All posts by kimberleyann

No Winners Here

My grandmother died a day after my quick conviction.
“She saw you on TV after you were sentenced to death and she died.  You killed her by breaking her heart.” 
I got hate mail from my own flesh and blood after my conviction.  – Charles Mamou

Charles Mamou’s family was divided, according to Mamou, half quickly disowning him and wishing he were dead.

But, what did they know, really?  They knew the same thing I did when I first looked up articles on Charles Mamou, a new writer for WITS, what the prosecution wanted them to know – what the jury, the defense, and the media heard.  I read various versions of a brutal, lone murderer who sexually assaulted a girl before killing her in an abandoned house.  It wasn’t a wonder he got hate mail. I’d learned to look past the headlines, things not always as they seem.

After reading the transcripts, I got a slightly clearer picture.  As the prosecution’s story goes, Charles Mamou went on a killing rampage sparked by a drug deal gone wrong, drove off with the victim, sexually assaulted her, and murdered her in a very hard to find backyard in Houston – a city he didn’t live in.   All the other individuals involved in the drug deal, all residents of Houston, slept after the initial drug deal and knew nothing, a couple of them testifying for the state…

So – I looked even closer.  If it were a card game, there would be money on the table, not a life, and some would say the deck was ‘stacked’. It turns out, the state had information that not only could have supported Charles Mamou’s claims of innocence, but the information could have also led to finding out what really took place that night.  Evidence that existed all along and more recent interviews reveal a few things.  The state had a list of phone calls that were made that night.  All of the callers in those records, the individuals involved in the drug deal, from the ‘cooker’, to the driver, to the introducer, were not sleeping that night according to their phones.  Not only  that, recent interviews put them all in the parking lot of Howard Scott’s apartment that night, along with Charles Mamou – who was supposed to be off on a lone sexual assault and murder.  If Charles Mamou was in the parking lot along with the car he was driving – so was the victim.  Which is what Charles Mamou has always asserted – that he fled the drug deal gone wrong and drove back to Howard Scott’s apartment complex.

In the absence of shared information, the existing phone records, witnesses were not called to testify, and those who were called testified they were sleeping – even though the state knew their phones were in use. Does an attorney have an obligation to bring it to the attention of the court or his witness when they are not telling the truth and the attorney is aware of it?

Phone calls that should have been traced, never were – no one will ever know where the calls were placed from.   They could have been dialed from the backyard where the body was found.  They could have been placed from anywhere in Texas.  The calls would have certainly helped determine what happened that night.  The callers never had to answer questions about where they were when they placed the calls.   The owner of the phone line they called – never had to explain who was calling and what they said.   The man whose phone was receiving the calls testified for the state, saying he was asleep and his phone was not ringing.  Regardless of records indicating that was not true, the state’s witness was never corrected by the prosecutor.  No one questioned why his phone was ringing until 3:43 a.m. the night the victim was murdered and why one phone call went out at 3:59 a.m. requesting a cab – yet the state had information these calls took place.

One of the callers to the home did the same, testifying for the state and saying he went home to bed that night and didn’t use his phone.  The witness and driver in the drug deal did not have to explain why his cell phone dialed Howard Scott’s apartment at 2:37 a.m. or where he was at when the call was made.  Rather, he testified he had went to bed. 

The other callers on the record never even had to step foot in a courtroom. They were never called by either side.  But, all the callers were up and about that night, not sleeping, and witnesses have since said they saw all the callers in one parking lot that night – Howard Scott’s parking lot.

It isn’t surprising the jury came back with a guilty verdict, no more surprising than it would be in a poker game with no aces in the cards dealt to the other players, but rather held in the dealer’s hand.  Charles Mamou certainly looked the part, he was a drug dealer.  Just in case though, they hung on to one more card.  The sexual assault.  While fighting for the death penalty, the prosecution called him ‘vicious’, ‘ruthless’, and ‘cold-blooded’.  The jury was told he ‘devastated and destroyed’, that he ‘marches her to the back, and he makes her commit oral sodomy, makes her suck his penis.  Imagine that, ladies and gentleman’. 

While saying those words to the jury the prosecution knew not only about the phone records that could have been used to defend Mamou, they also knew something else.  There was a rape kit collected from the body along with trace evidence, and that kit was collected by the medical examiner who did not make one note of it in his autopsy report.  He also did not breathe one word of it in his testimony.  The prosecutor’s office not only knew about the collection of the evidence, they requested that it be processed and they had received the results.  The results indicated there was ‘no semen found’.   In addition to that, trace evidence was collected that Mamou never knew about.  For two decades – he never knew.  Neither did the jury, or his family, or the victim’s family.

There is no nice way to say it.  The state had information that not only could have supported Charles Mamou’s claims of innocence, but the information could have also led to finding out what happened that night.  Evidence and interviews that have since taken place tell us a few things. All of the callers in those records were not sleeping that night.  Recent interviews put them all in the parking lot of Howard Scott’s apartment, along with Charles Mamou – who was supposed to be off on a lone sexual assault and murder.  Involved parties, according to the phone records, were not called to testify, and those who did testified they were sleeping – regardless of what the state knew.

Charles Mamou absorbed the anger for the loss of his grandmother.  He had no other choice.  Since his conviction, he has been living in a 9 x 6 cell in solitary confinement.  No one sees his tears.  No one can measure his depression.  People have moved on with their lives, his children have been raised, his grandchildren don’t know him.  As it stands now, he will be executed.  His appeals are exhausted, he is waiting on a date, and if his parents are still alive when it comes, they will watch their son be belted down to a table as poison gets pumped into his veins and he takes his final breath. Is that the justice we should be shooting for?

Many anti-death penalty activists find their stance not because they are necessarily opposed to the death penalty.  They base their stance on the knowledge the deck sometimes gets stacked.  Not every prosecutor is as interested in finding out exactly what happened as they are in securing a win.  If anyone wanted to know what happened to the victim twenty years ago, those phone calls would have been traced. The individuals making the calls would have been interviewed, their stories documented, statements taken and compared.  It defies logic to even try and argue differently, to suggest those individuals not be interviewed and those calls not be traced. A girl was murdered – every stone should have been turned over to find out what happened. Instead – nothing.  There is not one recorded interview with two of those callers that night, both of whom are said to have been in the parking lot, and one of who’s name is recorded as being the caller for a cab from Howard Scott’s apartment at 3:59 a.m.  Yet – not one interview with him or the other individual calling the apartment and seen in the parking lot that night.  As a matter of fact, Howard Scott’s first interview with police that was performed on the first day he was transported to HPD – is not in any file. It does not exist. I was told, “Not everything makes it into the file.”

