Terry Moore also known as Jathiyah A. Al-Bayyinah was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a robbery murder. According to court documents Terry Moore would fatally stab the owner of a grocery store during the course of a robbery. Terry Moore would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
On the morning of March 6, 1998, 71-year-old Simon Wilford Brown, Jr. arrived at his wholesale grocery supply business in Mocksville, North Carolina. A few minutes later, he struggled with an assailant and suffered a single stab wound to the right side of his chest. The blow punctured his lung. The pathologist could not say whether the wound was inflicted deliberately or accidentally.
Mr. Brown bled from the chest, lost consciousness within moments, and was hospitalized. He remained in a coma. Complications from the wound included pneumonia and organ failure. Nine days after the stabbing, the family decided to remove life support. Mr. Brown died shortly thereafter. In the moments before he lost consciousness, Mr. Brown described the assailant as a “Black guy. … he was in here yesterday. … Dark clothing. I think I cashed his check yesterday. … But, I’m not positive.” He said he did not see the weapon. He said the assailant “come up from behind.” The state’s theory was that Jathiyah Al Bayyinah committed premeditated and deliberate murder and felony murder in the course of attempted robbery.
Jeffrey Duke was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murders of Ralph Arthurs and Harold Grant. According to court documents following a night of drinking and drug use an argument broke out and Jeffrey Duke would beat and stab to death Ralph Arthurs and Harold Grant. Jeffrey Duke would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
As seemed to be his custom, defendant began consuming alcoholic beverages on 19 March 1999. After drinking Jim Beam bourbon whiskey and Long Island Iced Tea, defendant argued with Michelle Lancaster, a female with whom he was living. He slapped Michelle on the head, knocking her to the ground, took her money and a bottle of prescription medication, and left the residence. He eventually ended up at the apartment of Ralph Arthurs. Ralph Arthurs, Harold Grant, and defendant sat in Arthurs’s apartment while defendant and Arthurs drank alcohol. Soon, Arthurs and Grant began discussing defendant’s earlier beating of Robin Williams, defendant’s former girlfriend. Arthurs demanded defendant leave the apartment, and defendant asked if he could finish his beer first. Grant got up and started walking towards the sink. When Grant got close to a knife block located on the counter beside the sink, defendant claims he thought Grant was going to attack him with a knife, although defendant admits Grant could have just been getting water.
Defendant stood up, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and started beating both Grant and Arthurs. At one time Grant got up from the floor and attempted to leave the apartment. Defendant dragged him back in and continued beating him. Defendant then stabbed Arthurs in the upper abdomen, and stabbed Grant in the face, chest, and neck. Defendant left the knives in Arthurs’s upper abdomen, Grant’s chest, and on both sides of Grant’s neck. Grant’s autopsy reflected the stab wounds were likely inflicted after Grant was rendered unconscious or had died. One knife recovered from Grant’s neck was bent at a ninety-degree angle, indicating the force with which defendant plunged the knife into Grant’s lifeless body. The cause of death for both murders was blunt force trauma to the head. Arthurs’s pants were around his knees, and Grant’s pants pockets were pulled out. The autopsy reports indicate Arthurs’s blood alcohol content was .04, while Grant’s did not register any alcohol present in his blood.
A blood spatter and stain expert testified for the State during trial and shed further light on the brutality of the killings. A blood stain which started at the front door and extended back to the body of Grant was consistent with defendant’s dragging of Grant’s body back into the apartment. In addition, a blood spatter on the front porch indicated Grant’s head came into contact with the porch at some point. A blood spatter near Grant’s head was consistent with his body being dragged back into the apartment, dropped face down onto the floor, and then later turned on his back. The blood spatter on the wall was consistent with the swinging of a fire extinguisher which hit Grant’s head. In addition, the authorities found Arthurs’s body with a significant amount of blood pooled to the left side of his head and a lack of blood on the front of his clothing. In the expert’s opinion, Arthurs was also at one time lying face down and then subsequently rolled over.
