Paul Michael Merhige captured in Long Key in Thanksgiving Day slaying of 4 family members

Documents reveal how Thanksgiving massacre suspect eluded police, planned suicide

BY SUSAN SPENCER-WENDEL, MICHAEL LaFORGIA AND ANDREW MARRA
Palm Beach Post
Posted on Thursday, 04.01.10

After the bloodbath on Thanksgiving Day that left four relatives dead, Paul Michael Merhige made his way to the Florida Keys where he bought supplies to end his own life -- and the bestseller handbook on how to do it.

On Dec. 1 from Border's Express in Key West he ordered Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying.

And in the next days he starting buying what he needed to do so, according to a portion of evidence in the case released by prosecutors Thursday.

One of the suicide methods detailed in Final Exit involves using a large plastic bag and gas for suffocation. In trips to Kmart and a marina, Merhige bought five helium kits, garbage bags, scissors, duct tape, tubing and hose clamps.

And phone records show he called multiple times to the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society, which was founded by the book's author, Derek Humphry.

On Nov. 30, Merhige called Humphry's organization four times, receiving a call back from the organization's number later that day.

He called again three times on Dec. 3 and twice on Dec. 16, phone records show, as he holed up in the Long Key motel as a nationwide manhunt continued. There was no second return call from the organization in the records.

The next day, though, Dec. 17, he was at a Walgreens buying more food -- baked beans and chopped chicken -- and medicines, pain relievers, arthritis medications. Even while contemplating suicide, he seemed focused on practical matters of survival.

He made several other calls to bookstores, a hotel, an RV rental dealer and an outdoor outfitter, the records show. And the day before his capture, Jan. 2, he called an auto repair shop.

When U.S. Marshals crashed into Room 14 where Merhige had hidden out during the manhunt, he cried out: "Don't shoot me!" Then dropped to his knees, according to a marshals report.

Slow to obey their orders, they shocked him with a stun gun three times. ``OK, you can cuff me,'' he eventually said.

One asked Merhige whether he knew why they had come. "Because I killed my family," Merhige answered.

The evidence released Thursday reflects the extraordinary efforts law enforcement made to capture him, issuing warrants for several cellphones found on Merhige, combing campgrounds and stores looking for him, searching waterways for evidence.

He is accused of killing, after Thanksgiving dinner, his aunt and twin sisters, and the 6-year-old daughter of his cousin as she slept in her purple Tinkerbell pajamas, which now are listed as evidence.

Two other family members were wounded, but survived.

Merhige is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Also extraordinary about the evidence released Thursday is what is not in the more than 1,400 pages.

Merhige's statements to investigators on the night of his arrest -- despite snippets of his comments already aired on the TV show America's Most Wanted -- were not included in items released by prosecutors.

Normally, defendant's statements to investigators are part and parcel of evidence released. Take, for example, the recent release of evidence in the case of another family killing -- Neal Jacobson of Wellington who is accused of shooting his wife and twin boys. Jacobson's statement to investigators was made public.

Public Defender Carey Haughwout is defending Merhige, and has aggressively sought to withhold evidence from the public, at one time asking a judge for a complete ban on its release, citing Merhige's right to a fair trial.

Family members have said Merhige had a long history of mental illness before committing the crime. But there also is no explicit evidence of that in the released documents and e-mails.

One telling e-mail though came to Merhige the day after the shooting from Dr. Michael Jenike, a psychiatry professor at Harvard University.

"Paul -- I heard the news. I doubt you are checking e-mail, but if you are, please surrender to authorities. Your parents don't need any more trauma. I will come visit you. -- DrJ"

The only relative who appears to have e-mailed Merhige's AOL account in the days before the shooting was his father, Michael, the documents show.

In six e-mails sent between Nov. 1 and Nov. 25, Merhige and his father discuss mental health issues and computer problems. Michael Merhige forwarded his son a message from Merhige's sister Carla urging him to attend a book signing. She was one of the people Merhige is accused of killing.

Michael Merhige also wrote to him about a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of shareholders in a pharmaceutical company, using an anti-Semitic slur.

"The lawyers will take all but a penny," father wrote to son.

