Alijah James Mullis
October 29, 2007 - January 29, 2008

On January 29, 2008, a couple was driving down the road in Texas looking for birds and coyotes. Jesse Zaro and his wife Esmeralda saw something that looked odd to them, on the side of the road. At first, they thought it might be a doll since feet and hands were visible from the car. When Jesse got out of the car to see what it was, he was shocked to see that it was a baby and the baby was dead. Detectives arrived on the scene was taped off and after they called 911, they were made aware of the fact that there was a woman named Caren

Several hours prior to the finding of body of Alijah James Mullis, his father, Travis Mullis was awake earlier than anyone else in his home. He wasn't the only one awake, there was an eight year old little girl who was also awake. He asked her if she would like to go to the play ground and she said yes. Travis took the girl to the play ground and she soon found out why he had been so eager to take her there.

Travis wanted to have sex with the eight year old little girl. The little girl, even though she was eight years old, refused to take her own pants off and when Travis tried to pull them off of her she got angry:

Travis did what the little girl asked, he brought her home. When he got there, at about 5:am, he put his son Alijah into his car seat, put him in the card and drove off tell Caren Kohberger that he was going to get the car repaired.

A photograph taken at the scene where the baby was found, was showed to Caren who identified him as her son. DNA was taken since the child's identity was hard to make due to the shape he was in. Also taken were footprints in an attempt to be sure this child was Alijah.

Travis Mullis went on the run and headed to Maryland where he had family and friends. Along the way he stopped at churches and with his sad stories was able to collect money for food and gas and then again, he would be on his way. There was a nationwide manhunt going on for Travis, even so, he managed to make it to Philadelphia. When he arrive there, he turned himself in at the police station stating that his name was Travis Mullis and he wanted to talk to someone.

On February 1, 2008, Travis made a confession to the Philadelphia police about how he had killed his son by stomping on his head several times until his skull had literally collapsed. He said that his son would not stop crying and that was how he had stopped him. Travis waived his right to extradition on February 4th and was being held without bail. 

He was expected to taken back to Texas on the 5th:

Travis was in court before Judge Jeffrey Minehart. Wearing an orange prison uniform, he was also shackled the judge asked:

After confirming that he fully understood what was taking place and that he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol he said he did wish to give up his right to a hearing and then he signed papers to make it official. John Doyle, the Assistant District Attorney said that the process had gone smoothly and was typical of this kind of
case.

A representative from the Defender Association Of Philadelphia, Dan Stevenson, represented Travis and said that he was ready to return to Texas:

Dan Stevenson also said that he had tried to find a lawyer to represent Travis in Texas and that his attempts, so far, had been unsuccessful. He also said that Travis seemed to nervous and remorseful about the things he had done:

Travis was scheduled to fly back to Texas on a Southwest Airlines flight. Unfortunately, Southwest policy doesn't allow anyone to fly while handcuffed. The police had to make alternate arrangements to get him back to Texas, saying they didn't want him to fly without the handcuffs.

A spokesman, Bog Eskind, said that Travis was being held in an 8 by 10 cell with a bed, toilet and a sink. He also said that as is procedure with new inmates, he would be given a behavioral health screening, classification interview with an intake Social worker.

Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk was in charge of the case and said the evidence was taken to a judge in order to get an authorized bond and to get a charge of capital murder. Travis was taken to jail and his bail was set at $1 million dollars.

In court, Travis stated his name and address for the judge, however, he answered most of his answers to questions with a yes or no. When asked about his mental health history, he said that he had been taking behavior modification medications until about three years prior when he was no longer able to afford them.

Caren had been cooperating with the police up to the point that she was charged with child endangerment when it was learned that she handed her son over to Travis at 4:30am the morning he killed him, after he threatened to to hurt another of the children in the trailer they were living in. One of Caren's friends said that the charges were a 
big mistake:

The District Attorney said that Caren should not have handed her son over to Travis since she knew he was not stable and that he could possibly hurt him. The arrest affidavit said that Caren had told police that Travis had been up all night having flashbacks of having been sexually abused as a child. In addition, she said that the had told her
he needed to get out of the house because he was afraid he might try to do something to one of the children. He had once told her that he had sexually abused a child while he was a minor. Investigators said that armed with this information, Caren should not have allowed Travis to take Alijah out of the house. Friends of Caren say she had no reason to believe he would hurt him:

Caren disappeared later and her friends said she was probably in New York.

