Paul Devoe

Case details

Paul Devoe was sentenced to death on October 8, 2009.

Timeline

• Aug. 24, 2007 — Michael Jay Allred, 41, was killed in Marble Falls at O'Neill's Sports Tavern.
• Aug. 26, 2007 — Four people were found murdered in a Jonestown-area home; the dead were identified as Paula Griffith, Jay Feltner, Haylie Faulkner, and Danielle Hensley.
• Aug. 27, 2007 — Paul Devoe III was arrested in Shirley, N.Y.; on the way, Betty Jane DeHart, 81, was found after Pennsylvania authorities checked a vehicle associated with him.
• Sept. 11, 2007 — Governor Perry signed the extradition papers for Devoe's return to Texas.
• Sept. 21, 2007 — Devoe was brought back to Texas and booked into the Travis County Jail.
• Dec. 19, 2007 — The Travis County District Attorney announced an intention to pursue the death penalty.
• Dec. 22 — Judge Brenda Kennedy signed an order sending Devoe to Vernon State Hospital.
• Jan. 22 — Devoe was admitted to the Vernon facility.
• Feb. 24 — A staff psychiatrist at the hospital ruled Devoe competent and requested that he be returned to Travis County.
• March 6, 2009 — Devoe declared competent to stand trial.
• Oct. 8, 2009 — A jury sentenced Paul Devoe to death.
• Oct. 9, 2009 — The sentencing story included statements by family members during the punishment phase.
• **Dec.

The offence

Devoe was accused of killing six people across Texas and Pennsylvania in late August 2007, including shooting a bartender in Marble Falls and killing people in a Jonestown-area house, before traveling to Pennsylvania where Betty Jane DeHart was killed.

In Texas, police said Devoe shot bartender Michael Allred, 41, at O'Neill's Sports Tavern in Marble Falls on Aug. 24, 2007, and then drove to the Jonestown house of his ex-girlfriend Paula Marie Griffith, 46.

Prosecutors said Devoe fatally shot Griffith, Griffith's daughter Haylie, Danielle Hensley, and Griffith's boyfriend, Jay Feltner, 48.

In a statement read in court by police, Devoe said he then drove to Long Island, stopping along the way to fatally shoot Betty DeHart in Greencastle, Pa.

The Greencastle killing involved an 81-year-old woman, Betty Jane Dehart, at 15349 North Young Road, who was believed to have died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Investigation

Police and law enforcement agencies combined forces after the Texas killings.

A search began after the fatal shooting of bartender Michael Jay Allred, 41, in Marble Falls and the discovery of four bodies in a house in Jonestown.

Investigators responded after receiving a call requesting that police check loved ones inside the house.

Authorities found four people dead inside the Jonestown-area home and also found the same truck that witnesses said the gunman had been driving from the bar killing.

In the Pennsylvania case, Pennsylvania State Police were alerted at 3 p.m. Monday, Aug. 27, to a possible connection between Dehart and fugitive Paul Gilbert Devoe III after the United States Marshal Service called and asked officers to check on Dehart's welfare. Officers found Dehart deceased in her home.

Fire police, the Franklin County Coroner, rescue hose company personnel, and Pennsylvania State Police investigative teams collected evidence and took photographs. The car left at Dehart's home was mapped and pinpointed for possible later reconstruction.

Arrest

Devoe was arrested in Shirley, N.Y., by members of the U.S. Marshals New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force after a brief standoff at a house under surveillance.

Devoe was in possession of a handgun when apprehended.

Investigators were attempting to take him into custody and he bolted; authorities called for a SWAT team but were able to talk him out.

Tom Smith, supervisor of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, said the task force learned Devoe might be heading to Long Island where his mother and sister lived.

Devoe was then held for transfer to Texas and would be arraigned in Suffolk County.

Trial

In Travis County, Devoe was indicted for capital murder in the Jonestown deaths of Haylie Faulkner, 15, and Danielle Hensley, 17.

Travis County prosecutors decided to pursue just two murder convictions at this time.

Devoe was also accused of killing Paula Griffith, 46, and her boyfriend Jay Feltner, 48, if found not guilty in the first set.

Devoe was accused of killing Michael Jay Allred, 41, at O'Neill's Sports Tavern in Marble Falls, and of killing Betty Jane Dehart, 81, in Greencastle, Pa.

During the trial’s punishment phase, the comments by Christina Gribble and other family members capped the four-day punishment phase.

The jury that took just 20 minutes last week to convict Devoe of capital murder took less than 3½ hours to send him to Texas' death row.

Juror Cynthia Monroe said on her way from the courthouse that she chose death based on "his past behavior and past evidence. "There was no way he was going to stop."

Devoe declared competent to stand trial after spending several weeks at a psychiatric hospital.

Two doctors—one hired by the prosecution and another by the defense—had declared Devoe incompetent to stand trial in December, and Judge Brenda Kennedy signed an order Dec. 22 sending Devoe to Vernon State Hospital, a maximum-security psychiatric facility in North Texas.

A staff psychiatrist at Vernon State Hospital ruled Devoe competent on Feb. 24 and requested that he be returned to Travis County.

