365/reno_teen_brianna_denison_believed.html

Reno Teen, Brianna Denison, Believed to Be Kidnapped
By Andrea Coventry

Reno teen, Brianna Denison, believed to be kidnapped: On January 20, the Reno Gazette-Journal posted an announcement by Reno police, asking for information on the whereabouts of 19-year-old Brianna Denison. Police are reporting the circumstances of her disappearance as being "suspicious" but have not clarified their meaning. They say that Brianna was last seen at 4 a.m. early Sunday morning at 1395 Mackay Court, which is close to the University of Nevada. Her description is of being white, 5'0", 98 lbs., long dark brown hair, and brown eyes.

She was probably wearing a white tank top with light blue or pink sweatpants. On January 21, police also posted an update, asking for information on the whereabouts of a man wanted for questioning. He is described as being a 45 year-old white man, driving a beige or light brown Chevrolet or GMC Suburban. While not considered a suspect, police believe he may have some vital information. Police also said that they have discovered the disappearance of a two-foot tall brown stuffed bear with white on its belly and multi-colored balloons, which is likely in Denison's possession.

News of yet another female college student disappearance can't help but bring to mind other recent kidnappings. The most famous one of late is that of Natalee Holloway. Almost three years ago, on May 30, 2005, Holloway disappeared while vacationing in Aruba with classmates on a senior trip. Suspects included some young men with whom she was hanging out. No trace of her has ever been found, and Aruba just ended its probe for any further information.

Another recent, and somewhat controversial, disappearance of a young woman was the kidnapping of Latasha Norman. She was abducted, and later murdered by her boyfriend Stanley Cole. She was missing for over a week before her boyfriend led authorities to her body. ABC News correspondent David Schoetz wrote that it was considered controversial because it didn't receive as much media attention as other famous kidnappings, such as Natalee Holloway or Stacy Peterson, probably because she was black, according to the Jackson, Mississippi Chief of Police.
Controversial or not, many young college-aged girls are being kidnapped. So how does a girl protect herself?
Tried and true advice encourages women to always be aware of their surroundings. Take self-defense classes. Carry pepper spray and learn how to yell your head off. Follow that woman's intuition and try to not put yourself in a dangerous situation. Use the buddy system.
Most college and universities have written information regarding their policies and in-house security. Refer to your college handbook, contact campus police and local police for more specific help in your area.
Also, check out a book called Girls Fight Back!: The College Girl's Guide to Protecting Herself by Erin Weed. Arm yourself with knowledge, and you will arm yourself with power.

(http://media.graytvinc.com/images/Bri-Dennison.jpg)

http://www.kolotv.com/

Family Offering Reward For Missing Woman
(snipped)



IMO, it doesn't sound good for her.  Hope I'm wrong.

This is a very strange case for sure.  She was asleep on the sofa and just disappeared?  How odd, what is the background on this girl?  Does her family have anything that would cause a kidnapper to think he could get money for her?  This guy that gave the ride has to be found...interesting to me he's no where around.  hmmmmm

my son is in college.  One thing I've learned from his experience of living on campus away from home is that it is common practice to not lock your doors (just in case a friend needs a place to crash)  Its a trust/respect issue with these kids. They don't think beyond that to a safety concern. Commonplace frat houses are within housing areas as what has been described to where she is,  they never lock their doors. 

I hope this serves as a wake up call for college students, that they need to practice safety proceedures for themselves and where they live, as they don't live alone, they most always have roommates.

I sure hope she turns up safe

Heard last night that the guy walked into the police station and is no longer a person of interest and they are not looking for a similar car. His story checked out.

Also at this point there is no interest in the boyfriend.

Thanks for the update.  There's so little info being released.  Nothing from her friends, neighbors.  Either the police are keeping clues under wraps while they investigate or they have nothing to go on. 

Yes, the guy that provided the ride seems to be answering any questions and the boyfriend must have been cleared also.  I don't have a good feeling about this...maybe a kidnapping gone bad...if there is such a thing. 

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080123/NEWS18/80123008&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
Dog turns up nothing in Denison search

Posted: 1/23/2008


SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison

A search dog revealed no new clues late Tuesday in the search for a 19-year-old missing since Sunday, the Reno Police Department reported Wednesday.

The dog searched in the area around the 1395 Mackay Court home where Brianna Denison was staying Sunday morning when she disappeared, the police department said.

The dog, provided by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, searched for about two hours in a three-block area around the Mackay Court residence, police said. It completed its search about 6:30 p.m. as temperatures dropped and a light snow began, police said.

Police had already searched the area, including nearby Rancho San Rafael Park, on Sunday using dogs, but police wanted to search again before the next snow storm. Police have continued to canvass the neighborhood, interviewing residents and distributing flyers with Denison’s photo.

The Regional Sex Offender Unit, which includes officers from the Reno and Sparks police departments and the sheriff’s office, are also interviewing nearly 100 registered sex offenders reported living within a mile of the Mackay Court residence and will contact more than 1,700 sex offenders registered in Washoe County.

A man and vehicle earlier sought as being of interest in the investigation were located Tuesday. The driver came forward after seeing media coverage about the ongoing investigation and met with Reno police detectives who said Tuesday evening that he had no involvement in Denison’s disappearance and is no longer considered a person of interest. He gave a friend of Denison’s a ride to the Mackay Court address.

Denison was reported missing Sunday by a friend with whom she was staying the night at the Mackay Court residence. She is described as being a white female approximately 5-feet tall with long dark brown hair and blue eyes and weighing about 98 pounds. She was last seen wearing pink sweatpants and a white tank-top shirt. A brown stuffed bear with white and multi-colored balloons on the belly, approximately 24-inches tall she was using as a pillow was missing from the area where she was sleeping. However, her cell phone, purse and clothing, including two pairs of shoes had not been disturbed. Denison was in Reno visiting her family during a winter school break and was scheduled to return to classes at Santa Barbara City College this week. She routinely kept in contact with her family, but has not been heard from since she was last seen at about 4 a.m. Sunday.

A 24-hour tip line has been established by the Reno Police Department Monday to gather information from the public to assist in the investigation and detectives are following up on information provided on the tip line at 745-3521. Information can also be called into the Secret Witness Program at (775) 322-4900, or the Reno Police Department Detective Division at 334-2115.

Tuesday, the Reno Police confirmed the Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially joined the investigation into Denison’s disappearance and probable abduction, and this afternoon said two investigators from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are also joining the investigation.

Reno Police detectives are also awaiting results of tests conducted on a silver dollar sized spot that potentially could include blood found on a pillow she was using.

While detectives say that at this time there does not appear to be a connection between Denison’s disappearance, and two assaults on female college students near the University of Nevada Reno campus late last year they are not ruling out the possibility as the investigations into those incidents continue.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080123/NEWS01/801230437/1002

Police intensify hunt for woman
JACLYN O'MALLEY
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 1/23/2008
String of cases near UNR leaves students frightened 

REWARDS OFFERED

A $100,000 reward is being offered by Brianna Denison's family for information about her disappearance. Secret Witness, which takes tips at 322-4900, is offering $2,500 for information leading to an arrest.

Denison is 5 feet tall and 98 pounds and wore a thin sleeveless top and either blue or pink sweatpants. She was last seen about
4 a.m. Sunday sleeping on the couch of a home at 1395 MacKay Court.
TIP LINE
A 24-hour tip line has been established at 745-3521. Detectives can be reached at 334-2115.

Police trying to find a 19-year-old woman who vanished under suspicious circumstances from her friend's house are getting some help from the FBI, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the University of Nevada, Reno.

Reno police announced Tuesday that an FBI agent has been assigned to the investigation into the disappearance of Brianna Denison. That will give detectives access to the FBI's additional resources and equipment.

Authorities said they have no evidence that she was taken out of state, which is the usual reason the FBI would enter a case.

University of Nevada, Reno police Chief Adam Garcia said he has assigned one of his detectives to the investigation, while two investigators from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have joined the effort.

Denison was last seen about

4 a.m. Sunday at a home at 1395 MacKay Court near the UNR campus. Her family said Denison always stays in touch. Her lack of contact has them concerned.

Authorities said they have no evidence connecting two assaults last year on female UNR students in the area with Denison's disappearance.

Sgt. Gerald Rhodes, head of the regional Sex Offender Notification Unit, said his detectives are interviewing the nearly 100 registered sex offenders who live within a mile of the MacKay Court home. One of those offenders is considered a high risk to reoffend.

Rhodes said his crew also will contact the more than 1,700 registered sex offenders in Washoe County and elsewhere in the state as part of the Denison investigation. This is routine in such cases.

Police said they have received many calls to their tip lines, but none have been significant. Rhodes said there were at least two calls from people who reported having a premonition about Denison's whereabouts.

Police said late Tuesday night that a man they had wanted to question, who gave one of Denison's friends a ride home earlier that morning, has been cleared as a suspect and knew nothing about her disappearance.

Denison's friend had flagged down the man in the parking lot and asked him for a ride home, said Lt. Robert McDonald, head of the robbery/homicide unit. He seemed to be perturbed she was asking a stranger for a ride but told her to get inside. They did not speak during the ride, and he did not enter the home, authorities said.

The friend arrived home about 2 a.m., about two hours before Denison and a friend arrived

In anticipation of an upcoming snowstorm, authorities Tuesday recanvassed the area, looking for possible witnesses or clues, who was 5 feet tall, less than 100 pounds and had long dark hair. Searchers with dogs also searched isolated areas throughout the county and near the university.

Lauren Denison, Denison's aunt and family spokeswoman, said Tuesday was a crucial search day for her niece because of impending bad weather.

"If she is out there in this weather, it really concerns us," she said.

Police are awaiting lab test results to determine whether a silver-dollar-sized stain found on Denison's pillow was blood and to whom it belonged.

McDonald said Denison is classified as a missing person believed to have been abducted. The last time she communicated with anyone was at 4:23 a.m. Sunday when she sent a text message to her boyfriend in Oregon. Police said he is not a suspect and has been interviewed by detectives.

Denison is a psychology student at Santa Barbara City College in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a Reno High School graduate. Her family lives in Reno.

Before she disappeared, Denison had been involved in activities associated with the SWAT 72 college snowboarding event. It was her third year attending the event. After an evening out with her girlfriends, she returned to the MacKay Court home and went to sleep on a couch near an unlocked glass door.

Her friend, K.T. Hunter, 19, went to sleep in her locked bedroom with her dog. Denison was sleeping right outside her door. Hunter and another roommate sleeping upstairs said they did not hear any disturbances.

Police said there appeared to be no signs of struggle in the house. A brown teddy bear Hunter gave Denison to support her pillow is missing.

Police said Denison left behind her clothing, purse and cell phone. They believe she might have been barefoot and wore a sleeveless shirt and sweat pants. The temperature Sunday morning was about 33 degrees.

Denison's family said she was expected to return to school in Santa Barbara sometime this week.

Police and her family are hoping the national news coverage will help bring her home safely.

"We are hanging in there and being strong so we can get her name and face out there and tell the world what a fabulous young woman she is," Lauren Denison said. "If the abductor has been watching television, I want to say, 'Do the right thing, and bring her back. Just drop her off somewhere.'

"Bring her back."

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080123/NEWS01/80123061&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Family keeps hope for missing woman
JACLYN O'MALLEY
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 1/23/2008
SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison

Four days after 19-year-old student Brianna Denison disappeared from her friend’s house in Reno, family members said Wednesday they are keeping alive hope she will return safely.

“We have completely decided to keep this alive for Brianna,” said Lauren Denison, Brianna’s aunt. “We are real people with real emotions ... but we have put them on the back burner to be strong to do what it takes to get her back.

“But we are hurting.”

Lauren Denison’s comments came after she gave the latest in a flurry of national cable news interviews. Family members hope the media attention ensures Denison’s name and face remain in the public eye. National news shows began covering the story the day after the Reno High graduate disappeared early Sunday morning.

Reno police believe Denison, a petite woman weighing less than 100 pounds, was abducted from the couch she was sleeping on outside her friend’s bedroom door.

What appeared to be blood was found on her pillow, and her purse, cell phone and clothes remained at the home at 1395 MacKay Court near the University of Nevada, Reno campus. A teddy bear Denison used as a pillow also was missing.

“It’s really my sincerest hope that Brianna will come walking into the station and with no harm having been done to her,” Commander Ron Holladay said. “I am still hopeful she is in good health and is all right and has just been unable to contact us so far.”

Lauren Denison described Reno police efforts as “phenomenal” and said the family is thrilled with the recent addition of the FBI, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and UNR police to the investigation.

She said the family has hired two private investigators and is seeking psychics experienced with missing person cases.

“We’re not going to rule out any options,” she said.

Although Wednesday marked nearly four days since anyone last saw or heard from Denison, her family said they believe she is still alive.

“Anyone who had contact with her in the days prior to her disappearance, I urge you to call Secret Witness,” Lauren Denison said. “You may have an important piece of the puzzle that you don’t even realize you have.”

Denison was in Reno for winter break from her college in Santa Barbara, Calif., and had crashed on her friend’s couch after attending parties in downtown Reno, part of the SWAT 72 snowboard festival. The friend, K.T. Hunter, 19, is a University of Nevada, Reno student who went to high school with Denison.

Another woman was home when Denison disappeared. No one heard any noise and Hunter’s dog never barked.

The residents are sorority members and said college-age women are frequently in and out of the house.

The couch where Denison was sleeping was inches away from an unlocked glass front door without curtains.

The last known communication Denison made was at 4:23 a.m. Sunday in a text message to her boyfriend in Oregon. He has been cleared as a suspect.

Lauren Denison said two previous attacks on UNR female students late last year near campus have similarities to her niece’s disappearance. Police have said they have no evidence linking the assaults on pedestrians — an abduction and rape in December and a fondling in November.

Lauren Denison said she believes the kidnapper had been casing the house. The home at the corner of MacKay Court and College Drive is near Sierra Street, a high traffic area for pedestrians and vehicles.

But if her disappearance is not related to a predator, Lauren Denison said it’s likely someone who had contact with her niece in the days before she vanished.
“I find it hard to believe someone just walked up and looked through the door and then walked in and grabbed her,” she said.

Police have been interviewing 93 registered sex offenders who live within a mile of the MacKay home, who have been convicted of all levels of sex crimes, with one offender assessed as a danger to public safety. All of the more than 1,700 sex offenders in the county will be contacted as a routine part of this type of investigation, police said.

Holladay cautioned the public not to be alarmed that nearly 100 offenders live in the neighborhood where Denison disappeared. He said the number of offenders living near the campus is low compared to the number in the county. He said the department’s sex offender notification unit regularly monitors this population.

According to UNR police, 22 sex offenders registered with their department. Of those, nine had no danger assessment, meaning they had a low-level sex offense, eight had an assessment of low risk to reoffend, while five offenders were assessed a moderate risk to offend again. People who register with the campus police as a sex offender do so because they are students or work on campus.

It seems odd to me that Brianna was sleeping next to an unlocked glass door while her friend was sleeping in her locked room.  I also think it's odd that the stuffed animal used to bolster the pillow is gone, while the blood-stained pillow is there.  Maybe it's meaningless, but I think it's odd.

It does sound odd to me too.

Some one most likely has been watching the house and the kids coming and going and waiting for an opportunity.  It almost seems like some one took her while she was asleep, like scooped her and her make shift teddy bear pillow up, but I dont get the blood on the other pillow.

The girl sleeping in the locked room most likely locked her door so other kids (people crashing for the night) didnt wander into her room looking for a bed. (place to sleep)

This seems to me (based on all they have so far) like a Polly Klaas or Elizabeth Smart type of abduction.

Thoughts?

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080125/NEWS18/80125015&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Denison family hires private investigator
SCOTT SONNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Posted: 1/25/2008


RENO (AP) — With no suspects and little evidence, police investigating the suspected kidnapping of a young Reno woman appealed again to friends and neighbors to offer up even the most “inconsequential” information they may have about her mysterious disappearance six days ago.

“At this point in time we do not have anything that points to a specific suspect,” Reno police commander Ron Holladay told about 150 people who gathered for an update Thursday night at the student union of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Brianna Denison, 19, hasn’t been seen since about 4 a.m. on Sunday when she went to sleep on a couch at the home of a friend a few blocks from the UNR campus, about a half-mile from the downtown casino district.

Denison, a freshman at Santa Barbara City College who graduated from Reno High School last spring, was staying with friends who reported her missing about 9 a.m. because her cell phone, purse, shoes and other personal items were left behind.

In an appearance Friday on CBS’s “The Early Show,” Denison’s 15-year-old brother, Brighton, and cousin, Ashley Zunino, said they’re holding out hope for her safe return.

“We’re really doing everything we can and just trying to stay positive and hope that the best will come out,” Brighton Denison said. “I’m not sure where she is, but wherever she is, I just hope that she is OK and that we’re going to get her back.”

Zunino said her missing cousin “sounded really great” when she last talked to her on Wednesday.

“She was really happy to be with her mom ... she sounded really good,” Zunino said. “She’s not that kind of person — she doesn’t just disappear. Someone always knows where she is.

“(Police are) doing everything they can and they’re working around the clock really hard on the case to find her,” she added.

The family has hired two private investigators and also was seeking psychics, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

“We’re not going to rule out any options,” said Lauren Denison, the missing student’s aunt.

Police with search dogs have canvassed the neighborhood daily. They expanded the effort Thursday to nearby foothills where they’d not looked before and encouraged residents at the evening forum to continue to come forward with any information that might help find her.

“It is very important,” Holladay said. “It is really the little things that may seem inconsequential to you at the time — a person walking in the neighborhood who doesn’t belong. A person who hangs out that doesn’t go into a residence. A person watching you when you go out.”

Police have ruled out as suspects Denison’s boyfriend, who reportedly sent her text messages from Oregon in the hours before her disappearance, as well as a man who gave her friend a ride to the home from a Reno casino that early morning.

Holladay said they still were awaiting results of tests on a stain on a pillow on the couch to see if it was blood — as investigators suspect — and whether it matched Denison’s type.

He said there did not appear to be “any similarities” between the facts surrounding her disappearance and two unsolved cases of sexual attacks on women in the neighborhood in November and December.

