State of Fl vs Thomas Fast [CONVICTED]

[Audie]

Thomas Fast murder trial
begins
Updated: Monday, 06 Jul 2009, 7:32 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 06 Jul 2009, 7:32 PM EDT

Manatee County - Jury selection started Monday, in the trial of a Manatee County man accused of killing his stepmother.

Thomas Fast is charged with the murder of Susan Fast, she disappeared on June 30, 2007.

Nearly a month later, her body was found in garbage bags, in a retention pond in Lakewood Ranch.

Prosecutors say Thomas dumped Susan’s body in the pond off University Parkway.

He was arrested shortly after Susan disappeared.

Detectives found a .22 caliber handgun and some of Susan’s Jewelry in a duffel bag belonging to Thomas.

He says he’s been framed.

Investigators say he was afraid his father was cutting him out of his will, and leaving most of the money to his wife, Susan.

The trial is expected to last all week.

It’s still unclear whether Fast will testify.

He faces life in prison if he is convicted.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/sun_coast/Thomas_fast_murder_trial


CNN has a live link
http://www.cnn.com/CRIME/

[Audie]

The jury has been instructed and the opening statements have begun.

[Audie]

http://media2.myfoxtampabay.com//photo/2009/07/06/thomas_fast_20090706192930_320_240.JPG
The defendent Thomas Fast

http://www.wtsp.com/genthumb/genthumb.ashx?e=3&h=240&w=320&i=/assetpool/images/090706013736_susan_fast_0607.jpg
Victim Susan Fast

[Audie]

Live coverage of trial irks Fast's attorney
By ROBERT NAPPER - rnapper@bradenton.com

BRADENTON — A national television show is expected to roll out live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the murder trial of Thomas Fast, accused of killing and dismembering his stepmother in 2007, and his defense attorney is not happy about it.

Jury selection began in Fast’s trial Monday but not before his defense attorney, Assistant Public Defender Franklin Roberts, decried the fact that the television show In Session plans to cover proceedings live throughout the week. The coverage is expected to air live on the network truTV, formerly called Court TV, this week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Roberts especially objected to the presence of television cameras in the courtroom as attorneys tried to empanel a jury, though court officials told him the cameras would not be turned on during jury selection. The taping was to begin at the start of opening arguments.

Just having cameras in the courtroom, whether they are on or not, could taint the jury pool, Roberts argued.

“I think having cameras in the courtroom will inhibit the trial, inhibit witnesses and inhibit potential jurors,” he said.

Circuit Judge Gilbert Smith Jr., who is presiding over the trial, granted Roberts’ request that two cameras on tripods in the courtroom be removed during jury selection, but said In Session will be allowed to film the trial live once a jury is selected.

In Session editorial Producer Ilana Rosenbluth said objections from defense attorneys about live coverage are common.

“It happens all the time. It is nothing new,” she said.

Fast is accused of first-degree murder in the killing and dismembering of his stepmother Susan Fast, 60, in June 2007. After she disappeared, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputies found Susan Fast’s body parts stuffed in garbage bags in a storm drain behind a Lakewood Ranch shopping plaza.

After the debate over In Session’s coverage, attorneys then spent the rest of the day trying to weed out potential jurors who have made up their mind about the case based on the media coverage of Susan Fast’s death.

Dozens of potential jurors told Roberts and Assistant State Attorney Art Brown they had read or seen on television media reports on the case. Only a few of those said they could not objectively serve as a juror on the case. Dozens of others said they had no knowledge of the case.

But the hours-long questioning of potential jurors who had prior knowledge of the case pushed jury selection into a second day. Attorneys are hoping to select a jury sometime this afternoon, with opening statements to begin immediately after.

http://www.bradenton.com/news/local/story/1556921.html

[Audie]

Circuit Judge Gilbert Smith Jr.
Defense attorneys, Assistant Public Defender Franklin Roberts and public defender Jennifer Fury
Prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Art Brown

[Audie]

Opening statements will begin Wednesday at 9 a.m. The trial is supposed to wrap up by Friday.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2009/7/7/493429.html?title=Jury+seated+in+Fast+murder+trial

Gonna be a quick trial, lol.

[Audie]

Opening statements are over.

First witness is Jason Smith deputy with Manatee Co Sheriff. Was a crime scene technician at the time.

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Discussion of evidence collected and photographs taken inside and outside of Susan and Bruce Fast's home. Toothbrush's collected. Swabs used to collect suspected blood.

