A Random Murder in New Hampshire

It’s the kind of crime that begs for the death penalty. Four misfits target a home with plans to kill anyone they find there. They don’t know the victims--in fact, they have no idea who they’ll encounter. Two innocent people, Kimberly Cates, a nurse, and her eleven-year-old daughter were attacked with machetes and a “skinning” knife. Kimberly died, but Jaimie played dead and survived. What frightens most people is the senselessness and randomness of the assault. [WARNING: These descriptions are graphic.]

At 4:15 a.m., October 4, 2009, a call came in to the Mont Vernon, New Hampshire Police Department. No one spoke, so dispatchers sent an officer to the home on 4 Trow Road to investigate. As Sergeant Kevin Furlong made his way up to the house, he looked through a window and saw a blood-drenched child lying on the floor.

“They killed my mommy,” she cried out.

On entering the home, cops found a scene straight from a horror film. Only this was real.

A few minutes earlier, four men had broken into the home.

Kimberly Cates, 42, and her 11-year-old daughter, Jaimie, were asleep in the master bedroom. (Kimberly’s husband, David, was out of town on business.)

The bedroom door opened, awaking Kimberly. “Jaimie, is that you?” she asked.

The words were barely out of her mouth when Kimberly was attacked with a machete. As blow after blow rained down on her, Jaimie awoke and attempted to flee. But a second assailant slashed at her with a fillet knife which had a long, thin blade used for skinning fish. The child was stabbed in the face and chest. Then the attacker rammed the blade into an area near her heart, attempting to kill her. Picking up the severely wounded child, he flung her against a plate glass window.

Kimberly, hacked to pieces, was dead. As the attackers were leaving, they kicked Jaimie. She lay limp, so they moved on, thinking that she, too, was dead.

After robbing the house of jewelry, they fled.

Once the assailants were gone, Jaimie, in an act of desperate courage, was able to call for help.

It didn’t take cops long to arrest four men. They'd spent nearly two days bragging about the murders to friends until someone finally called police. Investigators arrested Steven Spader, 18; Christopher Gribble, 20; Quinn Glover, 18; and William Marks, 18.

In a series of confessions, the suspects stated that they had spent weeks planning the attack. Driving around the area, they targeted the Cates home because it was isolated. They had no idea who lived there. It didn’t matter--their mission was to kill.

Jaimie was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Boston, where she underwent ten hours of surgery. She survived, barely.

Spader and Gribble were each charged with first-degree murder. Glover and Marks were charged with armed robbery, burglary, and conspiracy. A fifth man was later charged with obstruction of justice for attempting to provide an alibi for the suspects.

If they’re found guilty, the killers won’t face the death penalty. In New Hampshire, home invasion murder doesn’t qualify for the ultimate sentence. A recent attempt by the legislature to remedy that flaw in the state’s criminal justice laws failed when it was voted down.