Police said earlier Thursday they planned to interview 93 registered sex offenders who live within a mile of the Reno home where Denison last was seen. Holladay said only one of those was a “Tier 3” offender — the most likely to be a threat — and that he had been contacted and ruled out as a suspect.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080125/NEWS01/801250507/1002

Crowd at vigil chants, 'Come home, Brianna'
CYNDI LOZA
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 1/25/2008
Police say UNR campus still safe

Under light snow, friends and family of missing 19-year-old student Brianna Denison stood outside Reno High School on Thursday in a candlelight vigil chanting "Please, come home, Brianna."

"If you can hear me, whoever you are, just let her come home," Denison's aunt, Rena Denison Terry, said through tears. "We don't care about you. She's not done yet."

The event drew more than 300 people to Denison's

former high school on Booth Street. Nicole Bridges, a high school friend of Denison's who coordinated the event, said the rally aimed to show an unrelenting support for her missing friend.

"It's just to let people know that we're not giving up," said Bridges, 20, of Reno. "Our biggest mission is for everyone to keep their hopes up."

Bridges and others in the group wore a blue ribbon, Denison's favorite color, and played music during a photo slide show of Denison.

"We love her so much, and we're trying anything possible to get her home safely," Abbey Baker, 20, another former schoolmate who helped coordinate the event.

The Santa Barbara City College student was last seen about 4 a.m. Sunday at a home at

1395 MacKay Court. Reno police believe Denison, a petite woman weighing less than

100 pounds, was abducted from the couch she was sleeping on at a friend's home. Her cell phone, purse and belongings were not taken.

"I think the biggest reason we're all (at the vigil) is because we all believe in miracles," said Sharon Golden, 50, of Reno. "I think the bigger numbers help in prayer."

Denison had been at a concert and events, some in downtown Reno, during the SWAT 72 snowboard festival Saturday.

The last known communication Denison made was at

4:23 a.m. Sunday in a text message to her boyfriend in Oregon. He has been cleared as a suspect.

BRIANNA ZUNINO DENNISON added to FBI's Missing Persons Website:

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/kidmiss.htmhttp://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/dennison_bz.htm

I agree that it seems like someone knew there were students there, maybe watched the place.  I can't figure out the blood on the pillow and the stuffed animal being missing while the pillow is left behind.  They haven't mentioned any signs of a struggle, but if she was sleeping, no doubt a big guy could have her out the door before she could wake up and fight back.  Or maybe the blood on the pillow is the result of a struggle.  I'm wondering if the stuffed animal had more blood on it and the perp didn't see what was on the pillow.  I wish there was more news and info.  There are too many cases like this and we need to tell thugs and creeps that it is NOT open season on our young women.  Somehow. 

Police urge patience in missing woman case

Reno officials say kidnapping possible

Jan. 26, 2008


RENO -- With no suspects and little evidence, police asked the public for patience as they investigate the suspected kidnapping of a young Reno woman and appealed to friends and neighbors again Friday to offer up even the most "inconsequential" information they might have about her mysterious disappearance six days ago.

Crime lab technicians have yet to determine whether a stain on a pillow at the suspected crime scene is the blood of Brianna Denison, Reno police spokesman Steve Frady said.

The 19-year-old college student hasn't been seen since about 4 a.m. on Sunday when she went to sleep on a couch at the home of a friend a few blocks from the University of Nevada, Reno campus, about a half-mile from the downtown casino district.

"We suspect it is blood," Reno police commander Ron Holladay said. "We are in the process of determining if it is Brianna's blood. It could be somebody else's blood. ... We're hopeful that will help us a little bit."

>>>the complete article

http://**/news/14450877.html

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/14469877.html

Detectives Have New DNA Information 
 
Posted: 4:04 PM Jan 27, 2008
Last Updated: 4:04 PM Jan 27, 2008
 
 
The Reno Police Department and the FBI are continuing to investigate the disappearance of Brianna Denison and the following information is being provided as part of a request for additional assistance:

Evidence obtained from the scene of Brianna Denison’s disappearance included DNA genetic samples. After analysis by the Washoe County Crime Lab, a positive link has been established between this case and a Kidnap and Sexual Assault case that occurred at a nearby residence on December 16, 2007 @ 2:05 a.m. The victim in the December case was also the victim of a recent (1/19/08) attempted burglary at her residence in the 1400 block of N. Virginia St. On November 13, 2007 shortly after 5:00 p.m., an unknown suspect sexually attacked a UNR student who was walking to her home in the neighborhood. That case is also being investigated as being possibly connected to those already mentioned.

 
Additionally, detectives have learned of new information relative to these three mentioned cases which is being distributed to the public. This information is relative to a possible suspect vehicle and a suspect description which are as follows:

Suspect vehicle: Extended cab pick-up truck or SUV, dome light above the windshield, tall enough that it requires a step up to gain entry, floor-mounted console that was described as “fairly skinny” that opens in front, blue and red LED read-out on the radio, cloth seats, automatic transmission. There was a baby shoe on the front seat floor board. There were 8 ½” x 11” white pieces of paper with typing on the floor board of the front seat.

Suspect: White male, approximately 28 - 40 years, long face with a square chin, taller than 5’6” but not excessively so, very strong but not with a significantly muscular build, a belly that was described as not excessively large and firm but not flabby, an “innie” belly button, a light covering of hair on his arms, no jewelry or a watch, facial hair about a quarter to a half an inch long below his chin and was soft and not prickly as stubble normally is, unknown if he had a mustache, brown head hair of undetermined style, normal speech with no accent or regional dialect, no smoker’s breath, no alcohol, no bad breath, no cologne or after-shave.

Suspect clothing at the time of the Kidnap/Sexual assault: red (not maroon) short sleeve shirt described as being made of material similar in feel to a Fubu jersey-type shirt (silk/rayon/polyester type) with a medium blue-colored neckline, short printed (possibly embroidered) word on the upper left breast area, another shirt underneath with wrist-length sleeves, unknown color pants – regular length – not jeans. The pants reminded the victim of basketball pants as the material was smooth but they made no noise when he moved and they had an elastic waist band and no zipper.

Case Summary and Other Details:

Brianna Denison was last accounted for at approximately 4:30 a.m., on Sunday, January 20, 2008. It is believed that the suspect encountered her sometime thereafter, at a time when most people were asleep. Because the suspect was out at an odd hour, he may have fabricated a story regarding his activities during the early morning hours of January 20, 2008. The suspect may be a resident of the neighborhood immediately west of the University of Nevada campus and/or may have intimate knowledge of the area. For reference, the three crimes in question occurred on the following dates and times: November 13, 2007 – 5:40 p.m., December 16, 2007 – 2:00 a.m., January 19, 2008 4:00 a.m., and January 20, 2008 – 4:30 a.m. Because of the nature of the crimes, please note that the information, e.g., height or weight descriptions, might not be completely accurate. Any information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, should be brought to our attention, including abrupt and noticeable changes in the behavior of a person that could be considered a suspect.

Genetic sampling (DNA) has been identified from the scene of Brianna’s disappearance and has been linked to the Kidnap/Sexual assault case as mentioned above. Additionally, the blood found on the pillow at the residence has been identified as belonging to Brianna. Her clothing at the time of her disappearance was described as a white tank top with pink angel wings with rhinestones on the back and word “Bindi” on the back. She was wearing pink sweats that had two distinctive brown stains on one leg.

People who know the suspect may not believe that he is capable of committing this type of crime and he may not necessary have a violent criminal history.

With the above in mind, citizens are asked to contact authorities with any potentially useful information even if it seems unimportant to them or they think that someone else has already filed a similar report or the information does not completely fit with previously reported information or other details contained herein. It is important to note that because the DNA that has been collected is valid and conclusive, any person that is brought to our attention can be easily and unobtrusively eliminated or identified as a suspect.

Information can discreetly be provided via telephone to the Reno Police Department tip line @ 775-745-3521.

 
 

Colors for RENO High School are red and blue.  Could this person be an alumni or work at Reno High?

http://www.mylocker.net/index.cfm?cat=outerwear&sc_id=NV8950917800

http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/reno/

This is all scary.  If the blood, on the pillow, was Brianna's, I wonder what was the DNA evidence, they found.  ::MonkeyShocked::

I was thinking the same thing Buckeye.  This is so very disturbing on so many levels.

  ::MonkeyShocked:: ::MonkeyNoNo:: ::MonkeyShocked::

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/NEWS18/80128023

Volunteer crews aid in Denison search
JACLYN O'MALLEY
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 1/28/2008
Modified: 1/28/2008
SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison

Reno police said this morning that volunteer crews from two national missing children’s organizations are in town to begin searching for Brianna Denison and clues to her disappearance.

The Laura Recovery Center for Missing Children based in Friendswood, Texas and the Polly Klaas Foundation based in Petaluma, Calif., are expected to begin volunteer searches Tuesday in the region.

Police say the groups will walk along U.S. 395 through Carson City and Interstate 80 through Fernley to Hirschdale . They will also be searching through state parks and some lakes and reservoirs.

No new updates were reported this morning into the 19-year-old’s disappearance following a development late Sunday that authorities used DNA to link the person who abducted Denison on Jan. 20 to the man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted a University of Nevada, Reno student on Dec. 16. The UNR student was assaulted and kidnapped blocks away from where Denison disappeared from her friend’s home at 1395 MacKay Court.

So far, no significant tips have been called in to police or Secret Witness. But police continue to urge anyone with information about anyone resembling the suspect or his vehicle to come forward, no matter how insignificant they believe the information is.

Police today have gone back to the area where Denison disappeared near the UNR campus with fliers about her abduction to see if they could generate any more clues.
Sunday afternoon, emergency dispatchers utilized a reverse 911 call system alerting the community about Denison’s disappearance and information about the suspect.

UNR Police Chief Adam Garcia said this morning that he urged students and residents in the area to focus on their personal safety and to lock their doors. He sent out a campus bulletin today updating students and staff about the developments in the case.

He also reminded students to use the campus escort program and to go to the UNR police Web site for information on safety training opportunities.
______________________________________________________________________________________I have decided that if I can volunteer and help, I am going to do it.  The weather is awful right now.  Snowing, cold and windy.  They are going to need all the help they can get.  I will have to wait for the weekend though as I work full time during the week and can't take any vacation days until after February 13th.  I am hopeful they will find her way before then.

Cops Link Missing Nevada Student and Earlier Sex Assault
RENO, Nev. —  Police said Sunday a positive DNA link has been established between the Jan. 20 abduction of a college student from a Reno home and a December sexual assault of another student who lived a few blocks away.

At a late afternoon news conference, Reno police commander Ron Holladay said investigators think the same unidentified white male in his 30s is responsible for the earlier assault and last week's kidnapping of Brianna Denison, 19, from a friend's house near the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

"Our chances of capturing the suspect are exponentially increased now because of the DNA," Holladay said. "He probably lives in the area. It's still my hope that Brianna is alive, and we're expending every resource possible to get her back safely."

Holladay said the match between DNA samples obtained from the scenes of Denison's disappearance and the earlier assault allowed investigators to make a major breakthrough in the case.

He said the victim of the earlier case was interviewed again after the match was made and a more detailed description of the suspect was developed.

That victim, a UNR student, was kidnapped outside her home on Dec. 16 and sexually assaulted. She also was the victim of a Jan. 19 attempted burglary at her home that may be connected to the same suspect, Holladay said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325888,00.html

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080130/NEWS01/801300438/0/NEWS18&theme=DENISON
Community finds ways to lend hand

Posted: 1/30/2008
Community rallies in Denison search
 
Along with national organizations and hundreds of search volunteers, others in the community are doing their parts to help find abducted 19-year-old college student Brianna Denison.

"This guy out there who did this, he is degrading the human spirit of this town," said Ward Ryan, a Reno man who sent e-mails about Brianna's disappearance to his friends in California and locally.

Like Ryan, others have turned to the Internet to saturate the public with Brianna's name, face and details of the case. Someone created a MySpace page at www.myspace.com/helpfindbrianna, and several blogs feature the case.

"Unless you really read about it, you don't really catch all the details," Ryan said of suspect and vehicle information about Brianna's abductor. "It's really important to get this information out there."

"What happened to this girl just seems so surprisingly easy," he said. "Someone grabbed a 100-pound girl and took her. So yeah, I am fearful for my daughter and my wife. But my gut tells me she's alive. We have to do all we can to help."

Businesses such as Silver Screen Printing, Fuel Printing and Nevada Blue Printing have donated either T-shirts with Brianna's picture or posters. Casinos also placed her photo and information on their marquees, and a Clear Channel Outdoor digital billboard at McCarran Boulevard and Greg Street is featuring information about the case.

-- Jaclyn O'Malley

This has me confused, or maybe the investigator speaking is confused......but he seems to indicate that the blood found on the pillow infact belonged to the perp. Maybe he covered her mouth and she bit his hand? ....don't know see what you all think.........

++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326405,00.html

Brianna Denison's Uncle on Break in the Case

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
>>>SNIP
JOHN GIBSON, CO-HOST: We begin tonight with breaking news out of Reno, Nevada: A major break in the case of missing college student, Brianna Denison. Police are calling it a huge lead. They have just linked the disappearance of the 19- year-old to another crime in the Reno area in December.

HEATHER NAUERT, CO-HOST: DNA evidence that was collected at the home where Denison vanished more than a week, positively matched the DNA that was gathered by investigators after the sexual assault of another female student. That assault occurred just blocks away and it took place last month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON HOLLADAY, RENO, NV POLICE COMMANDER: Our chances of capturing this person are, in fact, exponentially increased especially as a result of the DNA, and we have to point out that the Washoe County crime lab has done an excellent job in processing the scene, and that's how we managed to get that.

NAUERT: The man the police are now focusing on is a white male in his 20's with brown hair. He was once seen driving an extended cab pickup truck or an SUV with a dome light above the windshield. Also in his car, a baby's shoe. We're going to talk to Brianna's uncle, John Zunino in just a moment but first let's start with former NYPD detective and FOX News contributor, Bo Dietl. Bo, we're learning a lot from police about this guy and about the match here. What does this new information mean?

BO DIETL, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Well, I think it's very, very important to realize now. Now you have DNA from the sexual abuse of this other gal matches up to the pillowcase blood that was found when this other girl disappears. It is the same person that committed both of these crimes. Now, we have to find out who the person is. On the first sexual abuse case she's very definitive on the description who sexually abused her.

DIETL: And she talks about the description of his jaw and all that. So what we have now is the same person that committed these two crimes. We're hoping that the other girl who disappears is still alive and we all want to wish that she's still alive but we have that same person. Now what we have to do is have that DNA pop up. Like we have in New York State, they try to pass laws, anyone arrested for a misdemeanor has to give their DNA and their fingerprints which is so important, and this proves about this if that DNA on file, if this person was arrested before, they put it right into the computer and spit it out.

NAUERT: Got it. Why didn't cops say anything about this sooner, that they were concerned that these cases could be linked? We asked them about last week, they waved us off.

DIETL: Well, you know, as a detective who used to investigate homicides and people who are victims of crimes, we, the detectives don't want let the news know everything they have. They might be closing in on a suspect as we're talking right now. But they're not going to tell the news right now. All I know is definitive. We have the same person that committed a crime on two different people which is — it's good news as far as -

GIBSON: Let's go and talk to Brianna's uncle, John Zunino. John, this bit of news means what to you and your family?

JOHN ZUNINO, BRIANNA'S UNCLE: Well, it's our first big bit of sight of hope. We're actually very excited about it and hoping that this man was going to even return Brianna last night. We were setting up any minute for a return.

GIBSON: Why would you have thought that? What hint was there that he might be bringing her back?

ZUNINO: Well, I really don't see a choice for this man right now. It's like, he either returns Brianna or, you know, he's going to be facing, you know, life charges.

GIBSON: Did you — is there anything that you can tell us that hasn't come in what we already know, the details that Heather read about the physical description of this guy from the other victim, or that we have learned from police today? What else do you know, John?


     

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080130/NEWS01/801300440&theme=

DID YOU KNOW?

A Web site was launched Tuesday afternoon, serving as a clearinghouse of information on the disappearance of Brianna Denison. The site, www.briannadenison.com, features information about her abductor and details of the case, as provided by police. Photos are also on the site and it will be updated as new developments occur.

Anyone with information on the case is encouraged to contact the Reno police hot line at 745-3521, detectives at 334-2115 or Secret Witness at 322-4900. Secret Witness is offering a $2,500 reward for anonymous information leading to an arrest and prosecution.



Brianna Denison's family members Tuesday made a public plea to her abductor to release her safely.

"I want to reach out to this man," her mother, Bridgette, said. "It is so sad whatever happened to him that he would do something like this, but it's not Brianna's fault."

Nine days ago, Denison, 19, was kidnapped from her friend's home after she crashed on a couch after a night out with her girlfriends. Police have linked her kidnapping to a man who abducted and raped a University of Nevada, Reno student blocks away from where Denison disappeared at 1395 MacKay Court.

"My heart feels heavy for him," Denison's aunt, Lauren Denison said of the suspect. "Beyond just hurting Brianna's family, what about the people who care about him? He is someone's child. You know what? Just let Brianna go and get help for yourself."

Bridgette Denison offered to help the man obtain counseling.

"You know, I always told Brianna I wanted to be just like her," her mother said. "I'd tell her, 'Brianna, I want to be just like you -- practically perfect in every way,' just like Mary Poppins.

"Please, we just want her back," she said. "Please bring Brianna home."

The women, along with Denison's uncle and cousin, believe that Denison is still alive. They said they will not give up looking for her until she's found.

They also said they appreciate two national missing children's organizations that are in town coordinating volunteer searches for Denison.

"I will not be relieved until Brianna is home," her mother said.

Denison's uncle, John Zunino, said news of the DNA link to the UNR kidnapper and sexual assailant was startling.

"The worst of our dreams happened," he said, "but it was a giant relief to now have a suspect, and a focus to go towards. But it is bittersweet."

Police say the suspect likely lives in Reno and is familiar with the UNR area, and probably was prowling the surrounding neighborhoods.

Authorities say they are confident they will eventually identify the man, who so far has not turned up in the national DNA database for convicted offenders.

Police still are urging people with any clues, no matter how insignificant they seem, to call them.