What could have been discovered if, in 1999, this case had been investigated and the phone records and physical evidence shared?  Where were the phone calls made from?  What would the callers have said about what they were doing that night had they been asked?  What would the recipient of the phone calls have said if he had been confronted with the question, rather than allowed to say – ‘I was sleeping’? 

The window of opportunity on what could have been determined is shut.  The Harris County prosecutor’s office did that, not Charles Mamou.  The deck was stacked against Mamou, the victim’s family, Mamou’s family, the jury, and anyone who has ever read the story.  Everybody loses.  The prosecution may have felt not sharing the information they had would secure a ‘win’ for their office, but how is that winning?  You can’t win when you cheat, it’s a façade, a farce.  One person does not get to decide what part of the puzzle we can use. To argue a case in a court of law, what people look towards for truth, justice, equality and fairness, while keeping information to yourself, and not only doing that but also exploiting the lack of knowledge and arguing scenarios such as witnesses sleeping and sexual assault – that is not a win. 

There is also a facebook page dedicated to sharing Charles Mamou’s troubling case.

 All Photos, courtesy of ©manfredbaumann.com

TO CONTACT CHARLES MAMOU:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

You can also reach him through jpay.com.

SIGN HIS PETITION – LEARN ABOUT HIS CASE.  Charles Mamou is a long time WITS writer. He is part of our writing family and his case has been studied and shared here for a couple years. Please sign a petition requesting that his case be truly investigated – for the first time. If you learn enough about his case, you will likely agree, there was not much done in the way of investigation. What we have been able to learn, supports that. Please sign.

Charles Mamou Reinvestigation

Dear Ms. Ogg,

In the interest of justice, please reinvestigate the case of Charles Mamou, Jr. He has been on death row for over two decades.

There was evidence available to the D.A. in 1998 that was not shared with Charles Mamou. That evidence would have called into question witness testimony and should have been pursued in 1998 when it could have led to the guilty party. It included phone records of suspects that could have been traced. Not only was information not shared, some withheld information was exploited, such as the prosecutor communicating to the jury that Mamou sexually assaulted the victim, but not informing them or the defendant of a rape kit that was collected, which they had processed.

References to an individual named 'Shawn' being present that evening were consistently down-played and dismissed by the prosecution, yet a fax addressed to the D.A. from HPD specifically notes, handwritten by an investigator, phone calls made from 'Shawn' to a key witness, Howard Scott, at 12:19 a.m. and 3:12 a.m. that night. Mr. Mamou was unaware there were calls made. Those phone calls were also received by a key witnesses' phone, who testified he was asleep at the time, and his phone was not ringing. The prosecutor did not stop the proceedings when his witness, along with another of his witnesses, indicated they were sleeping. The prosecutor did not ask them why their phones were in use or inform Mamou or the jury that their phones were in use that night while they testified to sleeping.

New information has come to light that was not shared with the jury, including a letter that calls into question a key witness’s testimony. There are also witnesses who saw Charles Mamou when he was supposed to have been with the victim, a video statement of the key witness that does not mirror his testimony, and a statement from a state’s witness that cannot be located in the HPD case file. That witness has since told an investigator he saw the victim alive.

There are other issues as well, including notes in HPD's file that indicate biological evidence was signed out in 2019. When questioned regarding the reason for the removal, HPD communicated that only the D.A.'s Office could request evidence be removed, to which a communication with the D.A.'s office indicated no such request had been made.

For these reasons and more, we are asking you to reinvestigate Cause No. 800112. Thank you for your consideration.

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Join The Club!

Our North Carolina Book Club is an amazing bunch. The club is based in Raleigh, NC, on Death Row, and we are starting our next book this week, chosen by one of the members. This particular club has chosen to determine book titles on a rotating basis, each member having a turn. That in itself has proven to be interesting – pondering what a book choice says.

If you would like to join us, our next book is The Shape Of Water. They should receive their copies on Wednesday of this week, so you have plenty of time to order yourself one. The group consists of Roger, Antwan, Rodney, Warren, Marcos, and Terry. Our last book, The Hate You Give, started some in depth conversations about race and perceptions that we never would have had. Sometimes its not always about the book, but the insight we gain through the conversations the book inspires.

Feel free to reach out to me, if you would like to contact the group or are reading along and would like to send in your thoughts on the book for their conversation in five weeks.

Happy reading!

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GRIT – Unwavering Courage & Determination, No Matter The Obstacle

I had been thinking of the next theme for a contest.  It came to me as I was thinking about one of our writers.  He was sentenced to death over twenty years ago in a case that would be laughable if it hadn’t started with a death and resulted in a death sentence.  Any reasonable person can look at the evidence and wonder – how did he get there, and why is he still there?

As an observer of his and many other cases, the biggest challenge has been the resistance from within the very system to acknowledge flaws or mistakes made within that community.  As I reflect on that, I think – it would take one person with a lot of grit to take the case on, buck the system and do the right thing, rather than follow the norm – just one person.  They do exist.

The Oxford dictionary defines grit as ‘courage and resolve, strength of character’.   Tell me a story, describe a person you know or have witnessed – display true grit.  Resolve in the face of repercussions, ignoring what people are comfortable with and doing the right thing, over and over again if necessary.  Courage to take the path of most resistance for a just cause. 

Inspire us.  Give us an example we can look up to.  It could be a family member, friend, or someone you witnessed from afar.  It could be in prison or out of prison, an action taken by a fellow inmate or an officer.

That’s the theme of this contest: Describe a display of ‘inspirational grit’ you have seen or been touched by or heard about.

Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate. 

We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.

Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit.  Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.

Entries should be 1,000 words or less.

Submissions can be handwritten.

As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.

PRIZES: 

First Place:  $75
Second Place:  $50
Third Place:  $25

DEADLINE:  August 31, 2021.  Decisions will be posted on or before September 30, 2021.

MAILING ADDRESS:

Walk In Those Shoes
Writing Contest Entry
P.O. Box 70092
Henrico, Virginia  23255

I’m truly anxious to hear the stories of people to inspire us, people who remind us that grit does exist.

As a reminder, WITS gives away a book each month to one ‘Writer Of The Month’.  All it takes to be considered is to have an essay posted on the site that month.  The last book was Ordinary Grace, and the titles are often books we use in our book clubs.

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Charles Mamou – A Call For Justice

Charles Mamou Reinvestigation

Dear Ms. Ogg,

In the interest of justice, please reinvestigate the case of Charles Mamou, Jr. He has been on death row for over two decades.

