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Mendum Paul CORVIN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Twice
impregnated his adolescent daughter, killing newborns to avoid
prosecution for incest
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: 1968 / 1970
Date
of arrest:April 18,
1995 (25 years later)
Date of birth: 1934
Victims profile: Newborn babies
Method of murder: Buried alive -
Suffocation
Location: Florida/Pennsylvania,
USA
Status: Pleaded guilty. Sentenced to three concurrent life sentences
in Pennsylvania and Florida in 1997. Dies in prison on September
4, 2000
Man accused of killing 2 babies he had with daughter
The Albuquerque Tribune
April 18, 1995
SCOTTSDALE, Pa. — A man accused of burying alive a baby he had with his
daughter 27 years ago has confessed to killing a second child he
fathered with her, police said.
Paul Corvin,
61, was arrested this morning at his home near Scottsdale on a charge of
homicide in the second child's death.
Police in Boynton Beach, Fla., found the skeletal remains
of the first child, a boy, Saturday after Corvin's daughter [39 years
old] told investigators he buried the baby alive in the family's back
yard. She said she gave birth in a bathroom at home, and her father
first tried to drown the boy [in the bathtub].
Killer dies in prison
The Associated Press
September 5, 2000
West
Palm Beach, Fla — A man serving life in prison for raping his
daughter and killing two babies he fathered with her has died in a
Pennsylvania hospital.
Mendum Paul Corvin, 66, died
of a heart attack Aug. 14 while serving three concurrent life sentences,
The Palm Beach Post reported Monday.
Corvin pleaded no contest in
August 1997 to a first-degree murder charge after police found remains
of an infant in the coal cellar of his former home in Scottdale, Pa.,
near Pittsburgh. The newborn girl was killed in 1970 or 1971.
In November 1997, Corvin
pleaded guilty to killing another child he fathered with his daughter
and burying the newborn in the yard of the family's Florida home in
Boynton Beach in 1968.
At the time of the plea
bargains, Corvin had said he wanted to avoid a trial so he could spare
his now-grown daughter, Sharon Corvin Moore, the agony of testifying.
Police began investigating
the old murders after Moore's boyfriend went to police in April 1995 and
told them about the baby buried in the back yard. Moore confirmed the
story and led detectives to the skeletal remains of the two infants.
Corvin, a retired
electrician, had been ill over the past several years and had suffered
several heart attacks.
Charges unlikely
against grandmother
Stephanie Smith - Sun-Sentinel
April 22, 1995
Rosina Corvin says she never
knew her husband sexually abused their three daughters, her attorney
says. She never knew her 12-year-old daughter was pregnant with her
husband's child. She never knew the child was buried for 27 years in
the back yard of her Boynton Beach house where she still lives.
"There's plenty of households in
America where abuse goes on and one side or the other doesn't know about
it," said Michael Salnick, Corvin's attorney. "It's less naive than you
think."
Salnick said Corvin was as
shocked as anyone about the allegations of incest and murder.
Legal experts say it's unlikely
Corvin could be prosecuted for failure to protect her daughter or her
granddaughter, the same type of charge used successfully to prosecute
Pauline Zile.
Zile, of Riviera Beach, was
convicted last week of first-degree murder of her daughter, Christina
Holt, 7, because a jury found she did nothing to protect Christina when
she was beaten and suffocated by her husband. Zile faces a possible
death sentence.
In Corvin's case, her ex-husband,
Mendum Paul Corvin, 61, is accused of sexually abusing the couple's
three daughters, fathering two children with his oldest daughter and
killing the newborn babies.
The daughter, now 39, told
police she gave birth the first time in Boynton Beach, when she was 12.
Then again, at age 15, in Pennslyvania.
At first glance, the cases of
Corvin and Zile may not appear much different: Both mothers did not
intervene in the abuse of their daughters, with tragic results.
But the key distinction is that
Corvin is a generation removed from the murder victim, the baby, but
Zile was the victim's mother.
In Zile's case, prosecutors
established that the mother had a legal duty to protect her child from
abuse when she knew of the abuse, and her failure to intervene made the
parent just as guilty of the child's death as the killer.
Whether that theory would extend
to a grandparent is questionable.
"It doesn't sound like there is
any basis of charging anyone other than the father," criminal defense
lawyer Thomas Gano said.
"Considering the mother was 12,
what are they going to do, charge her with failure to protect her baby
from her father?" Gano said.
Assistant State Attorney Scott
Cupp said prosecutors have no plans to charge the incest victim with any
crime.
The father, Mendum Paul Corvin,
has been charged with criminal homicide in Pennsylvania and prosecutors
in Palm Beach county say they expect to present a case of first-degree
murder against Corvin to a grand jury.
As for the incest victim's
mother, Cupp said it was premature to speculate what charges, if any,
could be filed.
"We don't even have a [police)
file yet," Cupp said. "I don't know what the victim is saying about the
mother. I don't know if the mother was around and knew what was going on."
The prosecution of Zile was
precedent-setting under current laws. In Corvin's case, 1968 legal
standards would have to be applied because the killing occurred then.
Chief Assistant State Attorney
Paul Zacks said prosecutors are researching laws on the books in 1968,
including the felony first-degree murder law that was the basis of
charging Zile and whether a parent had any legal duty to protect a child
from abuse at that time.
"I doubt it in 1968," Zacks said.
"Society and laws have changed a lot since then. It's troubling."
SEX:M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: CE-felony
MO:
Twice impregnated his adolescent daughter, killing newborns to avoid
prosecution for incest.
DISPOSITION:
Pled guilty; two concurrent life terms.
