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Jason
Michael HANN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Baby killer
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder: July 1999 / February 2001
Date of arrest:
April 25, 2002
Date of birth: December 19, 1974
Victim profile: His son, Jason, 6-week-old / His daughter, Montana,
2½ months old
Method of murder: Beating
Location: Vermont/California, USA
Status:
Sentenced to 27 to 30 years in prison in Vermont on March 1, 2006.
Sentenced to death on December 19, 2013
Jury chooses death for dad in Calif. baby
killing; also killed son in Vermont
BurlingtonFreePress.com
Dec. 21, 2013
INDIO, CALIF. — After deliberating for just a few
hours, a Southern California jury has recommended a death sentence for
a man for killing his 2-month-old daughter, whose body was found in an
Arkansas storage unit.
Jason Hann, 38, already is serving 27 to 30 years
for the 1999 murder of his 6-week-old son at a Shelburne, Vt.
campground.
The Riverside County jury recommended the death
sentence for Hann on Thursday, two days after convicting him of
first-degree murder and assault on a child.
California prosecutors say Hann hit his daughter,
Montana, to stop her from crying in Desert Hot Springs in 2001.
Authorities say Hann and the baby’s mother put the body in a plastic
container and moved away. Her decomposed remains were uncovered in
February 2002 after their abandoned camper was sold at auction and the
buyer found the container.
Krissy Werntz, 33, of Indiana also is charged with
murder.
Police in Burlington, Vt., said in 2002 they were
asked to look for evidence from 1999 when the couple had been living
in Vermont. The couple had arrived in Vermont in 1998 and Werntz found
work through Westaff, and also worked at a bakery, Magic Hat Brewery
and Rhino Foods.
Police said Hann admitted to knocking the boy’s
head against a crib and that he died a few days later while staying at
the campground.
Werntz said she held the baby for three days and
Hann later put the body in a bowling bag. Hann told police that he and
Werntz carried the dead body around with them in a plastic container
for 18 months.
Hann said he never reported the death for fear he
and Werntz were wanted for a fraud charge in Tennessee. The goal was
to buy a piece of land and bury him, police said.
Police in Arizona found the boy’s body in April
2002 after Hann told them where to look. The body had been left in
another trailer outside Lake Havasu City, Ariz.
A third infant, also named Jason, was seized from
the couple when they were arrested in Portland Maine in 2002.
Jury decides death for father who killed
2-month-old daughter
By Rick Rojas - Los Angeles Times
December 19, 2013
A Riverside County jury decided Thursday that a man
should face the death penalty for killing his 2-month-old daughter in
Desert Hot Springs and leaving her remains in an Arkansas storage
unit, prosecutors said.
Jason Michael Hann, 39, was convicted by a jury
Tuesday of one count of first-degree murder and another of assault on
a child resulting in death, according to a statement from the
Riverside County district attorney's office.
Jurors also found true the special circumstances
allegation of a previous murder conviction, which prompted the
district attorney to seek the death penalty.
The decomposing remains of the baby girl were found
in February 2002 in a plastic container in an Arkansas storage unit.
The body was found when the contents of the space were going to be
sold because the unit's renter failed to pay the bill.
Authorities found Hann and his girlfriend, Krissy
Werntz, were the renters, and the couple were tracked down in
Portland, Maine, where they were arrested in April 2002.
Close to the time of the arrest, authorities found
the couple's third child, a boy who was about a month old, had
life-threatening injuries, including a dozen rib fractures and retinal
hemorrhages.
During questioning, Hann told investigators the
girl found in Arkansas had died in Desert Hot Springs in 2001.
The day after the arrest, police found the remains
of another of the couple's children, this one a boy less than 2 months
old, in an Arizona storage unit.
That child had been killed in July 1999 in Vermont,
and his remains were kept in a plastic container for more than a year
before they rented the Arizona unit in December 2000.
Hann was convicted in February 2006 in Vermont of
second-degree murder for that baby's death and sentenced to 27 to 30
years in prison, prosecutors said.
Father Convicted Of Killing Second Infant In
Southern California
CBSlocal.com
December 17, 2013
INDIO, Calif. (AP) – A father who killed his infant
son more than a decade ago was found guilty Tuesday of also murdering
his 2-month-old daughter, whose decomposing remains were found in a
trash bag at an Arkansas storage unit.
Jason Hann, 38, was convicted of first-degree
murder and one count of assault on a child resulting in death,
according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.
