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Andregg
gets 30 years for murder
Sister
Sarah gets two years for
covering up
one of county’s
most
brutal murders, says judge
By
Bill Johnson &
Fred Mramor of
the Desert Journal
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES - Sam Andregg was
sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for second-degree murder and other
charges related to the stabbing death of local business owner and attorney
David Johnson.
Andregg’s sister, Sarah Andregg
Seaman, 23, also was sentenced Thursday afternoon to two years in prison
for her role in hiding evidence and trying to cover up one of Sierra
County’s most brutal slayings.
Sam Andregg, 25, received a sentence of
22.5 years after pleading guilty in May to second degree murder, unlawful
taking of a motor vehicle, larceny over $250, tampering with evidence and
conspiracy to tamper with evidence.
District Judge Kevin Sweazea at
Tuesday’s sentencing hearing imposed an additional and consecutive
prison term of 7.5 years for aggravating circumstances that District
Attorney Clint Wellborn described as: the violent nature of the murder,
the types of weapons used, a lack of provocation, Sam Andregg’s lack of
remorse and an ongoing deception to hide his crime.
Andregg stabbed Johnson, then 47, more
than 40 times with a knife, a screwdriver and an ice-pick at Johnson’s
North Riverside Drive home in April last year.
Andregg in his statements to police
said he met Johnson at a local bar and went with Johnson to his home to
procure marijuana. Andregg said he became enraged when Johnson made sexual
advances toward him.
Judge Sweazea denied defense
attorneys’ last minute motion made at the sentencing hearing to withdraw
Andregg’s guilty plea.
Andregg’s attorneys argued that they
had not provided their client with effective counsel as they had failed to
inform Andregg of the provision in his plea agreement for aggravating
circumstances and a longer sentence.
Sarah Andregg was sentenced Thursday to
three years and 364 days with half of the sentence suspended – meaning
her prison term was cut to two years - after pleading guilty in late May
to filing a false report, a misdemeanor, and disposing of stolen property
over $2,500 - Johnson’s Isuzu Trooper that Sam Andregg took from
Johnson’s home after committing the murder - in her efforts to cover up
her brother’s crime.
Charges of tampering with evidence and
conspiracy to tamper with evidence were dropped in Sarah Andregg’s plea
agreement.
Sarah Andregg testified Thursday she
was terrified when her brother arrived at her home at about 3 a.m. April
21, 2001, wearing socks on his arms that were soaked in blood and after he
admitted killing someone.
“He pulled in next to my car and I
asked my brother where he got the car and he said he killed a homo. He
smelled like bottles and bottles of hard liquor was poured on him. My
brother had white socks on his hands covered in blood and said, ‘Can’t
you see it?’” Sarah Andregg testified in hopes of gaining the
court’s leniency with a sentence of probation.
Sobbing, then covering her eyes with
her hands and finally coughing with a frog in her throat, tears now
streaming down her face, Sarah Andregg said on the stand, “He told me he
needed help. I didn’t know what to do. I was shocked.
“My brother has dark chocolate brown
eyes that turned gray – it was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. He
said he killed a homo.”
Andregg (Seaman), who is pregnant and
due for delivery in early November, said she didn’t call for police
because she didn’t have a phone in her house. “I was more scared for
myself than for him because of past incidents with him (later described as
domestic violence where one time he banged her head repeatedly into her
steering wheel after he had thought she left her children home alone).
“I got into my car and he followed me
and told me we’re going to the old dump road past Bartoo’s. He flashed
me to pull over and he pulled behind me and told me to stay. He left in
the vehicle and all I saw was the taillights,” she testified.
After he returned afoot and they left
the area where Sam Andregg hid the Isuzu in a ditch, he then cut up ID
cards from a wallet, his sister testified. “He said he got three bucks
off the guy.”
She said her brother had left his blood
soaked clothing in her car but she didn’t give them back to him until he
asked for them. Prosecutors said police never found the clothing and that
Sam Andregg or someone apparently burned them.
Sarah Andregg said she also asked two
or three of her friends to provide an alibi for her whereabouts so that
she wouldn’t get into trouble with police. She said the alibis were
never intended for her brother, as prosecutors had alleged.
Crying again on the stand, she
testified, “I’m sorry for what my brother has done. If I could have
trusted anybody I wouldn’t have tried to find an alibi for myself. If I
could change things, I would.”
Sarah’s recent-new husband, Robert W.
Seaman, testified Sam Andregg had threatened to beat and kill his sister
while her children were asleep next to him on the floor of an Albuquerque
apartment. “Sam was very threatening and always made her cry,” he
said.
He said the same day “we left that
apartment and ended at my parents’ house in Belen.”
Sarah (and Sam) Andregg’s mother,
Dorothy Wilcox, testified how Sam would be abusive. “I told Sam to leave
my house because he was drunk. You love them even though you’re scared
to death what they may do.”
As the first time offender of a serious
offense, Sarah Andregg finds herself in an “unfortunate” situation,
defense attorney Albert Costales told the court.
“What she did was wrong and she
admitted to it. But we do not necessarily need to send a message of
punishment and deterrence,” Costales argued. She said Sarah is mostly
guilty exercising poor judgment that exists primarily because of her love
for, and her fear of, her brother.
Costales said Sarah Andregg has been
remorseful and that she is a good candidate for probation. “I ask the
court to separate the acts of her brother. This young lady isn’t
you’re average adult and is immature. We need do no more damage over the
loss of Mr. Johnson,” the defense rested.
