Michael Braxton was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a prison murder. According to court documents Michael Braxton was serving a life sentence for robbery and murder when he murdered Dwayne Maurice Caldwell at the Caledonia Correctional Center in Halifax. Michael Braxton was convicted and sentenced to death
The State’s evidence at trial tended to show that in August of 1996 Michael Braxton and the victim were both inmates in block A of unit 4 at Caledonia Correctional Center (“Caledonia”) in Tillery, Halifax County, North Carolina. Defendant owned the illegal canteen operation in block A. Defendant also owned and operated card games and a loan business in violation of prison regulations. In August of 1996 the victim owed defendant $17.00 for items charged at defendant’s canteen. Michael Thomason, another inmate, testified that, three days prior to the killing, defendant harassed the victim for the money owed. Thomason and other inmates pooled their money to pay the victim’s debt. Thomason gave the money to defendant, but defendant gave it back. According to Thomas McCombs, another inmate, defendant would not accept the money because “it was a principle thing.” McCombs also testified defendant told him that he was going to “hurt [the victim].”
On the afternoon of 18 August 1996, the unit 4 inmates were released to the prison yard for exercise. While the others were in the prison yard, Officer Roy W. Brown, Jr. escorted the victim, who had been confined to his cell on administrative lockup, to the shower. Officer Brown searched the victim and the shower area and found no contraband or weapons. Officer Brown left the victim alone while he showered.
At the same time, defendant and other inmates were outside in the prison yard playing a card game. As they were playing, inmate Ronald Moore took defendant aside and told him “that guy” was in the shower. Shortly thereafter, defendant left the card game and headed toward block A. Inmate McCombs testified that before defendant went into block A, he saw defendant reach down and pull up his sock, where he had a “blade.” McCombs saw defendant step into the shower and stab the victim “like a mad man” approximately eighteen to twenty times, using a second knife he had hidden in the waistband of his pants. Inmate Thomason testified that he saw defendant stab the victim two more times with both hands on the knife after the victim was down.
After leaving the victim in the shower for approximately twelve to fifteen minutes, Officer Brown heard screams from the shower area. Officer Brown entered the shower and sprayed pepper mace on both defendant and the victim. Officer Brown testified that he saw defendant, who was wearing work gloves, stabbing the victim with a homemade knife known as a “shank.” After the victim fell out of the shower, defendant then kicked him repeatedly in the head and chest area and stabbed him in the chest and abdomen. Even though defendant’s vision was impaired by the pepper spray, he felt around for the victim’s body with his left hand and continued to stab the victim. Defendant eventually stopped his assault on the victim, threw the shank down, and ran out of the shower area. At the infirmary, the victim showed no signs of life. A medical examination of defendant revealed no apparent injuries on his body. Corrections Officer Horace Aycock testified that he and other officers, including Officer Brown, conducted a search for weapons in unit 4. They found a shank in the shower area, a pair of work gloves on the floor near the control room to block A, and a second shank wrapped in a wet towel in the light fixture of the open bathroom cell.
Dr. Louis A. Levy, a pathologist and medical examiner, performed the autopsy on the victim’s body. He testified that the victim had thirteen separate stabs and cuts on both sides of his chest, both arms, the index finger of his right hand, his right wrist, and his mouth. All of the victim’s flexor tendons had been severed in the right wrist; and the victim’s lungs, heart, and liver had been punctured. Dr. Levy opined that the cause of death was stab wounds to the heart and lungs and subsequent exsanguination. Dr. Levy further opined that the wounds were caused by two different weapons: The slicing of the right wrist was consistent with a knife that was sharpened on both sides, while the wound in the right shoulder was consistent with a weapon that was sharpened at the point but dull on both sides.