There was evidence available to the D.A. in 1998 that was not shared with Charles Mamou. That evidence would have called into question witness testimony and should have been pursued in 1998 when it could have led to the guilty party. It included phone records of suspects that could have been traced. Not only was information not shared, some withheld information was exploited, such as the prosecutor communicating to the jury that Mamou sexually assaulted the victim, but not informing them or the defendant of a rape kit that was collected, which they had processed.

References to an individual named 'Shawn' being present that evening were consistently down-played and dismissed by the prosecution, yet a fax addressed to the D.A. from HPD specifically notes, handwritten by an investigator, phone calls made from 'Shawn' to a key witness, Howard Scott, at 12:19 a.m. and 3:12 a.m. that night. Mr. Mamou was unaware there were calls made. Those phone calls were also received by a key witnesses' phone, who testified he was asleep at the time, and his phone was not ringing. The prosecutor did not stop the proceedings when his witness, along with another of his witnesses, indicated they were sleeping. The prosecutor did not ask them why their phones were in use or inform Mamou or the jury that their phones were in use that night while they testified to sleeping.

New information has come to light that was not shared with the jury, including a letter that calls into question a key witness’s testimony. There are also witnesses who saw Charles Mamou when he was supposed to have been with the victim, a video statement of the key witness that does not mirror his testimony, and a statement from a state’s witness that cannot be located in the HPD case file. That witness has since told an investigator he saw the victim alive.

There are other issues as well, including notes in HPD's file that indicate biological evidence was signed out in 2019. When questioned regarding the reason for the removal, HPD communicated that only the D.A.'s Office could request evidence be removed, to which a communication with the D.A.'s office indicated no such request had been made.

For these reasons and more, we are asking you to reinvestigate Cause No. 800112. Thank you for your consideration.

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Charles Mamou is a WITS writer. He has always maintained his innocence.  He has been on death row for over twenty years.  There is evidence and information the Harris County prosecution had that Charles Mamou didn’t know existed for over two decades.  That information could have been used to determine what happened to the victim if anyone had pursued it.

Nothing physically ties Charles Mamou to the scene of the crime, other than the testimony of witnesses that were involved in a drug deal with him that night.  There is not a fingerprint of his there. There is not a footprint of his there. No witnesses saw him there. There was a shell casing – that cannot be tied definitively to any weapon, but no weapon was ever found. Mamou was from out of town, the men who testified were not. The body was found in a location even the police described as difficult to locate.  One of the witnesses worked for Orkin – on the side of town where the body was found behind a house for sale.

The individuals who testified against Charles Mamou were apparently never charged for their involvement in any of the events that took place that night – and phone records the prosecution had access to indicate two of those witnesses were not telling the truth on the stand.

A letter never presented to the jury and written by the ‘star’ witness who said Charles Mamou confessed to him says, “I’m glad you didn’t tell me shit about that cause I don’t wanna know shit, I feel better off that way.”

Charles Mamou has waited long enough for someone to help him.  He’s not asking for any breaks – he’s asking for an investigation into his case, one that includes all the evidence the Houston Police Department had twenty years ago, which includes trace evidence obtained in a rape kit that was never shared with Mamou. 

Please sign the above letter asking the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to reinvestigate this case.

UPDATE: This post was temporarily removed, after I was contacted and told I couldn’t share this information. After a thorough review, I disagree. The information came from trial transcripts that Charles Mamou gave me access to. In addition to that, the other records are public and the letter was written to Charles Mamou and belongs to him. Walk In Those Shoes is about writers in prison and trying to understand their experience with the justice system. If I can’t share public information without being warned and told not to – is it a wonder people end up on death row that are innocent?

Photograph of Charles Mamou, courtesy of ©manfredbaumann.com

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Should We Kill? My Thoughts On The Death Penalty

Jesus was executed, as well as countless others throughout history.  Although Christians believe that was a necessary evil, looking at what was done to a man that had a reputation for kindness and advocating for the downtrodden, one is struck by the injustice and immorality of it.  Jesus wasn’t a murderer or a rapist or a thief.   Can anything justify the torture and execution of a man that committed no crime, other than irritating those in power? 

Even if looked at from the retributive theory, Jesus’ execution was not justified.  He did not commit murder, and Pilate most likely did not believe Jesus deserved the sentence he was given, but felt pressure at the time.  Thus, Jesus was executed.  The most famous of all retributive punishments is an illustration of all that can go wrong with the perspective that execution is acceptable. Although Christians know that Jesus had a path to walk, looking at this case apart from the religious aspects, it couldn’t have been more poorly justified.

Jesus’ crime, according to authorities, was treason, calling himself king.  For that he was beaten, tortured, and left to die on a cross.  The punishment did not fit the crime.  Those same words can be said about what sometimes happens in the halls of justice every day on every reach of the planet – outside forces, such as pressure in this particular case, influence the sentence.  It could be a court appointed attorney with no time to adequately prepare up against a highly motivated prosecutor, well practiced at manipulating a jury.  It could be a police force that has a tendency to toy with evidence.  It could be the color of the defendant’s skin in a courtroom full of people that don’t resemble him or her.  But, as we saw in the case of Jesus, people are not perfect and sentences don’t always match crimes.  This happens more than anyone would like to believe, and it is certain to continue happening.

As of this writing there is a man on death row in Texas, and he has been there for over two decades.  In his case, the prosecution had evidence they did not share with the defense that could have been pursued, and if it had been shared, could have very well impacted the outcome of the case.  This information is now known, documented and available to anyone who wants to see it, but Charles Mamou has had four attorneys over the last two decades who never located the information.  It wasn’t until an unpaid advocate came along and started researching the case that everything that had been there all along came to light.  It wasn’t a trivial tidbit, there was actually a rape kit discovered twenty years later that has physical evidence in it.  There were phone records of key witnesses who testified they were asleep.  The information was never shared with the defendant.  Mamou’s case is not an anomaly.  If you work with the incarcerated for any length of time, you will come to learn cases like his happen more than anyone would like to admit.

The argument that the number of lives saved from the use of capital punishment as a deterrent, is hard pressed if the true number of unfair prosecutions were tallied.  There is no way to even calculate them all accurately, as most cases are left unpursued in spite of questions left behind.  It is naivety that believes wrongful or over incarcerations are few in numbers and therefore a viable trade off.  From the beginning of time, and the execution of a man whose reputation has remained that of a ‘good man’ over hundreds of years, until today when you can walk in any well-populated death row facility and find people that have not had a hand in murder, we have gotten it wrong.  The numbers are greater than anyone would like to publicly acknowledge.

