On March 25, 1993, at 4:00 a.m. Stenson called 911 and told the operator “this is D.J. Stenson at Dakota Farms . . . . Frank has just shot my wife, and himself, I think.” Dakota Farms was located in Clallam County, Washington and was the residence of Stenson, his wife, Denise Stenson, and their three young children. Stenson also operated a business, raising and selling exotic birds, from Dakota Farms. Within several minutes of Stenson’s 911 call, the police arrived at Dakota Farms. Stenson met them outside and led them to a guest bedroom on the ground floor, where Frank Hoerner lay dead on the floor with a bullet wound to the head. The body was face-down. A revolver lay between Hoerner’s left hand and his head. Stenson next led the police officers to an upstairs bedroom where Denise Stenson lay in the bed, with a severe bullet wound to the head. She was airlifted to a hospital, but died the next day. Stenson told the officers the following story: Frank Hoerner had arrived at his house a little after 3:30 a.m. in order to sign forms to insure ostriches that Stenson was going to buy for Hoerner on a trip to Texas. When Hoerner arrived, the two men went to Stenson’s office in a separate building behind the house, where Hoerner signed the insurance forms. Hoerner
then left the office building to use the bathroom in the house. When Hoerner failed to return, Stenson went to look for him and found him dead in the guest bedroom, where Stenson had shown police the body. Stenson heard moaning from upstairs. When he went upstairs, he found his wife shot in the head. Stenson had not heard any gun shots. Stenson then called the 911 operator. When the officers asked Stenson if he knew why someone would want to kill Frank Hoerner, Stenson responded that there had been sexual problems between Hoerner and his wife, Denise Hoerner, and that Frank Hoerner had complained about their marriage. The subsequent investigation showed that Frank Hoerner had not committed suicide in the bedroom, but had been hit in the head and dragged into the house from the gravel driveway, through the laundry room, and into the guest bedroom where Stenson claimed to have found the body. Hoerner had been shot in the head in the guest bedroom at close range. The revolver had been placed near Hoerner’s hand after his hand had come to rest on the floor. Splatters of Hoerner’s blood were found in the driveway. Blood splatters were also found on Stenson’s pants that matched Hoerner’s blood protein profile. Gravel from the driveway was found in the laundry room and inside Hoerner’s pants. A bloody Stenson fingerprint was found on the freezer in the laundry room. According to Michael Grubb, a forensic expert, the pattern of some of the splatters indicated that they could not have been deposited on Stenson’s pants after Frank had been moved, i.e., the splatters on Stenson’s pants strongly suggested that Stenson had moved Frank’s body after he was shot. The police also found ammunition in Stenson’s garage that fit the murder weapon. They found gunshot residue inside a
pocket of Stenson’s pants. Stenson had once been a martial arts instructor, and had a collection of nun-chucka sticks on the wall of his office. Dr. Brady, who performed the autopsy on Frank Hoerner, testified at the trial that the wounds on Hoerner’s head were consistent with such a weapon. The investigation also revealed that Stenson was in financial difficulty. Frank Hoerner had given Stenson a $50,000 deposit for the purchase of exotic birds, but at the time of the murders Stenson’s financial records showed that he had used less than $2,000 of Hoerner’s deposit to purchase birds. In addition, the bank account for Dakota Farms contained only about $3,400, and an audit indicated that Stenson had used investors’ money for personal purchases. He had attempted to borrow a large amount of money shortly before the murders. Finally, Stenson had taken out a $400,000 life insurance policy on his wife. Stenson was arrested on April 8, 1993, about two weeks after the murders. His jury trial took place in Clallam County, Washington, in the summer of 1994. The prosecution’s theory was that Stenson had killed his wife in order to collect the $400,000 in life insurance money, and had killed Frank Hoerner in order to free himself from the $48,000 he owed Hoerner and to be able to blame Hoerner for the murder of Denise Stenson. The prosecutor argued to the jury that the physical evidence taken at the crime scene made Stenson’s initial statements to the police implausible. Frank Hoerner’s wife, Denise Hoerner, testified that Stenson solicited Hoerner for investments in Stenson’s exotic bird business. Since 1992, Hoerner had given Stenson more than $50,000 for the purchase of birds. About a month before the murders, Hoerner became worried about the money he had entrusted to Stenson and so told Stenson either to return his investment or to deliver the promised birds. In response, Stenson told the Hoerners that he needed to keep their money in his account in order to maintain the confidence of Asian investors from whom he was attempting to obtain a loan. Denise Hoerner further testified that her husband’s anxiety continued when Stenson traveled to Texas to obtain birds for the Hoerners, but returned empty-handed. She testified that Stenson assured Hoerner that he would return to Texas on March 25, 1993, to collect the birds. On the evening of March 24, Stenson told Hoerner to come to his house to sign documents necessary to insure the birds during their trip from Texas. Denise Hoerner offered to come sign the papers, but Stenson said that only Hoerner could sign them. Hoerner agreed to come by Stenson’s house during the early morning hours of March 25, on his way to the ferry that he took