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Tony Sidden North Carolina Death Row

Tony Sidden was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a triple murder. According to court documents Tony Sidden would lock two boys in the trunk of his car while he murdered their father Gary SIdden. Tony Sidden would then murder the two boys Garry Sidden Jr., 16, and his brother, Galvin, 10. Tony Sidden would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

North Carolina Death Row Inmate List

Tony Sidden 2021 Information

Offender Number:	0368820
Inmate Status:	ACTIVE
Gender:	MALE
Race:	WHITE
Ethnic Group:	UNKNOWN
Birth Date:	07/13/1947
Age:	73
Current Location:	CENTRAL PRISON

Tony Sidden More News

Between 10:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on 21 July 1982, defendant, then 15 years old, went with his stepfather, Tony Sidden, to the property of Garry Sidden, Sr. in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Garry Sidden, Sr. *730 owned a mobile home, grocery store and nightclub about a quarter of a mile from the mobile home where defendant and Tony Sidden lived. In a statement later made to police, defendant explained that he and his stepfather had planned to rob and kill Garry Sidden but that defendant had only “really discussed” the robbery. Tony Sidden apparently sought revenge for a previous incident in which Garry Sidden, Sr. had shot Tony. Defendant sought money with which to buy a dune buggy.

Tony Sidden and defendant parked a car on a logging road two hundred yards behind Tony’s mobile home and walked to the property of Garry Sidden, Sr. Each carried a 12-gauge shotgun; defendant also carried a.38-caliber pistol. They positioned themselves near a shed located about thirty yards behind Garry Sidden, Sr.’s mobile home and waited for Garry Sidden, Sr. to come home from his nightclub. After thirty minutes defendant “got tired of waiting” and walked to Garry Sidden’s mobile home and looked in the window. He saw Garry Sidden asleep on the living room couch. Defendant motioned for Tony to come down to the mobile home and the two waited there. Not long after, defendant saw Garry Sidden’s two sons, Garry, Jr. and Galvin, walking toward their father’s mobile home, from the nightclub. Garry, Jr. was sixteen years old and Galvin was ten years old at the time. Defendant and Tony Sidden forced the boys into their father’s mobile home at gunpoint.

Once inside, either defendant or Tony Sidden told the boys to go into the kitchen and lie down. Garry, Sr. then awoke and Tony Sidden and defendant pointed their guns at him and told him to reveal “where the money was.” Agitated, Garry, Sr. began to raise his voice, so Tony Sidden shot a hole in the mobile home above Garry, Sr.’s head to quiet him.

Tony Sidden and defendant eventually ordered Garry, Sr. and his two sons out of the mobile home. Once outside, Garry, Sr. grabbed for Tony’s shotgun and the two began to wrestle. Defendant shot Garry, Sr. in the back, causing him to fall. Tony Sidden then shot Garry, Sr. in the neck. After placing his hand on Garry, Sr.’s chest to confirm that he was dead, defendant took Garry, Sr.’s wallet containing over $300.00.

Tony Sidden and defendant then marched the two boys to the car they had parked earlier, forced the boys into the trunk and closed the lid. After driving awhile, Tony Sidden stopped the car on a dirt road and ordered the two boys out of the trunk. Leaving his .38-caliber pistol in the car, defendant stepped away to urinate. When he returned, Tony Sidden was forcing the boys to lie face-down on the road. Defendant asked Tony Sidden, “What are we going to do?” Tony Sidden replied, “We’ve got to shoot them.” Defendant, carrying his shotgun, turned and walked a few feet away. Tony Sidden then shot each boy in the head with defendant’s .38-caliber pistol. Tony Sidden and defendant left the two bodies where they lay and drove about three hours away to Spring Lake, in Cumberland County, North Carolina.

Defendant testified at trial that he had not shot the boys and had not wanted them shot. He had thought the boys would be tied up in the woods so that he and Tony Sidden could escape. Although defendant was armed and did not intervene to attempt to spare the boys’ lives, he testified “there was not a lot [he] could do” to prevent their deaths.