Palm Beach Post staff writer Christine Stapleton contributed to this report.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/01/1559486/documents-reveal-how-thanksgiving.html

"Shine the Light" Concert to remember Makayla Sitton

April 04, 2010 6:36 AM
Allison Bybee

JUPITER -- Makayla Sitton's family family and friends are pulling together to honor the little girl. They are putting on a concert at the Maltz Jupiter Theater. On Thanksgiving night, Makayla Sitton was in bed at home with her family. Jupiter Police say, Paul Michael Merhige, shot and killed her along with several of her family members. Her family and friends remember that little girl fondly. They say she loved God, and loved dancing. That's why on April 25th, the "Shine the Light" concert in honor of Makayla Siiton will take place. Makayla danced at the Jupiter Academy of Music and loved the ballet. The concert will be dedicated to the little girl and raise money for scholarships so kids whose families might not be able to afford dance lessons, now can. Mandy Knoodle, a close family friend of Jim and Muriel Sitton, says, "The purpose behind it (the concert) is to share Makayla's faith and the kind of girl that she was, and share her passion for the arts."
Tickets are on sale now through the Maltz Jupiter Theater. There are about 500 tickets ranging in price from $12 to $50. Her family would like to sell out the theater. Her friends from the Jupiter Academy of Music will perform, along with performances by the Florida Classical Ballet. Again, the concert is April 25th at 3:00 p.m.



To buy tickets and for more information:

http://www.jupitertheatre.org/

http://www.jupiteracademyofmusic.com/

http://www.cbs12.com/news/shine-4725197-concert-sitton.html

'Final Exit' author says he may have talked to Merhige, but doesn't recall

By Andrew Marra Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 7:43 p.m. Monday, April 5, 2010

JUPITER — The best-selling author of a how-to suicide book says he probably spoke unwittingly to accused mass murderer Paul Michael Merhige while he was in hiding in the Florida Keys in December, but he does not recall the conversation.

Derek Humphry, whose book Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying has sold over 1 million copies, said he includes the phone number of his one-man pro-euthanasia organization in the book and encourages people to call with questions about how to end their own lives humanely.

Phone records released last week showed Merhige called Humpry's Oregon-based Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization a total of nine times from a cell phone while the 35-year-old fugitive was in hiding in the Keys.

Those records indicate that Humphry called back once on Nov. 30, but Humphry said today he had no recollection of the conversation.

"It's just a blank," he said. He added that if he knew who he was "I would have turned him in to the police in a flash."

At the time, Merhige was the target of one of the largest manhunts in Florida, wanted on charges of shooting dead his two sisters and two other relatives at a Thanksgiving dinner gathering in Jupiter.

Humphry, who originally founded the Hemlock Society in 1980 to advocate for assisted suicide, publishes his organization's phone number so that people with terminal illnesses who want to end their lives can consult him about some of the methods detailed in his book, which is considered the authoritative source on suicide techniques.

But Humphry said he screens the calls. "I get so many nut cases and commercial junk calls," he said.

If Merhige had called with what seemed like a legitimate question about how to end his suffering from a terminal illness, Humphry said he may have reached out to him.

"I might have called him back," he said. He added that "in this field a great deal of lying and deception goes on."

Merhige ordered Final Exit on Dec. 1 from a Borders book store in Key West, and in the following days he starting buying materials to end his life, court records show.

One of the suicide methods detailed in the book involves using a large plastic bag and gas for suffocation. In trips to Kmart and a marina, Merhige bought five helium kits, garbage bags, scissors, duct tape, tubing and hose clamps.

Merhige was captured Jan. 2 in a Keys hotel. Humphry said he hoped the attention called to his organization by Merhige's phone calls don't detract from his cause of assisting the terminally ill in their efforts to end their lives.

"I'm in the field to try to help people," he said.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/final-exit-author-says-he-may-have-talked-526518.html

Merhige pre-trial conference set for July 1

WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach Post Staff Report
Updated: 4:24 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Paul Michael Merhige, charged in the Thanksgiving Day shootings of six family members, appeared briefly in court this morning as a judge set a pre-trial conference in his case for July 1.

Merhige is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He is accused of killing his aunt, twin sisters and the six-year-old daughter of his cousin as she slept in her purple Tinkerbell pajamas after a family Thanksgiving dinner in Jupiter.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/merhige-pre-trial-conference-set-for-july-1-734545.html

Paul Merhige in Court

July 01, 2010 5:52 PM
Lynn Gordon

An accused killer in court this morning.
Paul Michael Merhige facing several of his victim's families face to face.

Merhige is charged with four counts of first degree murder and three counts of attempted first degree murder in the Thanksgiving day shootings of five family members.

