Two Mexicans Killed For Sport? Suspects Allegedly Bragged About Beating Pair To Death

Court documents suggest two orchard workers from Mexico who were murdered Sept. 27 in Omak, Wash., may have been killed for sport.

Attorneys for the two men accused of the murders are fighting to keep potential jurors from hearing about the confessions police say the men made.

Okanogan County Prosecutor Richard Weber said in a court document that Scott D. Pierce, 20, “bragged to several individuals” that he and Anthony W. Sammons, 25, “picked up two Mexicans, beat them up and dumped them in the (Okanogan) river.”

The victims were identified as Alejandro Torres Sanchez, 24, of Puebla, Mexico, and Guillermo Herrera Roman, 21, of Oaxaca, Mexico. A fund-raising drive helped pay the more than $8,000 cost of sending their bodies back to Mexico.

Sanchez reportedly had just packed his bags to return home when he was murdered. He had a wife and two daughters, including a month-old baby he hadn’t yet seen.

Weber said a witness saw a Hispanic man being beaten at Pierce’s home in Omak. He said Pierce and Sammons both later “admitted to picking up the two Hispanic males, driving them around for a while, beating them up at Pierce’s home, beating them up at the Okanogan River and dumping them in the river.”

An autopsy indicated both men had been severely beaten, choked and drowned.

Deputy Prosecutor Ronald Hammett, who is handling the cases, declined Friday to elaborate on the motive for the crime, but there is no indication in court documents that the men were robbed or that the defendants had a grievance against Roman or Sanchez.

Omak Police Chief Ronald Bailey said the victims apparently did nothing to provoke the attack.

After the bodies of Sanchez and Roman were found floating in the river, Omak police went to Pierce’s home and found a pair of wet shoes on the porch along with a toolbox with what appeared to be a bloodstain on it, Weber said.

He said a neighbor saw two men beating a Hispanic man at Pierce’s house on the night Roman and Sanchez were killed. The neighbor said he went back inside his house.

When the neighbor returned about two hours later, he said, he saw a person lying on the ground next to a black van. Two white men were yelling at the man on the ground to get up and get in the van, but he didn’t respond, the prosecutor said.

The neighbor reported hearing the van leave about 15 minutes later, and said it returned 15 to 20 minutes after that.

In court Friday, Deputy Prosecutor Hammett granted the defendants’ request that he wait another 30 days before deciding whether to seek the death penalty. If he doesn’t seek capital punishment, Sammons and Pierce would face a minimum of life in prison without parole if convicted as charged.

Okanogan County Public Defender Scot Stuart, representing Pierce, and court-appointed attorney Jeff Barker, representing Sammons, succeeded Friday in keeping secret search-warrant documents detailing the case against their clients.

Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Christopher Culp agreed to keep the search-warrant documents secret on grounds that publication of the information could make it difficult to find an impartial jury.

Stuart said he will ask to have Pierce’s hearing closed to the public.

The Spokesman-Review is seeking release of the search warrant documents, which the Washington Supreme Court has said are public records that can be kept secret only in unusual circumstances.

Culp agreed that information in the documents could make it difficult to find impartial jurors in Okanogan County. He also cited the potential cost of moving the trials to another county or bringing jurors from another county.

Sammons also faces trial on two charges of check forgery. He has no significant criminal history in Okanogan County, but lived elsewhere for a number of years.

Pierce has 14 juvenile convictions, beginning with second-degree theft in 1985 when he was 10 years old and ending with vehicle theft and hitand-run in 1991. Most of his convictions were for theft or burglary.

, DataTimes