These killings occurred the morning of 20 March 1999 around 4:00 a.m. The noise from the struggle awoke a neighbor, Macie Randall, along with her granddaughter Angel. Later that morning, Tommy Feemster, the superintendent of the apartment building where the murders took place, went to the apartment complex to repair a leaky toilet in Arthurs’s apartment. Feemster’s coworker motioned for him to come to the door of Arthurs’s apartment. When Feemster arrived at the door, they noticed what appeared to be blood on the area outside the door. Feemster immediately went to Macie Randall’s apartment, and she informed him of the struggle she heard earlier that morning. Feemster then returned to Arthurs’s apartment and pushed open the door, stepped inside, and discovered a body with a knife sticking in it. Based upon what he observed, he immediately closed the door and called the police.
The evidence reflected that after leaving the crime scene, defendant smoked some crack cocaine, and later that morning started seeking help from friends and family members. He telephoned Michelle Lancaster who told him he needed to retrieve his belongings and move out of her residence because of their recent altercation. She also told defendant she would not help him. Defendant then went to an automobile dealership where his sister Charlene McKinney worked. From there, he telephoned his half-sister Lisa Sneed and told her he needed her to pick him up at a nearby restaurant. Sneed picked him up, later that day took him to Lancaster’s residence to pick up his belongings, and then they returned to Sneed’s residence. After arriving at Sneed’s residence, defendant put a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes in the washing machine. Later, Sneed received a telephone call from a detective investigating the homicides who was seeking to interview defendant and Sneed. When Sneed inquired of defendant concerning this request, he informed her the detective wanted to question him about a murder.
Defendant asked Sneed to lie to the detectives and tell them defendant and Sneed were together during the time of the murders. He told her he was with some guys smoking crack, and they would not cover for him. Based upon the detective’s telephone call, defendant and Sneed went to the police station along with Robin Williams. Sneed told police the lie defendant posited, and Sneed and defendant quickly departed when detectives requested consent to search her residence. Upon returning to Sneed’s residence, defendant grabbed his clothes and shoes from the washing machine, and Sneed gathered some drug paraphernalia she did not want the police to find. Defendant and Sneed then drove to Clover, South Carolina and threw the clothing items and drug paraphernalia out the window.
The next day defendant and Sneed went to a grocery store where defendant asked Sneed to purchase a newspaper. After reading about the murders in the newspaper, defendant revealed to Sneed he in fact killed the two men. He claimed one of the men pulled a gun on him, and then defendant told Sneed to “[t]ake it to your [expletive deleted] grave.” The very next day Sneed went to the police station, told the detectives what defendant said, and told the detectives she had lied in their prior interview. Defendant was soon arrested, and shortly thereafter invoked his right to counsel. Later defendant voluntarily requested the detectives question him-at which time he admitted killing the victims. Defendant presented no evidence in the guilt-innocence proceeding. Upon deliberation, the jury found defendant guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.
During the penalty proceeding, the State presented testimony from family members of Grant and Arthurs detailing the effects of the victims’ murders on their lives. The State elicited testimony from Phyllis Williams, the mother of Robin Williams, concerning an incident in which defendant beat Robin. In addition, two law enforcement officers testified regarding this event, and the State submitted into evidence a judgment reflecting a conviction against defendant arising from his assault of Williams. Defendant served time in prison and also received probation as punishment for this beating.
Linwood Forte was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a series of sexual assaults and murders. Linwood Forte who is a serial killer who was known as the Night Stalker. Linwood Forte would murder a number of elderly people as well as sexually assault a number of elderly females. Linwood Forte would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
It may have taken years to bring a Wayne County man to court, but it took Wayne County jurors took less than two hours of deliberations to find Linwood Earl Forte guilty of rape and murder.
In 1990, an elderly woman was raped. Less then two months later, 74-year-old Hattie Bonner was found raped and suffocated in her Goldsboro home.
In October 1990, police say an intruder broke into a home on East Holly Street home, stabbed 78-year-old retired Southern Bell executive Al Bowen, then raped and strangled his 76-year-old wife, Thelma. The suspect then torched their house. The local media deemed the unsolved murders as the “Nightstalker” cases.