The parents of the youngest victim to die that day 6-year old Makayla Sitton were in the first row of the courtroom just feet away from their daughter's alleged killer.

The only survivor Patrick Knight, a Miami attorney was in court for the first time. Knight awoke from a coma in March to find out his wife and unborn child were killed in the massacre.

Because it's a death penalty case, the trial may not begin for another two years.

Family Advisor David Praether said, "the family has some frustrations the case not being set
and the state attorneys office has been diligently working the case and working the file ."

The next hearing has been set for September 22, the judge saying he at least wants attorneys to have depositions scheduled by then.

http://www.cbs12.com/news/first-4727109-court-case.html

Merhige's lawyers are going to try for an insanity defense of course, but I think he knew right from wrong and deserves to rot. The things he did that night were pure evil. You might want to keep that in mind before reading this post or clicking the link.

Court documents reveal new details of Merhige's cruelty, regrets over Thanksgiving Day murders

By Michael LaForgia, Andrew Marra and Susan Spencer-Wendel
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:40 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3, 2010



~Snipped~

When he pulled the trigger on his final victim, a sleeping girl, Paul Michael Merhige did so with the most awesome cruelty, a witness said.

After shooting 6-year-old Makayla Sitton in her bed on Thanksgiving Day, the last of the four relatives police say he killed that day, he left the room but immediately hesitated.

Apparently not convinced his work was done, he returned to Makayla's bed and shot her again, leaving her to die with a bullet in her back, another in her hip and one more in her head, said Patrick Knight, Merhige's brother-in-law, who was critically wounded but survived.

The following shows premeditation. IMO, this combined with the fact that he concealed his car and checked into a hotel under a fake name shows that he knew the difference between right and wrong.

But court records show in the weeks before the meal he had painstaking and discretely spent $2,000 on at least four guns and ammunition in two Broward County gun shops. He even asked for a scope to be attached to a bolt-action Remington 700 rifle. He said he wanted to use it for hunting.

Merhige had been asking his parents for days about the Thanksgiving event but never commited to attending. And his parents never alerted their hosts, Jim and Muriel Sitton, that he might be coming.

When he called that evening to announce he was on his way, his mother couldn't resist a sinister thought.

"I hope he doesn't come and kill us all tonight," Carole Merhige recalled telling her daughter, Lisa Knight, according to a Jupiter police report.

"Mom, it came to my mind," her daughter replied. "But don't say that to Dad because Dad would get upset that we had such ideas."

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/court-documents-in-case-of-merhige-accused-jupiter-896364.html

Clipped from above........their instincts were tragically intact.

"I hope he doesn't come and kill us all tonight," Carole Merhige recalled telling her daughter, Lisa Knight, according to a Jupiter police report.

"Mom, it came to my mind," her daughter replied. "But don't say that to Dad because Dad would get upset that we had such ideas."

Thanksgiving massacre survivor Patrick Knight reclaims his life

By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010



It could hardly have seemed the stuff of speeches then, the tubes in his throat, his lifeless arms, the vivid recall of gunfire and ambulances.

A week out of his coma, voiceless and all but paralyzed, Patrick Knight prayed with a priest in his hospital room. The priest let slip what seemed then the cruelest phrase: "Let her watch over him."

It was this way that Knight learned, three months after the massacre in Jupiter, that his wife was dead, not pregnant at home with his unborn child. On that day in March his gut heaved, but his immobile body could hardly mourn.

On Saturday, Knight will be onstage, another speech in another town. For the gathered crowd he will recount how he learned to walk again after the shooting, how he learned to swallow, how he learned to sleep alone.

The speech will be billed "Overcoming Challenges When Tragedy Strikes," a new topic for this motivational speaker. The 37-year-old Miami attorney will not dwell much on the particulars of his tragedy, on the slaughter that Thanksgiving Day in Jupiter, when police say Knight's brother­-in-law killed Knight's pregnant wife and three other family members and all but killed him.

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/thanksgiving-massacre-survivor-patrick-knight-reclaims-his-life-937576.html

Patrick Knight is a real testament to faith, belief in himself and determination. His story just rips at my heart.

May God bless him in his continued recovery.

Despite his mental history, Thanksgiving murder suspect armed himself with ease, exposing gap in gun database

By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 3:59 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010



Paul Michael Merhige, accused of slaying four relatives last year at a Thanksgiving celebration in Jupiter, could have been prevented from purchasing the gun used in the massacre if Florida officials had alerted the FBI to his history of mental problems, a review of Merhige's case shows.

