Hokum W. Jeebs murder in Fauntleroy: Angelo Felice pleads guilty to reduced charge

| Crime | Fauntleroy | West Seattle news

A guilty plea today for 20-year-old Angelo Felice, who, 16 months ago, was arrested and charged with the Fauntleroy stabbing murder of a man best known by his vaudeville name, Hokum W. Jeebs. Felice was arrested while spotted walking in eastern West Seattle after someone saw him climbing out of the Kilbourne Park ravine near Jeebs’ home the morning after the murder – as detailed in this WSB comment – and reported the sighting to police. Today, Felice pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of 2nd-degree murder, which carries a potential sentence of 10 to 18 years, but court documents say prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 140 months – just over 11 1/2 years. Felice had moved to Seattle less than a month before killing Jeebs; he had juvenile convictions for burglary and assault. (2011 photo by Jill Schmieder of Altena Photography, for WSB)

Sonoma June 13, 2012 (5:12 pm)

Great – a lesser charge for a heinous murder. Thus, our justice system in action. I’ll bet he’s going to be the perfect model citizen when he’s released.

Genesee Hill June 13, 2012 (5:38 pm)

Angelo:

Look at your time in the pen as a learning experience.

Dhg June 13, 2012 (5:46 pm)

One big problem with America is that it incarcerates more people per capita than any other country. There exists this prevailing attitude of lock’em up and throw away the key. I disagree with that. He will spend another 10 yrs in prison at an age many consider to be their best years. It’s stiff punishment and there’s an end to it.

onceachef June 13, 2012 (6:33 pm)

Why recommend only 11.5 years?…a man is dead because of his actions and there’s no replacing the victim’s life. Give him the full extent of the legal boundary. Nothing (the death penalty included) will bring Hokum back to life but this sentence seems pretty lax for a murder….sorry Dhg, he should spend more than “his best years in life” in jail.

Denise June 13, 2012 (6:34 pm)

Dhg, WOW. This guy butchered a man in cold blood. I think the victim’s family would disagree with your opinion that 10 years is stiff punishment. He killed an innocent man – he should be locked up for far longer than ten years.

brian June 13, 2012 (7:03 pm)

Sonoma:

Actually what you’re referring to is our penal system at work. As your comment illustrates, it is a horribly broken system that just creates more criminals.

John June 13, 2012 (7:26 pm)

“It’s stiff punishment and there’s an end to it.” — Try telling that to the victim’s family whose lives have been forever altered. This monster will be out on the streets just having turned 30. This is justice not served.

Wes C. Attle June 13, 2012 (10:00 pm)

WSB – You and The Blog should be very proud of the role you played in catching this guy. I went back and read the original story, and it’s clear that some concerned readers who had witnessed the perp coming out of the bushes the following morning benefited from other readers encouraging them to report what they saw to the police. This kind of community vigilence is what keeps our community safe. Thanks for what you do!

dhg June 13, 2012 (10:54 pm)

There is a reason the victims families are excluded from exacting justice on the perpetrator. It is a marked break from the much more traditional eye for an eye but it is more civilized.

JoAnne June 14, 2012 (7:01 am)

Just over 11 years for MURDER? That is not justice or anything close to it.

Felice is a violent creep. With a sentence like that he will probably be let loose to prey on society within the next 5 years.

I don’t understand how the prosecutor can they rationalize this. It’s unfair to Hokum and to all of us.

Silly Goose June 14, 2012 (9:23 am)

This whole story has always seemed a little fishy to me, did this kid ever say why he killed him?

WSB June 14, 2012 (10:13 am)

As “blaming the victim” is against WSB rules, we are not publishing comments attempting to go along those lines. The only statement in the court documents is that Felice acknowledges killing Jeebs while in the process of committing the crime of assault. Otherwise, unless he makes some statement at the sentencing hearing (the date for which has not been announced yet), the only information is that which was laid out originally in the charging documents, in which the only thing he admitted to was going to Jeebs’ house to smoke marijuana (the victim was described as a medical-marijuana patient who grew his own medicine). When interviewed by police, Felice claimed that he left because Jeebs was making unwanted advances; he claimed to police that as he left, he heard a bottle break. Someone described as a “witness” (which doesn’t mean they saw the murder, but that they were interviewed for possible information related to it) claims that Felice had tried to talk him (the “witness”) into going over to Jeebs’s house under the pretense of doing yard work, then tying up Jeebs and robbing him, and someone else who police contacted through text messages on Felice’s phone claimed he had been talking about getting money through home-invasion robberies. – TR

neighbor June 14, 2012 (9:56 am)

