thedrifter
12-13-06, 07:29 AM
Court upholds ex-Marine's murder conviction
By: North County Times -
SAN DIEGO -- A state appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-degree murder conviction and prison sentence of a former Marine who snapped the neck of his girlfriend, also a Marine, and left her paralyzed body in a tub to drown.
Wardell Nelson Joiner, 25 at the time, was convicted in April 2005 of first-degree murder in connection with the February 2004 death of Lance Cpl. Vanessa Messner at the Fallbrook apartment she shared with Joiner. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the appeals court decision stated.
Deputy District Attorney Geoff Allard argued at the trial that Joiner choked Messner during an argument, snapped her neck, put her paralyzed body in the bathtub and filled it with water. The neck injury would have prevented Messner from lifting her head out of the water, according to trial testimony.
Joiner's defense attorney, Michael Washington, countered that there was no evidence that Joiner had killed his girlfriend.
Ellie
By: North County Times -
SAN DIEGO -- A state appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-degree murder conviction and prison sentence of a former Marine who snapped the neck of his girlfriend, also a Marine, and left her paralyzed body in a tub to drown.
Wardell Nelson Joiner, 25 at the time, was convicted in April 2005 of first-degree murder in connection with the February 2004 death of Lance Cpl. Vanessa Messner at the Fallbrook apartment she shared with Joiner. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the appeals court decision stated.
Deputy District Attorney Geoff Allard argued at the trial that Joiner choked Messner during an argument, snapped her neck, put her paralyzed body in the bathtub and filled it with water. The neck injury would have prevented Messner from lifting her head out of the water, according to trial testimony.
Joiner's defense attorney, Michael Washington, countered that there was no evidence that Joiner had killed his girlfriend.
Ellie