Defendant testified at trial as follows: Although defendant and the victim had argued about the money owed, defendant eventually told the victim on several occasions that he forgave the debt. However, the victim, while confined to his cell in administrative lockup, tried to provoke defendant into an argument and flashed a knife at him. Defendant testified that, on the afternoon of 18 August 1996, he was playing cards in the prison yard; and he had a knife “just in case an argument [broke] out at the game.” Defendant stated that most inmates carry a knife in prison and that he always carried his knife in his glove, especially to card games, as a safety measure. While playing cards, another inmate told defendant that the victim had been given a knife. Defendant then entered block A and heard someone in the shower make an obscene comment to him. Defendant recognized the person in the shower as the victim. Defendant testified that he told the victim, “I’m about burned out on your mouth”; and the victim told defendant to “come on up here and get some then. I got something for you anyway .” After defendant stepped into the shower and saw the victim with a towel in his hand, defendant pulled his knife out of one of his gloves, which were in his back pocket. Defendant “[felt] like that [the victim] must have had a knife in his hand” since he had been told earlier that someone had given the victim a knife. However, defendant admitted that he never actually saw the victim with a knife.
Jimmie Lawrence was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of Dale Jerome McLean. According to court documents Jimmie Lawrence and his girlfriend broke up and she moved in with Dale Jerome McLean. Jimmie Lawrence would go over to her new place and would shoot and kill Dale Jerome McLean. Jimmie Lawrence was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The State’s evidence tended to show that defendant and Gwen Morrison dated for almost two years and that their relationship ended in early December 1996. Morrison began living with Dale McLean in late December 1996. On 18 January 1997, Morrison and McLean were at home with McLean’s two children, ten-year-old Chastity McLean and five-year-old Dale “Junior” McLean, when someone knocked on the back door. McLean looked out the window and said, “It’s Jimmie.” Morrison opened the door and stood on the top step in her nightgown and slippers.
Defendant was standing on the ground in front of the mobile home; and a man that Morrison had never seen before, William Rashad Lucas, was standing behind defendant holding a sawed-off shotgun. Defendant asked Morrison to leave with him. When Morrison refused, defendant pulled a nine millimeter handgun from the front of his pants. Morrison then told defendant that she did not want any trouble and that she would leave with him, but that she needed to get her shoes and coat first. Morrison turned toward the door and defendant ran up the steps, pushing Morrison through the door into the mobile home. As defendant and Morrison came through the door, Chastity and Junior were sitting in the living room and McLean was walking empty-handed down the hallway toward the door. Defendant pushed Morrison away and shot McLean, who grabbed his head and fell to the floor. Defendant stood over McLean and fired several more rounds. Defendant then grabbed Morrison by the arm and said that he would also kill her if she did not leave with him.
Defendant led Morrison outside and put her into the backseat of his vehicle. Lucas drove to defendant’s house. Lucas told defendant that he should have shot Morrison, too, because she “was going to tell everything.” Morrison, defendant, and Lucas then got into Lucas’ car; and Lucas drove to the Comfort Inn in Sanford, North Carolina, where Lucas stayed in the car with Morrison while defendant rented a room. Once inside the room, Lucas put his shotgun on a bed and left; he returned thirty minutes later with a pair of jeans that belonged to his girlfriend. Lucas left again, and defendant took a shower after telling Morrison that he would kill her if she tried to leave.
Morrison sat on the bed while defendant showered. When defendant came out of the bathroom, he lay on the bed next to Morrison and fell asleep with his arm or leg over her body so that she could not leave the room. Defendant awoke later and asked Morrison to have sex with him. Morrison agreed out of fear that defendant would kill her if she refused him. Sometime thereafter, defendant returned a call to his mother and told her to have his father pick him up. He then told Morrison to put on the jeans that Lucas had brought earlier. Someone arrived at the Comfort Inn driving defendant’s vehicle; defendant put the shotgun under the mattress and left. Morrison then called her cousin to come get her.
Meanwhile, after defendant and Lucas had driven away with Morrison, Chastity called her grandmother, who instructed Chastity to call the police. Shortly thereafter, members of the Harnett County Sheriff’s Department arrived. The officers found no signs of life in McLean. A detective carried the children away from the crime scene, and Chastity calmed down enough to give a statement that defendant had shot her father.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Department subsequently took defendant into custody; and with defendant’s consent, several agents from the State Bureau of Investigation (“SBI”) searched defendant’s room at the Comfort Inn. The agents found the shotgun in the hotel room, and Lucas’ girlfriend later turned over the nine-millimeter handgun to the Harnett County Sheriff’s Department.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy on McLean found a total of nine gunshot wounds on McLean’s body, all fired at a close range of no more than three feet. The gunshot wounds on McLean’s right arm, nose, and forehead were not the fatal injuries. The cause of death was any one of the four bullets that entered McLean’s brain through the right side of his skull. A forensic firearms examiner from the SBI determined that the shell casings collected at the scene from around McLean’s body had been fired from defendant’s nine-millimeter pistol.