Authorities did not have any leads until 2001, when a federal grant allowed the SBI crime lab to pull evidence from old, unsolved cases.
In 1996, Forte had been convicted of firing a shot into an occupied home. SBI agents were able to match DNA evidence from that crime to the three unsolved cases to Forte. Forte had never been questioned about the crimes.
The DNA evidence was so conclusive that the defense team rested their case without calling a single witness.
Forte’s attorneys plan to put on a series of witnesses during the sentencing phase of the trial who will testify about his drug and alcohol problems. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty.
Scott Allen was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a murder following a prison escape. According to court documents Scott Allen would escape from a North Carolina prison and would bounce from place to place to stay ahead of the authorities. Scott Allen would murder Christopher Gailey for insulting his girlfriend. Scott Allen would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Before his 1998 escape from a North Carolina Department of Corrections work release program in which he was serving a sentence for numerous felony breaking or entering and felony larceny convictions, defendant met Vanessa Smith and they became romantically involved. Immediately following defendant’s escape from the work release program, he met Smith in a parking lot, and the couple began moving around from hotel to hotel in this state, which Smith paid for with proceeds from a large settlement arising from her father’s death. The couple also traveled to and resided sporadically in Chicago, Illinois; Spokane, Washington; San Diego, California; and Denver, Colorado, continuing to live primarily from the proceeds of Smith’s settlement and spending large amounts of money on illegal drugs. Notably, while in Spokane, Smith paid a friend, Byron Johnson, five hundred dollars for a copy of his birth certificate and another identifying document. Defendant subsequently obtained a driver’s license from the State of Washington in the name of Byron Johnson. Defendant’s travels eventually brought him back to North Carolina, and in the summer of 1999, defendant, identifying himself as Byron Johnson, moved into a mobile home near Badin Lake, and Smith soon moved in with him. This mobile home was owned by Robert Johnson. In addition to defendant and Smith, Robert Johnson, Christopher Gailey, and Danny Lanier and his family resided in the mobile home. Christopher Gailey and defendant were long-time friends, but Smith never considered Gailey a friend. Life at the mobile home consisted of heavy partying, drinking, and drug abuse. Much of the drugs were provided by Gailey.
On 9 July 1999, the day of the murder, defendant told Smith and Gailey he had stashed some firearms in a cabin in the Uwharrie Forest, and they should retrieve them to sell the firearms for drugs. Robert Johnson testified he saw the three leave in Danny Lanier’s truck, while Smith testified they left in Gailey’s vehicle, a GMC pickup truck valued at $16,000. The three arrived that evening at the Uwharrie Forest, after which they entered the forest and walked for what Smith described as at least an hour. Smith smoked marijuana while defendant and Gailey used cocaine. Gailey carried a .45 caliber handgun, while defendant carried Gailey’s twelve-gauge shotgun with a black pistol grip.
As they walked single file down a very narrow trail, defendant pushed Smith to the ground. He then fired the shotgun twice, first delivering a heavy buckshot blast into Gailey’s back, and then firing lighter birdshot into Gailey’s knee. Smith testified that she and defendant then went to the nearby cabin to sit and wait for Gailey to die. According to Smith’s testimony, for seven to eight hours after defendant shot Gailey, he would creep over on his stomach to Gailey’s body to throw rocks at him to discover if he would make a noise. During this waiting period, defendant told Smith that Gailey would never call her a “bitch” again and that he could not believe Gailey turned on him and was going to “rat him off” by reporting his location to the authorities. Eventually, defendant and Smith left the forest. On their way out, defendant told Smith that their story would be someone in the forest shot Gailey, and that a guy named Dustin had reason to want to harm Gailey. Smith testified that she heard Gailey fire his handgun numerous times as the couple left the forest.
