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John
CHAMBERLAIN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Drugs
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders:
November 26,
1998
Date of birth: January 17,
1978
Victims profile: Charlotte
Kenyon, 26, Bryan Harrison, 21, and Daniel Ketchum, 27
Method of murder:
Shooting
Location: Palm Beach County, Florida, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on May 10,
2002. Commuted to life in prison o April 15,
2008
Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm
Beach County Case # 98-12923
Sentencing Judge: The Honorable
Marvin Mounts
Attorney, Trial: Gregg Lerman –
Private
Attorney, Direct Appeal: Gregg
Lerman – Private
Attorney, Collateral Appeals:
Suzanne Keffer – CCRC-S
Date of Offense: 11/26/98
Date of Sentence: 05/10/02
Circumstances of Offense:
In October and November of 1998,
Amanda Ingman began trying to locate her drug supplier and “occasional
pimp,” Thomas Thibault, to purchase some cocaine. Thibault contacted
Ingman at a house where she was living with her boyfriend, Bryan
Harrison, and his roommates, Charlotte Kenyan and Daniel Ketchum.
Harrison became upset when he found out that Thibault called Ingman.
In the early morning hours of
11/26/98, Thibault enlisted the help of John Chamberlain and Jason
Dascott to deliver some cocaine to Ingman and resolve the argument with
Harrison. Thibault told Chamberlain that there might be a
confrontation.
Chamberlain drove his father’s car and picked up Thibault and Dascott. While stopped at a gas station, Chamberlain
showed Thibault a .45 caliber handgun and ammunition that were stored in
the trunk of the car.
After the argument between
Thibault and Harrison was resolved, Chamberlain, Thibault, Dascott,
Ingman, and Harrison snorted cocaine in Ingman’s bedroom. The group
then went out to get more cocaine, and upon returning to the house,
Harrison and Ingman went inside, while Chamberlain, Thibault, and
Dascott remained outside and discussed a plan to rob the residents of
the house and steal the electronic equipment from the house.
Either Ingman or Dascott
persuaded Ketchum to open a safe in the living room. Thibault then
pulled out the .45 caliber handgun and ordered Ketchum and Harrison into
the bathroom.
Chamberlain helped by striking Ketchum in the leg with an
asp, an extendable police baton. Thibault held Ketchum and Harrison in
the bathroom, while Ingman, Dascott, and Chamberlain removed the
electronic equipment from the house and put them in Chamberlain’s car.
While in the bathroom, Ketchum
attempted to overpower Thibault, but he shot and killed Ketchum in the
struggle. Thibault left the bathroom and told the others that he had
killed Ketchum. According to Thibault and Ingman, Chamberlain then said
“no more witnesses” and encouraged Thibault to kill Harrison or else
they were “all going to die” and were “all going to the electric
chair.”
Ingman and Thibault awakened
Charlotte Kenyan, who had been sleeping in a back bedroom and placed her
in the bathroom with Harrison. Thibault then “emptied the gun” into
Harrison and Kenyan while Chamberlain stood by his side. Harrison was
not dead, so Thibault and Chamberlain went to the car, retrieved more
bullets, reloaded the gun and Thibault again “emptied the gun” into
Harrison and Kenyan.
After going back to
Chamberlain’s parent’s house, Ingman later went to the house of
Harrison’s father and told him of the murders. Police were alerted to
Chamberlain’s involvement by Ingman.
Codefendant Information:
Thomas Thibault, Jason Dascott, and Amanda Ingman all testified against
Chamberlain.
Thomas Thibault pled guilty to three counts of First-Degree Murder and
was sentenced to death.
Jason Dascott pled guilty to three counts of Second-Degree Murder and
was sentenced to a prison sentence of 10 years and probation sentence of
5 years.
02/16/01
Jury returned guilty verdicts on Counts I, II, III, and V.