John Williams was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murders of Deborah Jean Elliot and Patricia Ann Ashe and for a number of sexual assaults. According to court documents John Williams is a serial rapist who has attacked a number of women over the years and would murder Deborah Jean Elliot and Patricia Ann Ashe. John Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
With trendy bars, thriving businesses, fashionable apartments and creative food options, downtown Raleigh is booming.
Part of the growth includes the Warehouse District, where a lively mix of art museums, shops and technology firms live side-by-side with transportation hub Union Station and The Dillon, an 18-story mixed-use business and residential development.
But some areas remain unkempt, with overgrown vegetation, graffiti and barbed-wire fences that hint of a darker past.
In the late 1990s, the Warehouse District was characterized by fading brick buildings, with crime, homelessness and prostitution the norm.
Then in 1996, black women started turning up dead.
The first body of 1996 was discovered Jan. 7.
It was a snowy Sunday, and Raleigh police officer G.M. Wright responded to a call in the 1500 block of S. Blount Street.
When Wright got there, a man was waving his arms to get the officers attention. The man, Rodney Bass, told Wright that he had seen a person with no clothes on behind a building.
Wright found a woman’s body, covered with snow, on a bench, with her legs and feet hanging off the edge. She was naked, except for white socks.
There was a thermal, long-sleeved T-shirt folded up under her buttocks and a pair of jeans folded under her head, like a pillow. A couple of crack pipes and a lighter were next to the bench.
The body was that of Patricia Ashe, a habitual crack cocaine user who may have also been involved in prostitution.
There were footprints in the snow near the body, but not close enough to suggest the person they belonged to had been involved in some way. After further questioning, the mystery was cleared. The footprints belonged to Bass, who said he had been walking around the building but stopped about 20 or 30 feet short of the bench when he saw the body and then decided to call police.
An autopsy performed on Ashe’s body concluded that she had died from strangulation.
But she apparently had put up a fight. She had scrapes and scratches on both sides of her neck as well as some on the front part of her neck. She also had scrapes and scratches on her back and arms and a small tear in her skin in the groin area. Some of the neck scratches were so deep that a bit of skin was torn off.
More bodies followed. A woman named Dewanna Burt was found dead later in January. Then Patricia Woods, Dawn Grandy, and an unidentified woman whose body was found in August.
The sixth victim was 35-year-old Deborah Jean Elliot.
On Dec. 23, 1996, Elliot spoke with one of her sisters about Christmas plans. She was supposed to go to her other sister’s house about 1 p.m. on Christmas Eve and stay for the holidays, but she never arrived.
According to court documents, a sister told police that Elliot was known to be involved in high-risk activities, such as using crack and prostitution.
But others knew Elliot in a different way, as a loving mother of three and a dedicated worker at McDonald’s, where she had worked for about a year and was on track to become an assistant manager.
“We’d see each other every day at McDonald’s,” said a woman who worked with Elliot at the fast-food restaurant. “And we’d talk, we’d carry on like we were sisters, you know, we’d laugh and stuff. She talked about her kids, her twins, her boys.”
The day after Christmas, a Thursday, Oliver Parrish was working at a building on N. West Street in downtown Raleigh. The building was part of the Pine State Creamery, and Parrish was checking to make sure doors were locked.
In a part of the building with three bays, Parrish saw something: It was a body, lying face down, naked except for socks and shoes. It was Deborah Elliot.
Minutes after her body was identified, her friends gathered at her home.
“I really didn’t think it would be her. It really is a shock. All I have is good things to say about her. I’m choked up … she was a nice person,” one man said.
Asked whether she had any enemies, the same friend said: “She was nice person, you know. She liked to have fun. She was friendly with everybody. I didn’t ever see her around any bad crowd.”