Roll of paper towels on top of washer. Rugs in washer. Spots of blood on paper towel holder.

[Audie]

Showing aerial photographs now of the home and the Publix. I believe the bags of dismembered body parts were found in the water behind the Publix.

Now showing pics of the home from the outside. no broken windows, no doors forced open. Flower bed appeared trampled some.

These comments are not word for word. Just paraphrasing.

[annalyzer]

live link

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1

[Audie]

Now showing pics inside the home. Nothing of disarray. Appeared clean and well kept.

[Audie]

live link

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1Hi Annalyzer! Thanks. I was getting lonely, lol.

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Now showing close up pics of the hallway wall where what appeared to blood was found.

Now showing kitchen area. Knife block .. no knives. Interior of dishwasher .. one or two plates, many knives and a pair of scissors.

[annalyzer]

Hi Annalyzer! Thanks. I was getting lonely, lol.
gotta run for cigs, be right back :)

[Audie]

Pics of drops of blood near front doorway.

Pics of blood found in the bathroom.

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Now showing pics of a white pickup at Publix taken June 3, 2007. In the parking lot furthest away from the Publix entrance.

Now showing pics of TF. Scrape or rash that had scabbed over on his arm.

Sidebar.

10 minute recess.

[annalyzer]

http://media2.myfoxtampabay.com//photo/2009/07/06/thomas_fast_20090706192930_320_240.JPG
The defendent Thomas Fast

http://www.wtsp.com/genthumb/genthumb.ashx?e=3&h=240&w=320&i=/assetpool/images/090706013736_susan_fast_0607.jpg
Victim Susan Fast


He looks older than her. How old is/was his father?

[Audie]

He looks older than her. How old is/was his father?He (Thomas) is Susan's stepson, I believe. I'll have to research their ages. She was 60 I think.

eta: Thirteenth Juror message board back story says he (Thomas Fast) is 52. Bruce Fast (his father) 76.

I'm assuming these were their ages back in 2007.

[Audie]

Judge has asked council to approach the bench. TF is wearing headphones to, I assume, listen in on the Judge/Council discussion.

Done, now jury is coming back in.

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I wish I knew how to post an aerial photo from Mapquest or Google to show the close proximity of the home and Publix.

As the crow flies about a third of a mile from house to Publix. To the water .. only about a quarter mile. To drive there would be more like a mile or two.

[annalyzer]

He (Thomas) is Susan's stepson, I believe. I'll have to research their ages. She was 60 I think.

eta: Thirteenth Juror message board back story says he (Thomas Fast) is 52. Bruce Fast (his father) 76.

I'm assuming these were their ages back in 2007.


He looks really old for his age.

[Audie]

Prosecutor now asking about fingerprints. Discussing the whys and hows.

Now showing fingerprint cards to the Deputy.

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He looks really old for his age.I agree.

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I had to step away for a bit. Now showing pics of pet potty pads, washer and dryer.
Closeup of inside of washer. Small rugs. Piles of laundry on top of dryer spilling onto washer. Markings on dryer. Powder from the taking of prints. Top of washer, paper towel and holder. Evidence packet submitted .. envelope with paper towel that was collected.

[Audie]

More photos.

Garage. Luggage, garbage can, small boat.

More photos.

Lexus vehicle. Susan's car i believe. No license plate. Mark found near handle. White marks. Driver side rear door .. spot of blood. Interior .. driver's door near door pocket .. swabbed .. rear driver's side door swabbed also. Booklet found in cargo area and something about car cleaning items. Hmm .. he left car cleaning items in the car? And I wonder what the booklet is?

Lunch break .. back at 1:30 ET

[Audie]

Okay, just got back from running errands. They are back from lunch and I missed who this new witness is. He's describing wounds or something. now he is stepping down and Deputy Smith is going to be back on the stand. Jury must not be back in yet ... they discussing some issues. Something about TF being a funeral director.

[Audie]

Defense is cross examining the Deputy now.

Roberts is saying there were cuts in a screen.

Now trying to down play the flower garden.

[annalyzer]

Bruce Fast testifying now. (husband of victim, father of defendant)

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1

[annalyzer]

The defendant looks like he has vitigilo like MJ had.

[annalyzer]

Back live ~ father on stand

[annalyzer]

Father looks good for his age but you can tell he's getting tired. :(

[annalyzer]

Poor old man has been on the stand for hours.