Merhige was involuntarily committed to mental health facilities at least three times before police say he executed his aunt, twin sisters and his cousin's 6-year-old daughter in November, just weeks after buying at least six guns at two South Florida gun stores, according to court records.

His stays in those mental health centers should have disqualified him from ever legally buying or possessing a firearm, according to court records and interviews with state, federal and county officials. Federal law prohibits anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution" from owning or purchasing guns.

But Florida did not start to submit information regarding so-called "mental defectives" to the FBI's national gun-check database until 2007, a year after Merhige's last known stay in a mental health center.

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/despite-his-mental-history-thanksgiving-murder-suspect-armed-951352.html

On anniversary of Jupiter Thanksgiving massacre: 'It's hard to let our baby go'



By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 10:05 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010

JUPITER — There is a calendar in the home of Jim and Muriel Sitton still stuck on November 2009, with a big turkey sticker plopped there in happier times by their now-deceased daughter.

A few miles away, 77-year-old Antoine Joseph is still trying to get used to the nights alone, his condo quiet, his wife of a half-century a year dead.

In Miami, Patrick Knight is relearning how to use his right hand, nine months after waking from a three-month coma to find that his wife and unborn child had not fared as well as he did.

And each Sunday, Michael Merhige drives from Miami to the Palm Beach County Jail, where his last living child, 36-year-old Paul Merhige, sits in a solitary cell, awaiting a death penalty trial on four murder charges.

In the year since the Thanksgiving Day rampage, the grief has hardened and crystallized, refracting itself now across the scattered lives of the surviving victims and their memories of the killer's primary targets .

Dead are Merhige's 33-year-old twin sisters, his 76-year-old aunt and his cousin's 6-year-old daughter, Makayla Sitton. Alive still are the scarred families, now gingerly trying to move forward with narrowed lives, truncated forever by that wrathful attack one year ago.

The killings were as devastating as they were surprising, coming as they did in the seeming sanctum of a holiday meal.

"We have nothing," Michael Merhige told his son months later, when Paul called crying from jail. "You have nothing. It's a total nightmare. Our lives have changed forever."

For those who survived the Nov. 26 attack at the Sittons' house, where Paul Merhige was a late and unexpected guest, the night of the killing was only the beginning of the pain.

After allegedly opening fire on the family gathering and slipping into Makayla's room to execute her in bed, Merhige drove south and disappeared, inciting a riveting manhunt that dragged on until his capture, more than five weeks later, at a motel in the Keys.

For the survivors, the long search for Merhige has given way to a far long­er wait for the criminal justice system to catch up.

A year after the murders, a trial date has not been set. The judge slated to hear the case has not yet moved into the court system's criminal division or received required training for death penalty cases.

Prosecutors want a trial in May. The public defenders have suggested January 2012.

Stalled justice

In the looming shadow of a sensational trial, moving forward has not been easy.

Jim Sitton, Makayla's father, was frequently on television during the search for Merhige, hoping that drawing attention to the case would help bring his daughter's alleged killer to justice.

Now he's back to work as a cameraman at WPTV-Channel 5. He and his wife still live in the Jupiter home where the slayings occurred, moving daily through the rooms where loved ones died.

The house is, in some ways, frozen like a clock that stopped ticking that day.

There is the hanging calendar that remains on November. There is Makayla's room, just as she left it. In the Sittons' master bedroom, her dollhouse is still near their bed.

"How do you turn that page?" Sitton said. "We know it happened. But it's hard to let our baby go."

Antoine Joseph does not live far away, in an oceanfront condo in Jupiter. A year ago, he watched Raymonde Joseph, 76, his wife of more than 50 years, fall to the ground with a bullet in her shoulder.

He fell to the ground alongside her, trying to stop her bleeding. But he could only watch, powerless, as her killer leveled the gun and fired a second time, blowing a hole in her chest.

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/on-anniversary-of-jupiter-thanksgiving-massacre-its-hard-1070514.html

The reporter above did an excellent job in writing the story. It's very moving.

Storybook brings slain child's imagination to life

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Matt Sedensky, Associated Press – 1 hr 24 mins ago 12/29/10


JUPITER, Fla. – The little girl's white, four-post bed is empty, her favorite doll Natalie atop it. Her pink plate and cup are set on the kitchen table; her vitamins await. The last CD she listened to is in her little stereo, the last lesson she learned on the blackboard, the last month she was alive frozen on the unturned page of the calendar.

