Saturday, December 19, 2009

Geneva, NY: Suspect in Geneva double homicide held on $250,000 bail

By The Associated Press
December 18, 2009, 9:29PM
CANANDAIGUA, NY — Less than two weeks before completing parole, a man stabbed to death his girlfriend and her 12-year-daughter with a razor knife at an apartment in New York’s Finger Lakes region, a prosecutor said Friday.
John Brown, 35, who served 2 1/2 years in prison for violently shaking his infant daughter in 2003, was indicted Friday on first-degree and second-degree murder charges in the slayings of Helen Buchel, 34, and her daughter, Brittany Passalacqua, at their home in Geneva the night of Nov. 19.
Buchel’s 14-year-old son, Brandon, discovered the bodies the following afternoon.
“Obviously, it’s very, very difficult for him,” Ontario County District Attorney R. Michael Tantillo said.
Brown, who is unemployed, displayed no emotion at his arraignment and a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Calls to defense attorney Robert Zimmerman went unanswered Friday.
Brown, who wears his 18-inch-long hair in a weaved ponytail, lives in Palmyra, about 20 miles from Geneva. He was arrested the day the bodies were found. No other details about the circumstances of the slayings have been disclosed.
Prison officials say Brown drew a three-year sentence in January 2004 for causing serious physical injury to his infant daughter in March 2003. She has since recovered, but the nature of her injuries were not disclosed.
Brown got out of prison in June 2006, but returned in March 2008 on a parole violation for illegal drug use and associating with someone who has a criminal record, officials say. Released again in February, his parole term was due to expire on Dec. 2.
He was jailed for two weeks in September for taking Buchel’s car without permission and told he could no longer live with her.

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