Travis Mullis was charged with capital murder in the death of his son and he also faced felony charges of enticing a child. Prosecutors in the case said they would seek the death penalty for Travis. Assistant Galveston County District Attorney Larry Drosnes met with Robert Loper, the attorney for Travis, privately to tell him of the decision which had been made to seek the death penalty.

Assistant Galveston County District Attorney Larry Drosnes met privately with the defense attorney for Travis Mullis - Robert Loper - outside the courtroom of District Judge John Ellisor to inform him of the decision.

Seeking the death penalty meant that Judge Ellisor would have to appoint a second defense attorney and would probably do so at the next court date which would be September 2008. Robert Loper said that his client suffered with a history of mental illness and he was not sure if that and the troubled life he had growing up would come up in
his defense.

On February 18, 2008, a grand jury indicted Travis Mullis on capital murder charges. On August 8, 2008, prosecutors announced that they would seek the death penalty for Travis.

Caren Kohberger was arrested while leaving a mental hospital in New York on February 2, 2008. Her Attorney, Jimmy Phillips, said that she turned herself in after waiving extradition from New York to Texas. Caren's bond was originally set at $60,000. and was later reduced to $20,000. which she posted within half an hour of turning herself in.

At a place called MyYearBook, Travis has a page and on the page he has marijuana leafs falling from the sky like snowflakes. Travis has only four friends, one of them being Caren. Absent is ANY mention of having a son or that he murdered him.
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UPDATE:

Defendants with their lives at stake rarely ask their lawyers to stop trying to declare the death penalty unconstitutional, but Travis Mullis has a different view of the world.

Mullis, accused of attempting to sexually molest his 3-month-old son Alijah before stomping him to death in 2008, has asked his attorneys to withdraw 21 motions before a Galveston judge questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty.

If the motions are not withdrawn, Mullis threatens to sue the judge, his attorneys and the district clerk, file complaints with various state agencies and notify several television stations.

Interviewed in the Galveston County Jail on Monday, Mullis, 24, said the challenges to the death penalty would stir up so much media interest that the resulting publicity would prejudice a jury against him.

"It's more a publicity stunt than anything else," Mullis said about his attorneys' death penalty challenges. "Before the jury is selected they are going to drag all my case and all the accusations through the media."

But there is reason to suspect that a Houston case may have influenced Mullis's decision.
Green case reference

One of Mullis's attorneys, Robert Loper, is also an attorney in a case where his challenge to the death penalty has received wide media attention.

In that case, Harris County District Judge Kevin Fine declared the death penalty unconstitutional in March based on filings by Loper on behalf of John Edward Green, accused in a 2008 robbery and slaying in Houston.

Fine later rescinded the decision to gather more information.

Mullis couldn't remember the name of the case, but pointed to media attention in a Harris County case as reason for his decision to oppose his attorneys' attempts to fight the death-penalty in his case.

Mullis, who says he was diagnosed as a teenager as having bipolar mental illness, filed his handwritten motion in November asking that the death penalty motions be withdrawn.

He says a civil rights attorney whose identity he refuses to reveal has been advising him to reject the advice of Loper and attorney Gerald Bourque, both experienced death-penalty attorneys.
Strategy conflicts

Mullis says that he has a right to manage his own case, but Loper says he is misinformed. The defense attorneys, not the client, determine legal strategy, he says.

"I don't know what that civil rights lawyer, if there is one, thinks he is doing for him, but it's going to be very little," Loper said.

Jury selection for Mullis's capital murder trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 1.

Robert Loper is a prominent and highly respected death penalty attorney. He and two fellow attorneys, Richard Burr and John “Casey” Kerinan, recently drew international attention by filing for and securing a hearing before Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Kevin Fine challenging the manner in which Texas’ death penalty is carried out (here). The inmate in that case is named John Green who was arrested and indicted for capital murder in connection with the June 2008 shooting death of a woman during a robbery. Green apparently had no problem with being center stage in the high profile challenge to the states death penalty which featured all the “top stars” in the anti-death penalty movement.

