Bronson defense attorney wants confession thrown out

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Bronson defense attorney wants confession thrown out

County News

Tuesday, 10 May 2011 11:42

bronson-nancy-sue

Bronson

By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer
Covered in a white blanket lying in a transportable medical bed, his hands twisted close to his chest – a likely remnant of one of his various strokes – Steven H. Bronson Jr. was wheeled Friday into Judge Scott Polodna's Osceola County courtroom.
Assistant Public Defender Laura Klossner, who will work with Bronson's court-appointed attorney, Robert E. Wesley, detailed a motion filed Friday to suppress Bronson's confession of the 1979 St. Cloud murder of Norma Page.
Bronson, 63, is charged with first degree murder in the brutal June 1979 killing of Page, a 28-year-old minister's wife and mother of two young sons. His trial is scheduled to begin June 6.
Bronson was connected to the three decades old cold case in December after revolutionary DNA testing found his blood on several articles of clothing, including Page's bathing suit top and a size 3T boy's T-shirt. Page was stabbed multiple times and hit in the head with a two-pound glass ketchup bottle.
A motion of discovery was also filed Friday with the defense requesting the full DNA files, “each the size of a Yellow Pages phonebook,” Klossner said.
The defense also requested access to the original crime scene photographs and the four boxes of evidence in St. Cloud Police Department custody, as well as to request a nurse in the courtroom for Bronson during the trial.
Bronson never addressed the judge Friday; however, his voice rang clear while speaking to Klossner before the hearing began, belying his frail appearance.
“We know (his appearance) is a risk, but the jury has to understand this man made conscious decisions,” Page's cousin, Cheryl Hickman, a nurse who attended Friday's hearing, said. “He's awake and alert. There's nothing wrong with him.”
Page's family understands Bronson's advanced age and possible health issue could compel him to take a plea deal, although none has been entered as of press time.
Hickman said the family told prosecutor Ken Lewis that the only way they would accept a plea deal is if Bronson agrees to fully confess to any other murders he may have committed to bring closure to the other families. Bronson is a person-of-interest in at least one other Osceola County unsolved murder and in cases in other states.
Hickman will be joined by Page's three sisters and their children at the trial next month, traveling across the country from Kentucky and Tennessee in support of Page.
To memorialize her cousin, Hickman said she plans on taking snippets of a strand of Page's hair and placing them in lockets for her sisters so “they have something of Norma's.”
“To sit here and think that he is the last person to have contact with Norma is mind-boggling,” Hickman said after seeing Bronson during the hearing.
Hickman got involved with the case in 2009 after she reconnected with Page's sisters via the social networking site Facebook. Hickman said the St. Cloud Police Department was unaware of the case in 2009 until her involvement. St. Cloud Police Chief Pete Gauntlett said in December that no one was still on the force from 1979.
“Families need to understand, when something like this happens to them, you have to be detailed and never give up,” Hickman said.
Hickman said she debated coming to Friday's hearing but while reviewing applications at Pikeville Hospital in Pikeville, Ky., last week, “the hairs stood up on the back of my neck” when she noticed an applicant's reference's name: Norma Thomas, Norma Page's maiden name.
“It's almost like (Norma is telling us), 'Don't forget me,'” Hickman said.“It's been like this the entire journey.”
She said she immediately went online and booked her flight.

Cold case murder
Bronson, who has legally changed his name to Nancy Sue Bronson and is well-known to local law enforcement, told detectives, according to Gauntlett, he “just lost it” and killed Page.
Bronson allegedly asked Page for a drink of water June 21, 1979, before forcing her to drive to the bank to cash her husband's check.
After returning home, Page's boys, then ages 2 and 4, were shoved into their parents room as Bronson allegedly attacked Page in her sons' bedroom in the family parsonage at 1015 Tennessee Ave. Her husband, Rev. Jim Page, was at a teen church retreat in Lake County at the time.
Bronson was never considered a suspect until his DNA matched blood left at the crime scene, Gauntlett said.
Lester “Jay” Bass, the original suspect in the murder because police found his fingerprints on Page's car, was under suspicion after Bronson was named a person-of-interest in December.
Detectives found him living in Virginia where they took an additional set of fingerprints to compare to the fingerprints on the car. It was a match, St. Cloud Police Department Capt. Bret Dunn said.
Despite Bass' death in March, Dunn said Bass is still considered a person-of-interest in the case because of his fingerprints. However, based on Bronson's confession, Dunn said Bass is not a suspect.