Raleigh Police weren’t sure whether Elliot’s death was connected to the killings of the five other black women earlier in 1996.
“We are not discounting or assuming anything at this point, that they are connected or they are not connected,” a Raleigh Police spokesman said at the time. “We’re just currently investigating them to the best of our ability right now.”
In the days after Elliot’s death, Raleigh Police said the FBI was helping to develop a psychological profile for the person or persons responsible for the killings of the six young women since January.
Mitch Brown, who was Raleigh Police Chief at the time, said police were talking to officials in other cities where similar crimes had happened.
“Anytime that’s there’s a homicide of similar occurrences, we’re in touch with those jurisdictions,” Brown said.
Concern grew across Raleigh as the body count grew. Nowhere more so than in the Walnut Terrace Public Housing Project, where two of the victims lived.
Sharon McClain often visited her sister at Walnut Terrace, just a mile from Raleigh’s downtown.
“You’ll be scared to go out at night by yourself, being a young black woman, you know, and just stuff going on,” McClain told ABC11 at the time. “I really don’t know what to say. It’s just fear in my heart.”
Raleigh Police assigned 54 investigators to work on the murders and worked to quell fears in the community.
“I’m optimistic about clearing every homicide that occurs in the city, and I believe we will eventually clear this as well,” Brown said.
In January 1997, state and local officials offered up to $6,000 in reward money for information to help solve the murders. The office of then-Gov. Jim Hunt had posted a $5,000 reward the previous Fall for information leading to arrests and convictions in the killings of Ashe and Burt, and Raleigh police had a $1,000 reward through the CrimeStoppers program.
Faced with the possibility that a serial killer was on the loose, Raleigh Police conducted an estimated 6,000 interviews and beefed up patrols in the area around Moore Square.
Pressure was mounting to solve the brutal killings, and on Feb. 4, 1997, police caught the break they were looking for.
That night, a woman named Shelly Jackson was at the A.S.K. Store near Moore Square. According to court records, Jackson had been out drinking and using drugs. About 7 p.m. she saw a man getting out of another man’s van and struck up a conversation.
The man, according to the court records, told Jackson he had some cocaine and said, “Come go with me to my secret place that I go to.”
They went to a fenced-in lot with abandoned vehicles off W. Hargett Street and got into an abandoned truck.
Jackson later told police that as she bent down to put her purse on the floor, the man got behind her, grabbed her around the neck and flashed some sort of weapon, a razor blade perhaps. He told her to take her clothes off. She said she refused and screamed.
As the man said, “Shut up … I got you now. I’m going to kill you,” she happened to see a police car coming down the street and managed to break loose, jump from the truck and run screaming toward the police car.
Raleigh Police Sgt. T.C. Earnhart was driving past the back lot of 612 W. Hargett St. about 8 p.m. when he heard the woman scream. He got out of his patrol car and saw her jump out of a truck and run toward his vehicle.
Earnhart later testified that Jackson was “frantic” and “hysterical” and said something about a man trying to cut her and rape her. Her hand was dripping blood. She said the man was about to cut her throat, so she brought her hand up to defend herself and was cut in the process.
The alleged attacker hopped out of the old truck and ran away. But Officer Earnhart saw him and radioed for backup.
Within 10 minutes, police spotted the suspect and took him into custody.
When the man was brought back to the crime scene, Jackson identified him as the attacker. Police found a box cutter in the man’s pants pocket, and he had a cut on his right hand and blood on his shirt. His blood was also found inside the truck where Jackson said the attack took place.
Police identified the man as 35-year-old John Williams Jr., a drifter and native of Augusta, Georgia.
Williams was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and attempted first-degree rape.
Despite the arrest, police maintained there remained multiple suspects.
“All of the suspects that we arrest in these homicides, we are looking at them as possibilities of multiple killings, so we’re looking at him and other ones that we have, that we’re investigating right now,” Chief Brown said.
Nevertheless, news of the arrest came as welcomed relief in the neighborhood.
The Associated Press reported at the time that “many people who work downtown said they were relieved that a suspect was behind bars. At one store not far from the railroad tracks, police posters of the women killed last year are taped to the front door.”
