High court rejects appeal by dismemberment killer

Brendan Riley

Friday, June 26, 1998 | 9:43 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a man who concocted phony evidence in efforts to erase his death sentence for killing a former "Coasters" singer.

The court ruled Wednesday against Patrick Cavanaugh, convicted in 1984 for the fatal shooting of Nathaniel "Buster" Wilson. After he was shot in 1980, Wilson's arms and legs were sawed off in Las Vegas. His body was found several years later in California.

Cavanaugh, according to prosecutors, was afraid Wilson was going to reveal to police that he was involved in a phony check scheme.

After his conviction, Cavanaugh produced medical records stating he was being treated for bleeding hemorrhoids at the Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital in Los Angeles on April 7, 1980, the day of the killing.

Based on that evidence, a district judge granted his petition to be freed because Cavanaugh's attorney had failed to produce that evidence at trial.

Then a hospital worker, Maurica Hawkins, was arrested on charges of altering records to show Cavanaugh had received the treatment. Hawkins was a friend of one of Cavanaugh's fellow death-row inmates.

The Hawkins case led the district court to reverse its previous ruling that would have freed Cavanaugh. But Cavanaugh appealed, claiming Hawkins' guilty plea to changing the records was insufficient to establish that the records were forged.

The Supreme Court rejected the claim, saying it was based on fraudulent documents, witnesses with little or no independent memory of the events and his own inconsistent testimony of what he was doing the day of the murder.

In other rulings, the Supreme Court:

-Rejected an appeal from Maria Calambro, sister of death-row inmate Alvaro Calambro. She was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her 4-year-old son Binh.

Maria Calambro was the common-law wife of Duc Huynh, who joined Alvaro Calambro in a crime spree that included a double murder at a Reno U-Haul business. After the men were caught, Huynh convinced Maria Calambro to join in a suicide pact that included taking the killing of her young son. She slit her own wrists but survived. Huynh hanged himself.

-With Chief Justice Charles Springer dissenting, refused to reconsider its previous decision in denying the appeal of Thomas Nevius, sentenced to die for the fatal shooting of David Kinnamon.

The victim was trying to stop burglars from raping his wife in their Las Vegas home in July 1980. Springer said racist remarks by the prosecutor requires the reversal of the death penalty.

-Dismissed the appeal of Donald R. Lee, sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison for the fatal shooting of an off-duty Nellis Air Force Base airman in Las Vegas. Lee, who was 15 at the time of the drive-by shooting, claimed his trial lawyer, David Phillips, was ineffective.

-Dismissed an appeal by the Mirage hotel-casino, which had sued to stop a billboard being placed over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near the resort's property. The court said the Clark County Building Department and the county were within their authority in allowing Ad America to erect the sign.