For the sake of argument, and although unarguable evidence has shown us differently from the beginning of time, we will pretend justice is always perfect.  We will overlook the imperfections and intentional mistakes along the way, such as the execution of Jesus, a good man.  Let’s say then, punishment should reflect the crime, an eye for an eye.  Yet, we have been getting it wrong one way or another from the beginning of time on that as well.  If it were truly to be an eye for an eye and a reflection of the crime, we would rob from robbers, we would rape rapists and we would murder murderers.  In the world of right and wrong and if we are going to make rules of order, you can’t compare apples to oranges.  A perfect system of an eye for an eye that punishes according to crime, can’t have exceptions to the rule.  What makes murder any different than rape? 

In our country, we execute people who have not actually had a hand in a murder, sometimes letting the actual ‘murderer’ receive a lesser sentence.  It is called the Law Of Parties, and people who have not had a hand in murder have been and will continue to be executed under it.  So, in the ‘eye for an eye’ thinking, we make exceptions for all cases except murder where we stand firm on taking a life for a life, while letting the rapists go unraped, and not only do we make exceptions, we make exceptions within the exceptions.  If a murderer has the right attorney and chooses to testify against other parties, involved or not, he betters his chances of not having to pay the price of murder with his life, making himself an exception, and in doing so, assists in the execution of an individual who played no part in the murder, creating another exception. The overall theory of justifying capital punishment under the ‘eye for an eye’ platform that justifies the act as the appropriate punishment has no foundation, as it is not even close to being uniformly performed and enforced.

To the argument that there is no equal punishment to the taking of a life other than the taking of a life, there is the nasty side of the argument that most like to sweep under the rug.  Let’s suppose that we never make mistakes, and the system is always fair, and we always execute the actual ‘murderer’, and not the driver of the murderer or the friend who was with the murderer on that particular evening and had no idea a murder was going to take place. In a perfect system, murder would be the appropriate choice, but should we require a murderer to murder themselves?  How do we accomplish taking a life without getting our own hands dirty?

When we get to the point when we are going to actually take a life, what justification can we use for our action of taking a life, and how are those who have a hand in the act absolved?  Does that call for more exceptions to the rules?  Is it acceptable to murder a person who we have ‘decided’ is guilty of murder, not necessarily guilty?  At this point, we have to embrace all the exceptions to all the rules that we have already established as acceptable, and accept those who are innocent, those wrongly accused, those who were involved but did not murder and those who actually did commit murder and lump them all together.  They are all equally ‘guilty of murder’, and we can only accomplish this if we have decided we are justified in killing an innocent person in the name of maintaining the death penalty.  So, we find ourselves having to pay people to then become murderers of the innocent as well as the guilty because of all the exceptions to the rules that have to be in place to maintain a death penalty.

It doesn’t end there.  According to our own policies and systems, involved parties are sometimes executed along with the actual murder or murderers.  One would have to label those who purposefully lead a person to the execution chamber, the one who voices the command to start the process, the actual medical personnel involved in the process as all parties to the taking of life of the guilty and innocent, we have determined that exception has to be made.  By our own standards, what about those who have fattened up the victim for the kill for over two decades, are they not a party to the murder?   Can it end there?  What of the prosecutor and his co-counsel?  What of the Judge and jury?  What of the defense counsel who did not bother to look for the evidence?  So, the actual taking of a life of someone like Charles Mamou, will have participation of countless people along the way, including some who simply turned a blind eye.  Should we include those who were informed before his execution but chose to proceed with the knowledge that his trial was unfair and did not provide all the information to the jury?

How many people have a hand in the murder of the innocent, in a society that endorses capital punishment?  How many people turned a blind eye to what was happening to Jesus when he was executed? Which brings us back to the religious justification, people often building their argument on words from the Bible, using their interpretation of segments to further their cause.  What can be certain about the teachings of Jesus was his call for love, mercy, and compassion.  Portions of the bible can be picked out to justify murder, but there is no strong case for it, not nearly as strong as Jesus’ teaching of loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek.  Who are you to condemn?  Although the execution might be punishment of the murderer, who is to say that vengeance is not God’s?  I’d much prefer to err on the side of caution, and not hold someone down in an execution chamber and pump poison into their veins, assuming that vengeance is mine.  Using religion as an argument to justify murder is at best a stretch, at worst a mockery. 

So, what of the argument that there is only one punishment called for when a person walks into a movie theater and starts shooting, murdering fifty innocent people before being taken into custody before witnesses.  Death, surely, is the only choice. That is the strongest argument I have heard, and I appreciate the sentiment and desire, yet, it is not that simple.  It comes full circle, back to the beginning.  We have a system that has been proven unjust repeatedly since the execution of Jesus. Influence brought about his execution, not any action on his part.  The ramifications of leaving the door open in the name of our hypothetical deranged murderer who murdered fifty in cold blood in front of witnesses needs to be considered.  The system doesn’t just end with his execution.  Let’s say we all want that one man dead.  At what cost?  We have an unfair system, influenced by power, money, race, and, believe it or not, sometimes bad intentions.  The system is run by humans, both good and bad.  The price to pay for leaving the door open to execute our theater murderer, is, in part, the lives of the innocent lost, the humanity of the officers who have spent a decade with the individual they have worked around and know is innocent and a good man, and the future resentment of the children of the innocent man who in turn possibly become murderers because of an unjust system.   By leaving the door open for our theater murderer, we are leaving the door open to the mistakes that have been and will continue to be made, along with the unjust on-purposes, and the chain reaction of it all.

The death penalty is not cost-effective.  It cannot be justified by religion.  It makes murderers out of innocent people.  It has and will continue to be used to kill people who have not committed murder.  It does not make us safer by taking mass murderers off the streets, when that person is already removed from the streets. It does not deter the mentally ill or suicide bombers or people determined to inflict pain.  The death penalty leaves the door open to all that can and does go wrong and has no moral justification.  There is a heavy moral price to pay for maintaining a method of disposing of our movie theater madman.  

“But, what does my innocence matter?  Where did it get me but a bus ride to prison while shackled both by ankles and spirit to a dread that becomes so unbearable – death is a welcome resolve.  How relevant is innocence to time long gone and opportunities forever missed, when your dignity is in a shambles, you’ve been stripped of your identity and you have nothing left to call your own but an Opus number.  With no pride left for which to hide behind, to admit wrongdoing would not be so difficult – the hardest thing to do is continue proclaiming my innocence.” – Terry Robinson, Death Row, NC

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I Believe In You

Have those words ever made a difference in your life?  It might not have been said exactly that way, but do those words make you think of someone in particular?

WITS supports and believes in the limitless potential of positive reinforcement, and wants to hear about a time in your life when someone believing in you – had an impact on your actions and/or choices.