Brenda Adams worked in an office directly across Hargett Street from the location Williams was apprehended.
“We’re right beside the railroad tracks and of course, this area is known for a lot of derelicts, winos, and often they come to our door,” Adams told ABC11 at the time.
Adams said she felt better after Williams’ arrest: “Most definitely. Sure am.” She said she was pleased by stepped-up police patrols around her office, saying Raleigh Police are doing a terrific job.
While Williams sat in jail for the assault on Jackson, police diligently worked to link him to other crimes.
Williams, 36, was charged on March 19, 1997 with the killing of Patricia Ashe in January 1996. While in jail on the assault rap, he was also charged for the murder of Debra Elliott in December.
Marty Ludas, a latent print examiner, who testified at Williams’ trial as a footwear-identification expert, compared a pair of Williams’ tennis shoes to a shoe print taken from glass pieces that had been put together at the spot where Elliot had been killed. Ludas concluded that only Williams’ left shoe could have made that print.
DNA testing was conducted on the swabs that the medical examiner took from Ashe. Williams was a match.
After Williams’ arrest, a number of women came forward to say Williams assaulted them.
“For whatever reason, they didn’t report it at the time they were attacked,” police said. “Based on the interviews we got from them and the information they were able to give us, it led to, it was a substantial amount, and the information they gave led to the arrest today (in other cases).”
“Crime-scene search yielded some evidence that we needed the suspect to put back with the evidence. We were able to do that with laboratory techniques,” police said.
Police told The Associated Press in 1997 that they believed Williams also killed Grandy and Brown. Both their bodies had been dumped near downtown railroad tracks
“We have our man,” Capt. Dennis Ford told the AP. “People should feel comfortable at this point that we have our perpetrator.”
Investigators told media that they believed that Williams met his victims downtown and that they willingly went with him to secluded spots where “he felt comfortable to make the attacks.
The legal trouble grew: Williams was charged with the sexual assaults of four other women dating to October 1995.
THE TRIAL
At Williams’ 1998 trial, defense attorneys brought in two mental health experts to testify in an attempt to avoid the death penalty.
They cited Williams’ past and rough upbringing, issues that may have affected Williams’ state of mind.
A psychiatrist said that as a child, Williams saw his sister being sexually assaulted by his stepfather.
“He felt powerless to do anything about the violence … sexual violence. He felt really powerless, he didn’t think anybody would believe him if he reported that to his mom…” the expert testified.
Throughout the testimony, Williams seemed restless, pitching forward occasionally and often slumping back in his chair, his relatives sitting stoically behind him, refusing to comment to the media about the proceedings.
A psychologist testified that Williams believed he was incapable of harming any women and he actually saw himself as kind and benevolent toward them.
The psychologist also cited Williams’ IQ of 80 and doubted that Williams was capable of concocting several elaborate murder schemes and then lie about them later.
The jury was having none of it.
On March 4, 1998, the seven-man, five-woman jury decided that Williams, who they saw as a “lethal predator,” should get the death penalty.
Williams was convicted in the first-degree premeditated murders of Ashe and Elliot. He was also convicted in the attack on Jackson.
In addition, he was convicted in the rapes of two other women, an assault on another woman, but found not guilty in another case of attempted rape.
Williams, now 58, remains on North Carolina’s death row at Central Prison.
BITTERSWEET JUSTICE
Williams’ conviction brought tears of joy and relief to some members of victims’ families. Others called for harsh justice.
“I’m glad, and now he needs to be choked like he choked the rest of them women,” one woman said after the verdict. “They should choke him before they kill him, they really should.”
Elliot’s sister also had pointed words for Williams after the conviction.
“I wish they’d let me do it,” she told ABC11 at the time. “I wanted him to suffer just like he made my sister suffer. I mean, he’s sitting in there grinning. Like it was all good, he ain’t did nothing wrong.
“God is good,” she added, “and I’m glad it’s over.”