"Someone out there in this community knows this man," Zunino said. "I believe she's still out there being held captive. We are needing someone's wife, girlfriend, brother, best friend, coworker, bowling league member, who knows something to come forward."

Denison's cousin, Ashley Zunino, said witnesses need to realize that the suspect is dangerous. Witnesses need to put themselves in Denison's family's shoes, she said.

"If this was happening to you, wouldn't you want to know?" the 19-year-old asked.

John Zunino said his niece, who is a world traveler, was the focus of a prayer during a recent Mass held in Rome, where Denison lived for one year when she was 14. Friends in Paris and both coasts of the country are also praying for her safe return, he said.

"All Brianna has done is put good out in the universe," her cousin said. "She would be asking why she's getting this horrible thing back to her. That's what we are all wondering: Why?"

______________________________________________________________________________________

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080130/NEWS01/801300440&theme=

Reward was unauthorized

Brianna Denison's family has not authorized a $100,000 reward for information leading to her safe return as previously reported.
The family said the information was reported by the media since Denison disappeared Jan. 20 but had not been authorized.
Secret Witness, though, is offering a $2,500 reward for anonymous tips leading to an arrest and prosecution.
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Reno police hot line at 745-3521, detectives at 334-2115 or Secret Witness at 322-4900.

I was hoping for some good news.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

Glad you guys are keeping the updates coming; with all the political coverage, I haven't been watching much news. 

http://www.krnv.com/global/story.asp?s=7781239

Four incidents near UNR all related

Posted: Jan 27, 2008 04:22 PM PST

Updated: Jan 30, 2008 06:42 PM PST

 
Reno police now believe four incidents targeting young women near UNR are connected.

On November 13, a man tried to kidnap a woman walking near the school early in the morning. 33 days later, on December 16, he kidnapped and raped another student before taking her back to her home. 34 days later, on January 19, the same man is believed to have broken into the home of his victim, but she had left the area. The very next day, police say the same man broke into the home where 19-year-old Brianna Denison was sleeping and kidnapped her.

A search dog was back on the scene at that home Wednesday, as police continue their investigation.

In front of the home where Denison vanished on January 20, a search dog tried again to pick up her scent. He was led to homes within a few hundred yards because police believe her assailant is familiar with the area and has targeted women there four times in the past ten weeks.

Now, they're asking neighbors to think back, whether anyone they know has suddenly changed his appearance, sold his vehicle or abruptly altered his behavior, just as the description of the attacker was released to the public.

At the command center set up at Circus Circus, the family has been joined by literally hundreds of volunteers who are finding a smooth-running organization when they show up to help.

 "We came in," Dawn Davis of the Laura Recovery Center said. "And they already had a well-organized group. We tweaked a few things and added some help."

 "This family rose to the challenge and are committed to bringing her home," Brad Dennis of the Klaas Kids Foundation said.

They are assigned grids to search are debriefed when they return and are sent out again. Brianna's family says they are grateful for the help.

"We have a lot of history in Reno," Lauren Denison, Brianna's aunt said. "And I always laugh when people say it's a well-kept secret. It's a phenomenal place with fabulous people."

The suspect is described as a white man, 28-40 years old, with brown hair, and a long face with a square chin. He has some facial hair under his chin and has shaved his pubic hair. He is driving an extended cab pickup or SUV; it has red and blue lights on the radio and a dome light over the windshield. There was a baby shoe on the front floor board, and some typed pieces of paper. If you have any information, contact the Denison hotline at 745-3521 or Secret Witness at 322-4900.

Police have found a 14-year-old boy missing since Tuesday night. Elsewhere, the search continues for a missing couple out of Eastern Nevada. Tom Garner and his wife Tamitha have been missing since Friday, after leaving Ely. Garner is 5'8" and weighs 180 lbs with black hair. His wife Tamitha is 5'5" and weighs 130 lbs with auburn hair. They were driving a gray 199 Dodge Dakota pickup, Utah license plate 795 URF.  If you have any information, call Lincoln County Sheriff's Deputies at 775-962-5151.

Brianna's uncle was on Greta's show tonight.  He said they need volunteers to search and thanked so many that already have.  Mark Fuhrman also said that a perp could leave the area, change his M.O.  They're asking people to come forward with what they know -- a former girlfriend, sibling, co-worker -- someone who knows this guy and knows there's something screwy about him. 

http://www.krnv.com/global/story.asp?s=7805649

Police release sketch of suspect in UNR campus sexual assault

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Sub3/7805649_BG1.jpg)

Posted: Jan 31, 2008 04:29 PM PST

Updated: Jan 31, 2008 04:42 PM PST

 
UNR assault suspect sketch
 
The UNR Police released a sketch today of a suspect who raped a female student on campus in October.  Police say the student came forward on Wednesday saying that she was sexually assaulted at gun point on the first floor of the Brian Whalen Parking Garage at 10 p.m. on October 22. 

The victim says the man attacked her from behind, knocked he down and held a gun to her head while he sexually assaulted her.  Police put together a composite sketch from the victim's description.  She describes him as a white man with light brown/dirty blonde hair.  He is 5'8'' to 5' 10'' with a slender to medium build. The victim said the suspect was wearing a dark hooded pull over sweat shirt with no zippers or markings, athletic type nylon silver sweat pants with black stripes, and white tennis shoes.

University Police would like to remind students to take advantage of the Campus Escort Services by calling 742-6808 or the police non-emergency line 343-COPS.  Police also released the following safety tips for students to keep in mind.

(snipped)

I saw that sketch on the news today and was going to see if someone could post it.  But Klaas, being some kind of wizard, has already done so.  Hopefully that sketch will nail this guy in short order. 

Volunteers search for missing teenager
SERIAL RAPIST SUSPECTED IN RENO CASE

Article Launched: 02/03/2008 01:42:29 AM PST

RENO, Nev. - Two weeks after she vanished from a friend's house in Reno, a 19-year-old woman was the target of a search Saturday by Nevada first lady Dawn Gibbons and hundreds of other volunteers.

Volunteers combed neighborhoods and wildlands around Reno in an effort to find any sign of Brianna Denison, who police think was abducted Jan. 20 by a serial rapist linked by DNA to a string of attacks near the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

Gibbons spent much of the day with a 14-member team conducting a grid search on the sage-covered lower slopes of Peavine Mountain above northwest Reno. Standing 20 feet apart, team members looked for clothing and other evidence.

Gibbons said any missing person case is tragic but the local disappearance struck home because her 20-year-old son, Jimmy, was a classmate of Denison at Reno High School.

"It touches your heart," she said. "She's a nice kid, a really nice kid. It helps when you're out looking for her, for anything that could find her. Obviously, we want her back alive."

Police continued to track down leads Saturday in the case that has put neighborhoods around the university on edge and prompted expanded campus patrols and escorts.

Denison, a student at Santa Barbara City College who was visiting her hometown over winter break, was last seen sleeping on a couch at a friend's off-campus rental house after she attended a party at a Reno casino.

Police have since said DNA evidence

links the suspected abduction to two other attacks on women near the university late last year, and that an earlier on-campus attack also could be related.

>>>>the complete article

Article Launched: 02/03/2008 01:42:29 AM PST

Still no word.  Pray.  Gotta pray for Brianna and all the missing and their families and searchers and police.  I understand what Dawn Gibbons is saying.  You wish you could do something.  Pray is something.  It's a big something.  But I wish I could do more.  Thank goodness that Red has pulled together such a good group of people who do whatever they can for these poor families. 

Hopefully, as the hoopla over Super Tuesday dies down, we'll get a little more news about this case and others. 

Psychic Information contained here and I have no way of verifying it but hope it will be  helpful.
  I meditated on the case and also touched the picture of the person posted here and immediately this is what I saw.
  I see a large metal Utility Building may be an older one.
  Steel Building much like someone who is self-employed may work from.
  I see objects which I cannot identify but get the feeling they are work related some sort of labor work.
  There are large sliding doors and I see the door closed from the left to the right.
  Inside to the right I see a large pool of blood and a dark haired woman lies on the floor near it.
  The Words:
  "He is now a Killer" comes to me
  I continue to get information which leads me to believe this man stalks young women and follows them home.
  I hear the words girlfriend and believe this man has stalked others in the home in the past and the night he kidnapped Breanna he may have been out to get anyone in the home should he get inside.
  Yesterday as I read the Breanna Website I see a snowy area and there appears to be a well worn path over a hill and the body appears to have been dragged over the hill and I see nothing else and I don't see the victim or the dragger just the path with small black flecks left behind and at this time have no idea what this signifies unless of course there is some sort of residue left behind by the killer who disposes of the body.
  I am sorry to have to post this because she is a beautiful girl and I am hoping I am wrong but my experiences in gathering this information in the past about other cases leads me to believe I am not.
   Words come to me about this case that says a witness might be in danger who can describe that man but after his picture has been made public that may no longer be true?

If you are a reputable psychic with abilities to help in solving crimes, I suggest that you call the tip line at (775) 745-3521 or the Reno Police Departments Detective line at (775) 334-2115. 

I'm sure any information you may be able to give will be appreciated.

I'm a former policeman in the Chicagoland area who investigates missing persons cases as a hobby.  I have used "psychics" on a regular basis and found some of them to be credible.  "CVT," who posted above, is pretty good at what she does.  Her reading coincides (somewhat) with a remote view done by Brian Ladd from briansdreams.com.  Brian is an exceptional paranormal who has a proven 90% success rate.  His work on the Meredith Emerson case is what brought the serial killer to justice.  Here is his link for Brianna Denison.

http://http://www.briansdreams.com/MISSING/publicr/603.htm

I advise everyone to read Brian's results.  If Brianna is still alive and is being held, she could be saved.  I have used Brian's remote views on cases and he is correct way more than he is wrong.

Another thing:  Brian did his remote view early-on in Brianna's disappearance, at a time when her abductor probably was holding her someplace.  CVT's "reading" is relatively new.  The obvious difference between them is CVT says she has been killed.  They both described metal "buildings."  One as a structure, the other as a sea container.  I believe her abductor either works or lives around the west end of Reno-Tahoe Airport.  Maybe even on the airport property.

How to help with Denison case

Posted: 2/10/2008
 

Law enforcement is asking for help as police investigate the suspected abduction of Brianna Denison, 19. Denison was abducted from her friends home on Jan. 20, near the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

THE SUSPECT

White male, 28 to 40 years old; long face with a square chin; 5 feet 6 inches, possibly as tall as 6 feet; brown hair, facial hair about a quarter to half-inch below his chin, shaved pubic region; "innie" belly button, belly firm, not excessively large; very strong but not muscular; speaks without accent or regional dialect.

THE VEHICLE

Extended-cab pickup with interior dome light above the windshield; floor-mounted console opens in front; radio has blue and red LED read-out; cloth seats, automatic transmission; baby shoe and typing paper on the front seat floor.

THE CLOTHING

Red short-sleeve shirt of material similar in feel to a FUBU jersey-type shirt (silk/rayon/polyester) with a medium blue-colored neckline, short printed (possibly embroidered) word on the upper left breast area; shirt with wrist-length sleeves underneath; pants with an elastic waist band and no zipper, like basketball warm-ups.

HOW TO HELP

Anyone with information can reach the Reno police hot line at 745-3521, detectives at 334-2115 or Secret Witness at 322-4900.

Secret Witness is offering a $2,500 reward for anonymous tips that lead to an arrest and prosecution.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080210/NEWS/802100337/1004

Retracing Janna Kelly's last known steps

 Feb 12, 2008 11:57 PM
GAINES TOWNSHIP -- With candles and prayer -- both spoken and in song -- friends gathered at Kentwood Community Church Tuesday to pray for Janna Kelly "to give us all strength and hope and faith in God," Janna Kelly's daughter, Dana Kelly, told 24 Hour News 8.

"And even maybe potentially my mom seeing it and the people out there who know something or are responsible seeing it and realizing how they impacted and pretty much destroyed so many lives."

The vigil comes as leads dwindle for investigators with the Grand Rapids Police Department. So 24 Hour News 8 is "rewinding" the story, tracing Kelly's last known steps in early December.

In the news that day: the aftermath of an Amtrak train that crashed in Chicago after leaving Grand Rapids, and new developments in the case of another then-missing man - Troy Tyo.

It was that day that coworkers saw Janna Kelly leave her office on Claystone Street, just off the East Beltline north of Woodland Mall.
 
Police believe she left around 6:30 p.m. in her white Acura, headed down the Beltline, and turned west on 28th Street to Michael's Craft Store. Her next trip, according to investigators was back down 28th Street to Breton Avenue, then north to her southeast side neighborhood.

A receipt from Michael's stamped 7:21 p.m. was found at her home.

Kelly didn't come to work the next day. That's when coworkers alerted police.

That same day, they found her wallet on the ground of a self-serve car wash on Burton Street near Kalamazoo Avenue. A day later, her car was found at Louise Street and Plymouth Avenue near Ottawa Hills High School.

Since then, searchers have spread out near Breton Village and even out to Ottawa County.  But there's been no sign of Kelly.

The case remains open.

Investigators say they are now waiting for test results from the Michigan State Police crime lab in Grand Rapids. The results are unlikely to reveal where Kelly is now, they say. But they are hopeful those results will reveal something about the days and hours leading up to her disappearance.

"It's moderately comforting," Dana Kelly said. "But we've been waiting for forensic evidence from the beginning. The process is slow, so we're still waiting and hoping that it will show something."

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7857859&nav=0RceeIbP

Im confused as to why this is here?

mmmmmmm...........looks like BB put the update in the wrong thread. It happens sometimes when we have a bunch of open windows w/ updates for several at a time. It is an oopsie.

Authorities Search DNA Backlog for Denison Clues

Posted: Feb 13, 2008 05:10 PM EST

Kellene Stockwell
Channel 2 News

DNA has linked her abductor to at least two other recent attacks around the University of Nevada. Washoe County Crime Lab's acting director hopes to have the backlog of DNA samples into the national database within 30 days.

Before adjourning the 2007 Legislative session, a new law started requiring all convicted felons to supply a DNA sample. Authorities hope they will find Brianna Denison's abductor through 3,000 samples taken from convicted offenders.

It's not the DNA from a crime scene; that sort of DNA is tested as it comes in then compared against the national database to find a match. "It is a fantastic thing that the Legislature gave us the ability to collect DNA samples from all convicted felons. It allows us to compare DNA from those individuals to unsolved cases," says Renee Romero.

The new law requires felons to pay a $150 DNA analysis fee, but that's only collected about 10% of the time. So for now they rely on grants and donations.

According to the FBI, nationally there are more than 5.2 million samples in the DNA database; about 26,000 of them are from Nevada.

We're told Nevada's backlog isn't that high compared to the rest of the country. "I think if you look across the country you're gonna have other states that have tens of thousands of samples."
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=7867876&nav=menu549_2

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS18/80215028
Body found in south Reno

Posted: 2/15/2008
 
Update: body found is female
 
Body found in south Reno
 
Channel 4 is reporting that a body has been found by police in a field close to Prototype Drive and Double R Boulevard in South Reno.

RGJ.com is following the story closely and will have a complete update shortly.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS18/80215029
Update: body found is female

Posted: 2/15/2008 

Update: body found is female
 
Police are swarming a vacant field with high-grass in South Reno after a woman's body was found there this afternoon.

The field is near Double R Boulevard and Sand Hill Road, Reno Spokesman Steve Frady said.
Frady said the body was found about 12:15 p.m. Frady said the body hasn’t been identified, and no other details about it were available.
Police are asking people to stay out of the area as they investigate. Police cars are lining roads near the field.
No other details were immediately available.
Check back on RGJ.com for details as we get them.

This area is the development where my mother lives.  It is at the south end of town where there has been a lot of development the last few years.  It is still richly landscaped with brush and open fields that harbor sagebrush and tumbleweeds.  It is my sincerest hope that this is not Brianna.  I will keep you updated as I get details.  This town has rallied big time supporting the return of this beautiful young woman.  I pray it is not her. ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://krnv.com/

Go to this site and click on the video.  Pretty sad.  The body was dumped on the side of the road.  I drove this road this morning.  Chilling really.

http://krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7879998

The Reno Police Department says it has found a body of a female in a field near Double R Boulevard behind Sand Hill in South Reno. The report came in around 12:13 Friday afternoon. 

Police have not identified the body, but a passerby told News 4 that he asked a police officer if the body was that of missing teen Brianna Denison.  He says the officer told him they are assuming it is her. 

Reno Police Department spokesperson Steve Frady says they won't know the identity of the body until autopsy results are released.  They believe that will be sometime tomorrow.

Police are asking the public to stay away from the area, so officers have room to do their work.

Stay tuned to News 4 and KRNV.com for more information.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS18/80215041&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
Police mum on ID of body found today
FRANK MULLEN
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 2/15/2008

Reno Police said it would be several hours before they had more information about a body found in vacant field in southeast Reno around noon today.

Reno Police spokesman Steve Frady said a worker returning to his job after lunch spotted the body and informed his supervisor, who called police at 12:13 p.m.
Dozens of police officers, investigators and crime lab technicians from Reno, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office and the Washoe County crime lab were on the scene at 4 p.m. as police erected a yellow curtain around the body and officers performed a meticulous grid search on foot in the grassy field near Sandhill Road and Double R Boulevard.
Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick was also on the scene. A handful of investigators in FBI windbreakers were also at the crime scene.
Although the crime scene was attracting an unusually large number of onlookers and media attention — due to speculation that the body is that of missing college student Brianna Denison — Frady said the number of officers on the scene was not unusual.
“Any time we find a body in a field or a remote area, we treat it the same way — we go over everything,” he said.
“We consider the whole field a crime scene

Police canvass area where body found
STAFF REPORT

Posted: 2/15/2008
Reno police officers are canvassing businesses near where a woman's body was found this afternoon in a South Reno field.

Jason Rosvall, who works at nearby Precision Tae Kwon-Do, said police officers are looking for witnesses and surveillance tapes.
“He just asked us some questions, then we asked him if it had anything to do with Brianna,” Rosvall said. “He put his head down and said, ‘Yeah, we think it does.’”
He said Prototype Drive appears to be blocked off and the entire field near his business is taped off.
“There’s probably a dozen cop cars or more,” Rosvall said. “From what I heard, the body wasn’t far off the road.”
Reno police have said the unidentified body was found about 12:15 p.m .