Judgment of Acquittal ordered on Count IV
05/10/02
Sentenced as follows:
Count I: First-Degree
Murder – Ketchum – Death
Count II: First-Degree
Murder – Harrison – Death
Count III: First-Degree
Murder – Kenyan – Death Count V: Armed Robbery –
Life Imprisonment
Case Information:
Chamberlain filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on
05/21/02, citing the following errors: death qualification of the jury;
denying a motion to disqualify the judge; allowing improper comments on
Chamberlain’s credibility; allowing out-of-court identification of
Chamberlain; violating the rule of sequestration; using prior consistent
statements; using a demonstrative aid; constitutionality of the
felony-murder jury instruction; failing to have sufficient evidence of
First-Degree Murder; constitutionality of the murder in the course of a
felony aggravator; failing to have sufficient evidence to support
aggravating factors and rejecting mitigating factors.
On 06/17/04, the convictions and sentences were affirmed.
Chamberlain filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S.
Supreme Court on 01/21/05 that was denied on 03/21/05.
Floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us
Chamberlain off Death Row,
resentenced to life in prison
By Larry Keller - Palm Beach Post
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH — He supplied the gun and the car
used in a triple murder. He got more bullets so that the victims could
be finished off. And today, John Chamberlain got off Death Row,
resentenced to life in prison on a technicality.
"I now vacate the death penalty that was previously
imposed on you," Circuit Judge Lucy Chernow Brown told Chamberlain at a
court hearing, as family members of two of his victims watched. With
that, Chamberlain will be transferred from Death Row to another high-security
facility.
"It just doesn't seem like justice," said Anita
Charest of Palm Springs, whose daughter, Charlotte Kenyon, was awakened
from her bed, taken to a bathroom and executed.
"He killed my daughter. His parents can visit him. He
gets three meals a day now and we pay for it. "He should fry, and I
would be right there in front."
Chamberlain and Thomas Thibault were convicted of
first-degree murder in separate trials. Both were sentenced to death for
the slayings of Kenyon, 26, Bryan Harrison, 21, and Daniel Ketchum, 27,
in the West Palm Beach house they shared on Thanksgiving 1998.
A third defendant, Jason Dascott, pleaded guilty to
second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was
released last month and is on probation in Monroe County for the next
five years.
Thibault's death sentence was reversed in 2005 on a
procedural technicality, and he received life in prison. Now 32, he's
serving his sentence at Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade.
Chamberlain's attorney then argued that he should
receive the same sentence as Thibault, especially since it was Thibault
who shot all three victims.
"We all agreed the case law says you can't have
disproportionate sentences," said prosecutor Terri Skiles.
Accompanied by Chamberlain and Dascott, Thibault went
to the Norton Avenue house intending to sell cocaine to a woman, Amanda
Ingman, who lived there with the victims. Once there, the defendants
decided to take stolen electronics from the home that Ingman said were
kept in a walk-in safe.
Thibault held Harrison and Ketchum at gunpoint while
Chamberlain and Dascott robbed the house. When Ketchum rushed him,
Thibault shot and killed him.
Chamberlain then urged Thibault to kill Harrison and
Kenyon to eliminate witnesses, Ingman told police. Thibault said later
that he "emptied the gun" on them, and when Harrison continued breathing,
Chamberlain went to the car and got more bullets so he could finish the
job.
Like her mother, Kenyon's sister was unhappy that
Chamberlain's life was spared. "It's very upsetting," she said. "In my
opinion, he's almost more responsible than Tommy. At least Tommy took
responsibility for his actions. This man has never taken responsibility
for this."
She and other relatives of the victims said they are
angry that Ingman was never charged in the crime. Skiles said the men
charged with the murders would not cooperate when asked about Ingman,
whose boyfriend, Harrison, was one of the people murdered.
Prosecutor Skiles successfully argued that Judge
Brown should impose consecutive, not concurrent, life sentences on
Chamberlain. Since life carries no possibility of parole, there is no
practical distinction. But it does carry a symbolic value, Skiles
suggested.
"It makes each life that was taken accounted for by
the defendant," she said.
Death Row inmate gets sentence
modified to life
By Larry Keller - Palm Beach Post
Monday, April 14, 2008
Florida's Death Row will soon have one fewer resident.
