Prosecutors tell of Gabrion's ties to missing men

Davis has not touched it. He cannot be found.

John Weeks was about five years older than his teen-age girlfriend. Her mother didn't like the age difference, but he insisted he was in love with A'lliene Wolfe.

"He was still going to marry my daughter," Mary Wolfe said. Weeks did not get married. He cannot be found.

The missing men had something in common: They were last seen with Marvin Gabrion.

Gabrion could get the death penalty for the murder of a young woman in a national forest. On Tuesday, the second day of the sentencing phase of his trial, prosecutors tried to show jurors a pattern. It seems some people vanish when they cross paths with him.

Gabrion has never been charged with their disappearances. But Weeks and Davis are presumed dead, along with another man, Robert Allen, and Rachel Timmerman's baby daughter.

The testimony marked the first time that Weeks' and Davis' last known steps were described in a courtroom. Large pictures of the men were displayed for the jury. Prosecutors are allowed to tell the stories to reinforce their argument that Gabrion, 48, deserves to die for Timmerman's drowning.

Accompanied by a pack of marshals and firmly restrained at the wrists and legs, Gabrion returned to the courtroom, a day after slugging his attorney, David Stebbins. He didn't publicly apologize but pledged to behave.

Two marshals sat next to Gabrion, poised to pounce at any sign of disruption. When the jury went home, he complained that his defense team was not vigorously cross-examining the government's witnesses.

"These people have purposely helped the prosecutors frame me for murder," Gabrion told U.S. Chief District Judge Robert Holmes Bell.

Earlier, jurors listened to a parade of witnesses describe Gabrion as a violent, crafty and manipulative man who impersonated public officials on the phone, threw human feces at a prison guard, plotted to escape from a county jail and carved a look alike gun out of soap.

During this unprecedented death-penalty phase, Gabrion's past is fair game for prosecutors who claim he is too dangerous even to send to prison.

"He was always in trouble," said Nathan Brewster, who spent time with Gabrion in a high-security section of the Calhoun County Jail. "If there was any loose metal, he'd kick it to make a weapon."

Weighted down with more than 60 pounds of chains and cinder blocks, Timmerman was killed in Oxford Lake in the Manistee National Forest. Her mouth and eyes were sealed with duct tape when her body surfaced in July 1997.

The government said Gabrion killed Timmerman, 19, to sweep away a rape charge pending in Newaygo County.

One of the witnesses to the alleged assault: Davis.

In February 1997, he was anticipating a 90-day jail sentence for drunken driving in Newaygo County. A friend, Darlene Lazlo, told jurors that Davis bought a carton of cigarettes and a puzzle to keep him busy behind bars.

She last saw him working on a car with Gabrion. Lazlo promised to return the next day to take Davis to court. She did -- but he wasn't home.

Inside, Lazlo noticed something strange: Davis' jacket was still on a chair in the middle of winter.

"No matter where he went, he wore an Army jacket," she said, fighting back tears. There was a letter in the house that said Davis was scared and was headed to California.

His microwave oven and stereo equipment turned up at a consignment shop in Mecosta County, with serial numbers scratched off. Shop owner Alice Ray identified Gabrion as the person who wanted her to sell them.

"Oh, my God," Ray said when she heard Gabrion's name in the news. "I immediately called the sheriff's department."

Weeks, another missing man, apparently had no role in the rape complaint, but he was hanging around with Gabrion -- a guy he knew as Lance -- around the time Timmerman vanished in June 1997.

Weeks and his girlfriend were helping clean Gabrion's residence, a former general store in Altona in southern Mecosta County. A'lliene Wolfe got angry when her boyfriend tried to reach Timmerman by phone.

"Who is this woman and why are you calling her?" she demanded of Weeks. "Lance liked this girl and he was trying to do a favor for a friend."