Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, December 21, 2018, 10:55 AM
https://n2v.paloaltoonline.com/square/print/2018/12/21/menlo-park-homicide-suspect-appears-in-court
Town Square
Menlo Park homicide suspect appears in court
Original post made on Dec 28, 2018
Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, December 21, 2018, 10:55 AM
Comments
a resident of another community
on Dec 28, 2018 at 7:09 pm
Does anyone know why bail for the person accused for killing Kathy Hughes Anderson in Menlo Park is so high?
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Dec 28, 2018 at 8:46 pm
Posted by Bijouxx, a resident of another community
>> Does anyone know why bail for the person accused for killing Kathy Hughes Anderson in Menlo Park is so high?
Bail was "traditionally" set high enough to ensure that that the accused appeared in court (ie., set high if the accused is a "flight risk"), but, obviously, when the accused appears to be a violent threat, the bail is sometimes deliberately set so high that it is impossible to meet. Some people have an issue with that. Presumably because some people might say that it presupposes that the accused is violent, even though that hasn't been proven yet. And, therefore, that it might prejudice the jury to think if they think that the judge presumes the accused is guilty.
However, personally, I think that judges must have the option to exercise their judgement about the likelihood that an accused will commit a violent crime while awaiting trial.
a resident of Stanford
on Dec 29, 2018 at 9:29 am
> ...an attorney with the county's private defender program, was named to defend Wolke,
Court-appointed attorneys usually carry a heavy case load and do a poor job of representing suspects. They are also paid on scale.
To successfully win a criminal case takes big money and a proven defense attorney.
Example...OJ Simpson's 'dream team' of lawyers. They ran circles around the prosecution and even made the presiding judge appear incompetant.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jan 18, 2019 at 8:08 pm
I can’t believe someone is asking why bail is set so high for Francis Wolke? He went into Kathy’s home, and murdered her. He then hung out in her home for hours afterwards. He confessed to murdering her. I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t want a murderer walking the streets. Daniel Baggett lived in Kathy’s home and had a relationship with her. He lived there (with our daughter) for a period of eight years. The two had split maybe six months before her murder. At that point their relationship was not rosy (as investigators keep pointing out) but the two remained friends. Daniel did not know Francis Wolke at all and he doesn’t believe Kathy knew him either. When he went to the house he saw the garbage cans were still out front, he saw Kathy’s car in the driveway, he saw the windows of the house had been closed, which was unusual and he saw there were no lights on - which was also unusual. He went to the back door of the house and it was wide open. He went into the house and turned on a light and sees a stranger covered in blood at the top of the stairs. He asked where Kathy was and was screaming her name hoping to find her and the guy told him that he killed her and she was in the basement. Daniel immediately called 911 and he kept Francis Wolke there until the police arrived. Thank God Wolke didn’t have a gun on him. This was a heroic act on Daniel’s part. When police arrived, Francis confessed to the murder, again. This case was already solved. Police and investigators can keep trying to look for some connection but there is none. This was just a horrible, senseless tragedy. This type of thing doesn’t happen in Menlo Park. It’s awful. I think $10 million dollars bail is not nearly high enough for a killer who has confessed.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jan 20, 2019 at 6:48 pm
I think investigators keep saying that Kathy and Daniel split six months before to raise suspicion of him wanting her dead or in general him doing some foul play too. I of course don’t know but it’s my guess as to why it’s been brought up in the first place. If it is in fact true that Wolke confessed to the murder, then that is a huge step in the progression of the case.
a resident of Palo Verde
on Jan 20, 2019 at 6:51 pm
can someone explain to me how Daniel happened to check on Kathy at the exact time that Wolke was there and the murder happened? or did he always go check on her? I don’t get that part...