Tony Sidden and defendant stayed at Spring Lake for the rest of the night and the following day. At some point during the day, defendant tossed the pistol into a nearby pond. That evening Tony Sidden asked defendant to return to Wilkes County to dispose of the boys’ bodies. Defendant agreed to do so and drove back alone to Wilkes County. He found the bodies undisturbed, dragged them to the car and put them in the trunk. He then drove to an abandoned well on property once rented by his family in nearby Miller’s Creek, North Carolina. Defendant dumped the two bodies into the well, poured lime and drain cleaner into the well to “take care” of the bodies, and covered the well opening with logs before returning to Cumberland County.

Tony Sidden and defendant remained at Spring Lake for several days until they learned from a television report that warrants *731 had been issued for their arrest in conjunction with Garry Sidden Sr.’s murder. They fled North Carolina and lived in several states before eventually turning themselves in to authorities in September 1983. Tony Sidden and defendant were subsequently tried together and convicted for the first-degree murder of Garry Sidden, Sr. The trial court sentenced each of them to life imprisonment for that murder and this Court found no error in the trial. State v. Sidden, 315 N.C. 539, 340 S.E.2d 340 (1986). The fate of the two boys remained unknown, however, until defendant, serving his life sentence for the murder of Garry Sidden, Sr., confessed to the facts set out above on 30 August 1991. In September 1991, he led the police to the bodies of the two boys. Thereafter, defendant was charged with their murders and kidnappings, which are the subject of this appeal.

https://law.justia.com/cases/north-carolina/supreme-court/1994/341a92-0.html

Charles Bond North Carolina Death Row

Charles Bond was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for ordering the murder of Wayne Thomas. According to court documents Charles Bond ordered 16-year-old Theola Saunders to murder Wayne Thomas. The teen killer would abduct Wayne Thomas and his sister and would fatally shoot Wayne Thomas the next day. Charles Bond who was in a hospital when the murder took place would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

North Carolina Death Row Inmate List

Charles Bond 2021 Information

Offender Number:	0036850
Inmate Status:	ACTIVE
Probation/Parole/Post Release Status:	INACTIVE
Gender:	MALE
Race:	BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
Ethnic Group:	AFRICAN
Birth Date:	05/09/1949
Age:	71
Current Location:	CENTRAL PRISON

Charles Bond More News

In what could be a precedent-setting decision, Charles P. Bond was sentenced Thursday to die for the shooting death of 25-year-old Wayne Thomas of Portsmouth last year, even though Bond wasn’t present at the killing.

Hours before the murder, Bond, 46, had ordered an alleged accomplice to kill Thomas. When the shots were fired, Bond was sitting in a hospital room a mile away.

Bond, of North Carolina, showed no emotion when the jury of seven men and five women stood one by one to affirm their unanimous decision. The deliberations took about an hour and 15 minutes, and ended a four-week trial in which Bond was convicted of murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.

Bertie County Superior Court Judge Cy A. Grant Sr. accepted the jury’s recommendation in the March 25, 1994, murder.

The execution is scheduled for June 2. Bond, who can choose execution by lethal injection or in the gas chamber, is automatically allowed to appeal his sentence under North Carolina law.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” the judge told a stoic Bond as he stood with his hands cuffed behind him.

“At least now, there’s some resolution for the Thomas family,” said Phyllis Cherry, who helped prosecute the case.

Bond’s defense lawyers said they are confident the sentence will be overturned on appeal because Bond was not present and had no idea the shooting occurred.

“From our research, there’s never been a reported case in which the facts were exactly like this case,” defense attorney A. Jackson Warmack Jr. said after the sentencing. “The appellate courts are going to look at it with a fine-toothed comb.”

Bond’s other defense lawyer, Samuel B. Dixon, added: “I’m sure we’ll be back doing this again.”

North Carolina law allows the death penalty in certain cases where the defendant was not at the crime scene. In Virginia, Bond could not have received the death penalty because he did not fire the fatal shots.

