WICHITA, Kansas – A Sedgwick County judge has tossed out a confession and most of the evidence in a double murder from last Thanksgiving.
Samuel Holton is accused of the murder of Jessie Foust and Adrian Jackson who were found dead in their home by family members last Thanksgiving Day.
It was a nauseating crime. Twenty-five-year-old Jessie Faust and 26-year-old Adrian Jackson were found shot to death in their home on Thanksgiving Day. Police say the couple’s one-year-old and four-year-old boy’s spent the night – at least 16 hours – in their house with their dead parents.
After a tip, police searched a Mulvane house and arrested 15-year-old Samuel Holton. But a Sedgwick County judge ruled Wednesday that police illegally entered the home meaning any evidence found there or an alleged confession cannot be used during the trial.
Jessie Faust’s father, Graham Faust, was in the courtroom when the judge made the ruling.
"It's disappointing of course when you feel like there’s someone who's halfway owning up to a very horrendous crime and that can be used for punishment purposes,” he said. “It's disappointing."
Prosecutors argued Holton’s mother called detective after she found jewelry taken from Jackson’s home. But the judge ruled police did not have permission to enter the home.
Dan Monnat’s law firm is handling the defense.
“Courageous decisions by judges like Judge Kaufman in this case are what on a daily basis preserve the constitutional freedoms of all of us no matter how difficult or unpopular those decisions might be,” Monnat said.
The prosecution has been granted a continuance in the case.
