DESTINY SHAW-DuBOIS and TRAVIS DuBOIS Jr - 9 and 6 yo - St Michael (NW of Fargo) ND

We have new information regarding the murder of two children at St. Michael, North Dakota.
It appears there are no other suspects in the case, besides the children's father, Travis DuBois, who is already in jail.
9-year old Destiny Shaw-DuBois and her 6-year old
brother, Travis DuBois Junior were found murdered in their father's
St. Michael's home last weekend.
DuBois has already plead guilty and has begun serving a two-year sentence for reckless endangerment and public intoxication.
A possible murder case against DuBois is pending.
Reporter: "Are there any other suspects in this case? Do families in that area need to be worried about their children?"
Joe Vetsch, Tribal Prosecutor: "I don't believe
anybody needs to be worried about their children. I'm not allowed to
comment on whether or not we have actual other suspects. It's an ongoing
investigation. But, I don't think there's a Community safety concern
at this time."
The children's mother, Mena Shaw says earlier,
she had moved out of the home with her baby. Mena says three of her
older children were in Travis DuBois care, when two of them were
murdered. The third child at the home was not injured.
http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/14735005/child-murders-just-1-suspect

ST. MICHAEL, N.D. – Family and friends searched several days for
Destiny DuBois and her little brother Travis DuBois Jr., after the
children were reported missing by their father.
Their mother, Mena
Shaw, decided to go to the home where she had lived with the children’s
father. Some said the couple had recently separated; others that they
recently had reconciled.
Immediately upon entering, the mother
knew something was terribly wrong – witnesses would later describe areas
inside the house as covered with blood, some of it in pools.
In one bedroom, small bloody handprints later were found on a wall a couple of feet above the floor.
The
search ended when Shaw found the lifeless bodies of 9-year-old “Des”
and “Baby Trav,” 6, under a mattress. Authorities said the children
appeared to have been dead several days, slain by a knife or another
cutting weapon.
The same day the bodies were found, May 21, 2011,
the children’s father, Travis DuBois, was arrested and taken into
custody. He pleaded guilty to public intoxication and reckless
endangerment, according to a tribal prosecutor, and remains in jail
serving sentences for those charges.
Now the search here on the
Spirit Lake Nation is for answers to crimes that shook the community and
have been cited as a grave example of endangered children on the
reservation.
Almost 14 months later, nobody has been charged in
connection with the siblings’ deaths, and people wait anxiously for
investigators to produce results.
“It’s really sad that we have
these two children murdered and who’s going to pay for it?” asked Cheryl
Good Iron, a grandmother who resides in Fort Totten, expressing a
common sentiment on this Dakota Sioux reservation. “Who’s going to be
charged for it?”
Federal authorities insist that the
investigation, jointly conducted by the FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs
police, has not stalled and remains on track.
“We’ve been working
very hard on this case since the day it happened,” Timothy Purdon, the
U.S. attorney for North Dakota, whose office would prosecute the case,
said Friday.
“A great deal of forensic evidence has been gathered
in the investigation,” Purdon said, “and some of that forensic evidence
is still being processed.”
He would not say whether investigators
collected DNA evidence, though he said it is standard procedure for the
FBI to do so, and added: “The FBI and BIA have conducted numerous
interviews.”
But Purdon declined to say whether DuBois is a
suspect, or whether investigators have identified any suspects in the
case. He said he understands the frustration at Spirit Lake, and the
need for information, but can say little about an ongoing investigation.
The BIA declined to comment, deferring to the FBI. A spokesman for the FBI, agent Kyle Loven, was tight-lipped.
“We are looking into this,” he said. “It is an active investigation, and we are moving forward. I can’t give any details.”
Blood like spilled paint

Betty Jo Krenz was the Spirit Lake tribe’s child case worker on call the weekend the DuBois children’s bodies were found.
Her
phone rang a few minutes before 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. She
rushed to the home in St. Michael, where police and ambulance crews
already were on the scene.
Krenz was called in to take care of the
mother’s other children – including a 4-year-old boy who was in the
house when the bodies were found.
“They were really shaken,” she said of the mother’s several teenage daughters. “They were hysterical.”
Inside the house, Krenz saw a lot of blood, including areas that looked like a paint can had spilled.
“It was a brutal way to die,” she said. “The girls told me they fought hard. They watched their mom cradle those dead kids.”
The floors were strewn with empty bottles and clutter.
“It
looked like there had been a three-day party or a frat house party,”
Krenz said, adding that she’d heard that people had been in and out of
the house before the bodies were found.
As neighbors began to
gather outside the home, BIA and FBI investigators told Krenz, who no
longer works for the tribe, to take the children to the nearby St.
Michael recreation center, which has shower rooms.
There, she washed blood off the boy, and gathered the bloody clothing in plastic bags, which she gave to an aunt to be washed.
More than a year later, she hasn’t heard anything from investigators or prosecutors.
“There’s no closure for me,” Krenz said, “and I can’t imagine how the family feels.”
‘I want answers’

