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Tennessee enacts law requiring GPS tracking of violent domestic abusers, the first of its kind in U.S.
A new law took effect Monday in Tennessee that requires GPS monitoring of the most violent domestic offenders. Born from an unspeakable tragedy, the law is the first of its kind in the U.S.
On April 12, 2021, Debbie Sisco and her daughter, Marie Varsos, were shot and killed outside Nashville by Marie’s estranged husband, Shaun Varsos, who later took his own life.
Varsos broke into his mother-in-law’s house, where Marie was staying, with guns, zip ties, and battery acid ready to hunt them down.
He had been out on bail after strangling his wife and threatening her with a gun a month earlier.
Alex Youn, Marie’s brother and Debbie’s son, was devastated.
“Two people that I love dearly were just quickly ripped out of my life,” Youn said.
Varsos was considered enough of a threat that the judge could have required a GPS tracking device as a condition of his bail, but he didn’t. Youn believes his mother and sister may still be alive if the judge had required it.
“That’s a question for the judge. It’s one that infuriates me,” Youn said.
Judges can require GPS monitoring as a condition of bail, but often don’t.
Youn turned his pain and anger into a successful push for mandated GPS tracking of aggravated assault offenders in domestic violence cases. Tennessee’s new law is called the Debbie and Marie Domestic Violence Protection Act.
One in four women and one in seven men are victims of domestic violence, according to the CDC.
“When there’s firearms at play, when there’s strangulation, when there’s elevated stalking, [offenders] are more likely to do it again,” said Jennifer Waindle, a deputy director of non-profit Battered Women’s Justice Project.
That’s how GPS tracking could potentially be the difference between life and death. With the technology, victims are notified through a phone app or electronic device when an offender violates an order of protection, such as moving within a certain radius of the victim or breaching an exclusion zone, like their house. When that happens, the victim can receive multiple alerts like texts and emails, while a monitoring center calls law enforcement.
Ray Gandolf, director of business development for Tennessee AMS, is helping to lead the charge on using GPS technology as a safety tool.
“Every second matters,” Gandolf said.
Gandolf said the alerts can allow victims to look for help or find cover. “They can position themselves in a safe place, lock themselves in a place where they have the opportunity to call 911 and to get help dispatched to them immediately,” Gandolf said.
In Tennessee, Youn has made sure the names of Debbie Sisco and Marie Varsos will live on.
“I’m hopeful that other states will potentially sort of look at what Tennessee is sort of doing and take this and implement it in other states as well,” Youn said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), visiting www.thehotline.org or texting “START” to 88788.
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An Orange County, California, jury found 26-year-old Sam Woodward guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement Wednesday for the 2018 death of Blaze Bernstein, whose body was found days after he went missing, buried in a shallow grave at a Lake Forest park.
The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for just one day.
The judge hushed the courtroom as applause was heard during the reading of the verdict.
The prosecution had argued for Woodward to be found guilty of first-degree murder as a hate crime. Defense attorneys argued that Woodward should be convicted for voluntary manslaughter and acquitted of hate-crime allegations.
Jurors also were asked to consider second-degree murder. Closing arguments in the case had begun Friday, two-and-a-half months after the trial began in Santa Ana.
Following the reading of the guilty verdict, Bernstein’s parents shared their gratitude to the jury, to law enforcement and to the “army of supporters and volunteers” who were with them through the six-and-a-half-year ordeal.
“This was a great relief that justice was served and this despicable human, who murdered our son, will no longer be a threat to the public,” his mother Jeanne Pepper Bernstein said. “We are grateful to the jury for their service and their long days and weeks they spent in that service. Justice has been served.”
Sam Woodward was charged with stabbing Bernstein to death a little over six years ago. The Newport Beach man admitted to stabbing Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man, multiple times in 2018, but pleaded not guilty to murder with an enhancement for a hate crime.
Orange County prosecutor Jennifer Walker maintained to jurors that Woodward stabbed Bernstein, his former high school classmate, because he was gay, and buried his body at Borrego Park in Lake Forest.
“To dig a grave in that terrain, and bury and clean up and murder someone in an hour and half..that is not someone who is just going, ‘Oh..something happened and I need to figure it out.’ That is determined,” Walker said.
Bernstein, who was a college sophomore, was home visiting his family on winter break in January 2018 when he went missing after going with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, California. Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ home after connecting with him on social media.
Bernstein’s parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom the next day when he missed a dentist appointment and wasn’t responding to texts or calls, prosecutors wrote in a trial brief.
Days later, Bernstein’s body was found buried at the park in a shallow grave.
The case took years to go to trial after questions were raised about Woodward’s mental state and following defense attorney changes. Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in late 2022.
Woodward took the stand for several days and confessed to jurors that he stabbed Bernstein multiple times.
DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing and his cellphone contained troves of anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials, authorities said.
“Now with the verdict in hand, we believe justice has been served and that Blaze’s memory will be honored through this outcome,” Pepper Bernstein said.
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