With guns drawn, Fresno police along with a K-9 dog move in on the home of Marcus Wesson, March 12, 2004, in Fresno, Calif. The Grisly Scene The police were in for a grisly scene as they witnessed nine bodies stacked in the back bedroom of the Fresno home. The Marcus Wesson case serves as Fresno's most notorious mass murder. Child abuse is another commonality. First he fondled their breasts and genitals, then taught them oral sex, until finally he was having full-on intercourse with them. By the 1960s, though, Marcus Wesson apparently was living and attending schools in the San Bernardino area.
Apparently in the mid- to late 1990s, Wesson bought two boats in the Marin County town of Marshall. No fingerprints or gunshot residue indicated who fired the murder weapon. Q: Why didn't you recuse yourself from the story, and did your boss know these women were living with you? Images of dead babies being carried from the family's small home in central Fresno were seen around the world. And in the ensuing murder trial, Marcus Wesson had been sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. He preached to the family daily, weaving a dogma of polygamy and incest from his interpretations of the Bible and Seventh Day Adventist beliefs.
His lawyers suggest the oldest of the dead, his daughter Sebhrenah, is most likely to blame for the deaths. Wesson returned to the United States on June 2, 1968, and spent four years in the inactive reserves. Marcus Delon Wesson born August 22, 1946 is a man convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder and 14 sex crimes, including the rape and molestation of his underage daughters. What keeps her going are her children who survived. By then, according to court testimony, he would have time to shape them in his image. For Elizabeth, however, acclimation has been difficult.
Marcus Wesson, 63, is on Death Row at San Quentin. Until then, he sequestered and home-schooled the family in a series of hideaways along the California coast. I knew I could tell the story best. The property was later sold to the city of Fresno. Gypsy had left the Wesson home by the time Marcus brought them to Fresno in 2003.
Murders Prior to March 12, 2004, Wesson had declared his intention to relocate his daughters and their children to Washington state, where Wesson's parents lived. By the mid-1990s, some of Wesson's daughters and nieces were having children -- his children, according to court testimony. And by the age of twenty-six, she had given birth to eleven children. Well before that day, cracks appeared in the family structure. He had fathered them with his wife, daughters and nieces. So what made Wesson such a monster? Eight years after this picture was taken, the young women attempted to reclaim their children from Wesson's home. I think no matter what I had done, this still would have ended in tragedy.
When he came out, he looked directly in my eyes. And Marcus Wesson, a man alternately portrayed as a loving father and lecherous opportunist who killed his children, would stand accused of the worst mass murder in Fresno history. For indepth information we refer you to our collection of. When the girls were 8 or 9, Wesson started molesting them. The police surrounded the house.
Elizabeth was the last person to see any of the children alive that fateful day. The city complained about the lack of progress in refurbishing the home and that someone was living in an old shed behind the main house. The two extremes combined perfectly to create the Bible-thumping pervert that would become Marcus Wesson. Wesson may have seemed intimidating, Sobrado says, but he was charming. Looking for a way to honor the murdered children, he has set his sights on becoming a police officer.
The children in his large extended family were kept under tight rein; the subservient women wore dark clothing and scarves. It was one of the most horrific things this city has seen. He asked me if I could be objective handling the family's reaction to what was happening in court. That same enormous man, Marcus Wesson, covered in blood, calmly stepped outside into the harsh sunlight. Coffins in the house even doubled as beds. The sight of the Wesson girls — dressed in long black skirts and veils — rowing their father ashore in a dinghy turned many heads.
All the other children were kids Wesson fathered either with his daughters or nieces. San Diego-based true-crime writer Caitlin Rother, a veteran former newspaper reporter, helped Sofios write the book. Sofios was assigned to talk to neighbors and interview relatives. The historic two-story Tudor, built in 1935, was sold by lawyer Frank Muna to Kiani Wesson, Sebhrenah Wesson, Sofina Solorio and Ruby Sanchez. Today, the Marcus Delon Wesson most people remember didn't seem destined for the front page. She decided to invite the Wessons to stay with her. But it was a sailboat he bought in Marin County that would lead to a long-running legal battle described in Santa Cruz County court records: In the fall of 1986, Wesson arranged to buy a 26-foot sloop in Marin County.