The court proceedings included a ruling on whether incriminating statements he reportedly made in jail could be used by the prosecution. A judge decided those statements could be used by the prosecution on June 10, 2008.

Sentencing

A Travis County jury sentenced Paul Devoe to death on Oct. 8, 2009.

Christina Gribble told Devoe that it would be nice to know if he cared what she and other victims’ family members had to say, and asked him: "Do you care?" Devoe did not react.

Gribble said: "They'll be haunting you," and stated: "I have nightmares every night, and I wake up to a nightmare, and Danielle and Haylie will see that yours are worse. "You have ruined my life, and I don't even know you."

Defense lawyer Tom Weber argued for a life in prison sentence and said: "He knows he did heinous crimes," but noted that in the approximately 14 years that Devoe had spent behind bars in his life, he has not been disciplined for committing violent acts, and said: "A sentence of life in prison would protect society, he said."

Prosecutor Gary Cobb called for justice and said: "If you don't know what to do with somebody who killed six people and behaved how he has throughout his life ... if you don't already know what Paul Devoe knows, which is if you do this, you deserve to be executed, there is no way I can ever convince you."

The jury decided Devoe was a continuing threat to society and that there were no mitigating factors to warrant a sentence of life without parole.

District Judge Brenda Kennedy appointed lawyers to represent Devoe during his appeal, which is automatic.

Appeals

District Judge Brenda Kennedy appointed lawyers to represent Devoe during his appeal, which was automatic.

Outcome

Devoe was sentenced to death on October 8, 2009.

Other details

Paul Devoe was 46 at the time of sentencing and grew up in Long Island, N.Y.

His family said that he started drinking heavily when he was in his early teens, dropped out of school in about the ninth grade, and was prone to violent outbursts from a young age.

Devoe dated and then abused a string of women in Long Island. While free during periods before later imprisonment, he fathered four children and was described as having been in and out of jail and prison in New York from 1980 to 2002, according to his lawyers.

The narrative included that he was in and out of jail and prison in New York from 1980 to 2002.

It was stated that Devoe moved to the Texas Hill Country in about 2005 and continued a pattern of meeting women, moving in with them, living off them while drinking heavily, and then abusing them when they tried to end it, according to some women who testified.

In August 2007, Devoe was living with Sharon Wilson at her house in Llano after another relationship went bad. Wilson agreed to let him stay in exchange for Devoe doing some construction work on her house.

Wilson testified that one day she found him with a gun—something she prohibited—and suspected Devoe of stealing from her purse and emptying a gas can she had just filled. Wilson told him to leave, and she said the request sent Devoe into a rage.

Prosecutors and testimony described Devoe shooting a gun at the couch, walls, and floor of Wilson's house, then jumping in her truck and heading for Marble Falls, where he found an ex, Glenda Purcell, at O'Neill's Sports Tavern on Main Street.

Purcell testified that Devoe put the gun to Purcell’s head and pulled the trigger but it did not go off.

Witnesses said that moments later Devoe shot bartender Allred in the back of the bar and fled in Wilson’s truck.

After that, Devoe went to the house of another ex who lived in Jonestown — Paula Griffith, 46 — and prosecutors said he fatally shot Griffith, Haylie, Danielle, and Jay Feltner, 48.

The record included that authorities in Pennsylvania traced a car recovered with Pennsylvania license plates to Dehart and that her body was found after checking the address of the car owner.

A timeline item described that when Greencastle, Pa., authorities checked the address of the car's owner, they found the body of Betty Jane DeHart, 81, and that she was reportedly found with one gunshot to the head.

The narrative included an arrest in Central Islip, New York, and it stated that a vehicle with Pennsylvania license plates was recovered after being placed in custody.

The record also included that investigators were said to believe Devoe walked into a bar Friday night in Marble Falls, Texas, and shot and killed a bartender, and that the search continued through a weekend that left five people dead, including four discovered by police in the same house Sunday.

The record included that Devoe had no connections in Pennsylvania and that the State Line victim was described as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It also included that Devoe told a Travis County sheriff's informant in a phone call Saturday: “I've killed six people and I'm getting the ... out of here,” an affidavit said. It also said he told his mother over the phone that he had killed five people.

Robert Faulkner, Haylie’s grandfather, said: "It's been a long time coming," and "Maybe we can start working to put this behind us."

Larry Faulkner said: "I do take comfort knowing he's not going where our angel went. He's going to hell."

Sam Oatman, district attorney for Burnet County, said he had not made a decision on whether to take Devoe to trial there, where Devoe was charged with murder in the death of bartender Michael Allred, 41.

Published reports stated that prosecutors in Franklin County, Pa., where Devoe was accused of killing an 81-year-old woman for her car, planned to try Devoe.

Victims

The record described victims as:

• Danielle Hensley, 17, and Haylie Faulkner, 15 (capital murder convictions were sought on their deaths).
• Paula Griffith, 46.
• Jay Feltner, 48.
• Michael Jay Allred, 41.
• Betty Jane Dehart, 81.