Next, at defendant’s direction Smith drove back to the trailer to get their belongings and to steal Gailey’s wallet which included Gailey’s automated teller machine (ATM) card. Smith ingested eight Xanax pills and then, driving Gailey’s truck picked up defendant near the Uwharrie Forest, where he had previously hid the shotgun used in the murder. The couple then drove to Shallotte, North Carolina, to see Smith’s friend, Jeff Brantley. Apparently Smith and defendant talked to some of the partygoers at Brantley’s residence, one of whom was Jeffrey Page. Defendant wanted to sell Gailey’s truck to Page for eight hundred dollars, and he explained to Page that the truck was owned by a “fellow” he shot in the forest. Smith testified she did not remember much that occurred in Shallotte, save a few times when defendant forced her to use Gailey’s ATM card, until she woke up two days later at her former lesbian lover Lilly Efird’s home.
Page decided to purchase the truck, and on 12 July 1999, drove to Albemarle, North Carolina along with Brantley, and two other men, to acquire the funds for the purchase. Upon their return to Shallotte, Page purchased the truck from defendant. Page subsequently sold the truck to a junk dealer in South Carolina.
Defendant, eight hundred dollars in hand, left for Denver once again. Smith and Efird traveled to Shallotte, and Smith borrowed, or according to Efird stole, Efird’s money and car in order to travel to Denver to see defendant, believing she was pregnant with defendant’s baby. After she arrived in Denver, she argued with defendant and became afraid he was going to kill her. Therefore, she returned to North Carolina and turned herself into the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, recounting the facts of the murder. Defendant was soon arrested in Denver. He made no incriminating statements and continually denied committing the murder during his postarrest interrogation.
Gailey’s body was discovered on 11 July 1999 when Wesley Hopkins drove by it during an all-terrain vehicle expedition in the Uwharrie National Forest. John Butts, M.D., the State’s Chief Medical Examiner, stated the autopsy of Gailey showed a shotgun wound to the back that exited in five different locations on the victim’s right chest. This wound caused extensive bleeding and damage to his lung, ribs, and large blood vessels. According to Dr. Butts, this wound would have rendered the victim unconscious in a matter of minutes, and death would have followed relatively quickly. Additionally, the shot to the knee incapacitated Gailey such that he would have been unable to move or seek medical assistance. Dr. Butts was of the opinion it would have been extremely unlikely, considering the amount of blood lost, a person with those wounds would have survived even one or two hours.
Law enforcement found at the scene of the crime five spent shotgun shells, numerous live .45 caliber cartridges in a pouch attached to Gailey’s belt loop, a full magazine for a .45 caliber handgun, and a .45 caliber handgun with one expended .45 caliber round casing still chambered. A yellow container found on or near Gailey’s body contained $1,944.05 in currency.
Defendant presented no evidence during the guilt-innocence proceeding of the trial. The jury returned verdicts of guilty of first degree murder based on a theory of malice, premeditation, and deliberation; larceny; and felonious possession of stolen goods.
Terrence Elliott was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly woman. According to court documents Terrence Elliott would force his way into the home of seventy seven year old Alice Mae McLeod who would be sexually assaulted and murdered before her home was robbed. Terrence Elliott would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on 28 January 2001, defendant left the residence of Clifford McLaughlin in Vass, North Carolina, where he had been visiting with McLaughlin and John Bandy. At that time, neither McLaughlin nor Bandy observed defendant carrying any specific items of personal property with him. Defendant then traveled to the home of the victim, Alice Mae McLeod McCrimmon. Ms. McCrimmon was a seventy-seven year old widow living in a mobile home without reliable heating. She was a woman of modest means, carefully saving coins for “wash money” in a purple Crown Royal bag.
Defendant broke a window to Ms. McCrimmon’s home, entered her dwelling, and proceeded to rape, beat, and strangle her until she died. During the struggle, she lost control of her bowels, leaving feces on the electric blanket later found on her bed. Defendant’s beating of Ms. McCrimmon left numerous blood spatters on the headboard and the walls of her bedroom. Additionally, defendant’s beating knocked at least one of Ms. McCrimmon’s teeth out of her mouth, and this tooth was later found imbedded in her back. Defendant left two used condoms on the floor and smoked a cigarette, leaving the unfinished butt at the crime scene.
