Murder of David Patrick Owen Homeless Advocate

Murder of David Patrick Owen Homeless Advocate ---

Woman convicted in homeless advocate's death to be released AP A homeless woman previously sentenced to life in prison in the killing of a Topeka homeless advocate is expected to be released soon. . court ruled in July that her confession was involuntary and couldn't be used against her during retrial. Sharp pleaded no contest on Sept. 15 to reduced charges of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated battery.  Dead man's campThe man was David Patrick Owen, a 38-year-old self-appointed advocate for the homeless (“The Lonely Guy,” March 9, 2006). Owen had registered as a lobbyist for his one-man organization, Homeless Come Home, and he spent most of his days roaming the halls of the state Capitol. He was also a registered sex offender. In 1998, Owen was arrested for downloading child pornography at the Wichita State University library. A psychologist who evaluated Owen said he was so aggressive that other inmates would probably harm him if he went to prison. The psychologist also suggested that Owen may be a paranoid schizophrenic. In 1999, a judge sentenced Owen to four days in jail for the pornography charge; he then served three years of probation under house arrest at his parents' home in Cimarron, Kansas, a small farming town in southwestern Kansas. In 2002, Owen moved to Topeka to lobby the Kansas Legislature. His message was simple: He wanted to reunite homeless people with their families. He would offer homeless people phone cards or his cell phone to make the calls. He believed that he could end homelessness by reuniting families, but his tactics were confrontational. Owen told the Pitch that he'd been beaten up at least four times by homeless men. He also said his father had bought him a burial plot in case a homeless person killed him. He always called home on Father's Day, but that Sunday, June 18, the phone never rang. Darrell Owen had spoken with David on June 14, and David left a message on his parents' answering machine two days later, but they hadn't heard from him since.The following Wednesday, Darrell called the Topeka Police Department to ask that someone check on his son. . In the camp that mid-June night, Hollingsworth had grown tired of Owen. According to court testimony, Hollingsworth grabbed him by the arm and led him to a wooded area away about 30 yards from the camp. On the way, Hollingsworth snatched a homemade hatchet that was wedged into a nearby tree.
At 8 a.m. Sunday, July 2, detective Michael Barron launched the third search for David Owen. Barron, a 15-year veteran of the Topeka Police Department, is a slim 5 feet, 11 inches tall, with shaggy black hair. His team was scouring the north side of the Kansas River, where the tall grass was well above Barron's head. This time, they had a cadaver-sniffing dog... Owen was lying on his back, his arms and legs outstretched like Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. His short-sleeved, checked shirt was ripped and pulled up over his chest. The pockets of his dirty blue jeans were turned inside out. His shoes and socks were missing. So were his glasses... After finding the body, detectives searched a nearby homeless camp and found the charred remains of what appeared to be spiral notebooks, cell phones and keys. They also found an ax. Detectives would later interview several people, including Ron Greene...