Is there anyone who ever believed in you – and that confidence and belief in you influenced you in a positive way?  It could have been a child, a parent, a teacher or a friend – anyone, even a stranger. 

That’s the theme of the first writing contest of 2021:  Has Someone’s Belief In YOU Ever Impacted Your Decisions And Actions? 

I say it all the time – be vulnerable.  That may mean writing about your own insecurities. 

Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate. 

We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.

Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit.  Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.

Entries should be 1,000 words or less.

Submissions can be handwritten.

As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.

PRIZES: 

First Place:  $75
Second Place:  $50
Third Place:  $25

DEADLINE:  March 31, 2021.  Decisions will be posted on or before April 30, 2021.

MAILING ADDRESS:

Walk In Those Shoes
Writing Contest Entry
P.O. Box 70092
Henrico, Virginia  23255

As always – I’m excited to see what comes in!

As a reminder, WITS is giving away a book or magazine subscription once a month to a random submission that gets posted for each month of 2021.  These posts can be on any topic, and are unrelated to this contest.  January’s random book will be Where The Crawdads Sing.

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Painted Guilty – Charles Mamou

Photograph of Charles Mamou, courtesy of ©manfredbaumann.com

A fax cover sheet addressed to Assistant District Attorney Lyn McClellan and dated September 24, 1999, along with an HPD officer’s handwritten caller ID records were seen for the first time by Charles Mamou in 2020, over twenty years after the Houston Police Department and District Attorney’s office had access to them.  The cover sheet and phone records were not shared with Mamou at trial, and could have assisted in the investigation as well as discredited the testimony of two of the prosecution’s key witnesses.  In a case without physical evidence, those witnesses were critical. The jury that found Charles Mamou guilty and sentenced him to death never saw the documents, and they were only recently obtained by Mamou’s advocates.

Charles Mamou was sentenced to die in 1999, not long after this fax is dated, for the kidnapping and murder of Mary Carmouche.  Mamou has always maintained his innocence and describes fleeing a drug deal gone wrong in a car that didn’t belong to him – Carmouche was in the backseat – and returning to an apartment complex in Houston, Texas, where he was staying.  Mamou lived in Louisiana and was in Texas, in most part, for a drug deal.  According to Mamou, he last saw Carmouche alive and in the parking lot of the apartment complex, along with several other individuals, two of whom would end up being key witnesses for the prosecution, claiming they were at home in bed, and never saw Mamou after the drug deal – also claiming they did not make or receive phone calls that night.

The phone records – one of two pieces of actual evidence in the case – were never shared with Mamou or the jury.  The other piece of evidence that Mamou and the jury never heard about was a rape kit that was collected, which included the collection of ‘trace evidence’ and ‘hairs’.  In a case with no fingerprints at the scene of the body, no footprints, no witnesses, no weapon – a rape kit and phone records are the next best thing.  The prosecution knew about both.  The jury and Mamou knew about neither. Not only did the prosecution know about the rape kit – they also told the jury Mamou sexually assaulted the victim.

The HPD investigator’s notes include identifying notations next to the phone numbers.  The victim was last seen alive on the evening of December 6, 1998, early morning of December 7, 1998.  The key witness, Howard Scott, lived at the apartment complex Mamou said he drove the car to. These are Scott’s caller ID records from that night, as written by an HPD investigator that went to Scott’s apartment on December 8, 1998.

11:19 p.m., Oretha Gray;
11:25 p.m., Sun Suites;
11:46 p.m., Emily Griggs;
11:48 p.m., Meri Eubanks;
12:14 a.m., payphone;
12:19 a.m., M.E. Brinson – Shawn’s mother;
1:54 a.m., Meri Eubanks;
2:37 a.m., wireless [WRITER’S NOTE:  the phone number listed at 2:37 is identified in HPD’s file as belonging to another key witness, Samuel Johnson];
3:12 a.m., M.E. Brinson – Shawn calls for Howard;
3:43 a.m., call notes.

Mamou could have used this information in his defense, and investigators may have had an opportunity to pursue the location of the wireless phone call made at 2:37 a.m. from a cell phone used by Samuel Johnson, a witness who testified he was home in bed and didn’t talk to anyone that night. Johnson’s contradicting statement and testimony are sufficient reason to pursue the origin and purpose of the 2:37 a.m. phone call for anyone trying to find answers in a murder investigation.

Charles Mamou did not live in Houston. All of the key witnesses did, and Samuel Johnson also worked for Orkin at the time, testifying that his area was in the southwest area of Houston. Although it was often reported that the victim was found near some abandoned houses, she was actually found in what detectives described as a hard to find location in a suburban neighborhood in the southwest area of Houston in the backyard of a house that was for sale – not some abandoned houses.

When the HPD investigator went to Howard Scott’s apartment on Tuesday, December 8, 1998, the investigator was actually hoping to arrest Mamou. They knew he was there that morning from Howard Scott’s wife, and they knew Mamou had been involved in the drug deal that Mary Carmouche had last been seen at. Investigators didn’t find Mamou, but they wrote down Scott’s caller ID records and transported Scott to HPD that day to make a written statement. Not only is that documented in HPD’s case file, Detective Novak also testified regarding Howard Scott’s written statement that day.

That original statement from Howard Scott is nowhere to be found. It is not in the HPD case file, and according to the District Attorney’s office, they don’t have it either. I was told by HPD, that ‘everything doesn’t always makes it into the file’. The following day, police brought Scott and his wife back to HPD and took written statements again on Wednesday, December 9, 1998. Both of Robin Scott’s statements are available, but Howard Scott’s original statement is missing.

I tried to speak to Scott in 2019, but he refused to talk to me. He has spoken to other people over the years, and his statements are inconsistent throughout. The most recent of which, in 2019, includes a physical description of Carmouche from that night, and seeing Samuel Johnson, Charles Mamou and Mary Carmouche all at the apartment complex at the same time – a complete reversal from his testimony, in which he claimed he was home in bed and did not see Samuel Johnson or Charles Mamou after the drug deal, and his phone did not ring. Howard Scott described seeing Samuel Johnson, Charles Mamou, Mary Carmouche, and Kenneth Duplechan all alive and at the apartment complex parking lot after the drug deal.

The jury never heard that. The prosecutor who, according to the the fax cover sheet, was sent Scott’s caller ID records on September 24, 1999, listened to his witness testify two weeks later on October 7, 1999, about going to bed between 11 and midnight, and about how the phone was ringing prior to that, as he sat with ‘Shawn’ and Ken. Scott told the jury there were ‘no more phone calls’ after he went to bed. Neither the jury nor Mamou are ever told ‘Shawn’, the man Scott said he was talking to in his apartment before he went to bed between 11 and 12, called Scott’s apartment at 12:19 a.m., and again at 3:12 a.m., and that Scott’s phone didn’t stop ringing until 3:43 a.m. Although Howard Scott has consistantly contradicted himself for twenty years, and his first statement is missing, he was a key witness in the case against Mamou.