After the murder, defendant returned to McLaughlin’s residence, sometime before 12:00 a.m. At this time, as testified to by McLaughlin and Bandy, defendant possessed a purple bag which contained various pieces of jewelry and some change. McLaughlin and Bandy further testified defendant offered to split the money inside the bag with them, with defendant taking all the “silver” money from the bag and giving the pennies to McLaughlin and Bandy.
On 9 February 2001, Ms. McCrimmon’s grandson became concerned because no one had heard from Ms. McCrimmon for days. He traveled to her mobile home to find a window broken, the inside of the mobile home in disarray, and the back door open. He entered through the back door, using his flashlight to look around. When he approached Ms. McCrimmon’s bedroom, he found her lying on the floor beside her bed. Ms. McCrimmon’s body was completely nude and her left leg was bent underneath the rest of her body. He immediately called law enforcement.
Additionally, Ms. McCrimmon’s 1989 Ford pick-up truck was missing from her residence. Michelle McGarrah testified she observed a man moving the truck near a Housing Authority building in Southern Pines on or about 9 February 2001. While McGarrah initially testified that she identified defendant from a police photographic lineup on 9 February 2001, she later testified she could not make an in-court identification of defendant as the man she observed in the truck.
Defendant was eventually arrested, and on 12 March 2001 a Moore County grand jury returned true bills of indictment against him for murder, first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, two counts of felonious possession of stolen goods, and felonious larceny.
Chief Medical Examiner John D. Butts, M.D., testified for the State concerning his findings and the results of an autopsy performed on Ms. McCrimmon. He detailed injuries to Ms. McCrimmon, including blunt force trauma to her face, legs, and genital area. In Dr. Butts’s opinion, the autopsy findings were consistent with the perpetrator beating, raping, and strangling Ms. McCrimmon until she died. Dr. Butts also testified he was unable to determine an exact time of death.
Special Agent Christopher Parker of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation conducted deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing, comparing samples from swabs from the condoms, bloodstains, and cigarette butt discovered at the crime scene with known DNA samples from Ms. McCrimmon and defendant. The DNA profile found in one of the condoms was consistent with only the victim’s DNA profile, while the other condom contained profiles consistent with both defendant and the victim. On the cigarette butt, Special Agent Parker found the DNA profile to be consistent with defendant’s DNA profile, with the profile being 463 thousand trillion times to 25.9 million trillion times more likely to be observed from defendant than another unrelated African-American, Lumbee Indian, Caucasian, or Hispanic member of the North Carolina population.
Based upon the evidence presented at trial, the trial court allowed defendant’s motion to dismiss portions of one felonious possession of stolen goods indictment which alleged possession of a microwave oven, a television, and an AM-FM cassette compact disc player. After the trial court instructed the jury on the appropriate law of the case, the jury deliberated and returned verdicts of guilty of first-degree felony murder based upon a theory of rape, first-degree rape, and first-degree burglary. Defendant was acquitted of all other charges.
During the penalty proceeding, the State presented victim impact testimony from the victim’s niece and sister. A mitigation specialist testified that defendant functioned at a low level of intelligence, that his father abandoned him at birth leaving him with no male role model, and that defendant has had problems with drug and alcohol abuse.
After instruction by the trial court, the jury deliberated and found unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of two aggravating circumstances: (1) the murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of first-degree burglary; and (2) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. The jury found five non-statutory mitigating circumstances, including a catchall mitigating circumstance. The jury then unanimously found beyond a reasonable doubt the mitigating circumstances were insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances and that the aggravating circumstances were sufficiently substantial to call for imposition of the death penalty. Accordingly, the jury made a binding recommendation of a sentence of death.
The trial court entered judgment of a sentence of death for the first-degree murder conviction, arrested judgment on the first-degree rape conviction, and sentenced defendant in the presumptive range to a consecutive term of 103 to 133 months for the first-degree burglary conviction.
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