is this a good reason to kill someone. shoudl we we killed at all.
(06.12.06-AP) — A paralegal who parked every day in a shopping mall garage was stabbed to death by a homeless rapist who was lurking there with a plan - "murder motivated by hatred, hatred of white people," a prosecutor said Monday.
"The defendant's perfect victim had just arrived," said Assistant District Attorney Timothy Ward. "Petite, sandy-haired, female and white."
Ward gave the opening statement in Westchester County Court at the trial of Phillip Grant, 44, who is accused of murder as a hate crime in the stabbing death of Concetta Russo-Carriero, 56. She was killed at lunchtime last June 29 as she headed for her car in the parking garage of the Galleria mall, just a block from the courthouse.
Defense attorney Eugene Traynor, who objected repeatedly and fruitlessly during Ward's remarks to the jury, was to present his statement later in the day.
The case has been widely publicized because it happened in daylight at one of the county's best-known malls; because Grant, who was homeless, was bused by the county to downtown White Plains after spending the night at a homeless shelter; and because it spurred calls for a civil commitment law that could keep violent sex offenders off the streets even after their time is served.
Grant was a convicted rapist who had completed his maximum sentence and had refused mental-health treatment offered at the shelters. Civil commitment bills are pending in the state Legislature.
The murder charge against Grant became a hate-crime charge after he told police he killed the woman because she was white. "All I knew was she had blond hair and blue eyes and she had to die," he said in a videotaped statement. "If I'd have had a gun today, there'd be a lot of dead white people on the streets of White Plains."
State Supreme Court Justice Lester Adler warned the jurors to resist the temptation to visit the nearby scene of the crime. He has also made sure they park elsewhere.
Ward said Grant, wielding a serrated steak knife, grabbed Russo-Carriero when she reached the seventh floor of the garage and forced her to walk with him the 100 feet to her car. The woman had left work after half a day because she had errands to run in advance of a vacation, he said.
The prosecutor said Grant told her he wanted a ride to Connecticut, but he actually had "one thought only on his mind at that time: to kill Connie."
The victim "summoned up her courage and with her last breaths screamed as loud as she could," Ward said, but Grant stabbed her twice, slicing through her heart.
Russo-Carriero's husband, in the gallery, looked down at the floor during the detailed description of his wife's death. He and their two sons are suing White Plains and the county, demanding $15 million in compensation for her suffering, death and "pre-death terror."
Ward told the jurors - seven white men, four white women and a black woman - that they would hear testimony from a man who saw the two as they walked toward the car. He also saw Russo-Carriero's body in a puddle of blood and saw a man "hustling away," Ward said.
Grant was arrested within minutes, based on the witness' description, and told officers "I'm guilty" from the back of a squad car, Ward said. Grant also led police to a bloody knife and shirt. Then, while being videotaped at police headquarters, gave "a 45-minute confession," Ward said. The tape was screened at a pretrial hearing and is expected to be shown to the jury.
Also among the evidence, Ward said, is the victim's DNA, found in bloodstains on the knife, the shirt, Grant's pants and his hands.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
