Dead of Night (20 page)

Chapter 26

Once again in Judge Robert Perry’s courtroom for sentencing on July 30, 2010, James Biela looked quite a bit different than he’d presented himself during his trial. He came to receive his additional sentencing wearing prison clothes and shackles instead of a suit and tie. The difference did not go unnoticed by the people in the courtroom. Lauren Denison took note of his changed appearance. She said that Biela had gone out and raped and pillaged the community and had run amok, and consequently, he was now “dressed for the success he created for himself.” She and other Denison/Zunino family members were attending the sentencing to show their support for the two rape victims and their families.

Jury members, who gave Biela the death penalty for Brianna’s rape and murder, also were present for the sentencing in the rape cases, even though they were not required to be. They told reporters that being a part of a trial that was so important to the community had been an experience that would always stay with them. They felt that being there in court, present for the additional sentences, was a necessary part of their seeing it through to the end.

The hearing lasted thirty minutes, with only one woman taking the witness stand. Amanda Collins, Biela’s victim of October 2007, who had been raped at gunpoint in a parking garage on the UNR campus, testified that she and her husband were now several months pregnant with a baby girl. She told the court that their joy was diminished, however, by the life-altering experience of her rape. During her testimony, Biela sat with his head down, staring at the floor, refusing to look up and meet her eyes as she read from the statement she had prepared.

“Mr. Biela, I wish you would look at me,” she told him. Then she read: “‘Though you didn’t murder me, you killed the trusting and vivacious woman I was, moments before you turned my world upside down. Despite the fact that you committed the most unforgivable act, I forgive you for everything you put me through. I pray you find peace with God, because he’s the only one who can save you.’”

While she had gone on to graduate from UNR, got married, and had become pregnant with her first child, she said that her Christian faith had been the only thing that had helped her to deal with the unshakeable memories of the “actions of evil” that she had been subjected to.

Following the victim’s testimony, Judge Perry acknowledged James Biela’s horrific childhood, growing up as a witness to the abuse his father subjected his mother to on practically a nightly basis, and living in poverty. However, the judge told Biela, “It’s an obligation to play with the cards we’re dealt with.”

Sattler told the judge that the prosecution believed it was important to sentence Biela to the maximum sentence on each charge in order to honor each one of his victims. He told the judge, “You probably have to know that he’s one of the most dangerous people you could ever have before you.”

Judge Perry was then ready to pronounce his decision. He announced that he was sentencing Biela to four additional life terms for the three sexual-assault charges and the kidnapping charge. The minimum time served would be ten years each for the rape charges and five years on the kidnapping charge, and it was possible that the judge also would decide that another year could be added to one of the rape sentences because Biela had used a firearm in its commission.

Deputy District Attorney Sattler explained to the media that in the unlikely event that an appeal should overturn Biela’s death penalty, the four life sentences would insure that it would be a minimum of thirty-six years before he would be eligible for parole. Sattler also explained that Virgie Chin, the December 2007 rape victim and a native of Thailand, had chosen not to testify because she wanted to move on and leave the assault behind her. She had returned home to Thailand, Sattler said, and Detective Jenkins had traveled there at one point to interview her about her case.

“Not only were these people terrorized, but the community was terrorized,” Judge Perry said about his sentencing decisions, adding that he felt the additional sentencing had been necessary to honor the two other rape victims, despite the fact that Biela already had received the death penalty for Brianna Denison’s rape and murder.

Perry said that he planned to sign the formal death warrant and set Biela’s execution date by August 16, and his doing so would then trigger the process that would begin Biela’s first automatic appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. In the meantime, he said, the prisoner would be returned to the Washoe County Detention Center to wait there until the time came for the NDOC to take custody of him.

Biela declined to make a statement during the hearing, much as he had during the trial. He sat quietly, wearing his orange prison jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest. He listened to the proceedings but said nothing. His family, who sat behind him in the courtroom, did not have any comments following the hearing and did not answer any of the media’s questions.

Following the hearing, attorneys representing both the defense and the prosecution met with the media to give statements. DDA Elliott Sattler said that his office had asked for the maximum sentence possible for the protection of the community, in order to insure that Biela would be kept off the streets permanently. That way, despite whatever might happen with any of the individual cases, he would still remain behind bars for the rest of his life.

“One never knows what will happen to the death penalty,” Sattler said, “but I have no reason to believe he’ll ever be released from the Nevada state prison system.” He went on to say that he applauded Judge Perry’s decisions.

“If anyone deserves the maximum possible punishment,” Sattler said, “it’s James Michael Biela.”

Chris Hicks, the state’s co-counsel, agreed, saying that Judge Perry had listened to all the testimony.

“He’s well aware of the kind of guy that Biela is,” Hicks said. “I commend him for the sentence.”

Lauren Denison, who had come to court for the sentencing to show support for the other victims, said the family was pleased that the judge had ordered a separate sentence for each crime.

“Judge Perry made it count for them. He validated the attacks on them,” she said.

Defense attorney Maizie Pusich said her client was “holding up pretty well,” saying that Biela was a model inmate before, and still was.

“He’s easy to talk to,” she said, telling reporters that Biela was always polite and professional.

“It actually makes me feel pretty bad,” she said.

 

 

The day following the end of the trial, the Bring Bri Justice Foundation made a statement so that people would know that they planned to be around for years to come. Only the focus of the foundation had changed, they said, with mandatory DNA testing coming to the forefront of their attention and efforts.