I’m interested in commenting to the court on the sentencing day. This crime affected my community and I’d like to encourage the judge to pick a longer jail term.
Do you know the sentencing date?

waterworld June 14, 2012 (10:05 am)

JoAnne: Murder in the second degree is classified as a “serious violent offense,” meaning that the defendant can earn a reduction of up to ten percent of the total sentence for good behavior. (That’s for offenses committed since 1993; prior to that, offenders could earn a little more than that.) So if the judge imposes the 140 months the prosecutor is asking for, this defendant might serve only 126 months, or 10.5 years.
.
While I understand that many people feel a sentence of 140 months would not bee nearly enough, there are aspects of the case that may have led the prosecutor to be concerned that he or she would not be able to prove to a jury that this was a first degree murder. (I think it would be extremely difficult to prove first degree murder on the facts that I have read.) If so, negotiating a plea to second degree murder makes sense in that it avoids the risk of an acquittal or hung jury at trial, it spares Hokum’s partner a trial, and it saves the taxpayers a lot of money. A sentence of 140 months is on the lower end of the guideline range, but the judge is not bound by that — the judge has discretion to impose a sentence of up to 18 years or even up to the statutory maximum, depending on the evidence presented at sentencing.

charlie June 14, 2012 (10:13 am)

OLD PICTURE. he sure does not even resemble that picture, and as someone who WAS in the courtroom yesterday. i can tell you remorse is not something you will see from him. just my opinion but its clear that the grin and chuckle on his face when he turned around to be led back to jail
seems pretty clear to me.

WSB June 14, 2012 (10:19 am)

Charlie – for what it’s worth, I would have been there if we had known about the hearing. I have been checking the files for this case frequently, as recently as two days earlier, and for other open major cases in the area, and there was not even a status hearing scheduled – I appreciate the person who sent us a note yesterday afternoon saying the plea had happened; I then had to keep checking for a few hours till court documents showed up in the system for corroboration, as the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office media liaison was unreachable for confirmation (and even today, they have not yet added the case to the media information published on the PAO home page, so nobody else has reported this yet, since that’s usually their tipsheet). – TR

george June 14, 2012 (10:53 am)

If you think this sentence is light, lets give the vehicular homicide under the influence a look.

RP June 14, 2012 (12:58 pm)

I think it’s sad that we live in a country where money is more important than lives…sickening….
“Stanford gets 110 years for role in $7B swindle”.

dbsea June 14, 2012 (2:45 pm)

I agree that the potential sentence seems light.

He stole someone’s life, and caused many to suffer, who will continue to suffer. And for what? To me, this isn’t justice. He’s forfeited any rights he had, including his own right to live.

MyEye June 14, 2012 (2:49 pm)

Frankly, people should be pissed about this sentencing. The prosecutors do a crap job and one needs to look no further than the Chatri Thip case to see why (https://westseattleblog.com/2011/07/guilty-plea-in-last-septembers-roxhill-park-murder-case). If these cold blooded murderers plead guilty it is the policy of the prosecutors to recommend a light sentence.

http://www.kingcounty.gov/Prosecutor/contactus.aspx

MyEye June 14, 2012 (2:51 pm)

WSB, who was the prosecutor on this case?

WSB June 14, 2012 (3:13 pm)

The name on the court docs from yesterday is Carla Carlstrom. But I don’t know if she’s been on the case all along, as normally we wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to that until and unless a case went to trial – if you have concerns to express, the buck would of course stop with THE Prosecuting Attorney, Dan Satterberg – TR

West Seattleite June 14, 2012 (3:38 pm)

Angelo will do a lot of chuckling in jail. He may also have a smirk that will quickly be erased from his chuckling, happy face. Enjoy, dude, enjoy.

Joe vroman June 16, 2012 (1:44 am)

I was one of Angelos good friends we went to school and hung out all the time. When I heard about this it blew my mind he would do that he was never that bad before moving to Seattle he was actually trying to come home guys know nothing about him besides being there for a month

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