It was one year ago today that Bond and the alleged trigger man, 16-year-old Theola Saunders, allegedly abducted Wayne Thomas and his sister, Leslie Dawn Thomas, 21, from their Portsmouth home after a foiled robbery attempt at a nearby Pizza Hut.

Armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol, Bond and Saunders forced Wayne Thomas and his sister, who was four months pregnant, to join them in an eight-hour crime spree that led them though southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

The day after the abduction, Saunders allegedly shot Wayne Thomas three times in the back behind a Windsor convenience store. Leslie Thomas testified that her brother tried to overpower Saunders to allow her to escape and get help at the store.

Bond, who was at the county hospital seeking treatment for an accidental gunshot wound to his foot, had told his alleged accomplice two hours before the shooting to “waste them” if they tried to escape, Leslie Thomas told the jurors during trial testimony.

“Theola Saunders is not the child they made him out to be,” Dixon said. “He was a grown man acting on his own.”

Thursday, Leslie Thomas sobbed and clutched a Polaroid snapshot of her brother as she stood outside the courtroom after the sentencing. She was surrounded by her mother, father and other supporters. “I’m very happy and I think Wayne would be real happy,” she said. “He was with us today.”

“I just want (Bond) to suffer for what he’s done to me and my family,” she said. “I’m just glad the judicial system works.”

Jurors, some of whom wiped tears from their eyes during Leslie Thomas’s emotional testimony, waited outside the courtroom as family members filed out after the sentencing.

“It’s going to be all right,” said juror Larry Collins as he hugged a sobbing Leslie and shook hands with her father and uncle.

“(Bond) had done so much,” said Collins, a 41-year-old sawmill worker. “It just felt like he didn’t need to be back on the street no more.”

“It was real hard,” said fellow juror Bobby Bond, 39, who is no relation to the defendant. “But justice had to be done.”

Jury foreman Gregory Sharpe said there was little debate among the panel members and discussions were calm.

“Everybody felt good with the decisions they had made,” said Sharpe, 33, who works for the North Carolina Department of Transportation. “We put a lot of emphasis on you making your own choice.”

During the trial, Bond did not take the stand, and his attorneys offered no defense.

“That was really a decision that he made, not to take the stand,” Dixon said.

After Bond’s conviction March 15, defense lawyers urged jurors to spare their client’s life and to sentence him to life on the murder charge and the maximum 120 years on the armed robbery and kidnapping charges.

During the sentencing hearing, defense lawyers offered testimony from numerous witnesses, including two of Bond’s elementary school teachers and his sister. They testified that Bond grew up in extreme poverty, was sexually abused as a child and was the product of a dysfunctional family.

Saunders is scheduled for trial next month.

District Attorney David Beard said prosecutors do not intend to offer a plea bargain in the case.

Saunders faces a maximum sentence of life plus 120 years in prison. He cannot receive the death penalty because he is a juvenile. ILLUSTRATION: File color photo, by Beth Bergman, Staff

The execution of Charles Bond, 46, is scheduled for June 2. Under

North Carolina law, he is allowed to appeal the sentence.

Thomas Larry North Carolina Death Row

Thomas Larry North Carolina Death Row

Thomas Larry was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of an off duty police officer Robert Buitrago. According to court documents Thomas Larry would rob a store and in the process of an armed robbery would shoot and kill Robert Buitrago. Thomas Larry would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

North Carolina Death Row Inmate List

Thomas Larry 2021 Information

Offender Number:	0233526
Inmate Status:	ACTIVE
Probation/Parole/Post Release Status:	INACTIVE
Gender:	MALE
Race:	BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
Ethnic Group:	UNKNOWN
Birth Date:	03/13/1956
Age:	65
Current Location:	CENTRAL PRISON

Thomas Larry More News

The evidence at trial tended to show that on 15 January 1994, at approximately 9:30 p.m., defendant robbed a Food Lion grocery store in Winston-Salem. Cynthia Pennell, a Food Lion employee who had access to the safe, saw defendant standing in the front part of the store and asked if she could help him. He said that she could open the safe for him and that if she did not, she was a dead woman. He pointed a small black revolver at her. Pennell went to the safe and opened it. Defendant took at least $1,700 from the safe and put it in a box. He put the box under his arm and went outside. Throughout the robbery, he pointed the gun at others in the store, telling them not to move.