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS18/80215031

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS18/80215044&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
.
Searcher: Tell us if it's Brianna
STAFF REPORT

Posted: 2/15/2008 

Jacque Kuklinski stopped this afternoon near Double R Boulevard on her way home from work because she saw all the cop cars gathered.

She has searched for Brianna Denison since she went missing Jan. 20 -- mostly on Sundays and after work. She said she's worried that the body found this afternoon in a field at the intersection of Double R and Sand Hill Road is that of Denison.
"Well they would have to know by now who it is, and they need to say something," Kuklinski said of the body found. "There are so many people who care about her and they need to know if this is Brianna."
Police haven't identified the body and said no identification is likely until tomorrow.
"I'm terribly sad that this might be Brianna over in the field here, " said Kuklinski, who lives in Sparks.
She said she feels like her own daughter since she's been searching for Brianna and meeting the girl's family.
And she's angry with whoever took Denison.
"We stick up for our own here (in Reno-Sparks)," she said. "I'm sure he'll be found and he will pay for what he did."

Whether it's Briana or not, a family somewhere has lost a loved one. What an awful day for them.

I just said the exact same thing to my friend.  It is so sad that this should happen to anyone.  Someones daughter has passed, and at the hands of another.  It really is very sad.

Autopsy to Tell if Body Is Missing Reno Kidnap Victim

Saturday, February 16, 2008
RENO, Nev. —  Police were awaiting the results of an autopsy Saturday on a body found in a field to see if it was that of Brianna Denison, a 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago.

A worker found the woman's body about noon Friday in a brush-covered field on the city's south side near a light industrial area. The field is about eight miles south of the house near the University of Nevada, Reno campus where Denison was last seen in the early morning hours of Jan. 20.

"There has been a lot of speculation, a lot of rumor about a possible connection with the disappearance of Brianna Denison. At this point we have no information to link that case with this one," Reno police spokesman Steve Frady said.

About 45 law enforcement and crime lab personnel, including three FBI agents, remained at the scene until night fell Friday. Several were to remain on the scene overnight to keep it secure, Frady said.

"We're processing this as a crime scene. We do that with death investigations," Frady told The Associated Press. "They are gathering information and evidence and photographing the area."

Frady said the time and cause of death would be determined by the autopsy. Authorities have "no ID, not even a tentative ID," he said.

>>>>the complete article

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330890,00.html

Woman’s Body Found in Reno, NV … Is it Missing Brianna Denison?

http://scaredmonkeys.com/2008/02/16/womans-body-found-in-reno-nv-is-it-missing-brianna-denison/


Has Body of Missing Brianna Denison been Found … Body of Female Found in Field in South Reno, NV

http://missingexploited.com/2008/02/16/has-body-of-missing-brianna-denison-been-found-body-of-female-found-in-field-in-south-reno-nv/

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS18/80216003&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
Investigators back at site where body found

Crews have started searching for evidence Saturday in fields adjacent to where a woman’s body was found early Friday afternoon.

There are Washoe County Sheriff’s Office search and rescue teams searching fields adjacent to the field where the woman’s body was found near Sandhill Road and Double R Boulevard, Reno Police Department spokesman Steve Frady said.

“We’ll eventually get down to the primary field of search where the body was discovered yesterday,” Frady said.

There is a search dog looking for clues in the field where the body was found.

“We’re looking for anything that can help us piece the puzzle together,” Frady said.

The Washoe County Coroner’s Office reports the autopsy is tentatively scheduled for 9 a.m. for the body found on Friday.

One question that may be answered is if the body is Brianna Denison, 19, who was abducted nearly a month ago from a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno.

A worker from a nearby industrial complex spotted the body just after noon in a brush-covered field in southeast Reno. The field is directly across from one office and mixed-use industrial mall and behind another. The remains were found about 100 feet from the curb of Sandhill Road. The site is about eight miles south of the house where Denison was last seen.

Office workers in the area said the field had been covered in snow earlier in the week and that the snow melted over the past few days.

Brianna Denison search suspended today
TAMMY KRIKORIAN
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 2/16/2008
Crews searching for Brianna Denison suspended efforts Saturday, a day after the body of a woman was found in a vacant southeast Reno field.

“We don’t have confirmation that this is Brianna,” said Claudette Springmeyer, one of the team leaders.” We are waiting for results just like the family.

“We are not going to send any teams out there today,” Springmeyer said.

Today was the first day for the search crews to operate out of their new headquarters at the Center for Health at 645 Arlington Ave., after moving from the Circus Circus convention center.

There was a chaplain available Saturday for searchers to talk to and the chaplain led the group in a prayer.

Denison, 19, was abducted nearly a month ago from a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno. Crews have been assisting law enforcement in the search for Denison. There was a body found Friday near Sandhill Road and Double R Boulevard shortly after noon. They are conducting an autopsy that may determine the identity.

“If it is Brianna, there’s a possibility we may have you out picking up signs, but we don’t know that yet,” Springmeyer told searchers.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS18/80216007&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Police ID Body of Missing Reno Coed
Saturday , February 16, 2008


RENO, Nev. —

Police say the body of a woman found in a field in Reno is that of a college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago.

The body of 19-year-old Brianna Denison was discovered Friday in a grown-over lot by a business park on the city's south side. Police confirmed Saturday that the body was hers.

The spot is about 8 miles from the house where she last was seen early Jan. 20 near the University of Nevada, Reno.

Brianna Denison's aunt, Lauren Denison, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that she feared the worst and doesn't think her niece is alive.

Lauren Denison again pleaded with the public to come forward with any information about who might have abducted her niece

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330890,00.html

So sorry to hear this tragic news.

Me too. It's awful.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS18/80216014&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Police fear Denison killer may strike again
MARTIN GRIFFITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Posted: 2/16/2008

 

SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison
 

RENO (AP) — A 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago was strangled to death by a serial rapist who has attacked at least two other women and may strike again, Reno police said Saturday.

An autopsy confirmed a dead woman found in a field on the city’s south side on Friday was Brianna Denison and that she died from strangulation, Reno Police Deputy Chief Jim Johns said.

Her body had been in the field for more than a week about eight miles from the house where she last was seen in the early morning hours of Jan. 20 on the edge of the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, he said.

“I would say this is a serial rapist,” Johns said at a news conference. “We have two, probably three (cases) linked through DNA.”

“The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime,” he said. “I’m worried this guy is still out there and I’m worried somebody else is going to get hurt.”

UNR Police Chief Adam Garcia said campus officers will do all they can to support investigators “in hunting this animal down and bringing him to justice.”

Police said heavy snowfall over the past few weeks may have delayed the discovery of her body.

Denison was abducted Jan. 20 by a suspected rapist that police have linked by DNA to a string of attacks near the Reno campus. A student at Santa Barbara (Calif.) City College, she was visiting her hometown over winter break and last was seen sleeping on a couch at a friend’s rental house just off campus.

Denison’s disappearance generated an outpouring of support from the community. Hundreds of volunteers had aided in daily searches in and around Reno and electronic casino marquees featured her photograph.

One of the “Bring Bri Back” fliers with her photo and information about a suspect and suspect vehicle was tacked to a telephone pole on the corner of the field where her body was found about noon on Friday.

Police said DNA evidence links Denison’s kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late last year, and that an earlier on-campus attack also could be related.

__________________________________________________________________________
My heart breaks for this family and my community.  In my 20 + years of living here, no case has ever touched the community as deeply as this IMO.  I was moved to tears as I watched the press conference.  It felt like like I personally lost someone even though I didn't know her or her family.  This tragedy has affected us all here and I think it will continue to until we find this disgusting raping murderer.  For now, the family has asked the community to don blue ribbons in honor of Briana until her burial.  Mood= very somber

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS18/80216013&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Key things mentioned at Denison briefing

Posted: 2/16/2008
l
The body found Friday in southeast Reno is that of kidnapped college student Brianna Denison, the Reno Police Department announced today at a press conference.

Among the details provided by police:

Denison was strangled.
It was a “sexually motivated crime.”
Her body a field near Sandhill Road and Double R Boulevard for more than one week.
There is other evidence in the field.
Since the body was found early Friday afternoon, authorities have received reports of past suspicious activity.

Police also again asked for the public’s help in finding Denison’s killer. Anyone with information can reach the Reno police hot line at 745-3521, detectives at 334-2115 or Secret Witness at 322-4900. Secret Witness is offering a $2,500 reward for anonymous tips that lead to an arrest and prosecution.

Denison, 19, was abducted Jan. 20 from a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno.

A worker from a nearby industrial complex spotted the body just after noon in a brush-covered field in southeast Reno. The field is directly across from one office and mixed-use industrial mall and behind another. The remains were found about 100 feet from the curb of Sandhill Road. The site is about eight miles south of the house where Denison was last seen.

Office workers in the area said the field had been covered in snow earlier in the week and that the snow melted over the past few days.

The Reno Police Department continues to investigate the crime scene today.

Evidence suggests that Denison was kidnapped from a home by a man linked to two, possibly three other assaults in the area.

I was so sorry to read about Brianna today.  My prayers go out to her family and friends.  I pray also for her murderer to be found before he hurts another human being.  God bless Brianna.

My thoughts and prayers are with Brianna's family and friends.  We had hoped, due to the suspect's MO, that Brianna would be found alive. 

It sure feels as if our young people are under siege.  Campus shootings, high school shootings, and missing persons in their teens and early 20's seem to be prevalent. 

In Reno, a Body Is Found and Fear Rises
Feb 16, 7:01 PM EST
By MARTIN GRIFFITH
Associated Press Writer

 RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago was strangled by a serial rapist who has attacked at least two other women and may strike again, Reno police said Saturday.

An autopsy confirmed that a dead woman found Friday in a brush-covered field near a business park was Brianna Denison and that she died of strangulation, Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said.

Her body had been in the field for more than a week about 8 miles from the house where she last was seen early Jan. 20 at the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno, he said.

"I would say this is a serial rapist," Johns said at a news conference. "We have two, probably three (cases) linked through DNA."

"The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime," he said. "I'm worried this guy is still out there, and I'm worried somebody else is going to get hurt."

Campus officers will do all they can to support investigators "in hunting this animal down and bringing him to justice," said university Police Chief Adam Garcia.

Heavy snowfall over the past few weeks may have delayed the discovery of her body, police said.

Denison was abducted by a suspected rapist that police have linked by DNA to a string of attacks near the Reno campus. A student at Santa Barbara City College in California, she was visiting her hometown over winter break and was last seen sleeping on a couch at a friend's rental house just off campus.

DNA evidence links Denison's kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late last year, police said, and an earlier campus attack also could be related.

In that earlier incident, the attacker brazenly raped a woman at gunpoint in a garage where campus police park their cruisers.

Based on partial descriptions from previous victims, police have described the suspect as a white male between ages 28 and 40 and at least 5 feet 6, with a long face and brown hair. He was believed to have no accent or regional dialect.

he killer's familiarity with the city suggests he likely lives in Reno, Johns said, adding that he believes the "chances are very good" they will catch him.

"It could be tomorrow, next month, next year. We are going to find this suspect," he told reporters.

The killer probably lives near the campus just north of the downtown casino district or on the city's nearby northwest side, Johns said, and he may work closer to the city's southeast side, where the body was found.

"Somewhere in our community there is a wife, a mom, a girlfriend, a sister who recognizes this suspect. Likely he looks like somebody you would least suspect, but that is the person who is responsible for this crime," he said.

Publicity of the manhunt may cause the rapist to stop attacking, but "our absolute fear is he may re-offend," Johns said.

Denison's disappearance generated an outpouring of support from the community. Hundreds of volunteers aided in daily searches in and around Reno, and electronic casino marquees featured her photograph.

One of the "Bring Bri Back" fliers with her photo and information about a suspect and suspect vehicle was tacked to a telephone pole on the corner of the field where her body was found about noon on Friday.

Bridgette Denison, Brianna's mother, issued a statement on behalf of the family Saturday thanking police and the community for their help in the search for her daughter.

"On March 29, 1988, Bridgette and Jeffrey Denison were given the incredible gift of their daughter Brianna. On January 20, 2008, she became the daughter of our entire community," she said in the statement.

Bridgette Denison asked that every woman in the community "be diligent about their own safety."

"We ask once again that if there is anyone out there with information, we beg you to come forward. Now is the time."

Gov. Jim Gibbons issued a statement offering sympathy to the Denisons and urging the community to "continue helping law enforcement in the efforts to find Brianna's killer."

"Brianna's story has clearly captured the hearts of our entire comunity and state," he said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MISSING_WOMAN?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

Very scary situation out there isnt it?

My prayers are with Brianna's family and friends also.....I sure  hope they find this killer before he strikes again....

Did I hear correctly that this same rapist killer struck as far back as Oct?

Yes, he's linked to 2 maybe 3 other attacks. 

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/NEWS01/80219019&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
JACLYN O'MALLEY
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 2/19/2008
Modified: 2/19/2008
SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison: 1988-2008

Underwear found near Brianna Denison's body that were not hers.

Reno police are trying to identify the female who owned a pair of black Pink Panther thong underwear found with Brianna Denison’s body on Friday.

Lt. Robert McDonald said DNA of an unknown woman and the DNA of the man who abducted and strangled Denison were on the panties. McDonald said the underwear was found with Denison’s body but was not hers. The male DNA found on the panties is from the same man who committed at least two sexually motivated crimes against other young college women recently.

Police want to know if the underwear belonged to another victim who has not reported being assaulted or if they belong to a woman who may have dated someone and later noticed the underwear missing. It’s also possible the underwear were stolen in a burglary.

McDonald said it’s important the woman who owns the underwear come forward because the information she has may lead police to the serial sexual predator who killed Denison.

The thong-style underwear are black with cartoon character Pink Panther’s head and pink hearts on it. They appear worn.

Anyone with information is asked to call 745-3521 or Secret Witness at 322-4900.
Check RGJ.com later for more details.

I read in an article that this guy strikes every 33 to 36 days since October.  We are now on day 30 since he took Briana.  I wonder if he will strike again here or somewhere else.  The attention on this case is going to make it harder for him to keep up his usual pattern.  Beware everywhere.  You never know who might be hiding out in your towns too.

http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7895227&Call=Email&Format=HTML
Reno police say Brianna's killer may be taunting Police with new evidence

Posted: Feb 19, 2008 03:05 PM PST

Updated: Feb 20, 2008 08:43 AM PST   
   
Reno Police say they found a pair of women's underwear at the scene where they found the body of 19-year Brianna Denison. 

Denison was kidnapped from a home near the University of Nevada on Jan. 20 and found dead in a field South Reno on Feb. 15.

Police say the underwear they found at the scene did not belong to Brianna.  It contains the DNA of an unknown woman along with the DNA of the man who kidnapped and strangled Brianna. 

Reno's chief of police says the male DNA found on the thong was from the same man who committed at least two sexually motivated crimes against other women in the area. He says they are a critical piece of evidence that may have been dropped at the scene accidentally or perhaps left behind to "taunt the police and taunt the community."

Police are hoping that someone will recognize the distinctive pattern caricatures of the head of "Pink Panther" and pink hearts on the black thong and come to authorities with further information to help the investigation.

Police are also looking for a suspect they describe as a white man with light brown/dirty blonde hair.  He is 5'8'' to 5' 10'' with a slender to medium build.

Police are also looking for an extended cab pick-up truck or SUV with an interior dome light above the windshield. The vehicle is tall enough that it requires a step up to gain entry, but that step is not an added "aftermarket" step. There is a floor-mounted console described as "fairly skinny" that opens in front, and the radio has blue and red LED read-out. The vehicle also has cloth seats and an automatic transmission. There was a baby shoe on the front seat floor board, and 8 ½" x 11" white pieces of paper with typing on the floor board of the front seat.

If you have any information, call the 24 hour tip line at 745-3521 or Secret Witness at 322-4900.  Secret Witness is offering a reward for information.
_____________________________________________________________________________________How sick.  I can't wait until they get him, and they will.  Too bad public executions are a thing of the past. I'd love to throw rocks and fecal matter at this a-hole.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080221/NEWS01/80221043&oaso=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

Police to reinterview woman groped at UNR
JACLYN O'MALLEY
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 2/21/2008
SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison: 1988-2008
 
Reno police today will be re-interviewing a University of Nevada, Reno student who reported she had been groped by an unidentified man in mid-October as she was walking near campus.

As a follow-up to the October report she made to Reno police, the 22-year-old woman on Wednesday spoke with UNR police to make an official report with them, said UNR Associate Police Director Todd Renwick, who then issued a safety bulletin to students about her report that included safety tips.

Renwick said the timing of her meeting with UNR police had more to do with what was convenient scheduling for the woman.

Authorities on Thursday said they had no evidence to believe the incident was directly linked to the man who abducted and strangled Brianna Denison, 19, and earlier had sexually attacked at least two women, possibly three.

But police said they are still investigating any ties and are taking it seriously.

Reno police detectives had initially spoken to the woman on Jan. 29 who said she believed a fraternity member had played a prank on her, and could not describe his appearance, said Reno police Lt. Robert McDonald. Detectives at that time felt the incident was not connected to the Denison investigation or the sexual attacks because of the student’s feeling it was a prank, that it occurred at a different time than the other attacks and that she would not be able to identify the person. She did give some general descriptions such as a height range and that he had a “sharp nose.”

The suspect in the Denison case seems to have been targeting petite, college-aged women with long hair and attacking them from behind. The 22-year-old student is 5-foot-7 and 120 pounds. Her hair length unknown.

Another interview with the woman scheduled for later today will determine if the woman has any new information, McDonald said.

According to the woman’s report, she had been listening to her iPod when she was walking up 11th Street between Buena Vista and The Strand about 4 p.m. when a man approached her from behind, reached across her right shoulder and grabbed her breast. She screamed and the man fled.

During the November assault linked to Denison’s killer, a college student was pushed from behind in between parked cars and groped. She kicked and screamed at the suspect, who fled.

Three days after police publicized a pair of black thong Pink Panther panties, size small, that were found Friday with Denison’s body, the owner still has not come forward. Police believe she could have vital information to lead them to the sexual predator who killed Denison.