Samuel Johnson, the driver in the drug deal gone wrong, who fled the alley without Mamou, testified he went straight home to bed and spoke to no one, never seeing Mamou or Carmouche again, not seeing or speaking to anyone that night. According to the HPD investigator’s notes, Samuel Johnson called Howard Scott’s apartment at 2:37 a.m., from a wireless phone. At that time in history, landlines were frequently used for phone calls made from a person’s residence, and wireless calls were more likely to be made when away from home. Mamou never had an opportunity to point out to the jury that Johnson’s phone made a call to Howard Scott’s apartment nor was he able to investigate the location of the call’s origin. The prosecution did not share the available information with the jury.

‘Ken’ who Howard Scott mentioned was sitting in his living room in his testimony, has since been interviewed, although there is nothing in HPD’s file to indicate that anyone involved in trying to find Carmouche’s killer ever interviewed him during HPD’s ‘investigation’. In 2019 Kenneth Duplechan told an investigator he saw Charles Mamou, Howard Scott, Samuel Johnson and Shawn Eaglin in the apartment complex parking lot that night – along with the blue Lexus Mamou fled the drug deal in. That statement contradicts everything the jury was told. Kenneth Duplechan also stated he stayed in the parking lot talking to Howard Scott and Charles Mamou after Samuel Johnson drove away. The jury never heard any of that, but the phone records reveal one name coming up twice on Scott’s phone that night – Meri Eubanks. Meri Eubanks does appear to know Kenneth Duplechan, but Eubanks and Duplechan will not respond to inquiries from me. Although the HPD investigator is the individual who wrote down the name Meri Eubanks in his notes as a caller to Scott’s apartment, there are no records of anyone at HPD interviewing Eubanks in their efforts to locate Carmouche’s killer.

There were other phone calls made to the apartment that night that could have been investigated, but according to police files were not, and Mamou was not aware of them at the time, so he was unable to pursue them himself.

The prosecution also knew about actual physical evidence that was collected as part of a rape kit. They did not share what they learned with the jury or Mamou. That information has been kept from Mamou for over twenty years.

On July 8, 1999, two months before Mamou’s trial, an investigator for the District Attorney, Al Rodriguez, contacted HPD and asked them to process a rape kit.

On July 12, 1999, the results were back, indicating that no semen was detected, trace evidence and hairs existed and had been collected.

During the trial, the medical examiner testified at length about the procedures during an autopsy as well as reviewing the autopsy report itself. At no point throughout the entire trial, or in the twenty years since, was Charles Mamou or the jury told a rape kit existed. Quite the opposite. The rape kis was so well not documented, that in 2007 a private investigator looking for more evidence had to report back to Mamou that he could not find more evidence obtained by the medical examiner.

Last year, on October 30, 2019, after I had gone to HPD and the District Attorney’s office requesting the results of the rape kit and being told they don’t keep that kind of information, I contacted the Harris County Medical examiner looking for the information. It was confirmed for me at that time that the rape kit had been collected at the time of the autopsy in spite of the medical examiner neglecting to include that information in his autopsy report and testimony.

On November 19, 2019, I was able to obtain the results to the actual rape kit, noting no semen found and trace evidence collected.

The information wasn’t just kept from Mamou and the jury, the prosecutor also told the jury that a sexual assault took place, but failed to share with the jury or the defense that no semen was found .

A lot of things were told to the jury to steer them in the direction of a guilty verdict. The day after Carmouche went missing, Mamou was with his cousin when he picked up some sunglasses that he had dropped during his stay in Houston. Without surrounding information, the sunglasses became tied to the victim in the courtroom and later in news reports. It was never pointed out for the jury that the glasses were found approximately five miles from the body.

There were a lot of things not pointed out for the jury. Mamou never saw the original video statement of his cousin, Terrence Dodson, who told jurors that Mamou confessed to him. In 2019, I sent Mamou a transcript of the original statement. Although Dodson testified Mamou confessed to him over days, partially in person and partially over the phone, HPD investigators had recorded Dodson originally telling them Mamou called him from Louisiana ‘before day’ on Tuesday, December 8, 1998, and told him everything. Investigators knew, while they were listening to Dodson’s statement, Mamou had not left Houston until Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. on a bus. The interview took place on Wednesday, December 9, 1998.

Dodson’s testimony not only differed from his statement, but Mamou never saw Dodson again after the morning of Monday, December 7, 1998. He could not have confessed to him in person as he testified, nor could he have confessed in one phone call from Louisiana before day on December 8, 1998, as he said in his original statement because Mamou did not leave Houston on a bus headed to Louisiana until Tuesday afternoon at 1:30.

The jury also never saw a letter Terrence Dodson wrote to Mamou a month after Carmouche was murdered, stating he was glad Mamou didn’t tell him anything.

In 2019 it was noted in the HPD case files linked to Mamou’s case that biological evidence was signed out. I inquired at HPD, the Property Room, the Homicide Department, and the District Attorney’s office regarding why the evidence was signed out.

At the HPD Records Department, I was told they didn’t know the answer, and I should contact the Property Room, the District Attorney’s office, and the Medical Examiner. 

At the District Attorney’s office, I was told the case was currently ‘closed’.  There would be no current requests for evidence from them because no one was working it, and the files themselves were in storage – the case was inactive. 

At the HPD Property Room, which was where the biological evidence was signed out from – I was told there is protocol in place, and in order to find out why the biological evidence was signed out, I would need to go to Homicide and speak with the investigator on the case.

At Homicide, I was told it was a ‘cold case’ and there was no active investigator on the case, I would need to talk to the person in charge of cold cases.

The cold case investigator wasn’t in and never returned my phone call.

I later received a phone call from D. Wilker in Homicide.  I was told ‘only the Property Division could answer my questions’.  Of note – the Property Division is where I had originally gone and was told that due to ‘protocol’, I would need to go to Homicide.

During that phone conversation, I was also told Ms. Wilker would reach out to the Property Division to see if she could get an answer for me, but she couldn’t make any promises.  In addition, she informed me ‘we are mandated to test every piece of evidence’, suggesting that the evidence was taken out for testing.   Ms. Wilker also suggested an investigator could have requested the material be checked out, but as I had already been told – there was no investigator on the case at that time.  I was told she would get back in touch with me after she reached out to the Property Division.

