For the backstory on Arthur Kollie, the murderer of fourteen year old Jupiter Paulsen, go here. For the reasons outlined previously it’s been quite a challenge covering the Arthur Kollie trial. They subpoena’d the Paulsen family as well as Peter Tefft, who were my main sources. Both have testified, but Robert Paulsen remains under subpoena, and can’t watch the trial. This doesn’t make any sense to me, since they can’t call him back after closing arguments, at least to my knowledge. At least we can safely say that his testimony will no doubt help sway the jury.
KFGO:
FARGO (KFGO) – On the fourth day of testimony in the trial of Arthur Kollie for the murder of Daisy “Jupiter” Paulsen, the prosecution called her parents to the stand, along with experts in DNA analysis and forensic pathology.
Dr. Mark Koponen said that while Paulsen had a large number of injuries on her body, most were superficial, and that strangulation and the resulting interruption of blood supply to Paulsen’s brain were the non-survivable injuries she suffered.
Jupiter Paulsen
I covered this in the backstory article, but Jupiter Paulsen was stabbed twenty five times over twenty five minutes. That the stab wounds were largely non-fatal only indicates how malicious Arthur Kollie truly is. It’s quite clear that he was torturing this child to death in the same way that a cat plays with a doomed mouse for up to hours before finally killing it.
Paulsen’s father Robert testified that he last spoke with Daisy before she went to sleep the night before her death – the 14-year-old had just received her first paycheck from her first job at Arby’s where she was learning to run the cash register. He said she was planning to take her sister out for dinner with her earnings the next night.
“She was an amazing kid – she could draw, she could sing. She played a couple instruments – she was in the Cheney orchestra for the viola and then she self-taught guitar. She could crack jokes…she can uplift a room by just showing up,” he said.
Robert Paulsen’s voice was heavy with emotion as he described the day of and days following his daughter’s attack, including the decision he made after doctors confirmed Daisy no longer had any brain activity.
“I donated her organs because I don’t want the last part of my kid to be murder – I wanted her to live on through others, and I know that’s what she wanted too. Four people were saved…they couldn’t save her eyes because they had to use them for court, because she was strangled. And they couldn’t save her heart…because of the trauma,” he said, his voice breaking.
Daisy Paulsen’s lungs, pancreas, liver, kidneys, skin, and bone marrow were all donated.
The defense is expected to call its first witnesses Wednesday.
Robert Paulsen
As is often the case, I struggle to have any commentary that feels appropriate. I can’t imagine having a child be murdered so horrifically. And to then have to fight against the legal system which was initially dead set on finding a way to get her murderer off without punishment. Well I do have much I want to say, but I’ll refrain from publishing.
Trust me, you’re not the only one who wants Kollie to be publicly executed.
MSN:
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – The words of an alleged killer were the center of focus for 12 jurors today in the third day of the murder trial of Arthur Kollie who is accused of the brutal attack on 14-year-old Jupiter Paulsen in a Fargo parking lot last summer.
Time and time again jurors heard the same phrase come out of Kollie’s mouth in a June 4 interview with Fargo Police detectives: “I don’t recall.”
Despite detailed accounts to detectives which put himself at several locations across Fargo in the minutes and hours after prosecutors say Kollie killed Paulsen, when asked if Kollie was at the scene of the crime that morning, the Party City parking lot, Kollie clammed up.
“I have the clothes you were wearing, ok? And they have blood all over them. Do you remember this?” Fargo Police detective Josh Loos said.
“I don’t recall,” Kollie said.
“Arthur.”
“I don’t recall,” Kollie says again.
Arthur Kollie’s defense team is going hard on the clinical insanity angle. They’ve been doing this right from the start, and don’t show signs of backing off now.
FARGO — A Fargo man accused of killing a 14-year-old girl in a random attack was supposed to get further evaluation after a counselor found days before the assault he showed signs of “unspecified psychosis.”
But prosecutors appear to have suggested he faked his mental illness in order to get services and avoid punishment for the teenager’s death.
Prosecutors may have only “appear[ed] to have suggested that he faked his mental illness,” but we have it on record that he has done exactly that. He was deemed to be “malingering,” or pretending to be crazy, with the court ordered psychiatric examination. Judge John Irby then allowed the defense to withdraw his guilty plea and get a second opinion. But that psychiatrist made it even more clear that he was malingering. If the prosecution is not hammering home that he is faking being crazy as the excuse for torturing and murdering an innocent child then the prosecution is throwing the case.
April Baumgarten
Personally I don’t think that’s happening here, based on what Paulsen and Tefft have told me. I think the obese “journalist” writing the piece, April Baumgarten, wants to hope that Kollie gets off scott free, and is trying to invent ambiguity where none exists. Kollie is faking being crazy, end of story.
Peter Tefft, pictured above at the NJP’s Justice for Jupiter rally, sent me an email yesterday explaining that he is off subpoena, and can go to the court for Thursday’s closing arguments. Those should be happening roughly as of time of writing. Then jury deliberations follows, and I can’t put a number on how many hours or days that will take, but fingers crossed for the appropriate sentence, which will be life without parole.
He deserves the death penalty, but this is the best outcome we can get at this point, at least not without driving down to the Fargo County Jail and pulling him out ourselves.
I have to admit, it’s tempting.
