The case of Alfredo Enrique Tello is over. And the ending is almost as strange as the rest of the case.
Tello was murdered (according to Murderpedia, he was “beaten with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun”: there’s a “gun” death for you, Weer’d) and dismembered in 1997 by two scumbags, Samuel Sheinbein and Aaron Needle. Sheinbein was 17, and I believe (but can’t confirm) Needle was as well; Tello was 19.
Shienbein fled the US for Israel before he was arrested. As soon as he reached Israel, he claimed citizenship and argued that he couldn’t be extradited because he was an Israeli citizen.
This, of course, turned into an enormous “who struck John” that went on for a while. Ultimately the Israeli courts ruled that Sheinbein couldn’t be extradited because he was a citizen: but he could be tried for the murder in Israel and imprisoned there. He pled guilty in 1999. (Needle killed himself just before going on trial.)
Anyway, Shienbein was sentenced to 24 years in an Israeli prison, with the possibility of parole in 16 years. He was also eligible to get furloughs after four years.
So now we’re at 2014. He’s got a shot at parole in two more years. What happens next?
Yes. Somehow he obtained a gun in a maximum security jail in Israel. (Authorities are saying he didn’t grab it from one of the guards.) The Israelis called in a SWAT team and attempted to negotiate, he fired shots at the SWAT team, they shot back, and Sheinbein “was mortally wounded when they fired back and died despite medical attention.”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as Jay G. likes to say.
Oh, those furloughs? According to the LAT Sheinbein was considered “so dangerous” they were denied to him until last year. And a few weeks ago, while he was on one of his furloughs from prison, he attempted to steal a handgun from somebody who had one for sale. That crime sounds about as inept as the shootout; Sheinbein jumped out of a moving car with the gun, the driver stopped, ran after him, grabbed him, and turned him over to the cops, who were quite surprised to find out they were dealing with a notorious murderer on furlough…