The Vermont man was living in Desert Hot Springs
east of Los Angeles in 2001 when he became angry that his daughter,
Montana, was crying. He struck her in the head and killed her,
prosecutors said.
Hann and the girl’s mother stuffed the body in
plastic and moved away, keeping it in trailers and motorhomes for nine
months as they moved from state to state doing odd jobs, authorities
said.
The couple eventually arrived in Arkansas and left
the body in a trailer at a storage facility, authorities said. They
intended to return, but they missed some rental payments and their
property was sold, authorities said.
In February 2002, a man who bought the trailer
found the girl’s decomposed body wrapped in plastic bags, authorities
said.
Hann and the girl’s mother, Krissy Lynn Werntz of
Indiana, were arrested two months later at a motel in Maine.
The California charges were filed while Hann was
serving a 27- to 30-year prison sentence for the 1999 death of his
6-week-old son at a Vermont campground. The child’s body was found in
a storage unit in Arizona the day after the couple was arrested.
Authorities said Hann had trekked around with the
boy’s body for 18 months.
Hann pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in
that case, and California jurors found the special allegation that he
had previously committed murder.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Werntz, 34, is awaiting trial on one count of
murder. A lawyer for Werntz couldn’t immediately be located.
Trial begins for man accused of killing infant
daughter
Thv11.com
December 3, 2013
(USA TODAY) -- Jason Michael Hann admits he killed
two of his children just weeks after they were born, his attorney
said. Their bodies were found in separate storage lockers 1,500 miles
apart in 2002.
Already serving up to 30 years in the Vermont
prison system for the 1999 death of his son, Hann's murder trial began
Monday in the 2001 killing of his daughter, Montana, who prosecutors
say died in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. She was 2½ months old.
Riverside County prosecutors are pursuing the death
penalty for Hann by invoking the "special circumstance" of a previous
murder conviction. If the jury finds him guilty of first-degree murder
with the special circumstance, it will then decide if the death
sentence should be imposed. The other option would be life without
possibility of parole.
Hann, who has pleaded not guilty to the
first-degree murder charge, has had severe bipolar disorder since
early childhood, his lawyer Brenda Miller said. She asked the jury of
nine women and three men at Larson Justice Center in California to
consider a second-degree murder charge in light of that information.
Miller compared Hann's cycles of rage to a swing on
a children's playground - going up and down - and said 10-week-old
Montana took the brunt of it one day almost 13 years ago.
"Just as his anxiety and his rage was reaching its
peak, Montana began to cry, and her cries got louder and louder, and
his rage just exploded," Miller said, at which point Hann punched the
baby with a closed fist.
Hann had been treated several times for bipolar
disorder, but he checked himself out of facilities against medical
advice and refused to take medication.
"Mental illness is no excuse" for what Hann did,
Miller said, but she asked the jury to consider the lesser conviction,
which carries a sentence of 15 years to life.
Investigators in Arkansas, where Montana's remains
were found, determined she died while her parents lived in Desert Hot
Springs, and her body was wrapped inside garbage bags and placed in a
"blue Tupperware-type container," deputy Riverside County district
attorney Lisa DiMaria said. Then the couple, who DiMaria said lived a
"transient, gypsy-style life" beginning in 1998, left for Arkansas.
They rented a storage locker, where they kept a trailer containing
Montana's body. A year after Montana died, her parents had stopped
paying for the locker and the contents were auctioned off. The buyer
called police after finding the body.
An all-points-bulletin found Hann and the
children's mother, Krissy Lynn Werntz, in a Motel 6 in Portland,
Maine, with a 1-month old son, named Jason, who was found to have
numerous broken ribs, bleeding under his skull and other internal
injuries, according to the prosecution. The state placed this child
with foster parents, who eventually adopted him.
Witness Jennifer Bloom, an employee of Maine's
Department of Human Services, testified she and a colleague were sent
to check on the new baby's welfare, and Hann admitted to being
involved with the deaths of his two other children.
"He said he was responsible for both deaths. He
didn't provide a lot of detail. He said, 'I fell and blacked out with
the baby,'" Bloom said. She added Hann said he felt guilty about the
deaths, and felt he had to keep moving to evade police.
The body of the couple's first child, who also was
named Jason, was found similarly wrapped in trash bags inside a rubber
container, in a storage locker in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. He was 6
weeks old when he died.
Hann was extradited to California in 2009 to be
tried for Montana's death, and it took four years for the
death-penalty case to make its way through the system and into opening
arguments.
