Suspect in Offspring’s Deaths Faces New Charges

Prosecutors filed 33 additional charges Wednesday against a man accused of shooting nine of his children to death at their home last month. All the new charges involve long-term sexual abuse, some dating as far back as 1988.

The new charges against Marcus Wesson include multiple charges of continuous sexual abuse and forcible rape against females who lived with him, but the documents do not specify whether they were family members. Five of the six victims were under 14 when the alleged attacks occurred.

Wesson, 57, had already been charged with murdering a 25-year-old woman and eight children ranging in age from 1 to 17. Police said his 25-year-old daughter also was the mother of one of the slain children.

Wesson, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges and is being held in lieu of $9-million bail, could face the death penalty if convicted.

Judge Lawrence Jones rejected a bid Wednesday by public defender Pete Jones to put off Wesson’s preliminary hearing until the end of the month, saying that Wesson had not waived his right to a speedy hearing.

Jones ordered the hearing to take place today.

Fresno police have not disclosed a motive, but said Wesson might have engaged in incest and polygamy.

Officers were called to the scene when several of the children’s mothers were unable to take their children away from him.

Officials said Wesson appeared to wield absolute authority over his household and his large clan.

The women, dressed in dark robes, would walk dutifully behind him. They did not speak in his presence and apparently worked to support him. The children were home-schooled because he did not trust public education.

Over the years, he led his nomadic clan of women and offspring from a squatters’ camp in the mountains to a dilapidated sailboat, and finally to inland California, where he hauled them around in an old school bus.

Wesson has been kept in isolation at the Fresno County Jail, unable to receive visits or phone calls from relatives. Officials based the decision on a phone call from a woman who told authorities the relatives would request his permission to commit suicide.

The victims were found piled one on top of another. Wesson was arrested after he emerged from the house with blood on his clothing.