As the national news media continues to report on the Denison case, guests on shows featured on CNN and Fox News have stated her body was found posed, which indicates the killer was taunting police. They have also stated conclusions about the condition of her body and elements of the crime that police have not disclosed.

McDonald said it’s untrue that her body was posed, and that many of the guests on these television shows have been speculating.

“We have never released any information, nor are we about the condition of her body,” McDonald said. “We know it’s a sexually motivated crime and we’re not talking at this point about what that means. None of the investigators have ever made any comments about this.”

http://www.legacy.com/rgj/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=103956128

Brianna's obituary:

Brianna Zunino Denison, known for her million-dollar-smile and sparkling blue eyes, her tremendous outgoing nature and compassion, died in Reno, NV after being abducted on January 20, 2008. She was 19 years old.

Brianna was born on March 29, 1988. She was lovingly known by her mother as Breezy, because she reminded her of a “breath of fresh air on a cool summer day.“ She spent her childhood in Reno, NV, and in her mother's native town of Mendocino, CA. Brianna's passion for traveling and world cultures took her to Hawaii, New York, Mexico, Jamaica, Japan, Italy, Egypt, Hungary, Austria, and France. She studied abroad in Rome, Italy for a year with her family. Her ability to connect with people from all walks of life became part of her radiant personality.

When Jeff and Bridgette Denison's children, Brianna and Brighton, were born, they considered them to be the greatest gifts of their lives.

Brianna was raised in the tradition of honoring children as our most precious possessions. Brianna's mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends instilled in her the merits of being a loving, spiritual, respectful and trusting human being. She loved children and animals, especially her dog, Ozzy.

Brianna graduated from Reno High School in 2006. She was a sophomore at Santa Barbara City College, majoring in child psychology. She is survived by her mother, Bridgette Zunino-Denison and younger brother, Brighton Denison of Reno; her maternal grandparents, Bob and Barbara Zunino of Mendocino; her maternal uncle, John Zunino and her cousin, Ashley Zunino. She also leaves behind her paternal grandmother, Carol (Fifi) Pierce; her aunts, Lauren Denison and Rena Denison Terry; uncles, Mark Denison and Steve Terry, and 13 loving cousins, along with many extended family members throughout Nevada and California.

A Celebration of Life for Brianna is planned for Saturday, February 23, 2008 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, South Virginia Street at Kietzke Lane, at 7 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to her foundation, “Bring Bri Back“ to help bring her killer to justice. More details about the Celebration and how to make a donation can be found on Brianna's website at www.BriannaDenison.com.

Arrangements are entrusted to O'Brien-Rogers and Crosby Funeral Home, Reno. We invite everyone to visit the website www.obrienrogerscrosby.com" to sign Bri's online guestbook and leave a message for her family.
_____________________________________________________________________________________-
Her favorite color was blue so I thought I would leave them posted here.  Thanks monkeys.
(http://sg.streetdirectory.com/img/florist/hb010w033.JPG)
 
 

does anyone know if her dad is not alive?

Feb 24, 1:53 AM EST

Thousands Mourn Slain College Student

By MARTIN GRIFFITH
Associated Press Writer
 RENO, Nev. (AP) -- More than 3,000 mourners gathered Saturday night to remember a 19-year-old college student believed killed by a serial rapist as a loving, caring woman with many friends and a winning personality.

Brianna Denison's body was found in a Reno field on Feb. 15. Police said she was abducted Jan. 20 and strangled by a man linked to two earlier attacks on the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Her cousin, Spencer Terry, said Denison's spirit would continue to live in the hearts of friends and family.

"Could anybody have asked for a prettier face and a more beautiful soul? I don't think so," Terry said.

Friend Danielle DeTomaso said Denison embraced all kinds of people.

"She knew people from all walks of life," DeTomaso said. "She was the glue that held all of us together."

Denison's aunt, Lauren Denison, reminded the crowd at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center that "we still have a job to do: bring Brianna's killer to justice."

The sophomore at Santa Barbara City College in California was visiting her hometown over winter break when she was abducted while she slept on a couch in a friend's home just off the Reno campus.

Outside the memorial service, several members of a fundamentalist Kansas church faced off against more than 150 counter-demonstrators.

The standoff, which occurred during a fierce snowstorm, ended peacefully when police escorted the three protesters associated with the Westboro Baptist Church away from the convention center, Sgt. Chris Lange said.

"There were a couple of eggs thrown at them and that's about it," Lange said.

Members of the Topeka, Kan., church picket military funerals out of a belief that the Iraq war is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. Last month, the church announced it would protest the service for Denison because it believes God hates Reno.

Church officials said they targeted the city because local law enforcement officers failed to protect church members who picketed a Jan. 26 memorial service there for a soldier who was killed in Iraq.

On Saturday, the three protesters waved placards reading "Pray for More Dead Kids," "Don't Worship the Dead" and "God Sent the Killer."

Counter-demonstrators said they strongly disapprove of the church's message and tactic of picketing outside memorial services.

"For them to come out and target tragedies like this, I don't think it's right," Greg Bailor Jr. said. "There's enough emotions as it is."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SERIAL_RAPES_MEMORIAL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

=================================
This church is WAY outta line imo not only for picketing military funerals, but also picketing this murdered young woman. 

Sorry for all the red in my previous posts.  I was trying to highlight the area concerning the church protests.  I think my mouse is looking at retirement...

I don't think the press should validate this group by agreeing to call it a Church.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

God bless Brianna and her family!

This "church" group is completely wrong for protesting at anyone's funeral.  They make me sick.  To do this at a funeral for a murdered young woman is totally without conscience.  Thankfully Reno was aware of them coming and did what they could to protect Bri's family from their ill will and malice.  They need to watch out.  People are getting tired of their sh*t and I forsee bad things happening due to their disrespect. 

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080303/NEWS01/803030336/1321/NEWS
Attacker may have kept panties
STAFF REPORT

Posted: 3/3/2008
SPECIAL REPORT | Brianna Denison: 1988-2008

3/2/2008: Police: Denison suspect keeps underwear
 

A Reno police detective is saying that the suspect in the Brianna Denison murder and

two other sexual assaults might keep his victim's underwear as souvenirs.

Lt. Robert McDonald said on a Saturday television program that police are "making a connection here that maybe this guy has some type of fetish for underwear.

"He certainly is wanting to keep a memory of what he is doing."

McDonald, commander of the Reno police robbery-homicide unit, was interviewed for an episode of "America's Most Wanted" broadcast Saturday.

Denison, 19, was abducted Jan. 20 from a home a block from the University of Nevada, Reno campus and was found strangled Feb. 15 in a southwest Reno field. With the body was a pair of black thong panties.

Denison was a Reno High School graduate and a sophomore at Santa Barbara City College in California. She was in town with a skiing group for a concert and other activities.

Police said the garment contains the DNA of an unknown female and of the serial rapist who kidnapped and strangled Brianna. Authorities have ruled out the female DNA as that of previous victims and the women living in the house from which Brianna was abducted.

The black panties were worn, size small and decorated with three pink hearts and the head of the Pink Panther cartoon character.

The suspect's DNA has been linked to the man who attacked women on or near the UNR campus in October, Nov. 13 and Dec. 16 but not to the

Oct. 22 gunpoint rape of a woman in a UNR parking garage, police said.

Rumor control: No arrest in Denison caseMarch 07, 2008 12:05 PM

Rumors continue to circulate that there has been an arrest in the Brianna Denison kidnap and murder case and the Reno Police Department said Thursday that is not true. Police said the investigation is on-going and anyone with information about the case is asked to call Secret Witness at 322-4900 or the special Brianna Denison tip line at 745-3521. On its new site dedicated to the Denison case, police issued a statement saying the there has been no arrest and as soon as there has been arrest there will be a public announcement. "Rumors and speculation often circulate, sometimes more than once, in high-profile cases such as this," the statement said. "Reno Police ask that you disregard rumor and speculation and check back on this website for the facts that are released in this investigation."
http://m.rgj.com/news.jsp?key=38666&rc=lo

Two pairs of panties were found
Posted: 3/7/2008
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/NEWS01/803070517/1004
Reno police announced Thursday that two pairs of women's panties -- not just one -- were found last month with Brianna Denison's strangled body in a south Reno field.

Commander Leigha Struffert said the second pair belongs to one of the University of Nevada, Reno students who lived at the MacKay Court home from which Denison, 19, was abducted Jan. 20. Struffert said tests showed DNA on a pair of pink panties belongs to the student, Denison and Denison's suspected killer.

Police said two women and two men lived at the MacKay Court home. Authorities would not disclose which woman owned the underwear. But investigators said the woman identified the underwear and said it was hers.

Investigators do not know how the suspect obtained the student's underwear and said they had no evidence that any of the roommates' rooms had been burglarized.

Previously, police said a pair of black, size small thong panties featuring the cartoon character Pink Panther was found with Denison's body. Washoe County Crime Laboratory analysts found two DNA sources on the panties from an unknown woman and unknown man.

Police have linked Denison's abduction and death through DNA to at least two other sexually motivated attacks near the abduction site.

Struffert said Thursday the pink and black panties were found intertwined with Denison's body. Police said they are confident Denison's killer left the underwear.

Investigators said the killer has a fetish for collecting underwear and had taken a pair of underwear from a previous victim. Police would not disclose which victim owned the underwear.

Struffert said that it's typical for investigators to withhold information that only the perpetrator would know. She said investigators didn't immediately release information about the second pair of panties because further investigation was needed.

Struffert pleaded again Thursday for the owner of the black thong panties to come forward, saying the woman has information that could break open the case.

"The drive is to get the owner of the Pink Panther underwear to come forward," Struffert said.

She encouraged victims of unreported burglaries and who have missed underwear after using a laundromat to call police.

Police said they believe the serial rapist turned killer is known in the community and probably still lives here.

"It could be your father, brother, your boyfriend," Struffert said. "There is something about this person that someone knows about that just isn't right. We ask you to come forward."

Struffert declined to discuss other evidence or the condition of Denison's body. Police said the teddy bear Denison was using to prop up a pillow remains missing.

Struffert said she is confident the killer will be caught and the heightened awareness in the community is helping investigators.

Denison, a Reno High graduate, was on winter break from her college in Santa Barbara when she was abducted.

Her disappearance attracted national media attention and community-support as volunteers combed the region looking for her or clues to her disappearance. Other volunteers spread blue ribbons around town, which represent her favorite color.

Her family, and the community, adopted the saying "Bring Bri Back" in hopes she would return home safely. After her body was discovered last month, the rally cry became "Bring Bri Justice."

As the manhunt continues, Struffert said detectives have had more than 2,500 calls to the tip line and regional and federal law enforcement.

The city of Reno has a page on its Web site, www.cityofreno.com, dedicated to the Denison investigation. "America's Most Wanted" also will be providing a YouTube video for the site featuring its broadcasts on the case.

Briana's Mom on Dr. Phil

http://www.drphil.com/videos/?Url=/house/drphilnow/6406_2.flv&background=header_drphil_video.jpg

TV host dismayed suspect not caught
Posted: 3/12/2008

John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted" television show and civilian crime fighter spoke Tuesday morning with the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Question: What about this case appealed to the show?


Anwer: This one was easy to choose. The evidence showed that it was not just a random homicide, but it was a serial rapist at-large who crossed the line and killed someone. I've been doing this show for 20 years, and many of these guys escalate in violence. Serial rapists sometimes turns into serial killers.

It's a horrible fact that innocent women on the streets of this college town are vulnerable. Brianna was taken right out of a living room. This could be your beautiful daughter in college, and you have the hopes someday she will contribute to society, and her life is ended by some sicko nightmare.

I thought this guy would be easy to catch because we've had some pretty good descriptions and quirks about him, like a shaved pubic area. I've caught guys on "America's Most Wanted" with less information. This is a dangerous guy who is preying on women. We have to catch him.

Q: How important are tips?


A: It's the power of the public. We have caught nearly 1,000 fugitives in the 20 years we have been on the air. We put the information out there and ask the public to do the right thing.

A lot of people are terrified of calling the police and don't want to be involved in a person's prosecution. When you call, you can be anonymous and the call lines are not answered by cops. No cops. Tips are vital.

We have caught the uncatchable because the public -- average, good hearted citizens -- picked up the phone.

A huge percentage of cases are cracked by people doing the right thing.

This guy crossed the line from serial rapist to horrible coward murderer. He's nothing but a coward. Someone needs to come forward because someone knows him.

Q: Should the community still be concerned?


A: I'm sure when you go to your car at night when you're leaving work, you're going to be looking over your shoulder to make sure he's not in the parking lot. When these guys are out there, as cunning as they are, as lucky as this guy is, you are at risk.

Q: Your thoughts on DNA and suspects?


A: I have been involved with DNA and trying to establish the national database for years.

When my son was murdered in 1981, there was no DNA. The main suspect was in prison, and the FBI said they would gladly test a piece of bloody carpeting found in his car. But the Hollywood, Fla., police department lost the evidence. It was a terrible travesty.

We would have known if he murdered Adam because he recanted his confession. We've never gotten justice.

We had worked to get all states to collect the DNA of every felon. When we first did it in Florida, within six months, 80 cases were solved and 11 people were freed. DNA convicts the guilty, and frees the innocent.

We need to enter in evidence from rape kits into the national database.

Wouldn't you want to know if the person who raped you was the serial rapist or a criminal on the loose?

We are also working so that every person accused of a felony would have to submit their DNA. It's something that should have been done years ago.

We are also finding that due to staffing shortages or lack of funding, that parolees are out there committing murders and no one made the link because their DNA was not yet in the system. It really needs to be a state and federal priority.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS10/803120438&theme=

http://www.rgj.com/article/20081125/NEWS18/81126003&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

(http://cmsimg.rgj.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=J7&Date=20081125&Category=NEWS18&ArtNo=81126003&Ref=AR&MaxW=180&Border=0&q=100)

November 25, 2008


Reno police arrest suspect in Denison killing

By John Smetana
jsmetana@rgj.com

Reno police Tuesday arrested a suspect in the slaying of Brianna Denison, ending a 10-month hunt for the man who abducted the 19-year-old Reno High School graduate from a friend’s home in January.

James Biela was booked into the Washoe County Jail on charges of murder, kidnapping in the first degree and sexual assault, but could not confirm he is the suspect in the Denison case.

Biela was arrested at the Stepping Stones Children's Center, where officials said he was dropping off his son. Reno police took a DNA sample from the suspect and said it would take 12 hours to process.

Police spokesman Steve Frady issued a one-sentence news release announcing a news conference at 10:30 a.m. today. He would not say whether the suspect was arrested in Reno or elsewhere.

Denison, a sophomore at a Santa Barbara, Calif., college was abducted about 4:30 a.m. Jan. 20 as she slept in the living room of a friend’s home at 1395 Mackay Court, a block from the University of Nevada, Reno campus. Police said Denison would have been visible through a glass door.

Her body was found Feb. 15 in a field in south Reno. Volunteers throughout the community had helped police search for clues, then turned their efforts to finding her killer.

Candlelight vigils were held, and two national missing children’s organizations sent investigators to Reno.

Police said they recovered DNA evidence at the scene that would link a suspect to the crime. The DNA samples also linked Denison’s killer to three other sexually related attacks on women at or near UNR from October to December 2007.

During the investigation, $291,163 was raised from 223 donors in response to the sheriff’s request for money to process a backlog of 3,000 DNA samples.

Reno Nevada Police Arrest Suspect James Biela in Brianna Denison Murder

http://scaredmonkeys.com/2008/11/26/reno-nevada-police-arrest-suspect-james-biela-in-brianna-denison-murder/

Could this man actually be the serial rapist connected to at least 3 reported assaults in Reno area?

Nice, they arrested him as he was dropping his son off to school.  ::MonkeyEek::

Tip, DNA lead to arrest in student's slaying
By Mallory Simon
CNN

(CNN) -- Police in Reno, Nevada, say they have solved one of their most haunting cold cases, arresting a construction worker in the slaying of 19-year-old college student Brianna Denison.
 A secret witness tip and DNA samples taken first from the suspect's son and finally from the man himself cracked the case, authorities said Wednesday.

James Michael Biela, 27, was arrested Tuesday night and booked on suspicion of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault in connection with Denison's slaying and an attack of another woman the previous month.

The arrest marked a major milestone in a 10-month-long manhunt for Denison's killer. Police said they received 2,278 tips.

The tip that cracked the case came November 1 through the Secret Witness hot line, police said.

Denison, 19, was attending college in Santa Barbara, California, and was visiting friends at the University of Nevada, Reno. She was reported missing after she slept on a friend's couch at an off-campus student apartment.

Denison's friends woke early January 20 and couldn't find her. A small blood stain was on her pillow, and her shoes, purse and cell phone were left behind.

Three weeks later, her body was found partially covered in snow in a nearby field. She'd been sexually assaulted and strangled.
 
During the investigation, police focused on the killer's unusual "calling card." Authorities said the suspect had a fetish for women's lingerie and took his victims' panties, leaving a previous victim's panties at the scene. The asked for help from anyone who knew about a women's black thong, size small, that was found near Denison's body.

Denison's slaying attracted nationwide attention and gripped the Reno community during the early months of 2008. State and federal law enforcement agencies worked side by side to run down each of the 2,278 tips.

"No one should have to suffer as Brianna Denison did," Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley said, standing beside a large photo of Denison. "Brianna became everyone's daughter."

Lauren Denison, the victim's aunt, spoke with tears in her eyes, thanking law enforcement and the media for working together so they "could get this guy." Wearing a large button memorializing her niece, she added, "We are pleased that this person is off the street and he cannot hurt anyone else."

Reno Police Chief Michael Poehlman said a friend of Biela's girlfriend called the tip line, suggesting him as a suspect. According to the tipster, the girlfriend told her that she had found women's underwear in Biela's car and confronted him about it.

The information "indicated that Biela's activities and behavior made him a likely suspect," police said, without providing further details.

After identifying him as a potential suspect, police conducted surveillance on Biela, who worked as a pipe fitter. Police interviewed him and asked whether he would submit a DNA sample, but he refused, they said.

Detectives then spoke with Biela's girlfriend, who allowed police to take a DNA sample from their 4-year-old son, Poehlman said.

