Showing posts with label anne "annie" reed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anne "annie" reed. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

New Details Emerge In Text Message Murders Of Nevada Teens:

Kylie Leyva (l.) and Anne "Annie" Reed
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Nearly two years after two teen aged girls from Nevada were allegedly stabbed to death over text messages,  new details are emerging in the case. 

Leviathon Lee Dipman, 20, of Nevada has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of fourteen year-old Kylie Leyva and eighteen year-old Anne "Annie" Reed and court documents indicate it was a conpiracy.
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Leviathon "Levi" Dipman (mug shot VCSO)
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Garrett Matthew Mason, now 19, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for the May 24, 2009, murders of his classmates.

Authorities say Dipman's arrest was due to information received from a confidential informant.  Officer Pamela Miller with the Nevada Police Department writes in the probable cause statement against Dipman, "Prior to Mr. Mason leaving the residence (Allan Harper's) to go to Ms. Reed's residence, Mr. Dipman, Mr. Mason and Mr. Harper had conversation on how Mr. Mason was going to kill both Ms. Reed and Ms. Leyva."


Garrett Matthew Mason (mug shot VCSO)
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The informant says that Dipman  made the comment, "To go kill them, cut them up and make their blood decorate the walls."  She [the confidential informant] says that Dipman, Mason and Harper,  "Spoke about a butcher knife" that was in the trunk of a vehicle the group had taken on a camping trip to Stockton Lake and that "the keys to the vehicle were still in the car and all he had to was get the knife when he left."

At Mason's preliminary hearing in August of 2009 Amanda Sandoval testified that she, Mason, Harper and Dipman had been camping and that when they returned Leyva and Reed began sending insulting text messages to her and that Mason had gone to Reed's apartment to get them to stop.

Sandoval, who at one time lived with Annie Reed and Mason, said Harper was a former boyfriend and Dipman was her ex-fiance. Dipman and Leyva had also once been boyfriend and girlfriend but had broken up.  Sandoval testified that Leyva had been one of her best friends.

Sandoval said she and Leyva had made a pact never to date Levi again, but she broke that promise when she went camping with him.

Sandoval, Dipman and Harper testified that as they were leaving to return a beer keg, Mason came running back to Harper's home as authorities with their sirens blaring were making their way to Reed's apartment.

A few hours before she was found stabbed to death Leyva had sent her mother a message saying she was having fun at Reed's watching movies.  Witnesses say Reed ran from her apartment after the attack and named Mason as the person who killed her and her friend.


Friends left momentos on the steps of Reed's apartment

Mason allegeldy told his friends he needed to change clothes because he had been in the same ones all weekend.  Harper popped the trunk and Mason changed behind the car then slipped into the backseat.

Sandoval said Mason initially acted like he didn't not know what was going on, asking them what was up with the police, but then told the group they needed to say he had been with them the last few hours.

Dipman testified “That’s when I turned around and noticed there was blood on his arm."

Officer Miller interviewed Garrett Matthew Mason again on February 16, 2011, about Reed and Leyva's murders.  He stated, "Mr. Dipman, Mr Harper and the informant were involved in the planning of the murders of Ms. Reed and Ms. Leyva.

When asked if Dipman perjured himself on the stand at Mason's prelim and if would affect his case against Mason, Vernon County Prosecutor Lynn Ewing said, "I don't see how....he just didn't give a full and complete disclosure of what happened."

Ewing says the investigation into Reed and Leyva's murders is ongoing and would not comment on whether any charges would be filed against Sandoval or Harper.

Mason's trial was scheduled to begin in April, but that trial setting has been canceled and replaced with a motion hearing on March 7th.  When asked if Mason was going to plead guilty and testify for the state, Ewing responded, "Ethically, I cannot comment on that."

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Trial Date Set For Nevada Teen Accused Of Killing Friends:

Garrett Matthew Mason

A trial date has been set for a Vernon County teenager accused of stabbing two friends to death last summer.

Garrett Matthew Mason 18, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action for the May 24, 2009, murders of Anne "Annie" Reed, 18 and Kylie Leyva, 14, at Reed's Nevada apartment.
Kyle Leyva (l) and Anne "Annie" Reed

In the probable cause statement filed with the charges, Nevada Police Officer Pamela Miller writes she and two other officers found Kylie Leyva (l.) and Anne "Annie" Reed (r.) suffering from multiple stab wounds to the neck about 6:25 p.m. Sunday at Reed's North Cedar Street residence.

Reed was able to get out of the apartment and run to a neighbors house for help. There she told the neighbor that Garrett Mason stabbed her and her friend. Three other witnesses told authorities in written statements that Mason came to their home with what appeared to be fresh blood on his body and his clothes. The witnesses told investigators that Mason changed his clothes, put them in a backpack and placed in the trunk of his car. He also asked them to provide him with an alibi by telling authorities that he spent the afternoon with them.



Kylie Leyva
Court documents reveal that Mason told investigators that he spent several hours with the girls at Reed's apartment before he allegedly stabbed them. Just a few hours before the attack, Kylie called her mother to tell her she was having fun watching movies with Annie.

Mason, lived across the street from from Reed, who was completing her senior year of high school. Leyva was a freshman. When authorities arrived at Mason's mother's house he was sitting on the curb waiting for them.







Anne "Annie" Reed

Court documents do not reveal a motive or indicate what may have led up to the fatal knife attack. However, only three witnesses testified at Mason's preliminary hearing before attorneys waived the proceeding. They testified that Reed and Leyva were in a text message fight with one of Mason's friends.

Mason had little criminal history before being charged with the girl's murder. In March of 2009, he pleaded guilty to possession of pot and drug paraphernalia and was given probation.

Lawyers for Mason filed motions with the court last October indicating that they believe an impartial jury cannot be selected from a county so close to where the crime took place.

Judge David Dally kept the trial in Jasper County but ruled that if a jury could not be seated at that time, he would reconsider the defense's objection. He also set a trial date for January 3, 2011.

The attorney generals office will assist Vernon County prosecutor Lynn Ewing with the case.






*****Link to Garrett Mason's MySpace page.