After a couple weeks and no contact from Ms. Wilker – I called her.  Ms. Wilker told me the rape kit results I was looking for at that time, which I later found without her assistance, were ‘irrelevant’.   I was told the defense had every piece of evidence they needed to have.  The ‘window of opportunity’ for finding out anything was closed.  And, finally, yes, the evidence had been checked out in 2019 and had been in the possession of Mary K. Childs-Henry, but it was now back where it belonged.  It had been checked out for ‘cataloging purposes’. 

I then asked Ms. Wilker if she considered the matter closed, and she told me she did.

After that phone call I wrote a letter to Internal Affairs and the Chief of Police, as ‘cataloging’ two pieces of twenty year old biological evidence didn’t seem logical, and I had just been told the rape kit results that were never shared with Mamou were ‘irrelevant’, which also seemed illogical considering evidence was collected .  

The Houston Police Department responded, telling me no one had done anything wrong. “In your letter, you inquired about procedures for removing evidence regarding Mr. Mamou’s case. The District Attorney is the only person that can authorize any type of evidence to be released for any reason.  There are procedures in place for care, custody and control of evidence that is stored in the Property Room. You may reach the Harris County District Attorney’s Office at ….”

As of this date, it remains unclear why the biological evidence was signed out in 2019. 

Charles Mamou has spent over two decades on death row and is awaiting an execution date. In a case without evidence shared with the jury, the prosecution painted a picture. In the painting, the jury was told Mamou sexually assaulted the victim and murdered individuals in previous unsolved murder cases. They were shown autopsy photos of another murder victim, from another crime, and heard the impact statements from the victim’s family in that crime.

One might argue with HPD that evidence is relevant. It’s relevant to victims and their families, and it is relevant to defendants. Charles Mamou’s little sister recently described the last Christmas Eve she shared with her brother over twenty years ago.  She and her family spent the day at her Uncle White’s house in Lafayette.  Their uncle had a house big enough for everybody, and his gumbo took all day and night to cook, but was worth the wait. 

When the family got home that night, they could barely get through the living room because Mamou and his friends had been busy picking up gifts while everyone was gone.  The kids weren’t allowed to open anything until morning, but their mom did allow them to set off the fireworks Mamou had brought home.  There were so many, Mamou’s sister remembers the sky turning pink, and she remembers seeing two of Mamou’s children that night and the step kids he treated like his own. 

Anyone with information regarding this case can contact me at kimberleycarter@verizon.net.


There is also a facebook page dedicated to Charles Mamou.

 Photo, courtesy of ©manfredbaumann.com

TO CONTACT CHARLES MAMOU:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

You can also reach him through jpay.com.

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Bird By Bird Give-Away

We shared this book with one of our writers recently and he found it very helpful. In the month of December, 2020, we will be choosing a random WITS writer to recieve a copy. So – just send in an essay or poem that gets posted before December is over, and you could be randomly chosen. Let us know how you like it! We might give it away again.

Please share with your writer friends. Submission is considered permission to edit and post.

WITS, P.O. Box 70092, Henrico, VA 23255  

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Writing Contest Time!!

The holidays are right around the corner.  Plans have started, options being considered, gift lists are being made. 

Describe for readers what your favorite holiday looks like behind bars.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a winter holiday or Christmas.  It can be a spring holiday.  It can be any holiday you want.  You might want to compare it to a holiday long gone, or one never had but dreamed of or observed from afar.  It can be a description of what it looks like from your vantage point, start to finish.  It can be a combination of past and present.  It can be ways you’ve found to create a taste of what it means to you. 

That’s the theme of this writing contest:  What Does Your Favorite Holiday Look Like From There? 

I say it all the time – be vulnerable.  That may mean writing about your own insecurities. 

Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate. 

We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.

Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit.  Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.

Entries should be 1,000 words or less.

Submissions can be handwritten.

As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.

PRIZES: 

First Place:  $75
Second Place:  $50
Third Place:  $25

DEADLINE:  November 30, 2020.  Decisions will be posted on or before December 31, 2020.

MAILING ADDRESS:

Walk In Those Shoes
Writing Contest Entry
P.O. Box 70092
Henrico, Virginia  23255

As always – I’m excited to see what comes in!

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“Convict This Man. Don’t Let Him Out” – The Trial And Conviction Of Terry Robinson

 “The State has proved it beyond a reasonable doubt, and presented evidence that puts him there, puts him telling people what he did.  And that is enough.”

That was the prosecution during the closing argument that sent Terry Robinson to death row for a crime he has always maintained he knew nothing about.  There wasn’t any physical evidence in the case that could tie Robinson to the murder.

We don’t have to have DNA.  We have to present enough evidence so you know in your heart that he was involved, and he did this. The State has done that.

“So, convict this man. Don’t let him out.”

The jury did just that. 

Robinson was in the area of the murder that night.  It was normal for him to be in the area.  Robinson lived in Wilson, North Carolina, and he had a girlfriend who lived across the street from the Pizza Inn, where a murder occurred, not to mention friends and relatives in the surrounding area. 

DNA exists in connection to the crime, but it does not point to Terry Robinson. 

There are also two latent fingerprints and one palm print available, but they do not point to Terry Robinson.  According to the testimony of Special Agent Navarro of the NC State Bureau of Investigation, “Terry Lamont Robinson did not make any of the latent fingerprints that were of value for identification purposes.”

When asked, “The long and the short of it is, palm prints or other kinds of prints, nothing matched?”

Agent Navarro responded, “That is correct.”

There were hairs collected.  They weren’t hairs that matched Ronald Bullock, the one man who said he was involved in the crime.   They weren’t Terry Robinson’s.  According to Special Agent James Gregory, assigned to the Trace Evidence Section, when asked if he was able to find a match between what was collected at the crime scene and samples from Ronald Bullock and Terry Robinson, “I did not find any hairs that had a root attached to them that were consistent with the known head hair standards collected from the – from Terry Robinson, or Ronald Bullock.”

There was a gun associated with Terry Robinson, which Robinson doesn’t deny being connected to.  But when asked specifically if the bullets used in the murder were from the gun associated with Robinson, Special Agent Marrs responded, “It could not have been fired from that .380 pistol, State’s Exhibit Number Two.” 

Terry Robinson was not an angel.  He had a criminal record and sold drugs for a living, but the gun associated with him was not the gun used in the crime. 

The case rested with two men who accused Terry Robinson of murder.  Both of those two individuals have since contradicted their own testimony.  According to the testimony of Ronald Bullock, who accused Terry Robinson of hatching the plot to rob the Pizza Inn, pulling him into it, and eventually murdering a man in front of him, they stopped by Jesse Hill’s home before the crime.   Bullock testified that Robinson asked Jesse Hill to participate in the crime as well. 