Danny Frogge was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murders of his father and stepmother. According to court documents Danny Frogge would stab to death his father and stepmother following an argument. Danny Frogge would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The State’s evidence at defendant’s second trial tended to show that defendant stabbed his father and bedridden stepmother to death. At the time of the murders, defendant lived with his father and stepmother at their home in Winston-Salem. Defendant’s father did not work, and his stepmother had been confined to her bed for over two years. Defendant worked part-time and helped around the house, but paid no rent.
Between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. on 5 November 1994, the Winston-Salem Police Department received a 911 call from a person who identified himself as Danny Frogge. Frogge reported that his parents were dead. When Winston-Salem police officers arrived at the scene, they found the bodies of Robert and Audrey Frogge in their bedroom. Robert Frogge was found on the floor lying on his left side with bloodstains on his shirt and arms. He had sustained ten stab wounds. A leather wallet, containing his driver’s license and miscellaneous papers but no money, was found next to his body. The wallet, which was lying open, had a drop and a smear of blood inside. Near the wallet, a white, bloodstained sock was found. An iron bar from a lawnmower was found under Robert Frogge’s body. Audrey Frogge was found in her hospital-type bed with bloodstains on her chest and arms. She had sustained eleven stab wounds to her chest. In addition, she suffered defensive knife wounds to her hand. A hospital-type rolling table stood beside the bed. Dr. Patrick Lantz, a forensic pathologist, opined that the angle of the stab wounds indicated the person stabbing Audrey Frogge either stood at the edge of the bed beside the table or climbed on the bed itself to deliver the blows.
Outside the home near the back porch, the officers found a bloodstained butcher knife. Just beyond the edge of the woods behind the house, the officers found men’s clothing, including a pair of blue work pants, a pink tee shirt with red stains, a pair of men’s underwear, and a white sock which contained bloodstains and blood spatter. The white sock appeared to match the sock found near Robert Frogge’s body. The officers also collected several pairs of white underwear and blue work pants from defendant’s bedroom which appeared similar to those found in the woods.
While talking further with the officers that night, defendant appeared calm and showed no signs of emotion. In a statement to Winston-Salem Police Detective Sergeant Dennis Scales, defendant claimed that on the day of the murders he had been in and out of the house on numerous occasions taking care of his stepmother and preparing her supper. After a night of drinking and crack cocaine use with friends, he returned to the home at approximately 4:00 a.m. and found his parents murdered.
The State also offered into evidence defendant’s testimony from the sentencing proceeding of his first trial. This testimony included the following: On the day of the murders, defendant worked around the house and later met with Earl Autrey, Audrey Frogge’s son-in-law, at approximately 2:00 p.m. The two began drinking. Defendant went back to his parents’ home to prepare supper for his stepmother and later returned to Autrey’s home to continue drinking. Subsequently, defendant returned to his parents’ home. Defendant had consumed almost an entire pint of liquor and several beers. Defendant’s father awoke from a nap between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m. and began to argue with defendant about his drinking. Defendant could not recall what he said to his father; however, his father became so upset that he took an iron bar from a lawnmower and jabbed and hit defendant four or five times. Defendant got up, went to the kitchen, and retrieved a butcher knife. He recalled stabbing his father three or four times while his father held the iron bar. Defendant did not remember stabbing his stepmother, but admitted that he must have done it. He then took approximately twenty-five or twenty-six dollars from his father’s wallet. Defendant attempted to wash the blood from his hands. He then changed clothes and threw the soiled clothes in the woods behind the house. When asked how blood got inside his father’s wallet, defendant stated that he did not know, but admitted it might have dropped from his hand. Defendant left and went to Kim Dunlap’s house. He and Dunlap then rode with Dunlap’s sister to downtown Winston-Salem. They used the money defendant had taken from his father’s wallet to purchase crack cocaine. After smoking the crack, defendant and Dunlap returned to defendant’s parents’ home in a taxicab around 4:00 or 4:30 a.m. Defendant entered the house, but returned to the taxicab and said that his parents were dead. He then called the police.