Since a relative's Thanksgiving Day 2009 shooting rampage at their home, Jim and Muriel Sitton have faced a horrific balancing act: moving on past the time-stopping grief of losing their 6-year-old daughter Makayla Joy, and helping to realize her unfulfilled dreams.

One of Makayla's hopes — to someday publish a book — has now come to life in "The Bear's Castle," a simple story of a little bear who wants to make all his wishes come true. It is accompanied by a recording of the girl's initial telling of the story.

"We are trying to bring something good out of the ashes that is our life at this point," Jim Sitton said.

A foundation bearing Makayla's name carries on her love of dance and music, and it receives all profits from sales of the book. An annual concert has been started in her honor. And her plans for a Christmas pageant are coming to fruition.

Her parents hope children who open the storybook will find some joy in one of her creations, a tiny fragment of the happiness she brought to her family. Yet they can't paper over the past, so it simply remains untouched in their home in a manicured development in this beachside town since the night a family tradition turned into a massacre.

Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101229/ap_on_re_us/us_slain_girl_s_fairy_tale

Parents of 6-year-old slain on Thanksgiving to sue accused murderer's parents

Palm Beach Post Staff Report
Updated: 12:24 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011



WEST PALM BEACH — A couple whose 6-year-old daughter was killed in a murderous 2009 Thanksgiving Day rampage will appear at a press conference today to announce they are suing the parents of the man accused in the slayings.

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/paul-merhige-parents-of-6-year-old-slain-1858477.html

Lawsuit: Merhige's parents did nothing to stop Thanksgiving slayings

By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 1:44 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011



WEST PALM BEACH — Taking a locket from around his neck, Jim Sitton held up a picture of his slain daughter to explain why he and his wife today filed a lawsuit against the parents of the man who went on a murderous rampage in their Jupiter home on Thanksgiving 2009.

"This is about Makayla and my wife's mother," Sitton said, referring to his 6-year-old daughter and Raymonde Joseph, who were among the four relatives Paul Merhige allegedly shot before fleeing.

Carole and Michael Merhige set the stage for the carnage, according to the negligence lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. In a series of emails, it is clear they invited their then 35-year-old son to the family gathering without alerting the Sittons, the suit claims.

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/lawsuit-merhiges-parents-did-nothing-to-stop-thanksgiving-1860069.html

Merhige's Attorney Denies Family Suspected Trouble

Parents Of Thanksgiving Massacre Suspect Facing 2 Lawsuits

POSTED: 8:25 am EDT October 13, 2011

JUPITER, Fla. -- The parents of Paul Michael Merhige said they had no idea their son would go on a rampage at a 2009 Thanksgiving dinner that left four relatives dead.

His parents' attorney responded Wednesday to two lawsuits filed by the families of the victims.

Read more: http://www.wpbf.com/news/29471932/detail.html

Merhige sentenced to 7 consecutive sentences of life in prison

By Daphne Duret, The Palm Beach Post
3:44 p.m. EDT, October 27, 2011

A judge has accepted a plea deal and sentenced Paul Michael Merhige to seven consecutive life sentences, sparing him the death penalty for killing four of his relatives in Jupiter during a Thanksgiving Day 2009 shooting spree.

"He will never see the light of day," Circuit Judge Joseph Marx said.

The plea ends the case against Merhige, who was arrested in Jan 2010 after a month-long manhunt that began after he unleashed an attack against his flesh and blood at the end of a holiday get-together.

Read more: http://southflorida.sun-sentinel.com/news/pb-merhige-plea-announcement-20111027,0,1475177.story

I'm glad its over and justice has been served.

So glad this is over and that he pleaded...He will never be loose to repeat his dastardly horrendous deeds again...Prison won't be easy for him either...

Christmas Pageant To Honor Thanksgiving Massacre Victim

Father Of 6-Year-Old Girl Killed In 2009 Shooting Helps Daughter's Dream Come True

WPBF-TV
updated 12/16/2011 12:15:35 PM ET

Makayla Sitton had always wanted to put on a Christmas pageant. Now, more than two years after her murder, the show will go on in her honor.

After attending a Christmas pageant in Fort Lauderdale in 2008, Makayla decided she was going to put on her own pageant in the driveway of her home. She even made up tickets for the event.

"Look, it was going to be a long pageant -- 4 to 9," Jim Sitton said of his daughter's dream, pointing to the ticket she made.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45698835/ns/local_news-west_palm_beach_fl/