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Victim�s family hears cousin�s confession By Dani Dodge On the afternoon of Oct. 15, 1999, Mark Curtis Fernandez told his cousin Jaime Fernandez that he loved him. "He wouldn�t say he loved me back," Fernandez said in a taped confession. Then, Fernandez murdered him. As the confession was played before a full courtroom Wednesday, family members sobbed. Fernandez hid his face behind his hand. In the tape. Fernandez described how his "rough-housing" with Jaime had opened some of Jaime�s wounds from recent surgeries. "I was worried that I would have to answer to it and I thought I could fix it by just making him disappear," Fernandez said. "Well, I could have just apologized, went back inside, explained myself to his mother, apologized to him, but then I was afraid that he would get revenge." Fernandez�s murder trial began Tuesday in Jackson County Court. It is expected to conclude Friday. Defense attorneys are arguing that Fernandez, 28, of Prospect, was insane when he bludgeoned to death his 20-year-old cousin. If convicted of murder, Fernandez faces a mandatory 25-year sentence without the possibility of parole. His attorneys, though, are seeking a conviction of "guilty, but insane." That would put Fernandez in the lifetime custody of the state Psychiatric Security Review Board, which could release him whenever the board deemed it appropriate. The jury got more than just the tape Wednesday to help it decide. It was shown photos of the grave where Fernandez had buried Jaime � an Eagle Point High School graduate who had survived a 1998 near-fatal car crash and more than 20 surgeries he needed afterwards to repair the damage. Photos projected on a large screen documented the progress of investigators unearthing Jaime from his shallow grave in a remote area off a logging road near Lost Creek Lake. He was still in his plaid pajamas. Dr. Larry Luman, a physician specializing in pathology, said Jaime had died from "blunt-force trauma." At least three blows to his head "crushed" bones, fractured his skull and bruised his brain stem. Luman said there was no evidence that Jaime fought back. In his taped confession, Fernandez started out denying he knew anything about his missing cousin�s whereabouts. He said he arrived at the Eagle Point house in the afternoon and no one was home. Police had heard Fernandez had been at Jaime�s home the morning before Jaime disappeared. They went to the Central Point office of the U.S. Forest Service, where Fernandez worked as a part-time firefighter, to ask him if he had any clue where his cousin might have gone. But as the hour-and-a-half interview wore on, Fernandez bluntly stated he was concealing facts. "There�s a lot more to this story I�m not telling you, and I�ll tell you (that) straight-up," Fernandez said. Fernandez said his story was going to keep changing because "for some reason I knew something happened to him." "I�ve been having nasty, horrible daydreams," he said. Eventually Fernandez was informed that police dogs had found blood in his truck. "Whatever happened it was ... in broad daylight and someone must have seen that," Fernandez said. "Something may have happened and I can�t explain it. I was having urges. Not lustful. But excitement or something ... . And didn�t want to resist it because of just plain fear." In the interview, he admitted regret for killing Jaime. "Why my only friend?" Fernandez wailed. "I mean why couldn�t it be someone I hated or something that I could get away with it, but, you know?" On the tape, Detective Rich Fogarty responded: "I don�t know. "Who has the answers for that?" Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.