April 24th, 2005
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#49
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...olitan/3148892
Quote:
April 23, 2005, 10:41AM
Man arrested in slayings of 3 Port Arthur women
Elderly women targeted; survivor gives description
Associated Press
Gary Sinegal
PORT ARTHUR - A man arrested Friday and suspected in the deaths of three elderly women whose bodies were found stuffed in their closets has an almost 30-year history of burglaries and beatings.
Police arrested Gary Sinegal, 40, on Friday and charged him with violating his parole and burglary in the attack of a woman who fought back and gave police a description of the suspect. He is the lead suspect in the deaths of a woman whose body was found Monday and two others found in their homes on Thursday, police said.
Sinegal has denied involvement in the four attacks.
On Monday, 82-year-old Dorothy Barrett was found in a closet, said Deputy Police Chief Raymond Clark. The bodies of the two other victims — 81-year-old Louise Tamplin and 86-year-old Margie Gafford — were found in their homes Thursday.
All three died of blunt force trauma and lived within a few streets of each other in the same neighborhood as Sinegal. Tamplin and Gafford had been doing yard work Thursday, said Jefferson County Justice of the Peace Bob Morgan.
Robert Choate said his wife, Brenda, was doing yard work about 2:30 p.m. Thursday when she found a man in their house.
Choate, who tearfully described seeing his wife covered in blood, said the man knocked his wife down three times, but she continued to fight him until he ran away. She later picked Sinegal out of a police lineup.
"He knocked her down and he kicked on her and she kicked him off," Choate said. "I think he thought, 'I better get away from this broad because she is going to put me in the closet.' "
Sinegal's criminal record shows he has been in and out of custody since 1977.
One of eight children whose father abandoned them the year he was born, Sinegal was given juvenile probation at age 13 in 1977 for seven auto burglaries. He was committed to the Texas Youth Commission in 1978 for another theft but was out by 1980, when his crimes turned violent.
"This is a streetwise young man who seems to have a good grasp of the social realities confronting him," wrote Dr. Jerome G. Die, who certified him to stand trial as an adult in that case.
He was given a four-year sentence but was paroled two years later. In 1984, he was sentenced for an armed robbery of a convenience-store manager and her daughter, serving 20 years before being paroled last year.
In 1999, Sinegal wrote to state District Judge Leonard Giblin asking that his sentence be commuted and promising to be a law-abiding citizen.
Two girls who live next door to Sinegal led authorities to him after seeing his description in media reports.
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