[annalyzer]

http://wwsb.images.worldnow.com/images/10670050_BG1.jpg

Father testifies against son in Thomas Fast murder trial

Posted: July 9, 2009 12:30 PM EDT
Updated: July 9, 2009 12:36 PM EDT

BRADENTON, FL. - A star witness took the stand Thursday in the Thomas Fast trial in Manatee County.

The 54-year-old is charged with murdering his stepmother and putting her dismembered body in a drainpipe.

Bruce Fast is testifying Thursday. He is the father of Thomas Fast and the former husband of Susan. He has said from the start he believes Thomas was responsible for Susan's death.

While Bruce Fast answered questions, Thomas actively took notes and referred to paperwork on the desk in front of him.

Bruce recalled Susan left the Bahamas a day before him because she could not get a seat on the same flight.

Bruce says when he flew home the next day he made several attempts to call Susan on his way home from the Ft. Lauderdale Airport.

Would you -- were you calling her on her home phone?

Bruce Fast: "Yes."

Did you often call her on her cell phone?

Bruce Fast: "I did."

You leave any messages on the home answering machine?

Bruce Fast: "Yes. Every time."

And as it got to be later in the evening, did you become concerned?

Bruce Fast: "Yes."

Were you ever able to get her during any of those phone calls?

Bruce Fast: "No."

http://www.mysuncoast.com/Global/story.asp?S=10670050&nav=menu577_2_1

[annalyzer]

Jailhouse snitch on stand. Defense showing all the felony convictions he's had ~ 11.

[RayStar]

I like this snitch.

[annalyzer]

Published: Monday, Jul. 13, 2009

Will Thomas Fast take the stand?

BRADENTON — As the state’s first-degree murder case against Thomas Fast enters its second week, one legal analyst believes he might take the stand in his defense.

Tampa defense attorney Joe Episcopo, who is observing the Fast trial, said based on past clashes Fast claims to have had with his attorney, he believes Fast might testify on his own behalf.

That’s because Fast already filed a motion prior to his trial asking his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Franklin Roberts, to be removed from the case so he could represent himself. That clash may have caused enough ill will to put Fast on the stand, Episcopo said.

http://media.bradenton.com/smedia/2009/07/13/00/204-20090712-235911-pic-583508361.embedded.prod_affiliate.69.jpg
Thomas Fast listens to the testimony of his father, Bruce Fast, last week in a courtroom at the Manatee County Judicial Center. Thomas Fast is on trial for the first-degree murder of his stepmother.

“It seems he is going to be insistent on taking the stand even if his attorney tells him not to,” Episcopo said.

Fast is accused of killing his stepmother Susan Fast in 2007, dismembering her body, stuffing her limbs in garbage bags and dumped them in a storm drain behind a Lakewood Ranch Publix shopping plaza.

Thomas Fast argued Roberts failed to investigate his claims that the government and Colombian drug cartels framed him for killing his stepmother. A judge denied Fast’s motion to represent himself because of his documented mental illness, according to Episcopo.

“He knows the difference between right and wrong and how to help his attorney with his defense,” Episcopo said. “But it was wise not to let a defendant known to have mental problems to represent himself, because you would be asking for a reversal by a higher court.”

Episcopo said Fast’s mental illness has also caused the trial to go beyond the expected one week attorneys predicted.

“Everyone involved is being very careful,” Episcopo said. “Nobody wants to make a mistake that will cause another trial.”

Episcopo also marveled at the motion Fast filed with the court to have Roberts removed, saying it shows his intelligence. But Episcopo said he believes, based on the first week’s testimony, a jury will still find him guilty.

“It is actually one of the best motions I have ever seen,” he said. “It is well-written, the citations from case law are excellent. He is a very intelligent man who also obviously does very dumb things.”

Episcopo said the most damaging testimony to Fast’s defense came from a jail cell mate with whom he discussed Susan Fast’s disappearance.

Gilbert Pierola told a jury Friday that Thomas Fast called Susan Fast a “crack whore,” and a “drug addict,” while in jail as a frantic search for her ensued outside the jail.

Pierola, an 11-time felon, testified that he shared a cell with Thomas Fast after authorities arrested him on a gun charge shortly after Susan Fast’s husband reported her missing.

“He said, ‘A confession is the only thread keeping me from certain conviction,’ ” Pierola said of one conversation.

Whether or not Thomas Fast takes the stand, one of Susan Fast’s closest friends and business partner hopes the spotlight will not veer off the fact that a much-loved woman lost her life.