to work in Seattle. During the course of the trial, Stenson and his attorney, Fred Leatherman, developed conflicting views as to whether Leatherman should attempt to convince the jury that Denise Hoerner was the murderer. Leatherman did not want to attempt this defense because the forensic expert had concluded that Stenson could not have gotten the blood splatters on his pants after discovering Frank Hoerner’s body. In the context of the other evidence, this conclusion strongly suggested that Stenson had moved Hoerner’s body after Hoerner had been killed, which in turn strongly suggested that Stenson killed Hoerner. Leatherman believed that attempting to vilify Denise Hoerner would only turn the jury against Stenson and increase the likelihood that it would impose the death penalty during the sentencing phase. As a result of the conflict regarding trial strategy, Stenson moved the court to appoint new counsel or, in the alternative, to allow him to represent himself. Because Stenson’s request came three weeks into the voir dire process and near the end of jury selection, the trial court determined that Stenson’s request to represent himself was untimely. It also found that Stenson’s request was equivocal, based on the record as a whole. The court based this determination on the fact that Stenson indicated that he “really [did] not want to proceed without counsel[,]” and made his request to represent himself only as an alternative, should the trial court refuse to appoint new counsel. The trial court did not appoint independent counsel to represent Stenson at the hearing on the motion for new counsel. On August 11, 1994, the jury convicted Stenson of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. With regard to the murder of Denise Stenson, the jury found the aggravating circumstances that more than one person was murdered and that the murders were part of a common scheme or plan. With regard to the murder of Frank Hoerner, the jury found the aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed to conceal a crime or to protect or conceal the defendant’s identity, and that more than one person was murdered as part of a common scheme or plan. During the penalty phase, Leatherman stated that both he and Stenson “accepted” the jury’s determination of guilt. Leatherman also requested that the court hear testimony from Stenson’s family members regarding the impact Stenson’s execution would have on Stenson’s three young children and his father, who suffered from a heart condition. The court permitted extensive testimony from Stenson’s family and friends regarding their relationships with him, but excluded testimony from Stenson’s family members regarding how his execution would impact them, because the court found that this testimony would do no more than present their opinions as to what Stenson’s sentence should be. The jury sentenced Stenson to death. 

On March 4, 1995, Antoinette Frank, then an officer with the New Orleans Police Department, and Rogers Lacaze were arrested and charged with three counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Ronald Williams, Ha Vu, and Cuong Vu. The murders occurred in the early morning hours at the Kim Anh Restaurant in New Orleans East. The Vu family owned the restaurant, and Ronald Williams was an off-duty police officer performing security detail that evening at the restaurant. Frank had occasionally worked at the restaurant as a security guard and was familiar with the Vu family and Ronald Williams. She and Lacaze visited the restaurant several times on the night of the murders. As the restaurant was closing early that morning, Chau Vu, sister of two of the victims, went into the kitchen to count money. She reentered the dining room of the restaurant to pay Ronald Williams, when she noticed Frank approaching the restaurant yet again. Sensing something was wrong, Chau Vu ran back to the kitchen and hid the money in the microwave before returning to the front of the restaurant. Using a stolen key, Frank entered the restaurant and began to walk quickly to the back of the building, pushing Chau, one of Chau’s brothers, Quoc, and a restaurant employee along with her. Shots rang out, and Frank ran back to the front of the restaurant. Chau, Quoc, and the employee hid in a cooler in the kitchen, concerned because they did not know the whereabouts of Chau’s and Quoc’s sister and brother, Ha and Cuong. From inside the cooler, Chau and Quoc could partially see the front of the restaurant. Chau initially could see Frank, who appeared to be looking for something. Frank moved out of Chau’s line of vision, and then the three hiding heard additional gunshots. Quoc next observed Frank searching in the area where the Vus usually kept their money. He then saw her walk over to the area where he later found the bodies of his brother and sister, and he heard more gunshots. After Frank and Rogers Lacaze left the premises, Quoc emerged from the cooler and called 911 to report the murders. After police officers arrived on the scene, Frank returned to the restaurant as well. She approached Chau, asking her what happened. Chau found another officer and reported what she had witnessed. After Chau was interviewed in more detail, Antoinette Frank and Rogers Lacaze were arrested and charged with first degree murder. Frank and Lacaze were indicted by an Orleans Parish Grand Jury on April 28, 1995. Their trials were severed, and Rogers Lacaze was tried first on July 17-21, 1995, found guilty as charged, and sentenced to death. Frank’s trial began on September 5, 1995, and on September 12, 1995, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts and recommended a sentence of death as to all counts. Frank was formally sentenced to death on October 20, 1995.