John Chamberlain, sentenced to death for a triple murder in West Palm
Beach on Thanksgiving 1998, is scheduled to have his sentence modified
to life in prison at a court hearing on Tuesday.
The death sentence of Thomas Thibault, his co-defendant
and the shooter in the bloody robbery, was reduced to life in September
2005 after a procedural technicality prompted prosecutors to offer
Thibault life imprisonment as long as he didn't appeal his conviction.
Chamberlain's lawyer then argued that his sentence
should not be harsher.
"It was our position that he was equally or less
culpable," said Suzanne Keffer, Chamberlain's appellate lawyer, who
works in the Fort Lauderdale office of the Capital Collateral Regional
Counsel, which represents indigent Death Row inmates.
In a motion she filed to vacate Chamberlain's
sentence, Keffer cited other cases in which a death sentence was reduced
on grounds of disproportionality because a co-defendant received a life
sentence. Among them was a 1975 Florida Supreme Court ruling reversing
the death sentence of a man because his co-defendant, the triggerman in
a murder, got life.
"We pride ourselves in a system of justice that
requires equality before the law," the justices said. "Defendants should
not be treated differently upon the same or similar facts."
Circuit Judge Lucy Chernow Brown has agreed with that
argument in Chamberlain's case, even though the Florida Attorney
General's Office maintained that he should still get death because
Thibault's life term was the result of a plea negotiation, not a jury's
recommendation. On Tuesday, Brown is expected to formally resentence
Chamberlain.
There are 389 men and one woman on Florida's Death
Row, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. Chamberlain is
one of 10 men whose Palm Beach County crimes landed them there. The last
execution for a Palm Beach County murder was in 1992, when Nollie Lee
Martin was electrocuted. His crime was killing a college student working
a summer job at a Delray Beach convenience store.
Chamberlain, of West Palm Beach, will become the
second man on Death Row for a Palm Beach County crime in the past three
years to be resentenced to life in prison. In March 2005, Cleo LeCroy
got a reprieve when the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions of people
whose crimes were committed when they were under 18.
The triple murders on Thanksgiving 1998 were set in
motion when Thibault went to the house at 6507 Norton Ave. to sell
cocaine to a woman, Amanda Ingman, who lived there with the victims. He
was accompanied by Chamberlain and another man, Jason Dascott.
They drove to the house in Chamberlain's father's
car.
Once there, Thibault, Chamberlain and Dascott decided
to rob the home's residents of electronics. Thibault held two of them,
Bryan Harrison, 21, and Daniel Ketchum, 27, at gunpoint in the bathroom
while his cohorts stole items.
Ketchum rushed him, and Thibault shot him dead in the
ensuing struggle, according to court testimony and records.
Ingman testified that Chamberlain said "no more
witnesses" and urged Thibault to kill Harrison. Thibault claimed that he
left the decision up to Ingman, whose boyfriend, Harrison, was one of
the other two people in the house. She favored getting rid of them, he
said.
Ingman and Thibault then awakened Charlotte Kenyon,
26, sleeping in another room. They placed her in the bathroom with
Harrison.
Thibault later testified that he "emptied the gun"
into Kenyon and Harrison with Chamberlain at his side.
Harrison was still breathing, however, so Chamberlain
went to the car and got more bullets. Once again Thibault began firing.
The three victims were shot 10 times altogether.
Thibault was convicted of three counts of first-degree
murder and sentenced to death in 2001 by Circuit Judge Marvin Mounts.
Chamberlain's trial was next. He was convicted of the same charges and
also sentenced by Mounts to die.
Dascott pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and
was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Ingman was never charged.
Thibault was resentenced to life in September 2005
because nobody, including Mounts, had ever asked him if he waived his
right to a jury during the sentencing phase of his case. That opened the
door for Chamberlain to ask that his sentence also be modified.
Today, Thibault is 32 and incarcerated at Glades
Correctional Institution in Belle Glade. Dascott was released from
prison last month, a day before his 29th birthday. He is living in the
Florida Keys, where he is on probation for the next five years.