Foundation and family members were “finding our way, what we were going to be about, how we were going to carry Brianna’s name and not let her die in vain,” Lauren Denison said. Part of the foundation’s goal would remain as working with local law enforcement and being the “go to” location for people to find out what they could do to help locate a missing person.

Members of the foundation put together safety kits they planned to pass out to the public at fairs and other similar events, consisting of door alarms, whistles, pepper spray, and other such items.

“We’re really going to kick in now, now that we don’t have to be quiet any more,” Bridgette Denison said of the foundation that had been created to honor her daughter’s memory.

 

 

The Denison-Zunino family members and their friends were not the only victims’ advocates who were hard at work to do everything possible to make life safer for individuals who might someday become prey for rapist-murderers, like James Biela. Another one of his rape victims was also doing everything that she could to increase the odds of safety for other young women like her, even at the cost of constantly having to relive Biela’s attack on her in October 2007.

After Biela’s trial and conviction for raping her at gunpoint, Amanda Collins became an outspoken advocate of the movement to allow college and university faculty and students with concealed carry permits to bring their guns onto college campuses. She became one of the first actual victims of an on-campus rape to speak out publicly in support of the growing effort to change the laws regarding gun-free zones on campuses.

When she testified before Nevada’s Government Affairs Committee, Amanda told the committee members how she felt about the laws that had kept her from carrying her legal handgun on the night that James Biela raped her in a UNR parking garage.

Amanda had held a concealed carry permit for years before she was attacked, but because of the laws at most public colleges and universities (with the exception at that time of Utah and Colorado) that forbade firearms on campus, she had to leave her gun at home when she was going onto the UNR campus for classes or activities. When she was grabbed from behind by James Biela in the parking garage, less than three hundred yards from a campus police office, while returning to her car after a night class, she had no way of defending herself because she didn’t have her gun.

“He put a firearm to my temple, clocked off the safety, and told me not to say anything,” she said of Biela’s attack, “then he raped me.

“On October 22, 2007,” she told the committee, “my right to say ‘no’ was taken from me by both James Biela and the Nevada Legislature. If the purpose of the current law is to ensure safety to those on university property, then it is not serving that objective.”

The fact that the school was a gun-free zone didn’t mean anything to Biela, Amanda said, and she continued to speculate that it might have even made him bolder, since he would not have to worry that his potential victim might be armed. Having been an earlier victim of Biela’s, she said that she believed that if she had been able to defend herself that night with her firearm, Brianna Denison might still be alive and Virgie Chin might not have been raped.

After she was attacked, Amanda was finally given permission by the university’s president to carry her gun on campus. She later testified to legislators in favor of Senate Bill 231, a proposed state bill introduced by Senator John Jay Lee, D-North Las Vegas, that would allow concealed weapons to be carried at Nevada’s public universities and would do away with the requirement that the university president would have to approve permit holders—an approval that was usually denied.

Lee said that the bill was not about campus security; it was about personal security: “This scenario is perfect for a would-be assailant, knowing they have minutes to commit a crime and their victims would be defenseless.”

Amanda had received her approval for concealed carrying on campus—too late, though, to save herself or Biela’s further victims. According to the Nevada System of Higher Education, in the eleven years preceding the hearing, only six permit holders had requested permission to carry their weapons on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. All six were denied. And the only time permission was given at UNR was to Amanda Collins, after she was raped and under the condition that it would remain a secret.

There were many people on hand to testify in favor of the bill; gun rights activists, a member of the team that had prosecuted Biela, as well as others who were in support of the bill. The NRA offered a written statement in favor of the bill, but some of the most powerful testimony came from a nurse who was also a UNR graduate, Stefanie Utz. She told of treating gunshot wounds, all inflicted on assault victims.

“It wasn’t the good guys,” she said. “It was the bad guys who injured those individuals.” Utz went on to tell the meeting that she, herself, had been assaulted while she was a student at UNR. She testified that a weapon would have, at least, given her a chance to defend herself.

Scott Durward, a firearms trainer for Blackbird Tactical Training in Reno, told the committee that he felt it was unfair to single out students and faculty and leave them more vulnerable than the rest of the population. And Assemblyman Scott Hammond, R-Las Vegas, said students in the night classes he taught at UNLV admitted that on occasion, they felt unsafe leaving his class. He himself would feel safer, Hammond said, if some of the students in his classes were trained permit carriers.

There was strong opposition to the bill from several powerful organizations, as well as from Reno law enforcement and state legislators. UNR police chief Adam Garcia said that he felt campuses were less dangerous than the communities around them, and he and other police organizations opposed the bill, saying it would make campuses less safe if guns were allowed. Garcia pointed out the sporting events and other activities held routinely at colleges and universities that involved alcohol, and he felt that guns and drinking, if combined, could pose a definite security threat.

“These events could become killing fields,” Garcia said.

The Nevada Sheriffs’ and Chiefs’ Association, represented by Frank Adams, felt that the bill would pose “grave concerns.” He asked the committee what would happen in regard to where and how guns would be kept in dormitories and how security would be maintained with guns present at sports events.

A group that called itself the Nevada Faculty Alliance was also opposed to the presence of guns on campus, saying that it was important to maintain security and reduce the risk of gun-related accidents and other incidents by retaining the gun-free–zone status of campuses. Even guns that were legally carried on campus, they believed, would translate into more violence in schools.

A state senator also agreed with the group, saying that he felt that guns in the hands of students could prove to be highly dangerous. Senator Michael Schneider, D-Las Vegas, said that students were not trained professionals.

“By the time that any student could get a gun, when they were attacked by someone else with a gun, if they went for their gun, it could be a bad outcome,” Schneider stated.