Police said that sample matched the boy's father to DNA evidence found both at the scene where Denison's body was found and on a rear door of the student apartment from which she was abducted.

The DNA also was matched to another sexual assault near the Reno campus in December 2007, police said.

Police took Biela into custody Tuesday on his way to pick up his son from day care, Poehlman said.

After his arrest, investigators obtained a search warrant and collected a DNA sample from Biela. Authorities worked through the night at the crime lab to complete DNA testing, which directly linked Biela to the the crime scene, police said.

Police learned that Biela left Nevada to take a job in Washington state in March, Poehlman said, noting that it was around the time a vehicle description and a composite sketch of a suspect were released to the media.
advertisement

During the drive to Washington, Biela sold his truck, a Toyota extended cab pickup, which matched witness descriptions. Police have recovered the truck and are conducting tests on fibers for evidence.

Police said they think that the attack was random and that Denison did not personally know Biela.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/26/brianna.denison.arrest/

Brianna Denison Update: Father Of Suspect Speaks Out

http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9423882

(http://ktnv.images.worldnow.com/images/9423882_BG3.jpg)

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/35665284.html

New Charges Filed in Denison Case
 Video High
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Prosecutors in Nevada have filed three new rape charges against a former Marine accused of killing a college student.

According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, James Michael Biela has been charged with the rapes of Briana Denison and another woman. He was also charged with attempted sexual assault of a student in November 2007.

The 27-year-old was arrested Nov. 25 and charged with strangling Denison and sexually assaulting another woman in December 2007.

Washoe County prosecutors were reviewing whether to seek the death penalty.

Denison, a Santa Barbara City College sophomore, was abducted
from a friend's house, and her body was found in a Reno field.

Denison's family declined to comment. Calls to the county public
defender's office were not answered Saturday.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Story Created: Dec 6, 2008 at 8:18 PM PST

Story Updated: Dec 8, 2008 at 11:09 AM PST

(05-01) 17:02 PDT Reno, Nev. (AP) --
Judge to rule on motions in Reno murder case
The Reno man accused of raping and killing a young woman and sexually assaulting two other college coeds told his boss he wanted to leave for a new job in Washington state the same day the murder victim's body was found last year, a prosecutor said Friday.

Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler made the disclosure during a hearing on defense motions to separate James Michael Biela's murder trial from the two sexual assault cases.

Biela, 27, is charged with murder, kidnapping and three counts of sexual assault. The former pipefitter faces a possible death penalty if convicted of sexually assaulting and killing Brianna Denison, 19, who disappeared in January 2008 while sleeping on a friend's couch. Her body was found about three weeks later.

Biela also is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a parking garage in October 2007 and kidnapping and raping another woman two months later.

Based partly on DNA evidence, he was arrested in November 2008. Trial is set for Feb. 22, 2010.

The prosecution wants all three cases tied together, saying each attack by what police have described as a "serial rapist" occurred within a 400-yard radius north of the downtown casino district near the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.

"What we have here is a man who basically is a predator," Sattler said. "A man who conducted sexually-motivated, sneak attacks on small, unsuspecting women at UNR who are unable to defend themselves."

Public defenders representing Biela argue that tying all three cases together could prejudice jurors against Biela by allowing them to consider unrelated evidence from the other attacks.

Judge Robert Perry said he intends to rule early next week.

Wearing handcuffs, leg shackles and a bulletproof vest, Biela briefly smiled at a newspaper photographer when he entered court Friday.

In an effort to prove Biela had a guilty conscience about the attacks, Sattler disclosed the prosecution has two witnesses prepared to testify that Biela fled the area after Denison's body was found in a vacant field near a business park.

The day Denison's body was found, he went to his employer and said he wanted to leave, Sattler said.

"If that is not consciousness of guilt, I don't know what is," he said.

Public defender Jay Slocum said that under Nevada law Biela is entitled to three separate trials unless the prosecution can prove the set of facts in each case is closely connected and part of a common scheme or plan. He said that while the attacks were only blocks a part they were in "discrete and separate places."

One of the sexual assault victims was taken from the parking lot to another location miles away before she and the assailant performed oral sex on each other and he brought her back to the original location, Slocum said. In that case, no weapon was used.

In the other case, the assailant raped the victim at gunpoint in the parking garage, he said.

"The difference is pretty marked," Slocum said. "Evidence in one case may be stronger than in another, but the jury may accumulate all evidence in all the cases and attempt to piggyback the evidence to convict him in all the cases."

Sattler said two of the attacks were "literally across the street from each other."

"You could throw a rock from one to the other," he said. "It's like arguing the Columbine killings took place in discrete locations because they did not all happen in the same classroom. ... It is absurd."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/01/state/n170257D33.DTL

Lawyers for James Biela say crime lab destroyed vital evidence

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • October 6, 2009

Lawyers for James Biela, charged with killing Brianna Denison and sexually assaulting two others, have filed a motion saying the county’s crime lab destroyed DNA evidence that could have been used in his defense.

The lab violated its own policies by destroying semen samples after using what they had for DNA testing, Chief Deputy Public Defender Maizie Pusich said in the motion.

“The destruction raises the inference that arresting and prosecuting someone, anyone, in this high profile murder case may have been more important to state agents than following the procedures designed to prevent false tests,” Pusich said.

The motion asks the judge to order that “evidence of any DNA tests in which the entire suspect sample has been consumed, and cannot be retested, be suppressed and not be presented to the jury during the trial in this case.”

Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler did not return phone messages seeking comment.

A hearing on the case is scheduled for Wednesday. The defense team plans to ask the court to move the trial date from Feb. 22 to a later date. One reason is Biela’s lead attorney recently left the public defender’s office to work for a private firm and Pusich needs more time. They also said they have not received all of the evidence requested.

Denison was a 19-year-old sophomore at a Santa Barbara, Calif., college when she was abducted Jan. 20, 2008 from a house near the University of Nevada, Reno campus. Her body was found in a south Reno field on Feb. 15, 2008. She had been raped, and was strangled.

After his arrest in November 2008, Biela also was charged with raping a UNR student on Oct. 22, 2007 as she headed toward her car in a university parking garage, and charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting another UNR student on Dec. 17, 2007.

He has pleaded not guilty. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

While no DNA evidence was collected in the parking garage rape, evidence was collected in the Denison case, and in the December 2007 sexual assault, according to court documents and testimony. This evidence linked Biela to these two crimes, prosecutors have said.

(2 of 2)

In May, Biela’s defense lawyers asked prosecutors for access to these biological samples so they could be independently tested, the motion said. They were told the samples were “consumed during testing.” But a previous Washoe County Crime Lab report had said some material was still available, the motion said.

At that point, the lab gave defense lawyers a copy of their protocols for testing, which said they were to use the smallest amount possible.


The amount of evidence collected from the crime scene was “70 to 100 times the amount necessary for a lab to develop a genetic profile of a suspect,” the motion said. “So what happened to all of this unused evidence?”

Without the ability to conduct its own testing, the defense is unable to challenge the state’s test results, the motion said.

“Allowing the state’s DNA tests into evidence would force the defendant into the position of proving a negative,” the motion said. “Like requiring Mr. Biela to prove he is not a warlock, the state here seeks to use secret evidence, shielded from the inquiries of science to prove Mr. Biela’s guilt.”

“The state is asking Mr. Biela to disprove their own test results, while they simultaneously have destroyed the evidence in the case, which he needs to present his defense.”

http://www.rgj.com/article/20091006/NEWS01/91006058/1321/news

DNA Evidence Allowed in Brianna Denison Case

11/30/09
DNA evidence collected in the case of a Reno man accused of the rape and murder of one woman and the rape of two other women can be used at his trial, a judge has ruled. James Biela faces murder charges in the death of Brianna Denison in January 2008.
Earlier, Judge Robert Perry also denied Biela's request to be tried separately in the three cases.

Attorneys for Biela argued that there was no way for them to verify the DNA evidence findings because the lab used all of it in developing their profile. Therefore, they said, it should be excluded from the trial.

Judge Perry ruled that crime lab technicians did not act in bad faith when they exhausted samples collected from a crime scene while trying to develop a DNA profile of James Biela.

Disappeared from Friend's Couch

Denison, 19, was visiting friends in January 2008 and sleeping on their couch after a night out near the University of Nevada, Reno campus when she disappeared. Her body was found two weeks later in a south Reno field.

Biela was arrested after a lengthy investigation and search for his pickup truck. He was charged in November 2008 with Denison's murder, the rape of a university student at gunpoint in a university parking garage on Oct. 22, 2007, and with kidnapping and sexually assault of a another woman on Dec. 17, 2007.

http://crime.about.com/b/2009/11/30/dna-evidence-allowed-in-brianna-denison-case.htm

 ::MonkeyDance:: ::MonkeyDance:: ::MonkeyDance::
We here in Reno all know he is guilty.  I'm so glad the judge is allowing this evidence.  We've been waiting a long time to see this a-hole brought to justice.  Hope he gets the needle.

Murder suspect accused of following case online
The Associated Press

Thursday, March 11, 2010 | 6:07 p.m.

Lawyers for a man charged with killing a young Reno woman and raping two others have asked a judge to block evidence that was netted from searches of his home computers.

At a court hearing today, prosecutors alleged James Biela's computers showed thousands of Internet search hits for key words such as "Brianna Denison," "abduction" and "strangle."

Washoe County District Judge Robert Perry says he would issue a ruling on the motion to block the evidence by Monday.

Biela is charged with the murder of the 19-year-old Denison, who vanished while sleeping on a friend's couch in January 2008. Her body was found about three weeks later.

He also is charged with raping two other women.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/11/murder-suspect-accused-of-following-case-online/

Why can't they use HIS DNA?? Did I miss something along the way? Why do they need to use his son's? Why am I lost?

NV judge says son's DNA can be used in Reno case

Associated Press - March 16, 2010 3:45 PM ET

RENO, Nev. (AP) - A Reno judge has ruled that DNA taken from the son of a man arrested for killing a college student can be used as evidence in his upcoming trial.

Washoe District Judge Robert Perry on Monday denied a motion by defense lawyers for James Biela to suppress the evidence.

Biela is charged with the murder of 19-year-old Brianna Denison, who vanished while sleeping on a friend's couch in January 2008 near the University of Nevada, Reno campus. Her body was found about three weeks later.

He's also charged with raping two other women near the university. Biela has pleaded not guilty. He could face the death penalty if convicted. His trial is scheduled to begin in May.
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=12150765

James Biela's ex-girlfriend testifies about his alleged interest in thong underwear,
porn

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com •
April 22, 2010

The former girlfriend of James Biela, charged with
kidnapping, raping and strangling a college co-ed
and sexually assaulting two others, told a judge
today that Biela often visited porn Web sites at the
home they shared, and allegedly had a fetish for
women’s thong underwear.

Carleen Harmon said she found two pairs of thong
underwear in Biela’s truck when she went to visit
him in Washington during September 2008. She
said she suspected he was cheating on her, so she
searched his truck.

“They were small. They were cotton. They were
thongs,” Harmon testified. “They were pastel in
color. They had a little flower design.”

When Harmon confronted Biela with the underwear,
he threw them out the window, and said he had
picked them up at a laundry mat.

Harmon also said she often searched computers in
their home after Biela had used them, and found that
he allegedly spent time at porn sites. She often
changed the passwords on the computers, she said,
to keep him from visiting those sites.

Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler had called
Harmon to testify in a hearing to determine what
evidence can be presented to the jury when Biela’s
trial begins May 10.

His lawyers had filed a motion seeking to limit
information shown to the jury about Biela’s alleged
interest in thong underwear and pornography,
arguing that nothing he had done was illegal and it
would taint their opinion of him.

Sattler told Judge Robert Perry that the evidence
should be included in the trial because it was
similar to evidence connected with the murder and
sexual assault cases.

The hearing continued into the afternoon. Perry is
expected to rule on the motion at a later date.

Biela is charged with kidnapping Brianna Denison,
19, from a home near the University of Nevada, Reno
on Jan. 20, 2008. Her body was found Feb. 15,
2008 in a field in southeast Reno.

Biela also is charged with sexually assaulting two
other college students at sites near campus. He
could face the death penalty if convicted.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100422/NEWS01/100422038/1321/news/James-Biela-s-ex-girlfriend-testifies-about-his-alleged-interest-in-thong-underwear--pornograph

snip:
Updated: Feb 20, 2008 08:43 AM PST   
   
Reno Police say they found a pair of women's underwear at the scene where they found the body of 19-year Brianna Denison. 

Denison was kidnapped from a home near the University of Nevada on Jan. 20 and found dead in a field South Reno on Feb. 15.

Police say the underwear they found at the scene did not belong to Brianna.  It contains the DNA of an unknown woman along with the DNA of the man who kidnapped and strangled Brianna. 

end


If they have the other womans ID from her DNA AND his DNA ID ..
Then it should be a cut and dry case. 

Reno murder trial for suspected serial rapist
The Associated Press

Saturday, May 8, 2010 | 9:41 a.m.

Blue ribbons sprang up all over town as investigators frantically searched for a missing college coed who disappeared from a friend's couch in the middle of the night near the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

The tiny pieces of fabric fluttered from street lights and fence posts as the community waited for word on 19-year-old Brianna Denison, fearing the worst.

When the popular Reno High grad's body was found a month later under a discarded Christmas tree in a snowy field, the ribbons in her favorite color remained on icy tree limbs and casino marquees, a stubborn symbol of her hometown's determination to find her killer.

More than two years later, the ribbons are gone.

James Biela, a 29-year-old Sparks pipe fitter, goes on trial next week for rape, kidnapping and murder in the Denison case. He is also charged with sexually assaulting two other young women.
Biela has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Even jury selection is expected to be contentious after sensational media coverage about the string of attacks that gripped the city for months.

District Court Judge Robert Perry that most people in the Washoe County jury pool have some awareness of the case.

"It's going to be difficult to do," Perry said of seating an unbiased panel. He acknowledged that some of the evidence will be "graphic, gruesome, inflammatory."

Perry said he won't consider moving the trial to another jurisdiction without first attempting to seat a jury in Reno.

"If this case is tried just about any place on the planet, there is going to be pretrial publicity and potential jurors are going to be talking about it," Perry said.

The judge has taken several steps to try to ensure the verdict won't be vulnerable to appeal, holding numerous hearings about the admissibility of evidence and ordering the names of jurors kept secret until after their work is done. His first move was banning ribbons.

"We don't want blue ribbons in the courthouse. No signs, buttons, pins _ 'Justice for Brianna,' things like that," Perry said.

"I want to be sure we have a trial as fair as possible so we don't have reversible error, so we don't have to come back five years from now and have another multi-hundred thousand dollar trial," he said. "That doesn't help anybody _ the state, the taxpayers, anybody."

Perry hosted a special briefing with media representatives last month to outline how he intends to conduct the trial so it won't turn into a "circus" each day Biela is led into the courtroom in a bulletproof vest with a half dozen police and SWAT team members.

He's allowing cameras but with some restrictions.

He put a gag order on juror names based on concerns that if made public they might feel pressure to return a guilty verdict.

He's also prohibiting lawyers and witnesses from using the word "porn" when describing Websites prosecutors say Biela frequently visited _ something they intend to use to try to help prove his motive.

Biela's lawyers know what they are up against.

"It is an emotional case, a sensitive case," said Jim Leslie, one of the public defender's representing the muscular construction worker who trained in martial arts and served briefly in the U.S. Marines.

Police revealed the discovery of Denison's body during a live televised news conference and for the first time said they believed it was the work of a "serial rapist."

"I'm worried this guy is still out there, and I'm worried somebody else is going to get hurt," Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said into the cameras on Feb. 16, 2008.

Three days later detectives disclosed the killer had left two pairs of women's thong underwear with Denison's body that did not belong to her.

Within weeks, two more women came forward to say they, too, had been assaulted in the same neighborhood just a few blocks north of the downtown casino district with its famous rainbow arch, "The Biggest Little City in the World." One of the women said she was attacked in a UNR parking garage less than 50 yards from campus police headquarters. Both said the attacker took their underwear after they were assaulted.

Authorities responded with safety workshops, and many women reported changing their daily routines to avoid walking in dark areas or alone.

Biela was arrested in November 2008 after his ex-girlfriend had become suspicious when she found two pair of thong underwear in his truck. She eventually gave detectives permission to take blood from their son so authorities could match Biela's DNA to that found on Denison and at least one of the thongs left with her body.

Biela could face a death sentence if convicted of murder, but that would follow in a separate penalty phase after what is expected to be a three-week trial.

Court officials, anticipating many challenges, have reserved a pool of 225 potential jurors.

"I think if anybody was honest if they were polled for the jury they'd have to say they were inundated with the publicity of her disappearance," said David Houston, a Reno defense lawyer, who has been involved in high profile cases. "But you don't necessarily know if a juror is going to be honest."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/may/08/reno-murder-trial-for-suspected-serial-rapist/

Testimony Underway in James Biela Trial in Downtown Reno
Posted: May 12, 2010 12:55 PM EDT

Trial is underway in Reno for a man accused of kidnapping and killing one college coed and sexually assaulting two other women more than two years ago.

A jury of seven men, five women and two alternates listened to opening arguments Wednesday in the trial of accused serial rapist James Biela in Washoe County District Court.

The 29-year-old Biela could face the death penalty if he is convicted of murdering 19-year-old Brianna Denison.

She was abducted in January 2008 from a house near the University of Nevada, Reno.

Her body was found more than three weeks later in a field beneath a discarded Christmas tree.

Prosecutors allege Biela was responsible for a series of sex attacks that had Reno on edge for nearly a year.

http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=12469628

May 13, 2010 5:01 PM
Brianna Denison Trial: Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty

RENO, Nev. (CBS/AP) Prosecutors say that a man obsessed with women's thong underwear started out raping women, and ended up killing one. Now, Prosecutors are trying to convict James Biela, and are seeking the death penalty for his heinous alleged crime.

Deputy District Attorney Chris Hicks said, in his opening statement to a seven-man, five-woman jury, that Biela "graduated from serial rapist to murderer," and that after DNA and other forensic evidence is presented, jurors will inevitably see the truth of Biela's guilt.