Earlier at Sarah Andregg’s sentence
hearing, Judge Sweazea heard testimony from Douglas Architect who reported
finding his close companion stabbed to death later that dreadful morning.
Prosecutor June Stein played a tape of the call Architect placed to police
dispatchers after finding Johnson’s body.
Architect told the court he wants Sarah
to pay along with her brother because neither of them had shown any
remorse since the murder 17 months ago.
“I wonder what it would be like if
she were to come home and find her husband with an ice-pick in his head
and screwdriver in his neck… to feel her mind shatter – to see
something eyes should never see,” Architect testified.
“It’s horrible to call David’s
mother, Phyllis, to have her answer the phone and for me to lie the first
time in my life and tell her everything is okay. I want Sarah to know she
broke Phyllis Johnson’s heart,” he said.
Architect said he received months of
counseling and trauma therapy. “And then to see 9/11 – it was horrific
and brutal – and lose months of recovery and realizing I had my own 9/11
towering over me with nothing left.”
He said Sam Andregg was arrested on
Sept. 12, the day after the terrorist attacks on America and exactly one
year from the date of Sarah’s sentencing. “I wonder how Sarah would
feel if her husband was killed because of the hatred of heterosexuals. I
have much more to say. This is what disrespect and hate does,” he told
the court.
State police homicide detective Norman
Rhoades said Sarah Andregg had told him during an interview that she
wanted to testify against her brother so she could secure her release.
“She said Sam threatened to kill her
and her kids, but later she admitted the threat wasn’t true. Her initial
motive was to protect Sam [and then when the heat was on] she wanted to
save herself,” Rhoades told the court.
Adult Probation Officer Cindy Chavez
said she has seen no remorse or regret from Sarah Andregg. “As her GED
teacher, it appears Sarah does what Sarah wants. We need to get a better
handle on Sarah…”
Deputy District Attorney June Stein
said it took five months from the time of the murder to make an arrest and
that Sarah Andregg lied to police about a stranger – not her brother –
being in a vehicle in her driveway the night of the murder.
Within a week of the murder, when Sam
Andregg already had been pegged by police but lacking of all the evidence,
Sarah Andregg had also told the same story to the Desert Journal about how
the stranger in the vehicle stared her down in a harassing, menacing way.
Stein later explained how Sarah Andregg
made up the story, just in case a neighbor or someone just happened to see
it in Sarah Andregg’s driveway or parking area the night of the murder.
“[Sarah] had a golden opportunity.
She’s here to manipulate the system. Now all of a sudden she is married
and pregnant. It’s just manipulation,” Stein told the court.
District Attorney Wellborn also
appeared Thursday as part of the prosecutorial team with the strategy to
get through to the judge, like cowboy speaking to cowboy.
Wellborn, of ranch circles, and Judge
Sweazea, a pro-rodeo star with accolades that once beamed off his prize
truck, share a western culture, so says the DA.
“I believe the defense will use the
fact she’s pregnant to get the court’s sympathy,” Wellborn said.
“In our New Mexico, western culture, females are treated with more
respect (and therefore more leniency). I ask the court not to be swayed by
the fact she’s pregnant.”
“The defendant (Mrs. Seaman)
attempted to cover up the murder. She admitted that to numerous witnesses
whom she tried to sway to lie to provide alibis for her brother. She
actively participated hiding evidence and getting alibis,” Wellborn
said.
“We had a hard time solving the
murder. It was through the efforts of Deputy DA Stein, state police and T
or C city police that we solved the murder. I ask for the appropriate
punishment, the maximum of four years. We need to send a message that
covering up a crime won’t be tolerated and you’re not going to get
away with it,” the DA said.
Costales, Seaman’s attorney, said
Sarah wasn’t involved in any way in the murder.
“She was under the wing of her
brother… She was scared to death of her brother – he was rotten drunk.
She expressed remorse, and [she] shivers coming to court,” Costales
said.
He said it’s not like a criminal to
tattletale ones own crimes all over town, as Sarah Andregg had done.
“Within 24 hours she blabbed it all over town. She doesn’t even know
which house belongs to the victim.”
“It was an ugly thing by a
psychopath. She only has a few traffic violations. Because of her brother
and his evilness, there is no reason to take lynch mentality and put her
in prison. Her brother was a brutal alcoholic. Out of fear and love for
him, she protected him,” the defense said.
“My client is confused and
remorseful. Sam threatened to kill her in front of her children and he
beat her head unconscious on the steering wheel, all within one year of
the murder,” Costales said, adding:
“I believe she’ll be a model
probationer. She should not be grossly mistreated as a first time
offender.”
But, as Stein had argued earlier,
“She could have spared everyone months and months of torture. She could
have anonymously turned over her brother. Instead, she covered up and
covered up and filed a false police report.”
Judge Sweazea said rehabilitation,
deterrence and the protection of society are important factors in passing
sentence. “This is one of the most brutal murders Sierra County has
seen.”
The judge said he doesn’t believe
Seaman’s story that she was getting an alibi for only herself, that it
was also for her brother to cover up his crimes.
Sweazea then turned to Mrs. Seaman and
said, “Your actions caused the crime to go unsolved for a long time.”
“On the other hand, as Costales
argues, your record is minimal but outside this circumstance and because
of the seriousness of the crime, probation is not appropriate,” the
judge said.
He then sentenced her to three years
prison on the felony count and 364 days prison for the misdemeanor, and
suspended half of the sentence with two years probation.
Seaman will be credited with four and a
half months for time already spent behind bars. The judge also ordered her
to pay restitution, undergo therapy and to attend her GED and parenting
classes.
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