Travis
DuBois, an army veteran who worked for the reservation’s fire
department, does not have a reputation for violence. In state court, he
has misdemeanor convictions for drunken driving and simple assault.
The tribal prosecutor said he was intoxicated when taken into custody.
Mena
Shaw also has had a few scrapes with the law. Her record in state court
includes misdemeanor convictions for possession of a controlled
substance and drug paraphernalia.
Nothing has been heard publicly
from DuBois since he was taken into custody. He has roughly served half
of his consecutive sentences, which total two years and two months, for
public intoxication and
reckless endangerment.
Forum
Communications reporters were unable to speak to DuBois last week in the
Lake Region Corrections Facility, where he is being held.
His
mother, Violet Robertson, said nobody on her side of the family has been
interviewed by investigators. Her family is as bewildered as everyone
else.
“We know nothing,” she said. “Maybe people think we do. We know nothing.”
The family can’t afford to hire a lawyer, and Robertson said she
didn’t know if her son has legal representation.
She
last saw her two DuBois grandchildren just days before they were found
dead. They were in a program at the Four Winds School.
Destiny, whose family said she loved school, had just completed third grade. Translated, her Dakota name was Many Stars Woman.
Travis
Jr., who had been born premature and was small for his age, had
finished first grade. His Dakota name was Walking Elk Boy. His uncle,
Burton “B.J.” Robertson, thought of his diminutive nephew as a little
warrior.
“I know in my heart I couldn’t believe my son would do
something like this,” Violet Robertson said, her eyes welling with
tears. “He took care of his kids.
“They’re saying he was a meth head. He didn’t do stuff like that. He worked.”
A
friend gave her a piece of paper retrieved from the house, a note in
large printed letters Robertson said was written in Destiny’s
penmanship.
“My dad is the best dad and he will always be,” the note said, with a heart shape as a period. “The best dad.”
Robertson, like so many at Spirit Lake, is left wondering what happened in that home to those two children, and by whose hands.
“I want answers,” she said.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/367427/

Published September 19, 2013, 06:28 PM

Bagola double murder case in hands of jury

FARGO – It was a tale of two confessions as lawyers argued Thursday for and against the guilt of Valentino Bagola in the stabbing murders of two children.

FARGO – It was a tale of two confessions as lawyers argued Thursday for and against the guilt of Valentino Bagola in the stabbing murders of two children.
Prosecutors argued that “devastating evidence” supported Bagola’s confession to killing his cousins, Destiny Shaw, 9, and Travis DuBois Jr., 6, in May 2011.

But Bagola wasn’t the only suspect to confess to the killings, which cast a pall over the Spirit Lake reservation.

Investigators ended up discarding a confession from the slain children’s father, Travis DuBois Sr., concluding it was the result of the father’s guilt over failing to protect his children, and breaking down under an interrogation lasting more than 7 hours.

Defense lawyers seized on that confession, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove the father wasn’t the killer.

The conflicting confessions – and clashes over whether they were supported by evidence – highlighted Thursday’s closing arguments in Bagola’s trial in U.S. District Court.

Key pieces of evidence included the presence of Bagola’s bloody palm print on a computer and his DNA underneath the girl’s fingernails, the result of her scratches while struggling when the 20-year-old was raping her, said Chris Myers, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Her younger brother died trying to protect his sister, Myers said, a true hero who ironically wore clothing embossed with superhero icons, including Spiderman, when he was murdered.

“He needed to silence these two kids,” Myers said, referring to Bagola’s motive. “They’re witnesses to child sexual abuse.”

The prosecution argued that Bagola was able to provide crucial details about the attacks that only the killer would know, including disposing of knives in trash bags behind the DuBois house and in the kitchen.

Bagola himself volunteered that he discovered he had been scratched on the arms and chest while taking a shower the morning after the attacks.

His palm print was found on a computer tower that had the boy’s blood on all six sides, left in the violent struggle. The boy was stabbed more than 60 times, his sister more than 40 times, according to autopsies.

The confession of the children’s father had many qualified statements, and became more detailed as the interrogation progressed.

“We have admission, no question about it,” Myers said. “We have no detail – no detail.” He added: “That interview was seven hours of suggestion, interruption and no detail.”

DuBois was an “oblivious drunk, not a criminal mastermind” who covered up his guilt, the prosecutor said.

A videotaped interview of Stephon DuBois, the 4-year-old brother of the two slain children, believed to have been present in the house when they were murdered, was contradictory and of no value, Myers said.

Although the boy said his father killed his brother and sister, he also said his father was not the killer. Stephon was present when his mother accused DuBois of killing the children, and saw his father being arrested.

Public Defender Christopher Lancaster emphasized that DuBois made an unqualified, unambiguous confession – “I did it; no one else did” – and argued that evidence pointed to the father as the killer.

