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Allegations mount, student received letter after Arkalalah

By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
reporter@arkcity.net

WINFIELD -- The man accused of killing Cowley College dancer Jodi Sanderholm in January 2007 sent a letter from his jail cell last fall to another college coed who was on the college's dance team, a prosecution witness said Wednesday.

Justin Thurber, the 24-year-old defendant in the Sanderholm murder case, sent a letter to Cowley student Katie Bevilacqua, a finalist last October for Arkalalah queen at Arkansas City's annual fall festival, Bevilacqua testified.

Thurber apparently had seen a picture of Bevilacqua in The Traveler's annual Arkalalah supplement, Oct. 19, 2007. Next to the photograph was a story profiling her college activities, the prosecution said.

Thurber had been receiving The Traveler by mail at the jail.

Judge Jim Pringle would not allow the prosecution to have Bevilacqua read the letter aloud. The hearing was held at the Cowley County Courthouse.

But according to the prosecution's written motion, the letter states that Thurber wrote that he was looking for a friend. He told Bevilacqua that their friendship could be the best of her life.

Bevilacqua, 20, was one of three young women who testified at Wednesday's hearing, and one of more than a dozen who have testified for the prosecution in the past two hearings on alleged stalking behavior by Thurber.

Pringle did not rule on whether or not to allow the women's testimony during trial. He said he would issue a written ruling at a later date.

Thurber is charged with capital murder, rape, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sodomy. He faces trail in June.

Sanderholm, 19, a freshman at Cowley, went missing on Jan. 5, 2007. Her body was found four days later after attending a danceline practice.

At Wednesday's hearing, defense attorney Tim Frieden said he objected to allowing any of the three women to testify at the trial. Thurber was never charged or convicted of any of the behaviors they described, he said. The acts described center on Thurber's character and aren't relevant to the case.

Frieden did not have any questions for Bevilacqua after her testimony for the prosecution. He said it did not concern a prior bad act by the defendant.

Bevilacqua testified that her roommate first retrieved Thurber's letter after it arrived at their college mailbox. She waited for Bevilacqua to arrive to open it.

Bevilacqua said she started crying when she saw that Thurber's name and return address was on the envelope of the letter.

"Why?" asked lead prosecutor and Assistant Attorney General Vic Braden.

"Because it was from Justin Thurber; these are the same hands that killed my friend," she responded.

Bevilacqua said she joined the college dance squad last fall after Sanderholm's death, but she is friends with Ashley Cochran who was a close friend of Sanderholm's.

She said she quit the dance squad in December.

Lead prosecutor Vic Braden said all three women who testified Wednesday have some of the same physical characteristics that Sanderholm had. And the defendant had shown similar patterns of behavior toward them, particularly toward two of them.

"With Katie, this wasn't something that happened before the crime," Braden said. "He took the opportunity to write a letter while in jail."

He noted that the Traveler article on Bevilacqua and her picture in the Arkalalah tab were placed on the same page and adjacent to one on Cochran, another danceline member deeply affected by Sanderholm's death.

The first woman to testify Wednesday afternoon was Renee Riemens. She said she was 16 when she worked with Thurber in the fall of 2001 at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Arkansas City.

"I didn't know him, but I was trying to be friends with him," Riemens said. "Shortly after I started to know him I did not want to become his friend."

"Why?" Braden asked.

"Because he gave me bad vibes."

She testified that one day she and Thurber were parked at another restaurant on West Madison Avenue, she had asked him to leave. Thurber then kissed her hard and when he pulled away tore her shirt, she said.

That fall he followed her home from work, Riemens said, even after she had told her boss not to let him in the store.

"I was escorted outside to my car," she said. "He got in his car and followed me."

She tried to lose him on Ark City streets, but later saw him driving slowly on U.S. 166 as she headed home to South Haven, where she lived.

Somehow Thurber accessed her e-mail account and sent her an e-mail professing his love for her, Riemens said.

Later, he brought roses to the high school she attended in South Haven. She was called from her classroom to get them and found a note saying it was from Justin.

"I saw Justin circling with his car in front of the school, a couple of times," she said.

Responding to a question by Frieden, Riemens said she had known Thurber that fall for a couple of weeks. She said he had been at her house and sat there visiting with her parents.

The third woman to testify, Jennifer Bruce, said she was 14 in 2000 when she encountered Thurber. She knew him through acquaintances, she said.

"I was uncomfortable with him, he gave me an odd feeling," Bruce said.

Thurber had pulled her from a bathroom in the trailer into a bedroom, using a bear hug, she said. He pushed her onto a futon, got on top of her and grabbed a pillow, putting it on her face. He tried to remove her pants.

She said she didn't report the incident to police for two years because she was embarrassed.

Braden said after the hearing that Thurber's assault of Bruce follows the same pattern as what happened to Sanderholm. "What was described today was attempted rape," he told reporters after the hearing.

"It's the same pattern as with Jodi -- isolation, abduction, rape," Braden said.

Sanderholm's body was found in a remote area in southeastern Cowley County near Oklahoma state line. Her car was recovered the same day several miles away at the Cowley State Fishing Lake.

Authorities believe Thurber abducted her and took her to the remote area where he raped and killed her.

The court session Wednesday morning focused on whether evidence seized during searches of Thurber's car and home were admissible.

Prosecution attorneys wanted a ruling saying that the evidence was gathered properly. Defense attorney Frieden argued that since the evidence may or may not be relevant to the case, it was too early for such a ruling.

Pringle made no rulings, but agreed to hear evidence about how searches were conducted. Police officers testified about how searches were conducted.

Among items seized were Thurber's cell phone, a pair of shoes, a wooden handle fillet knife, a pornographic photograph and a black apron with long strings or rope on either side, officers testified.

Later in the afternoon, a brief, non-public hearing was held involving statements Thurber made to police.

Above: Defense attorney Ron Evans consults with his client Justin Thurber.