But Travis Mullis views the matter quite differently, and understandably so. He is sitting a Galveston jail facing the death penalty after being indicted for attempting to sexually molest his three year old son. Loper is also representing Mullis. The aggressive attorney filed 21 motions challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty in Mullis’ case. Unlike John Green, Mullis was not pleased by this high profile defense strategy. The Houston Chronicle reported the defendant threatened to sue the trial judge, Loper, and the Clerk of Court if the 21 motions are not withdrawn.

The newspaper cited Mullis’ concern about the media interest generated by such pre-trial challenges to the death penalty. “Its more a publicity stunt than anything else,” the newspaper quoted the accused child molester as saying. “Before the jury is selected, they are going to drag all my case and all the accusations through the media.”

Mullis is 100 percent right. He is facing possibly the worse charge a man can face in Texas: trying to molest his own 3-year-old son. The less publicity his case receives, the better. Texans love the death penalty and hate child molesters. Mullis sits squarely on that double-edged sword. I don’t know what Loper was thinking when he decided to use this kind of case to challenge the death penalty— and apparently the decision was made without the full consultation and blessing of his client. As a consequence, the attorney may have already irreparably prejudiced any potential jury pool against Mullis with such an ill-advised defense strategy.

Mullis believes he has a right to control the defense strategy to be employed in his case. He is right. And some unnamed civil rights attorney apparently reinforced this belief to Mullis at the consternation of Loper who was quoted by the Chronicle as saying the defense attorney, not the client, determines “legal strategy” in a case. I don’t know what train Loper arrived at the station on, but it’s about three decades late. A criminal defendant can not only reject a given legal strategy, he can fire his attorney and elect to defend himself, even in a capital case.

The arrogance in Loper’s assessment that a client is at the mercy of whatever legal strategy he decides upon is stunning. I don’t know Robert Loper personally, but I have been associated with a number of what I call “attorney advocates” who too often blur their professional obligations with their personal cause-beliefs. Mullis makes a legitimate point when he charges that Loper is perhaps more interested in the publicity a death penalty challenge will generate than in the client’s legal interests. The fact that this question can even be raised is precisely why a well-informed attorney would not embark upon a controversial legal strategy, such as a death penalty challenge, without the complete support of his client.

At a November 1976 clemency hearing, Gary Gilmore told Utah Board of Pardons members what he thought about the efforts of the ACLU, NAACP, and religious leaders to prevent his January 17, 1977 execution: “They always want to get in on the act. I don’t think they have ever really done anything effective in their lives. I would like them all – including that group of reverends and rabbis from Salt Lake City – to butt out. This is my life and this is my death. It’s been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that.”

The higher courts agreed with Gilmore. Every stay sought and secured by the ACLU was overturned including one issued just hours before his execution.

Robert Loper should perhaps revisit this historical lesson. Every man has the proverbial “right to go to hell in his own way.” At this moment in his life Travis Mullis is not concerned about whether Texas’ death penalty procedures are constitutional. He just does not want to take that prison van ride to Huntsville where the state’s executions are carried out while Loper is sitting in the comfort of his law office.

So I think Loper should take Gary Gilmore’s advice and “butt out” of the Mullis case.

UPDATE: Thank you to Jan for sending me this update

Galveston Jury Sentences baby-killer dad to death
Mullis gets death sentence in 3-month-old son's killing
Harvey Rice
Houseton Chronical
Published 05:30a.am, Monday, March 21, 2011

GALVESTON - Travis James Mullis stood alone with his attorneys Monday when the jury verdict was read
sentencing him to death for crushing his 3-month old sons head beneath his foot to make him stop crying. Not a
single relative or friend came to lend support or to hear the verdict, delivered after three hours of deliberation.

His adoptive mother was in Florida and let it be know that she wanted nothing to do with the case. She only wrote
him once curing his nearly three years awaiting trial in the Galveston County Jail, Mullis, 24, said in an earlier jail
interview with the Houston Chronicle. Long lost relatives who came from North Caroline to plead for his life - a
half brother, half-sister and aunt - had returned home when the jury delivered its verdict.

Department Of Family And Protective Services

Call this number to report child abuse ANY WHERE in the United States!
1-800-4-A-Child  1-800-422-4453