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By Heather Clark
Albuquerque, New Mexico (AP) 11-09
A federal judge ruled Nov. 12 that there is probable cause to hold a teenager accused of murdering a nun at her home on the Navajo reservation.
Reehahlio Carroll, 18, is accused of the “unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought” in the death of 64-year-old Sister Marguerite Bartz, who served at St. Berard Catholic Church in Navajo. Bartz was found face down in a pool of blood in her home Nov. 1.
During the hearing, which was Carroll’s first court appearance since he was taken into federal custody Tuesday, Navajo authorities sought to quash the case. Federal Magistrate Judge Richard Puglisi denied the motion.
Tribal Chief Prosecutor Bernadine Martin claimed the federal government failed to follow proper procedures under Navajo law when agents took Carroll into custody. Martin said two armed FBI agents demanded Carroll be handed over, and that she never received the complaint and affidavit from the U.S. Attorney’s Office required to take a suspect into custody under tribal law.
Martin said FBI agents don’t have the right to “badge out” suspects, which means to show up and take suspects without going through proper procedures.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to work through this because I’m not in the business of violating people’s constitutional rights,” she said outside the courtroom.
Federal prosecutor Steven Yarbrough told the judge he believes proper procedures were followed and that Navajo authorities received a copy of the affidavit and complaint, which was sent to and later e-mailed to Martin by U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt.
FBI agents might have been armed when they showed up to take Carroll into federal custody, “but it wasn’t in connection with a show of force or in any way intimidating,” Yarbrough said.
He called the Navajo Nation’s motion “very unusual.”
“I think they feel like we were trying to trample on their sovereign rights, which we were not trying to do,” he said.
Carroll is accused of breaking into Bartz’s home shortly after midnight on Nov. 1, looking for cash or valuables to sell. Her body was found by another nun that afternoon.
FBI Agent John Pierson testified that shoe impressions were found in the blood in the home and outside the window, and a bloodied flashlight was found in a vehicle that belonged to Bartz’s roommate.
Carroll’s defense attorney, Robert Gorence, tried to cast doubt that Carroll’s shoes were connected to evidence found at Bartz’s home.
But Pierson said Carroll was detained in Window Rock, Ariz., as a suspect in an unrelated hotel burglary and escaped by kicking out the window of a vehicle. An officer had removed one of Carroll’s shoes and his shoe left an imprint on the vehicle’s window, which was how the FBI matched his shoes to the prints outside Bartz’s home, Pierson said.
Pierson also testified the preliminary cause of death issued by the state Office of the Medical Investigator was trauma to Bartz’s head. He said Carroll had hit Bartz with a flashlight in the head six times.
Yarbrough said Carroll will not face the death penalty if convicted, because the Navajo Nation has not agreed to that possible punishment.
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