“He said he didn’t want to be part of it.  We were crazy.”  Bullock then testified he and Robinson dropped Jesse Hill off at his mother’s home.

After Robinson’s conviction and sentence to death, Bullock had something different to say – things he didn’t share with the jury.  “Jed (Jesse Hill) gave me his dreadlocks and a headband to wear as a disguise.  Jed rode with us to the Pizza Inn and to ride behind the Pizza Inn at the apartment complex.”

Bullock went on to say that Jesse Hill, “was going to get some money for his part for the help.”  Bullock, in a written statement then described the robbery which differed from how he described it in his original testimony, and he also stated Jed said, “I want my dreadlocks back.”

That written statement, made in 2003, was how Terry Robinson first learned the dreadlocks he had heard about at his trial – belonged to Jesse Hill.  The dreadlocks used as the murderer’s disguise, were actually made of hair that belonged to one of his accusers.  A jury never heard that.  They actually heard Jesse Hill described by the prosecution as an innocent ‘hero’ who received nothing for his help with the case.  That turned out not to be true as well.

Jesse Hill has had a few things to say since the trial also, much of which contradicts what the jury heard. 

Following is more of the closing argument from the prosecutor when he described Jesse Hill – at length. 

“Now, Jesse Hill.  If you ever wondered why people don’t want to come forward and testify in cases when they witness things, or they know things in a crime?  If you ever wondered why?  Because this man gets up there and he is trying to tell you the truth.  And all the defense can do is malign him, to go on and try to trip him up on times, which don’t matter, because he said it was light or dark or whatever, and then act like,  ‘You’ve got worthless check convictions?’ as if that would somehow equate with what happened in Boulder, Colorado when the Ramsey girl disappeared. Or, maybe a Bosnian war criminal.”

 “He knew about something that happened that was terrible, and he could not live with the fact that they had told him about it, he knew about it, and he knew it was wrong.”

“This man is a hero.”

“He testified against his cousin, and he’s getting nothing out of it.  And, don’t you know that if he was getting something out of it, both of these men would have brought it up.  But, no, they want you to become cynical.  They want you to look at everything, even when a man is trying to do the right thing, they want you to look at it like, ‘Well, what’s he getting out of it?’”

“Did Bullock ever come forward and say, ‘Well, yeah, Hill was involved, too.  He did so-and-so.’  Which they’re going to try and make you believe, which isn’t true.”

It turns out… the prosecution was mistaken.   Ronald Bullock has since stated Jesse Hill was involved, from the planning, to supplying a disguise, to being promised a cut, only the jury never heard that part.

If Terry Robinson had known anything about the murder at the Pizza Inn on May 16, 1999, if he had gone to Jesse Hill’s home prior to the crime, taken Jesse Hill’s dreadlocks and worn them in the Pizza Inn while he murdered somebody – it stands to reason he would have nudged his attorney when the dreadlocks were submitted as evidence at his trial.  It stands to reason he would have said, “Hey, that hair right there belonged to Jesse Hill.” It stands to reason, facing a death sentence, Robinson would have indicated the man being hailed as a ‘hero’ was involved in the crime and his hair was found at the crime scene.  It also stands to reason – Terry Robinson didn’t say anything because he didn’t know where the dreadlocks came from at that point in time.

In 2003, eight days after Ronald Bullock told an investigator the dreadlocks belonged to Jesse Hill, Hill confirmed the dreads where his, saying he supplied the dreadlocks to Ronald Bullock for a disguise, and that they were his hair.  He also told the investigator he had told the police and the prosecutors about supplying the dreadlocks, but he didn’t remember when he told them.  In addition, Jesse Hill said he received $5,000 for his help in the case.

Over the years, Jesse Hill, has been interviewed on a couple occasions.  According to the original case file in 1999, Hill initially called police and told them Ronald Bullock and Terry Robinson were responsible for what took place at the Pizza Inn, and after sharing that information with police, Hill then drove with them to show them where Bullock lived.  More recently he remembers it differently, saying Bullock turned himself in, “I heard he called the police while I was at my sister’s house.”  “I heard he called them, they came down there and they locked him up.”

In contrast to Bullock’s 2003 statement regarding Hill’s involvement, Jesse Hill is adamant he had nothing to do with what took place that night in spite of his own 2003 interview with an investigator in which he admitted supplying the disguise.  “That man had a family.  You don’t do stuff like that.   Get a job.  I had a job.  They coulda had a job, they coulda worked.   They didn’t have to do what they did.  Come on, man.”

When asked about Bullock’s statement regarding a cut of the money from the planned robbery, “No!  I don’t know nothin’ about no money.  Come on, man.”

Although they don’t agree on a lot there is one thing the two agree on.   Jesse Hill and Ronald Bullock both agree Terry Robinson shot and killed a man on May 16, 1999. 

Several years ago, when asked if he would have testified in court about the dreads if he had been asked, Jesse Hill responded, “Sure, if he asked me, yeah.”

But – neither attorney did ask him.  So, the jury never heard Jesse Hill, the ‘hero’, was involved in the crime. 

Jesse Hill, in contrast to what he said years earlier when he admitted to supplying a disguise for the crime, later said, “They did it them self, they need to handle it.”  “They robbed that place because they want to.  I ain’t got nothing to do with that.”

He even seems to have a different perspective of who went to the police, “Montrel was with him.  Montrel the one told people what happened.  That’s why they had so much on him.   Cause he was with him.  Shit, it ain’t got nothin’ to do with me and nobody else.”

I have reached out to Ronald Bullock and Jesse Hill for a response, but have not heard back.  I’ve also reached out to the public, and I am doing so again.  If you saw Terry Robinson at any time during the day or night of May 16, 1999, please contact me at kimberleycarter@verizon.net.   According to Robinson’s accusers, he was with them the entire day from midday through approximately midnight. 

The above photograph was shared with me by Terry Robinson’s mother, who has quietly stood by her son’s side for over two decades. She told me Robinson was about fifteen years old in the photograph. He is second from the left with the white hat on, and had been working in the tobacco field that day. Although not asked, Jesse Hill also spoke of Terry Robinson’s mother several times.

“His mama know how that boy is.  I don’t know why she’s trippin’.”
“She know how her son was.”

Terry Robinson writes for WITS when he is not working on other various projects. You can read some of his work here. He has also co-authored Crimson Letters, available on Amazon. Details of his case can be found here. Mr. Robinson can be contacted at:

Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285

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