In his last interview with the FBI, DuBois said he “lost it” when the children “talked back” at him when jumping on the bed. DuBois said he “snapped out of it” after the attacks, went outside, and then returned to the kitchen.

Lancaster reminded jurors that knives believed to be the murder weapons were found in garbage bags outside and in the kitchen.

DuBois had ample motive to kill the children, Lancaster argued. His common-law wife had left him for another man, leaving him to take care of the kids, forcing him to miss work and therefore lose wages, he said.

Although Bagola provided details about the murder, he was privy to that information because he was a member of the family, and rumors were rampant on the reservation, Lancaster said.

Lancaster dismissed the DNA underneath the girl’s fingernails and the bloody palm print as “non-evidence.”

Experts cannot say when either was deposited, and the DNA beneath the fingernails could have been transferred from the tops of fingernails after they were clipped by the pathologist and comingled in a bag for each hand, Lancaster said.

“In truth they stand for nothing,” he said of the DNA and palm print touted by the prosecution.

Bagola, a nephew of the children’s mother, lived in the DuBois home for six weeks and babysat the children just days before their bodies were found on May 21, 2011, Lancaster said.

The defense characterized Bagola’s written confession as “piecemeal,” and argued that it had been compiled in response to FBI suggestions – an argument disputed by the prosecution, which noted that Bagola had suggested putting his statement in writing, and asked the agents for help spelling several words.

Jurors ended their deliberations Thursday night without reaching a verdict, according to an official with the U.S. Attorney's office.

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/412680/group/homepage/

Man Murders 2 Little Kids Then Shows Up at Funeral to Carry Their Caskets

12 hours ago
.

In further proof that monsters walk among us, one of the pallbearers from the funeral of two young siblings who were stabbed more than 100 times has been sentenced to life in prison. It turns out Valentino "Tino" Bagola wasn't the kindly babysitting, casket-carrying cousin his family thought he was. He was a cold-blooded killer who stabbed his 6- and 9-year-old cousins some 100 times.

The 2011 murders of Destiny Shaw, 9, and her brother Travis DuBois Jr., 6, were a mystery for more than a year until cops were able to pin them on Bagola, the older cousin who often babysat for them. Why did it take so long?

Well, maybe because Bagola played himself off like a model family member, even offering to carry the casket when his young cousins were laid to rest?

So much for remorse for his actions ... which also apparently included raping 9-year-old Shaw before her murder.

Frankly, I will never understand anyone who hurts kids. It's just unthinkable. But at the very least, you'd think someone who'd just murdered a family member would be ASHAMED? Would be uncomfortable to be around family after that? Would hide away and think about their actions?

Apparently not.

Showing up at the children's funerals is bad enough, but taking part? That's some crazy level of twisted.

I suppose that's what it takes to be sick enough to stab two kids to death? To be the sort of person who does it and then has absolutely zero remorse? Fortunately, most of us will never know what goes on inside the mind of a psychopath.

Bagola was facing back-to-back life sentences, one for each of the children he murdered, but in the end the judge went "easy" on him. He is headed to prison for life ... just one sentence. But as the judge said, he will never get out. At least that's something.

What do you think was going through his mind at that funeral?




http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/165717/man_murders_2_little_kids

He should have gotten 2 life sentences consecutive just to assure he never gets out.  What a sick monster.

Published January 07, 2014, 09:47 AM.

Man convicted of killing 2 children at Spirit Lake files appeal

A man convicted in the childhood killings of his cousins on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation is appealing the jury’s findings that he murdered them.

A man convicted in the childhood killings of his cousins on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation is appealing the jury’s findings that he murdered them.

A jury convicted Valentino Bagola for the murders of Destiny Shaw, 9, and her 6-year-old brother, Travis DuBois Jr., at the children’s home May 21, 2011, in St. Michael, N.D. Both children were victims of multiple knife wounds.

Bagola’s attorney, Christopher Lancaster of Fargo, filed appeal papers Monday with the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to online court records.

The appeal comes after a jury convicted Bagola Sept. 23 for two counts of murder. Bagola was 20 years old at the time of the trial late last summer.

In December, U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson sentenced Bagola to life in prison for two counts of first-degree murder.

The murders on the Spirit Lake Reservation went unsolved for more than a year, and highlighted the plight of endangered children there.

Bagola’s life sentence was mandatory. “The barbarism of the attacks is unquestionable,” Erickson said at Bagola’s sentencing hearing, adding they displayed “uncontrollable rage” by Bagola that posed a significant threat to public safety.

In the end, Erickson declined to impose back-to-back life sentences, saying they would be symbolic, since it was “almost inconceivable” that Bagola faced a future outside of confinement in prison.

“Once you’re sentenced to die in prison, you die in prison,” Erickson said, adding that a presidential pardon or commutation of the sentence was extremely unlikely.

http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/21684/#sthash.SF4xTopL.dpuf