Guest Gathering Moss Report post Posted January 30, 2003 COPYCAT CHOPPERS By KATE SHEEHY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TV VIOLENCE: California police (above) remove the body of Jane Bautista (below left), who had her head and hands hacked off. Her son Jason (right) and a brother were allegedly inspired by a gory scene in "The Sopranos". - Splash News (above) January 28, 2003 -- Two brothers took their cue from "The Sopranos" when they strangled their mom - then chopped off her head and hands to hide her identity, California cops said yesterday. Jason Bautista, a bright, 20-year-old biochemistry major at California State University, San Bernardino, and his 15-year-old half-brother were charged in the horror matricide in Riverside after Bautista caved in and admitted to the Jan. 14 "Sopranos"-style murder, cops said. "[Jason] told investigators that he had seen an episode of ‘The Sopranos' where the same type of dismemberment was done before disposing of a body, and he had replicated that," Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona said. The brothers believed the mutilation would make it impossible to identify the body, Carona said. Asked about a motive, the sheriff only said, "I don't know what motive you could possibly give." Shockingly, the clever pair allegedly almost got away with killing mom Jane, who neighbors said could be frequently heard screaming at the younger boy to do his chores. The torso of their chunky, redheaded mom, clad only in underwear, was first reported as part of a murder mystery in the local media Jan. 15, when a couple touring nearby Cleveland National Forest stumbled upon it at the bottom of a rocky ravine. The crucial break in the bizarre case came when a security guard at a construction site in Oceanside called cops to tell them he had seen two males acting suspiciously around a Dumpster at about 2 a.m. that same morning. The guard said he saw the suspects trying to dump a sleeping bag - with a foot sticking out of it. The guard said the startled pair fled with the sleeping bag after spotting him - but not before he managed to jot down their license-plate number. It turned out to be Jason Bautista's car, cops said. The stocky, bespectacled Bautista - who worked as a hotel clerk to help pay his tuition - was pulled out of class Friday for questioning and confessed, police said. Jane Bautista's severed head and hands were later found stashed in the boys' bedroom in the family's modest apartment. In last year's end-of-season episode of HBO's "Sopranos," low-life loudmouth mobster Ralphie, played by Joe Pantoliano, gets whacked by Tony and then is decapitated and his hands cut off. A neighbor of the Bautistas' told the Orange County Register that just days after Jane's murder, the brothers were spotted making as many as 20 trips to the trash can with plastic bags. "We don't know why they kept going to the trash can, but we thought it was weird," said another neighbor, Derek Fernandez, 26. Fernandez added that Jane was frequently heard screaming at the younger boy, whose name was withheld because of his age, over housework. She said the noise mysteriously stopped shortly after the slaying. But the boys' stunned grandma, Charlie May Funderburk, insisted they "were good kids." "I really don't think Jason could have done it," Funderburk, 89, said. "He is a big boy, but not like that. He is really crazy about his mother." Discuss Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DawnBTVS Report post Posted January 30, 2003 They better not pin this solely on the boys watching The Sopranos. Odds are they were planning to kill her anyways if they were gonna do it in such a gruesome way and try and make sure the body wasn't found. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest IDrinkRatsMilk Report post Posted January 30, 2003 It's true. It's all being reported as if they were inspired by the Sopranos to kill her. They were killing her anyway, they just got the idea of how to ditch the body from the Sopranos. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest big Dante Cruz Report post Posted January 30, 2003 I can almost guarentee that the Sopranos influence being only on body disposal will be overlooked. Why? Someone's passing the buck, not taking responsibility. *Running for Senate on the personal responsibility ticket* Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Sassquatch Report post Posted January 30, 2003 We should have all seen this coming at some point. If you kill someone because of something you saw on TV then you already have problems in which case you should have been properly treated for. But now these miserable fucks have killed their mother and I hope this excuse gets thrown out of court. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted January 30, 2003 Well, if those kiddies really were copying the Sopranos, they wouldn't have gotten caught. Case closed... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest evilhomer Report post Posted January 30, 2003 Reminds me of one of my favorite Joe Pesci lines from Casino or Goodfellas. When you're dumping a body in the desert, you've got to make sure you've already got the hole dug before you get out there with the body. Otherwise, someone will come along and you've got to start digging a hole for them too. If someone else comes along, you've got to spend the whole goddamn day digging holes. What difference does The Sopranos scene make? Oh, they thought they could get away with it by copying something they saw on tv so that makes it alright? Not quite. These are two fucks who planned a murder and studied ways to get away with it. The fact that they used such methods to cover their tracks should be used by the procecution to show how brutal, conniving and dangerous they are. Instead it will be used by the defence to paint them as troubled youths who were pushed into the act by the violence they saw. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
