Four Camp Marines were arrested and charged with execution

AK370Z · 11-07-2008, 12:30 AM

Quote:

FRENCH VALLEY ---- More details are emerging about the execution-style slaying of a Marine sergeant and his wife inside their French Valley home last month, allegedly by four Camp Pendleton-based Marines.

Jan Pawek Pietrzak, 24, and his 26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak, were found shot to death in the family room of their home in the 31000 block of Bermuda Street on the morning of Oct. 15.

"This was a very heinous act," Riverside County sheriff's homicide Lt. John Schultz said Tuesday.

Investigators believe the four Marines ---- two of whom worked for Sgt. Jan Pietrzak ---- targeted the couple to rob them.

Parts of the two-story home had been ransacked and belongings were stolen from the Pietrzaks, authorities said.

"We know that numerous items of jewelry, for example, were taken," Schultz said.

Investigators have recovered what they believe to be stolen merchandise from the four detained Marines, including jewelry, he said.

"Now, it is just a matter of determining where those items came from," the lieutenant said.

Investigators also are looking into whether the four detained Marines are connected to several burglaries and at least one home-invasion robbery in North San Diego County, Schultz said.

The Pietrzaks, who had just married in August, were each bound, gagged and shot at least twice in the head by their killers, Schultz said.

The Pietrzaks were an interracial couple and Schultz said investigators first looked at the possibility this may have been a race-related hate crime. But, he said Tuesday, that motive was quickly put aside.

"There doesn't appear to be any overtones of race being involved in this," Schultz said. "It appears the intent was to go there and rob them."

All four men detained in connection with the deaths are black, authorities said.

Homicide investigators are not saying specifically what weapon was used to kill the Pietrzaks, but several weapons were found during searches related to the four men who are being held in connection with the slayings.

"We presume we have the weapon that was used but are awaiting ballistics tests," Schultz said.

Investigators also are not yet saying who among the four fired the fatal shots.

"But we've got a pretty good idea who it was," the lieutenant said, adding that both victims appear to have been killed with the same gun.

The robbery and slayings happened sometime between 1 and 2 a.m. Oct. 15, Schultz said, and there was no damage to the home to indicate any doors or windows had been forced open.

"It's possible that someone (who Jan Pietzrak) knew came to the door and he opened it," Schultz said, which could explain how the men would have been able to get inside.

All four men were assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force, military officials said.

Two of the detained Marines, Lance Cpl. Emrys John, 18, and Tyrone Miller, 20, worked directly for Jan Pietrzak, Schultz said. According to the Marine Corps, John and Miller worked as airframe mechanics.

John, Miller and a third Marine, Pvt. Kevin Cox, 20, an aircraft electrical systems technician, are being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton.

Those three lived on the base and are being detained there, awaiting release into the custody of Riverside County authorities, Schultz said.

The transfer to Riverside County, at which time they will be booked at a county jail, could happen sometime Wednesday, a Marine Corps spokesman said Tuesday afternoon.

The fourth man, Lance Cpl. Kesaun Sykes, 21, who worked as an administrative clerk, lived in the Fallbrook area and was arrested and booked at Southwest Detention Center in French Valley, authorities said.

Sykes is scheduled to be arraigned today at Southwest Justice Center.

Sykes was booked on suspicion of two counts of murder, use of a firearm during a felony, home-invasion robbery and sexual penetration with a foreign object, jail records state.

Schultz said that once the other three men are in custody in Riverside County, they will be booked on the same charges.

The sexual assault allegation stems from evidence found at the slaying scene.

"There was evidence that (Jenkins-Pietrzak) may have been sexually abused ...," Schultz said.

Investigators have said numerous items of evidence were found at the crime scene, much of which has been or is being tested for fingerprints and DNA.

Schultz said investigators believe all four men wore gloves and masks during the crime, adding that some masks were recovered during searches.

Homicide detectives worked closely with Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators while trying to find who killed the Pietrzaks, the lieutenant said.

"Most of the interviews were done on base and they were of great assistance," Schultz said.

It was a series of interviews that ultimately led homicide investigators to the four Marines, he said.

"That got us to the first two," Schultz said, those being Miller and John, "and then to the final two suspects."

Jan Pietrzak was assigned to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, military officials said last month.

Pietrzak was a helicopter airframe mechanic who enlisted in March 2003, according to Marine Corps officials. He was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and was deployed in Iraq from July 2005 to February 2006, officials said.

Jenkins-Pietrzak worked for the last year and a half as a health education assistant, the deputy director of the Riverside County Department of Public Health said last month. She worked in the department's black infant health program, an outreach to pregnant and parenting black women, officials said.

According to military records, none of the four detained men have been deployed since joining the Marine Corps.

Cox, originally from Tennessee, has the most time of the four, having joined the Marines in December 2005, according to military records.

Sykes, from California, joined in April 2006; Miller, from North Carolina, joined in December 2006; and John, from Maryland, joined in August 2007.

REGION: More details emerge in slayings of local Marine, wife : North County Times - Californian