“I just want to see justice done for her,” Debbie Guinto. “It’s been horrible. She was such a wonderful person and I miss her.”

http://www.bradenton.com/847/story/1569298.html

[annalyzer]

Fast found guilty of killing stepmother

Published: Monday, July 13, 2009 at 11:15 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, July 13, 2009 at 11:15 p.m.

After just a few unreturned phone calls to his wife in June 2007, construction company owner Bruce Fast was convinced his 52-year-old son, Thomas Fast, had hurt her.

On Monday, a Manatee County jury convicted Thomas Fast of the first-degree murder of his stepmother, Susan Fast. The judge in the case then sentenced him to life without parole.

“It was strictly money,” said Bruce Fast, 76. “He was waiting for me to keel over, but Susan was only seven years older” than Thomas Fast.

“He was upset over the fact that Susan would probably get everything. He is entirely money-motivated. He thought if he’d get rid of her, he’d get what he wants.”

Three weeks after she went missing, search teams combing a retention pond found the bagged remains of Susan Fast, 60.

Her stepson’s blood was spattered in her home and on the interior of her Lexus, and a GPS system that retraced the SUV’s tracks also pointed to Thomas Fast as the killer.

And detectives found Susan Fast’s wedding ring and other jewelry hidden in a deodorant container in Thomas Fast’s duffel bag.

In the weeklong trial, defense attorneys argued that the evidence against Thomas Fast was contrived — and accused his father of fabricating some of it.

The jury returned with the verdict after four and a half hours of deliberations that lasted into late Monday evening.

Thomas Fast acknowledged visiting Susan Fast on the day she disappeared in a recorded interview with detectives. He is the last known person to see her alive.

“Everything was fine. We were on the up and up,” Thomas Fast told detectives. “We talked well. She was smiling when I left.”

Bruce Fast said Monday that his wife had told him two days before her disappearance that she felt Thomas was going to kill her.

“Susan was very perceptive,” he said. “The look in his eye, his gesturing ... she felt threatened, and that was why I was onto it.”

Thomas Fast did not hide his bitterness toward Bruce and Susan Fast.

He called the pair “bullheaded and self-centered” to detectives and also told his jailhouse bunkmate that Susan Fast was a drug addict.

Thomas Fast also bragged to detectives that he was associated with the CIA, that he knew about drug trafficking and the slave trade.

Psychologists who have evaluated Fast concluded he suffers from delusions and paranoid schizophrenia, but he was deemed mentally competent to stand trial.

Fast did not take the stand in his defense.

“I just don’t think it’s necessary,” he told Manatee County Judge Gilbert Smith Jr. Monday afternoon.

Defense attorneys hinted that Bruce Fast had planted some of the evidence against his son.

Fast’s attorney, Franklin Roberts, called five people to testify about a July 21 search that Bruce Fast instigated and tried to establish that he planted missing items from his home there.

The items were discovered about 10 feet from Bruce Fast’s vehicle in an area that had been searched on four other occasions.

As the defense attorneys accused him of murdering his wife, Bruce Fast said he had to leave the courtroom at times.

“There was so much untruth going on there,” he said. The proximity from his vehicle to the items was merely a coincidence, he added. “A sheriff’s deputy actually told me where to park.”

Defense attorney Roberts also cast doubts upon the detectives who found Susan Fast’s jewelry the second time they searched Thomas Fast’s duffel bag.

“I can only say that planted evidence happens,” he told jurors.

Prosecutor Art Brown dismissed the defense’s theories, saying they revolved around a “grand conspiracy” that would include Bruce Fast, a family friend and sheriff’s investigators.

“Most of the time in life the obvious answer is the correct answer,” he said. “The killer is no phantom. He is no mystery man. He is not Bruce Fast. He is the man that sits before you finally exposed in all his guilt.”


http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090713/BREAKING/907139918?Title=Fast-found-guilty-of-killing-stepmother

[RayStar]

This jury stayed late to reach this verdict. Just heard one of the female jurors was sobbing when the verdict was read in the court room. I think Thomas will need special attention in prison as he appears unstable possibly fragile. No I am not feeling sorry for the guy.

[annalyzer]

This jury stayed late to reach this verdict. Just heard one of the female jurors was sobbing when the verdict was read in the court room. I think Thomas will need special attention in prison as he appears unstable possibly fragile. No I am not feeling sorry for the guy.


It is not an easy thing to do to convict someone even if you know they are guilty. I served on a murder trial in '97 and we all finally agreed to voluntary manslaughter. The man was clearly guilty of first degree murder. Afterwards there were several jurors sobbing, some because they thought his punishment was too harsh and others because it wasn't harsh enough.