DiMaria explained to the jury the two boys would be
referred to as "Jason One" and "Jason Two" during the course of the
trial to differentiate between them, though the surviving boy also may
be called by his adoptive name, Michael.
Almost all witnesses are being flown in from out of
state, due to the couple's frequent relocations.
Testimony is expected to end next week.
More than 12 Years Later, Prosecutor Details
Horrendous Killing of Infant
Posted by Guy McCarthy - PalmDesert.patch.com
December 02, 2013
A father beat his 10-week-old daughter to death,
wrapped duct tape around her head and kept her body inside a trash bag
that he and his girlfriend took with them from Desert Hot Springs to
Arkansas, a prosecutor said Monday.
Prosecutor Lisa DiMaria told jurors Dec. 2 that
Jason Michael Hann, 38, struck his infant daughter Montana with a
closed fist in February 2001, inflicting fatal skull fractures.
The infant's lifeless body was placed in a
Tupperware container, which was then put in the trash bag and kept
inside a trailer for a year at a storage unit in Arkansas, DiMaria
said in her opening statement.
When Hann and the baby's mother, Krissy Lynn Werntz,
stopped making payments, the trailer was auctioned off to an Arkansas
man, who discovered the bag in February 2002, DiMaria said.
The man inadvertently placed the bag inside a trash
bin and saw what looked like a skeletal hand, prompting him to call
police, the prosecutor said.
Werntz, Hann's ex-girlfriend, is also charged with
murder in the case and will be tried separately.
Hann was extradited to California from a prison
cell in Vermont, where he was prosecuted for killing his 6-week-old
son Jason, in 1999. The baby's body was found in an Arizona storage
unit, DiMaria said.
Hann pleaded no contest in 2006 to second-degree
murder and was sentenced to 27 to 30 years in prison. Werntz was not
charged in that case.
In addition to the latest murder charge, Hann faces
a special circumstance allegation of having a previous murder
conviction and one count of assault on a child causing great bodily
injury. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
Hann's third child - also named Jason - nearly died
at the hands of his father, DiMaria told jurors. But that infant, who
was beaten at the age of four weeks, was the "lucky one" who survived
a series of skull and rib fractures, the prosecutor said, adding that
the boy was later adopted and renamed.
"He admitted to killing Jason and Montana" when
being questioned by Arkansas police during the 2002 arrest for
Montana's killing, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Brenda Miller told jurors that her
client has suffered from bipolar disorder since early childhood. He
endured mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, agitation
and has harbored thoughts of suicide "all his life," Miller said in
her opening statement.
At 19, Hann was placed in a group home for people
with psychological problems, and he was less-than-honorably discharged
from the Navy, the defense attorney said.
Miller said Montana's cries made Hann reach an
extreme peak in his severe mood swings, Miller said.
"Welcome to Jason Michael Hann's world," the
defense attorney said.
Graphic and disturbing details emerge regarding
Jason and Krissy Hann
Thv11.com
April 26, 2002
“I feel very strongly about it. These people should
never see the light again after what they've done. They're history."
That's what Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood
had to say after learning of everything the Hanns have allegedly done.
He says they deserve no mercy.
The couple is wanted in Arkansas for the death of
the baby girl Montana. Her body was found in a camper in Benton in
February, but police say it was part of a continuing pattern of deadly
child abuse.
After his arrest Monday, Jason Hann told police how
he killed Montana. Portland detective Todd Coons says, "he told me
that he had bouts of anger and that during one of these bouts he
struck the infant child in the head with a closed fist in a backhand
motion."
Hann says he told Krissy the child died after he
fell with her in his arms. As the Hanns appeared in court on
Wednesday, details surfaced that the couple was suspected of killing
yet another child in July 1999. A boy they called baby Jason.
The child was killed in Vermont and Hann tells
police the baby wouldn't stop crying. Jason claims he lost control and
this time he forcefully slammed the baby down as he was putting him in
the bassinet. When he did this, the baby's head hit the back of the
bassinet. Hann said he did this several more times the child died
about three days later.
Jason and Krissy Hann, carried baby Jason's body
with them in a plastic container for a year and half, before leaving
it in a camper in Arizona in December 2000. That's when Montana was
born, and it started over again.
A one-month-old child with the Hanns when they were
arrested Monday night was first believed to be in good condition. But
after an examination, Maine Human Services says it appears the child
suffers from shaken baby syndrome. He has blood clots on the brain and
multiple skull, leg, and rib fractures. Portland police say the Hann's
could face abuse charges.
