http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin...66R6H1.DTL

SAN FRANCISCO
Adopted son held in mom's slaying
Greed, respect from alleged accomplice drove him, cops say

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Charlie Goodyear, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, April 17, 2004

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Police have arrested the 18-year-old adopted son of a woman found stabbed to death in San Francisco's Crocker Amazon district and booked him on suspicion of murder, saying he was motivated by greed and a bizarre yearning for respect from an alleged co-conspirator.

Officers took Thomas Hanley into custody Thursday, just hours after he reported finding his mother, 66-year-old Anne Outin, dead in the bedroom of her Prague Street home. Police said Hanley had implicated himself in the crime once detectives began questioning him.

"It's a horrible, sad case,'' said San Francisco police Inspector Dennis Maffei on Friday. "The kid has told us he had some mental health issues.''

Police also have arrested Ivan Gonzalez, 18, in connection with the slaying. Authorities said both men, who have juvenile criminal records, lived in a halfway house near Outin's home.

Investigators said the slaying apparently had been planned for weeks. While Outin was vacationing in Paris, Hanley was throwing wild parties and using crack cocaine and ecstasy, police said.

"She went on a four-week vacation,'' Maffei said. "She wanted to learn French. This trip was something she always dreamed of."

Police believe that Tuesday night, Hanley, dressed in black clothing, retrieved a knife that he had previously stashed in the unlocked downstairs unit below Outin's residence.

While Gonzalez kept watch outside, according to police, Hanley broke into his mother's bedroom and attacked her as she slept, slashing her throat and attempting to break her neck.

"There was a struggle," Hanley reportedly confessed to police. "She screamed in the darkness." Outin suffered injuries to her head, neck and face.

Authorities described the weapon used to kill Outin as a gothic-type knife equipped with a razor-sharp blade and a knuckled hand grip.

Police believe Gonzalez advised Hanley on how to commit the crime, including covering his hands with plastic bags, in return for a promise of $50 in cash, a place to stay and a 50 percent share of Hanley's inheritance. Gonzalez has denied helping commit the crime.

According to police, both men returned to their halfway house Tuesday night, with Hanley throwing his bloodstained clothes into the trash.

On Wednesday, he allegedly returned to his mother's house to collect the plastic bags he had used to cover his hands and a portion of the knife blade, which broke off during the attack.

Those items were recovered by police after Hanley told them he had packed them into a bag and dropped it down a sewer in the neighborhood, authorities said.

During his alleged confession, Hanley told detectives he had failed to live up to his mother's expectations and killed her in part to win Gonzalez's respect. At one point during the interview, Hanley also claimed to have an alter ego.

"It's pretty bizarre,'' Maffei said. "He said, at times, we were talking to this person, Jake, that was inside of him. Jake never appeared before he took ecstasy."

Barbara Martinez of Walnut Creek was Outin's stepdaughter and recalled her as a woman with faultless manners who enjoyed cooking and tending her garden. Hanley was one of several foster children Outin, a native of Britain, cared for in the late 1980s until she adopted him at age 2.

"It's just heartbreaking,'' Martinez said. "She didn't deserve this. She was so kindhearted.''


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The world is officially ending. This makes me so fucking sad, I can't get over the shit people do to other people. DAMN y'all...

. While Outin was vacationing in Paris, Hanley was throwing wild parties and using crack cocaine and ecstasy, police said.
"She went on a four-week vacation,'' Maffei said. "She wanted to learn French. This trip was something she always dreamed of."
Horribly sad, no even need to try to "understand"

CalhounSq said:

I hear ya CalhounSq. It is truly horrific, but for all the terrible things, there are more people being good to each other. What we hear more about is the bad. The good is there.

Nothinbutjoy said:

I know there's more good than bad (thank goodness) but when I read this I was stunned for a few moments. I mean who knows - maybe this woman was a total bitch & beat the kid or something. But maybe she was kind & sweet & had 66 years worth of memories & friends & love in her heart. She took a kid in, a troubled kid. And something in him cared more about pleasing (?) a fellow delinquent than having an ounce of real love for this woman who didn't have to care about him. It just hurts, the capabilities of people. OY...