The trial before Washoe District Judge Robert Perry is expected to last about three weeks.

snipped from
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20004949-504083.html

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/may/14/testimony-to-continue-in-biela-trial-in-reno/
Testimony to continue in Biela trial in Reno
May 14, 2010

Crime scene and DNA experts could be next to testify in the trial of the man charged with abducting and killing a 19-year-old college coed and sexually assaulting two other women near the University of Nevada, Reno.

Trial resumes Friday in the James Biela (BEE'-lah) murder and sexual assault trial in Washoe County District Court.

A Washoe County crime lab investigator testified Thursday about evidence collected from a December 2007 sexual assault victim.

A Reno police detective also testified investigators believed the same man who attacked that woman abducted Brianna Denison.

Denison was 19 when she disappeared in January 2008. Her body was found 26 days later. Authorities say she had been raped and strangled.

The 28-year-old Biela could face the death penalty if convicted.

___

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100515/NEWS01/5150346/1321/news
Private labs help county test DNA
May 15, 2010

The Washoe County Crime Laboratory has begun a pilot program in which DNA samples of convicted offenders are tested monthly at a private lab, an effort to curb large DNA backlogs and solve crimes quicker.
Crime Lab director Renee Romero said the program began last month and will run through December, using about $100,000 in local convicted offender court fines.

Romero said the lab has been dependent on yearly grant funding from the National Institute of Justice to lower growing backlogs. In October, grant administrators said it would pay for the processing of the lab's 4,000 backlogged samples through March 31.

Romero said when the samples return, her staff has to conduct a technical review of the analysis to make sure it was up to the lab's standards. The DNA profiles are then uploaded into the state and national DNA database, called CODIS.

Monthly testing would shorten the length of time samples have to sit on shelves. Under the National Institute of Justice grant, the samples are sent out once a year, usually in a batch of thousands.

The issue of DNA backlogs attracted wide attention during the 2008 hunt for a Reno serial rapist who was linked by DNA to the rape and strangulation death of 19-year-old Brianna Denison. After a brain storming session with crime lab scientists, Reno police detective Adam Wygnanski developed an idea of a community fundraiser where proceeds would go toward eliminating the then DNA backlog of 3,000 samples.

The idea was that the genetic identity of suspect could have been one of the offender samples waiting to be tested.

Almost $300,000 was raised toward the backlog effort. Among the 30 crimes solved during that backlog clearing was a violent rape of a mother that was witnessed by her young son in a Reno park.

Romero said the pilot program will give them a true cost and time impact analysis of sending out samples every month. For example, the goal is to send all of the samples from the month of April to an outside lab by the end of May so they could be returned by June. Her staff would then have to review the tests and upload the samples to the database by the end of June.
A quicker turnaround is the goal," Romero said of the pilot program. "We have to figure out the process of turning around the backlog quicker, other than using year-to-year grants. This will tell us what it takes in current conditions to get (the results)."
But Romero knows that the offender fine money will ultimately run out, and the lab will again have to rely on grant funding. Caseloads have been steady, she said, and although the country is facing a recession, grant money for DNA work seems to be a funding priority for the government.

Romero explained that testing of DNA samples are based on priorities, such as threats to the community and pending court dates. Violent crimes, including serial crimes, are given the highest priority. Backlogs at the crime lab comprise convicted offender samples that need to be tested and then uploaded into the state and national database and DNA samples collected from evidence at or related to crime scenes. For example, police asked scientists to test more than 1,000 samples related to the Denison case.

Helping out the scientists is new equipment, purchased through grants, that allows easier DNA extraction from evidence, and the ability to test batches of samples at once.

Denison's family and friends created a foundation in her name. One of its goals is to get "Brianna's Law" passed, which would require that all persons arrested for felonies have their DNA submitted into a national database, Nevada law limits the collection to convicted felons. The proposed law would also attempt to find funding to eliminate backlogs.

In 2007, the Legislature required DNA be taken from all convicted felons, but lawmakers did not earmark money for the testing. The law says offenders are supposed to pay a $150 fee for the testing, but officials say they rarely do, and it's too expensive and time consuming to go to court to get the payments.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100516/NEWS/5160339/1321/news
Week in Review
May 17, 2010
More than two years after Brianna Denison's disappearance and a year and a half after an arrest, the trial began Monday for a man charged with killing the college student and sexually assaulting two other women.

James Biela is charged with raping and killing Denison and sexually assaulting the two others.

The trial is expected to last three weeks(snip)

All links clickable at the website

Photo Galleries
Biela Trial Continues Thursday
Third Day of Testimony in Biela Trial
Biela Trial Continues Monday
Biela Trial Enters Sixth Day
Biela Trial Now in Sixth Day
Biela Trial Continues Thursday

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Testimony details discovery of body, Denison death
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Biela trial wraps up first week; alleged Biela rape victim testifies and DNA challenged
Crime lab forced to shut down its DNA testing in '09


http://www.rgj.com/article/20100521/NEWS01/100521003/1321/NEWS/%3Cb%3EBiela-update--%3C/b%3EBiela-asked-for-layoff-from-job-the-day-Denison-was-found

Thank-you, I'm also following this live blog from the courtroom  http://www.kolotv.com/biela  waiting for the lunch recess to end.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/24/grace.coldcase.denison/index.html?hpt=C2
Cold case: Suspect on trial in student's slaying
By Rupa Mikkilineni, Nancy Grace Producer
May 24, 2010 8:03 a.m. EDT
(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/CRIME/05/24/grace.coldcase.denison/t1larg.bri.jpg)
Brianna Denison was sleeping on a friend's sofa when she was abducted and killed in January 2008.
New York (CNN) -- The slaying of Brianna Denison was one of our first cold cases -- one that has resulted in an arrest.

Now the murder trial of the suspect, 28-year-old James Michael Biela, a former Marine with a young son, is entering its third week in a courtroom in Reno, Nevada.

The trial began with dramatic testimony by Denison's mother, her boyfriend, and a video showing her with friends at Mel's Diner just a few hours before she was abducted during the early morning of January 20, 2008.

Denison, 19, was attending community college in Santa Barbara, California, but was visiting friends at the University of Nevada, Reno. After they attended a concert, she slept on the living room couch in a friend's off-campus apartment.

While she slept, someone crept into the apartment and snatched her, police and prosecutors say. She was sexually assaulted and strangled, and her body was found weeks later in a snow-covered field a few miles away.

Her story was featured as a cold case in September 2008, triggering a flurry of local stories. A tip emerged and two months after our story, police in Reno, Nevada, made an arrest.
story, police in Reno, Nevada, made an arrest.

"Media coverage is absolutely essential for us," Detective Adam Wygnanski, one of the lead investigators, said at the time. "We finally got the break in the case we were looking for."
Police had released a photo of a woman's panties found near Denison's body and the description of a pickup truck. The panties were not Denison's, but investigators said they believed they were looking for a serial rapist who left women's panties as his "calling card."

The tip that broke the case came from a secret witness, who pointed police toward Biela.
According to police, the tipster saw the photo of the panties, and thought she recognized the truck police had described. She came forward, telling investigators a friend's boyfriend had a truck similar to the description, and that her friend had seen women's panties inside it.

Biela, who was working construction at the time of his arrest, is charged with kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Denison. He could face the death penalty if convicted of her murder.

He also stands accused of raping another University of Nevada, Reno, student at a campus parking lot on October 22, 2007. And he's charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a third student on December 17.

Biela has pleaded not guilty to charges in all three attacks.

At the trial, Denison's boyfriend, Cameron Wilson Done, told the jury he and Brianna had been fighting on the day she was last seen alive. He recalled how his last text message to his girlfriend, at 4:23 a.m., was full of angry words. "She was my first girlfriend," Done told the court, as he broke down and cried on the witness stand.
Bridgette Denison, the victim's mother, testified that she last saw her daughter packing an overnight bag and heading to a friend's apartment to get ready for the concert. The next morning, she received a call that Brianna had vanished. She described seeing the blood stain on the couch where her daughter had been sleeping.

The Denison murder case has been combined at the trial with the cases of two other women who claim Biela sexually assaulted them. Both testified during the first week of the trial.

One of the women recounted how she was attacked on campus. She said her assailant threatened her with a gun, raped her and took her panties as a souvenir, although she never reported it to police. Asked if her attacker was in the court room, she pointed to Biela.

The defense challenged the identification because she earlier told a friend she could not describe her attacker to police.

The second woman, a student at the university, testified she'd been abducted outside her apartment and driven to a dark area and assaulted in the attacker's vehicle. She described the vehicle as an extended cab pickup truck with a dome light and a toddler's shoe on the floor of the truck. She was also able to describe the body of her attacker, but could not describe his face.
The woman testified that her assailant asked for her panties and took them with him.

DNA obtained from the victim's rape kit matched Biela's, according to testimony. Biela's defense attorneys are challenging the DNA testing method, saying it is not accurate.

The trial is expected to last two more weeks. Still, Denison's family members feel a sense of relief that the trial is underway.

"It's been a difficult time for us, but we are hopeful that justice will be served," said Brianna's aunt, Lauren Denison.

Closing arguments, jury instructions, and then the jury goes to deliberate today. Justice for Brianna and the two girls he sexually assaulted ::MonkeyAngel::

I watched some of this trial.  Biela's attys were up a creek with this case. 

http://**/breaking-news/ci_15166563?nclick_check=1
Jury deliberations near in Reno rape, murder trial
By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press Writer
Posted: 05/26/2010 12:49:36 PM PDT
Updated: 05/26/2010 12:49:36 PM PDT
RENO, Nev.—James Biela's public defenders get one last chance to persuade a jury he's not the serial rapist that Reno police say killed one college coed and sexually assaulted two others more than two years ago.

The prosecution completed its closing arguments just before noon Wednesday in Washoe District Court.

Lawyers for the 28-year-old Sparks pipe fitter are scheduled to give their version beginning at 1:30 p.m. with jury deliberations to follow.

Biela is accused of raping and killing 19-year-old Brianna Denison in January 2008. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler told the jury 13 days of evidence and testimony points to "one inescapable conclusion: James Michael Biela is a kidnapper, a rapist and a murderer."

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100526/NEWS01/100526025/1321/NEWS
From the courtroom: Brianna Denison's mother comes face-to-face with Biela
James Ball • Reno Gazette-Journal • May 26, 2010


This afternoon, as Brianna Denison's friends and family members approached the security checkpoint to return to the courtroom after lunch, murder defendant James Biela was escorted within feet of them.


Biela, flanked by several uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officers, was quietly whisked into the courtroom past Brianna's mother, Bridgette, and her uncle, John Zunino. Denison and Zunino stood stone-faced and appeared to directly stare down Biela, who did not look in their direction.

The defense began closing arguments at 1:30 today.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100526/NEWS01/100526002/Defense-lawyer-questions-similarities-in-rape-cases-Denison-killing
Defense lawyer says Biela didn't act suspiciously after detectives contacted him
BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 26, 2010
Update at 3:42 p.m. James Beila agreed to meet with a police detective, and asked if the questions were about his dad, Slocum said.
The prosecution made a big deal about Biela’s discomfort when the detective said the meeting was about the Brianna Denison case, Slocum said.

“The detective said, ‘How can you convince me that you didn’t have anything to do with Brianna Denison’s murder,” Slocum said. “Do you think that would make someone uncomfortable?”

So Biela said my wife, Carleen Harmon will be my alibi, and he gave the detective her number.

“Does he move? Does he run?” Slocum said. “He starts drinking a lot.”

Slocum suggested that it was reasonable that Biela could not recall where he was on certain days in late 2007 and early 2008.

“The question is how easy is it to say where you were on a particular night 10 months ago, 11 months ago, over a year?” Slocum said. “How easy is that to do? I suggest to you that it’s not that easy to just say this is where I was and this is what I was doing.”
Update at 3:24 p.m. The DNA is the only evidence that places James Biela at the house from which Brianna Denison was abducted, Slocum said. But the evidence is something the defense can’t test, he said.

Another swab taken from the house was contaminated by a search and rescue worker, he said, making it useless in this case.

The prosecutor said all the attacks were within 400 yards, and they all were young females, Slocum said. But if a woman was sexually assaulted near the university campus, it would be common for them to be young and to be students.

Slocum said the prosecutor said the women were similar in size, but their physical descriptions were not uncommon.

Although the prosecutor said the three women were attacked from behind, Slocum said they were attacked in different ways.

The October 2007 rape victim was pulled to the ground, but at no time was she unable to breathe, he said. The December 2007 woman was knocked down until she was unconscious, he said.
Continue here http://www.rgj.com/article/20100526/NEWS01/100526002/Defense-lawyer-questions-similarities-in-rape-cases-Denison-killing

Thanks Trimm, he is going down big time  ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20100527/NEWS/100529677/1070&ParentProfile=1058
Jury returns today in rape, murder trial

By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press Writer
RENO (AP) — Jurors will resume deliberations today in the trial of a 28-year-old Nevada pipe fitter accused of raping and murdering one college coed and sexually assaulting two others, in a case that shook the community.

The jury began deliberations Wednesday following two weeks of emotional testimony.

Prosecutors said a mountain of evidence — including a DNA match as rare as 1 in 125 quadrillion — proves James Biela is the serial rapist who terrorized the Reno area for most of 2008.

If convicted, the ex-Marine and martial arts student could face the death penalty.

“There is one inescapable conclusion,” Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler said in his closing arguments. “James Michael Biela is a kidnapper, a rapist and a murderer.”

The seven-woman, five-man jury began deliberating at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday before knocking off 90 minutes later under a new rule that requires the courthouse to close at 7 p.m. due to budget constraints.

“We're getting kicked out of the courthouse,” said Washoe District Judge Robert Perry, who instructed the jurors to return at 9 a.m. today.

The string of assaults near the University of Nevada, Reno campus culminated in the kidnapping and strangulation of 19-year-old Brianna Denison in January 2008.

Detectives said it was the work of a serial rapist who stalked petite women and had a fetish for thong underwear.

Fueled by thousands of tips and anonymous calls to a police hot line, a nine-month manhunt led detectives to Biela, who was arrested in November 2008 after his ex-girlfriend let police take DNA from their son.
Biela's lawyers argued that the avalanche of publicity over the case put pressure on law enforcement officers and caused them to make mistakes. They said it also resulted in the county crime lab using up all DNA samples before the defense team could hire a private lab to verify the results.

“This case has gotten a lot of attention,” public defender Jay Slocum said. “In fact, during jury selection there wasn't anyone on the entire (225-member pool) who hadn't heard about this case.”

Slocum also argued that the facts in the three assaults were different — the first alleged victim in October 2007 raped at gunpoint and the second ordered to perform only oral sex in December 2007 before the fatal attack on Denison.

“Why would a man who already has gotten away with it twice — if you believe the state — decide 'I have to kill her?”' Slocum asked during closing arguments. “It doesn't make sense.”

Denison, a sophomore at Santa Barbara City College, was home visiting friends when she was kidnapped Jan. 20, 2008, while sleeping on a friend's couch near the UNR campus. Her body was found in a field less than a month later.

Sattler said the underwear Biela strangled Denison with belonged to the friend with whom Denison was staying.

“He wrapped those underwear he just stole around that girl's little neck and strangled her to death,” Sattler said.

The underwear had DNA from Denison, Biela and the friend on it — an “amazing random match” that occurs only 1 in 125 quadrillion times, he said.

“That's 15 zeros,” Sattler said, a level far beyond what the FBI requires to determine “he is the source of that DNA.”

Thanks Trimm, I predict a verdict by this afternoon, imo.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100527/NEWS01/100527004/Biela-jury-returns-early-and-resumes-deliberations-ahead-of-schedule
Biela jury returns early and resumes deliberations ahead of schedule

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 27, 2010
9:25 a.m. update: The jury in the James Biela murder and sexual assault trial is a punctual bunch.
Washoe District Court Judge Robert Perry ordered them to return to court at 9 a.m. today to continue their deliberations, but the seven women and five men arrived early, so they began discussions at 8:40 a.m.

The panel was sent into the jury room Wednesday at about 5:23 p.m. after the prosecutor and defense lawyer finished their closing arguments. A bailiff brought them three large pizzas and they started their work.

With no verdict reached, Perry sent them home at 7 p.m.

The jury is considering five charges for three victims. Biela is charged with raping and murdering Brianna Denison in early 2008, and sexually assaulting two other students in late 2007. He also faces a kidnapping charge in one of the rapes.

I hope so.I feel badly for the family.    ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100527/NEWS01/100527004/No-word-from-Biela-jury-as-deliberations-continue-this-morning
No word from Biela jury as deliberations continue this morning

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 27, 2010
11 a.m. update: Two hours and counting as the jury in the James Biela murder trial continues deliberations this morning.
No word yet.

The seven-woman, five-man jury has not asked any questions yet, the bailiff's said. They'll have lunch in the jury room if no verdict is reached by noon.
________

9:25 a.m. update: The jury in the James Biela murder and sexual assault trial is a punctual bunch.

Washoe District Court Judge Robert Perry ordered them to return to court at 9 a.m. today to continue their deliberations, but the seven women and five men arrived early, so they began discussions at 8:40 a.m.

The panel was sent into the jury room Wednesday at about 5:23 p.m. after the prosecutor and defense lawyer finished their closing arguments. A bailiff brought them three large pizzas and they started their work.

With no verdict reached, Perry sent them home at 7 p.m.
The jury is considering five charges for three victims. Biela is charged with raping and murdering Brianna Denison in early 2008, and sexually assaulting two other students in late 2007. He also faces a kidnapping charge in one of the rapes.
_________

The jury deciding the fate of James Biela will return to its deliberations at 9 a.m. today.

The seven-woman, five-man jury began considering the five charges against Biela at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, after the prosecutor and defense lawyer finished their closing arguments.

Judge Robert Perry sent them home at 7 p.m. and told them to return this morning.

The trial is completing its third week.

Biela is charged with raping and strangling Brianna Denison, a 19-year-old college student, in early 2008. He also faces one count each of kidnapping and sexual assault in a December 2007 attack, and one count of sexual assault with a deadly weapon in an October 2007 rape at a university parking garage.

If the jury finds him guilty of murder, the trial will move into a penalty phase. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty.