Defendant elected to testify on his own behalf at his second trial. His testimony was similar to that given at his first sentencing proceeding. He testified he served over four years in prison for a previous second-degree murder conviction and that he saved $8,000 to purchase a mobile home where he resided for six months after his release. Thereafter he returned to live with his father and stepmother. Defendant again admitted killing his father and stepmother and stated that after the murders, he changed his clothes and washed his hands. His testimony differed somewhat in that defendant claimed he did not take the money from his father’s wallet until after he had washed his hands and was preparing to leave the house approximately thirty minutes after the murders. Defendant again admitted purchasing crack cocaine with the money he took from his father’s wallet.
Allen Holman was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of his wife Linda Holman. According to court documents Linda Holman phoned police and told them she was scared to return home because of her husband Allen Holman. Police escorted her home and told Allen Holman to pack his stuff and leave and he was not to return. A number of weeks later Linda Holman called 911 saying she was being chased in her car by Allen Holman. Police would try to capture Allen but he was able to escape and would return to shoot and kill Linda Holman with a shotgun. Allen Holman would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Allen Holman would die of natural causes on death row – April 2023
The State’s evidence presented at the sentencing proceeding tended to show that on 6 July 1997 the victim called the Morrisville Police Department and stated that she believed that her husband, defendant, would kill her if she returned home. Police officers were dispatched to meet the victim at the location from which she placed the call and to escort her home. When the officers met the victim, she appeared hysterical; she was crying and shaking, and she acted terrified. The officers escorted the victim home and spoke to defendant, who apologized for causing the officers to be called out and told the officers that he was packing to move away. Defendant was allowed to collect his remaining property and left with a warning from the officers that he would be cited for trespass if he returned.
The next day the victim unsuccessfully attempted to remove defendant’s name from the lease to the home she rented, and she contracted to have a security system installed. Sometime thereafter, the victim began parking her car so that it faced the road and was closer to the door to the house; changed her phone number and the locks on her house; nailed the windows of her house shut; and began keeping the curtains drawn so that defendant could not shoot her from outside the house. The victim told the law enforcement agencies of nearby municipalities that she feared defendant would kill her, and she verified that officers knew how to get to her house. The victim also circulated a petition to have the street that she lived on officially named to enable quicker response from police and emergency personnel. Witnesses testified that from 6 July 1997 to 28 July 1997 the victim repeatedly told them that she was terrified that defendant was going to kill her.
Around 6:04 a.m. on 28 July 1997 the victim called 911 from her cellular phone and told the dispatcher that she was driving eighty-five to ninety miles per hour on Highway 55 towards Apex, North Carolina, with defendant chasing her in his own car. The victim also told the dispatcher that defendant was trying to kill her and that he was ramming her vehicle with his own vehicle.
The dispatcher alerted police officers and told the victim that officers were waiting farther up the road for her car to pass them. The victim spotted an officer’s car in a grocery store parking lot and stopped her car next to it. The officer in the car saw defendant make a quick turn and drive away. The victim was terrified, but the officer told her to wait in the parking lot for other officers to arrive; and the officer began pursuit of defendant.
Defendant eluded the officer and returned to the parking lot where the victim was still waiting for the other officers to arrive. A short time later Sergeant Denson, an officer with the Apex Police Department, pulled into the parking lot and saw defendant’s car parked in front of the victim’s car and defendant standing beside his driver’s side door holding a shotgun. Defendant then got into his car, pointed the shotgun out the window, fired a shot, and drove away. As Sergeant Denson began chasing defendant in his own car, he saw the victim lying on the ground on the driver’s side of her car in a pool of blood. Sergeant Denson pursued defendant and requested that other officers attend to the victim. When the officers requested by Sergeant Denson arrived at the parking lot, they found the victim’s lifeless body lying face-up on the ground by her car.
Upon leaving the parking lot defendant drove back towards the victim’s house with officers in pursuit. When he arrived at the victim’s house, defendant held police at bay for a time before shooting himself in the abdomen. During this time in a phone conversation with a co-worker of the victim, defendant admitted shooting the victim twice in the parking lot. Defendant later also admitted to an officer that he had shot the victim. Police officers took defendant into custody. Defendant was subsequently treated by medical personnel for the self-inflicted wound.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on the victim found two shotgun slug entry wounds in the victim’s back. The medical examiner further determined the cause of death to be massive blood loss attributable to these wounds.
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