Guilty

markl17‎: James Biela found guilty on all counts! Finally justice for Brianna Denison  & the other victims. Reno can sleep sound tonight! #bielatrial
Twitter -
100
1 minute ago

Breaking News  Nevada Jury Finds Serial Rapist Guilty in Murder of College Student Brianna Denison
http://www.foxnews.com/

(http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/BriannaDenison013xcl.jpg)

Thanks Trimm..she is a beautiful young lady... ::MonkeyAngel::

http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=12546990
James Biela Found Guilty of Murdering Brianna Denison
Kellene Stockwell
Channel 2 News
 

Jurors have found James Biela guilty of murdering 19-year-old Brianna Denison in early 2008.

Jurors decided on five different counts:

GUILTY - Count 1 is sexual assault, from the October 2007 rape in the parking garage at the University of Nevada.

GUILTY - Count 2 is kidnapping - the woman taken from outside her apartment in December 2007.

GUILTY - Count 3 is the sexual assault against that woman which allegedly happened in Biela's truck.

GUILTY - Count 4 is murder of Brianna Denison. It's open murder, which means the jury decides if it's first degree, second degree, or manslaughter.

GUILTY - Count 5 is sexual assault - against Brianna Denison.

Channel 2 is on air right now with live coverage. You can also go online to ktvn.com or listen to our radio partners KJFK 1230AM and on FOX News Radio 1270 AM.

You can also follow trial proceedings live through our twitter page and on our facebook page.
Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/KTVN2
Twitter http://twitter.com/ktvn

 Biela shaking his head afterwards. Families on both sides wiping away tears. One of Bri's family members says she's "relieved." #bielatrial     5 minutes ago  via TweetDeck 

 We are streaming more courtroom action on www.ktvn.com #bielatrial     half a minute ago  via TweetDeck    http://www.ktvn.com/

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100527/NEWS01/100527004/-b-UPDATE-b-Prosecutors-for-death-sentence-for-Biela-defense-seeks-to-spare-him
UPDATE: Biela's lawyers ask jury to sentence him to life in prison without parole

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 27, 2010
3:50 p.m. update: James Biela’s lawyers asked the jury to sentence him to life in prison without parole and called a former prison director as a witness to describe life behind bars.
Jackie Crawford, a former warden and director of the Nevada Department of Corrections, said inmates serving sentences of life without parole are monitored closely.

“They are sent to Ely State Prison, held in a single cell and controlled in a regimented environment for a minimum for two years,” she said. “They are served their meals in the room. If they leave the room they are shackled. They can never be placed in a minimum or medium security prison.”

The cells have a toilet/sink combination, a bunk and some shelves, she said. Guards slid food into the cells through a small slot, she said.

Security is the prison’s No. 1 focus, she said. Officials want to protect the community, guards and other inmates. To that end, she said, the monitor inmates closely.

“This is not a cake-walk,” she said. Inmates are expected to behave appropriately, and if they don’t, she said, “We will use whatever force is necessary to bring that inmate under control.”

Ely State Prison is in a rural location and is protected by armed guards, she said.

Ely and the High Desert Prison in Southern Nevada have never had an escape, she said.

Nevada’s prisons are rigid and severe, she said. And an inmate sentenced to life without parole would never be moved to a minimum-security facility, she said.
3:20 p.m. update: Once the verdicts were read, the prosecutor told the jury they must now decide the punishment for James Biela.

“This has been an emotional trial and it’s going to get more emotional,” Deputy District Attorney Chris Hicks told the jury. “But what has happened to these victims and to their families has all happened because of him,” Hicks said, pointing at Biela.

“We will be asking you to give him the death penalty.”

Biela’s lawyer, James Leslie told the jury in his opening statement that the defense lawyers mean no disrespect for the tragic loss in this case, but they will argue that there are reasons to vote for life.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/ap/biela-lawyer-wants-life-without-parole-not-death-95101974.html

Biela lawyer wants life without parole, not death
By: SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press
05/28/10 8:40 AM EDT

RENO, NEV. — Prosecutors in Reno are trying to persuade jurors to sentence a Nevada man to death now that he's been convicted of raping and murdering Brianna Denison and sexually assaulting two other women.

James Biela's public defenders return to Washoe District Court Friday to argue that the 28-year-old pipe fitter's life should be spared. They say he should get life without parole. They're calling members of Biela's family as witnesses to testify about his abusive childhood.

The jury deliberated for just over six hours before finding Biela guilty on Thursday of all five counts tied to the 2008 killing of the 19-year-old Denison and assault of the others.

District Attorney Dick Gammick says it is cases like this that always strengthen his faith and belief in the jury system.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100528/NEWS01/100528004/-b-Biela-update-b-Jury-hears-about-abusive-behavior-by-Biela-s-father-and-his-denial-of-the-rapes
Biela update: Biela's sister says their father beat their mother; she tried to hide from him
BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 28, 2010
12:30 p.m. update: One of James Biela’s sisters described growing up in a home filled with fear and violence as she testified this morning in the penalty phase of his trial.
Kim Eastman, two years older than Biela, who is the youngest, said their father was a tyrant who controlled the home and took out his anger on their mother. Eastman said she has suffered from eating disorders and alcohol and substance abuse problems because of her childhood.

When she took the stand, the rest of the Biela family left the courtroom. She said they all planned to stay out of court while each family member spoke because testimony would be too uncomfortable to hear.

“We had to walk on eggshells. Every little thing we did could piss him off,” she said of her father, Joseph Biela. ”I remember my dad drinking all the time, every single night, and beating my mom up pretty much every single night.”

When Joseph Biela abused their mother, the kids would put their hands over their ears and sing to block out the noise, she said. Sometimes, their mother would hide from their father in their bedroom.

“She would try to hide between us and the wall,” Eastman said, crying.
James Biela sat bent over in his chair during her testimony, and at one point took a tissue from the defense table and wiped away tears.

The family was poor and often got its food from food banks. They might get a block of cheese and peanut butter to eat or have soup for a week, she said.

“Dinner was always at 6 p.m.,” she said. “If it was 6:01, all hell broke loose.”

Children at school made fun of them, she said, because they were poor and had bad hygiene and clothes.

The children adapted differently, she said.

“Jimmy was always the funny one of the family,” she said. “I was the care taker. My sister was the quiet one, the invisible one. Jeff was the over-achiever. He was the one to get into trouble.”

After they moved to Reno, their father, Joseph Biela, beat their mother, Kathy, one night, and the children ran from their house in pajamas and bare feet and went to their aunt’s home. They called the police and their father was arrested.

continued here.......http://www.rgj.com/article/20100528/NEWS01/100528004/-b-Biela-update-b-Jury-hears-about-abusive-behavior-by-Biela-s-father-and-his-denial-of-the-rapes

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100528/NEWS01/100528004/-b-Biela-update-b-Biela-s-brother-Jeff-recalls-abuse-from-father
Biela update: Biela's brother, Jeff, recalls abuse from father

BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • May 28, 2010
2:30 p.m. update: James Biela’s older brother, Jeff, said their father bound their mother with handcuffs and beat her with what sounded like a whip on “pretty much” a nightly basis.
Sometimes it was more tortuous, I would say,” he said. “He would bind her, hand cuff her, he would make her recite things. He would fanaticize about raping my sister or my aunt.”

“During this whole kind of tortuous beating, you could hear, I can still hear it in my mind, whipping,” he said. “She would beg him to stop. He was just mercilessly whipping her pretty much nightly.”

She would beg for him to stop, he said. She would tell him that the children could hear, but he didn’t seem to care.

He could see into his parent’s bedroom, and they could see her in there, naked, bound, being beaten, he said.

One time his mother ran into their bedroom naked, and their father came in, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out, screaming, he said.

Another time he and James Biela were together and they could hear their mother calling “please stop, please stop,” he said. She was missing her teeth from getting her face smashed, he said.
The family was poor, he said, and they were evicted from their apartment, so they moved to Nevada.

Once after they moved to Reno, when Jeff was 15, his mother was being beaten again and he stuck his head into the hall and said: “This is it. I’ve had enough. If you don’t leave we’re leaving.”

His mother went back into the bedroom – Jeff said he could see his father punching her in the face – so Jeff grabbed the other children and they ran to their aunt’s house.

“Jimmy was petrified,” Jeff Biela said. “He stayed, so my sisters and I went back and grabbed him.”

They lived with their aunt for several months.

Jeff Biela said he learned that his father was diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic. Jeff Biela said he was diagnosed as being bipolar when he was 26, and takes medications to control it.

“We all have pretty different coping mechanisms, for sure,” he said.
Jeff said James Biela responded to stress by cracking jokes.
<snipped>

Thank-you, it ended today with Biela's mother on the stand, she will be back Tuesday.

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20100529/NEWS/100529480/1070&ParentProfile=1058
Jurors hear of Biela's abusive childhood

05/29/10
By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press Writer
RENO — Convicted murderer and rapist James Biela grew up in a poor, abusive and “frankly bizarre” household where his father routinely beat his mother and the children cowered in fear, sometimes using a bucket in their bedroom as a toilet, jurors were told Friday.

The Washoe District Court jury trying to decide whether to sentence the 28-year-old Sparks pipe fitter to death for the killing of Brianna Denison heard testimony from a psychiatrist, his mother and siblings about his traumatic childhood.

The seven-woman, five-man jury convicted Biela Thursday of first-degree murder, kidnapping and three counts of sexual assault in a string of attacks that began in October 2007 near the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno and culminated in Denison's strangulation in January 2008.

At a sentencing hearing that will resume Tuesday morning, his public defenders tried to persuade the same jury to spare his life and send him to prison for life with no chance for parole based on mitigating factors including his difficult upbringing.

Biela's father, Joseph Biela, engaged in daily behavior that was “unusual, abusive and frankly bizarre,” Dr. Melissa Piasecki said.

“Verbal and psychological abuse was pervasive in the house,” Piasecki said about the apartment where James Biela lived in the Chicago area with his mother, father, brother and two sisters.

Biela's mother, Kathy Lovell, “bore the brunt of the physical abuse,” she said, suffering broken teeth and ribs, and undergoing wrist surgery due to injuries from being bound so many times. She also said earrings were ripped from her ears and her hair was pulled out.
“They could hear her screaming and observe the beatings,” Piasecki said. “Sometimes (Lovell) would go to the children's rooms and hide underneath their bed. They'd see their father enter the room and drag her out from under the bed.

In a telephone interview Friday, Joseph Biela told The Associated Press that the testimony was filled with “lies.”

“Everything was fine,” said Joseph Biela, 61, who said he is confined to a wheelchair or a walker.

“I beat my wife but never my kids,” he said.

Asked whether the beatings were severe, he said, “That you will have to ask her.”

“I guess some of them were, I don't know. I'm the one paying for it now ... She was my best friend and I didn't know it at the time.”

Jeff Biela, James' older brother who recently graduated from law school, said their dad would “bind or handcuff” their mom and whip her “pretty much nightly” in the bedroom next to theirs.

“It was a tortuous beating. I can still hear it in my mind, the whipping noise the belt would make as he would whip her and her begging him to stop,” Jeff Biela said.

Biela's sisters would hold hands and sing to each other to drown out their mother's screams, according to Kim Eastman, an older sister. She remembered she feared leaving their bedroom in the evening, even to go to the bathroom.
We would keep buckets under my bed,” Eastman said.

Lovell, who now lives in Spokane, Wash., testified late Friday that her husband would strike her if she failed to bring home his beer or cigarettes.

But often “there was no rhyme or reason,” she said, adding that he sometimes used automobile fan belts to tie her to the bedpost before beating her. She didn't tell anyone because she was “ashamed.”

Lovell finally separated from her husband after he nearly killed her for showing up without the tequila he wanted after they moved from Illinois to Reno in 1990.

“He pulled me by the hair and slammed my head on the floor. He kept hitting my head on the floor — a cement floor with a carpet. I thought I was going to die,” she said.

Just then the police showed up and arrested him because for the first time the children had fled to their aunt's house a mile away and she called 911.

Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler said that while the experiences described in court must have been horrible, none of the siblings grew up to become a violent criminal.

Although the U.S. Marines court-martialed James Biela because he was AWOL and tested positive for marijuana, he was an average or better student through school, hard worker and provider for his girlfriend and son prior to embarking on the string of sexual assaults in the fall of 2007, Sattler said.

“All of the sudden he starts raping women, stealing their underwear, breaking into homes, violating women in the most despicable ways possible and choking women to death. How do you explain that?” he asked Piasecki.
“I can't explain that,” she answered.

“How is it 16 years removed from this horrible father he snaps and starts raping and killing people?” he asked again.

She said her profession doesn't have a good understanding of how early experiences affect people later in life. She said there typically is more of an “association” between such events rather than a “cause and effect.”

Joseph Biela told AP on Friday he hopes his son's life is spared.

“Let him spend the rest of his life in jail,” he said. “If they let him out, he might do that again.”

While I would never wish such a childhood on anyone, that was terrible, to say the least. James's siblings all grew up to do something positive with their lives, so it is going to be hard not to look at that aspect. While following the live blog, James's gave the finger to his ex girlfriend's parents, don't know if the jury was present to see that, hope they were.

But he was the oldest, right?  I can't imagine ever being right if I witnessed that all of my life.  How horrible.  I am not making an excuse for what he did, but I felt sick reading about his upbringing.  All those women who stayed just to keep their family together did their children no favors.  The children are messed up forever, not one of them remained unaffected.

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

Nev. jury sentences man to death for coed murder
The Associated Press

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 | 3:45 p.m.

A jury sentenced a Nevada man to death Wednesday for raping and killing a college coed after sexually assaulting two others in a string of attacks that had the city of Reno on edge for most of 2008.

The same jury that convicted James Biela, 28, last week deliberated for about nine hours before reaching a unanimous verdict to execute him by lethal injection for the 2008 rape and strangulation of Brianna Denison, 19.

Her family members burst into tears and Biela stared straight ahead as the sentence was read aloud in Washoe County District Court. Biela's sentence will be automatically appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

"My heart goes out to all the innocent people who have been touched by this tragedy," said the judge, Robert Perry. He set sentencing for July 30 on other charges stemming from the Denison slaying and the sexual assault of two other young women.

As Biela was handcuffed and led away by a court marshal, he turned to his mother and apologized.

"I'm sorry. I (expletive) up," he said.

The pipe fitter and ex-Marine from Sparks apologized Tuesday, saying he regretted that he would not be able to see his son grow up. His public defenders urged the seven women and five men of the jury to consider that he had no previous criminal record and had been abused growing up in poverty in the Chicago area.

But Denison's family and Washoe County prosecutors called death the only appropriate penalty for Denison's slaying in January 2008 during a series of assaults that began months before on the edge of the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Denison's mother, Bridgette Denison, handed small blue bags of mementoes to prosecutors and police with buttons bearing her daughter's photo and the words "Bring Bri Justice."

Similar buttons were distributed during the search for Denison's body in 2008.

"It sickens me to know my poor baby girl was with you the last moments of her life," Bridgette Denison told Biela Tuesday. "I know that James Biela is asking for mercy. I do not believe he deserves any mercy."

Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler said he agreed with public defenders who said the death penalty should be reserved for the "worst of the worst."

But he said Biela fit that category because he strangled Denison with thong underwear.

"He could have used his bare hands," Sattler said. "He chose not to do that. He killed her in a sick and sadistic way that was directly tied into what he had done earlier."

Detectives called the slaying the work of a serial rapist who stalked petite women and had a fetish for thongs. The two other assault victims said their assailant took their panties during attacks at or near UNR in the fall of 2007.

Denison, a sophomore at California's Santa Barbara City College, was home visiting friends during winter break when she was abducted Jan. 20, 2008, while sleeping on a friend's couch near the UNR campus.

Her body, clad only in socks, was found in a field 26 days later, beneath a discarded Christmas tree along with two pair of women's thong underwear. Police determined one undergarment had been stolen from Denison's friend and was used to strangle Denison.

Denison's family and friends tied blue ribbons around fence posts and trees, and police reported receiving thousands of tips and calls to an anonymous hot line. Biela was arrested in November 2008 when he went to pick his son up at preschool.

Police said he was identified through DNA compared with samples that Biela's ex-girlfriend let police obtain from their son.

Lawyers for both sides put the death penalty itself on trial during closing arguments on Tuesday.

Public defender Maizie Pusich argued that sentencing Biela to life in prison without parole was enough to punish Biela and protect the public.

"The way to prevent this sort of tragedy in the future is not to kill Mr. Biela," she said. "Death does not bring peace or renewal to anyone."

The last time a Washoe County jury issued a death sentence was for Tamir Hamilton, now 32. He was convicted in 2008 of raping and killing Holly Quick, 16, of Sparks, in September 2006.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/02/nev-jury-sentences-man-to-death-for-coed-murder/

NBC's 'Dateline' to feature the Brianna Denison case on Friday
BY MARTHA BELLISLE • mbellisle@rgj.com • October 28, 2010

 
The investigation that led to the arrest of James Biela in the rape and murder of Brianna Denison and the trial that sent him to death row will be featured in a one-hour episode of “Dateline NBC” on Friday at 9 p.m.

Josh Mankiewicz, a Dateline correspondent, said the show picks up from its earlier presentation when police were still searching for the killer, and takes viewers through the trial to the final verdict.

“It includes an extraordinary confrontation between Biela and his ex-girlfriend in the police interview room right after he was arrested,” Mankiewicz said, adding that they disguised her voice and face so she can’t be identified. “She’s alternately accusing him and pleading with him. It’s terrible and memorable.”

Lauren Denison, Brianna’s aunt, said they have not seen the show, but hope it includes information about the Bring Bri Justice Foundation, formed by family and friends to help others stay safe, organize searches and change laws to avoid similar crimes.

“That is where we’re at now,” she said. “We’ll probably never be OK, but we’re trying to make the best out of a horrible situation.”

“I’m curious to see it.”

Denison was 19 when she disappeared from a friend’s couch in January 2008. Her body was found about a month later in a South Reno field. She had been raped and strangled.

Biela was arrested in November 2008 and also charged with raping another woman in a university parking garage and kidnapping and sexually assaulting a third woman.

After three-and-a-half weeks of trial, the jury found him guilty of all counts, and said he should be sentenced to death.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20101028/NEWS01/101028033/1321/news/NBC-s--Dateline--to-feature-the-Brianna-Denison-case-on-Friday