The murder victim, Robert Buitrago, an off-duty police officer, was a customer waiting in line at a register when the robbery occurred. One witness, Chastity Adams, saw defendant point the gun at Buitrago and say, “If you move, you’re dead.” The cashier for Buitrago’s line had her back to defendant but heard him say, “Don’t move or I’ll kill you.” Defendant ran from the store, and Buitrago chased him. When Buitrago caught up with defendant outside the store, near the front doors, a struggle ensued, and defendant fatally shot Buitrago with the handgun. Some witnesses said there was one shot, and some said there were two or more shots. Buitrago died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. Defendant fled on foot.

After witnesses identified defendant as the perpetrator, police obtained arrest warrants and subsequently found defendant hiding in a residence in Winston-Salem. Patrick Huey of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department testified that he overheard defendant making a statement during a phone conversation from the Forsyth County jail, after his arrest. Huey testified that defendant told the person on the other end that “when they were brought in that they would be kept separate inside the jail and for them not to tell them anything, that he wasn’t going to, and that they would not find the weapon; that he was the only one [who] knew where it was.”

At the sentencing proceeding, the State presented evidence that defendant previously had been convicted once for common law robbery and three times for armed robbery. The jury found as four separate aggravating circumstances that defendant previously had been convicted of a violent felony. The jury also found as an aggravating circumstance that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of a robbery. The jury found the statutory mitigating circumstances that the murder was committed while defendant was mentally or emotionally disturbed and that defendant’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired. The jury also found five nonstatutory mitigating circumstances as well as the catchall mitigating circumstance. However, the jury recommended a sentence of death. The court sentenced defendant to death for the first-degree murder conviction and to a consecutive term of forty years’ imprisonment for the armed robbery conviction. Defendant appealed to this Court and brings forth the following assignments of error for our review.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nc-supreme-court/1206543.html

Darrell Woods North Carolina Death Row

Darrell Woods was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the sexual assault and murder of Trae Devon Gibson. According to court documents Darrell Woods would break into the home of the victim Trae Devon Gibson where he would sexually assault and murder the victim. Darrell Woods would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

North Carolina Death Row Inmate List

Darrell Woods 2021 Information

Offender Number:	0497100
Inmate Status:	ACTIVE
Gender:	MALE
Race:	BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
Ethnic Group:	AFRICAN
Birth Date:	10/05/1968
Age:	52
Current Location:	CENTRAL PRISON

Darrell Woods More News

The State’s evidence tended to show inter alia that on 2 April 1994, Steven Carter, boyfriend of the victim and father of their child, left their apartment on Brownsboro Road at about 7:45 a.m. to go to work. Carter testified that he met defendant outside the apartment in the parking lot. Defendant asked Carter if he could borrow a screwdriver to remove a radio from a car, and Carter brought defendant one from the apartment. In about five minutes, defendant returned the screwdriver, explaining that it was the wrong type. Carter then drove to work.

Casey Greene, a friend of defendant’s, testified that at around 8:00 a.m. on 2 April 1994, he saw defendant borrow a screwdriver to get the radio out of a white car outside the apartments on Brownsboro Road. Mr. Greene left the area at around 9:00 a.m., and when he returned, at around noon, he saw defendant again in front of the apartments. They spoke for about five minutes, and Greene left to go to his girlfriend’s house across the street. He did not see defendant again.

Shawn Ratliff, a neighbor of Carter and Gibson’s, who had gone to high school with defendant, testified that he was leaving his apartment at around 9:00 a.m. and saw defendant. Ratliff told defendant he was going to run an errand and would be right back. When Ratliff returned at about 10:00 a.m., he saw defendant with Greene, standing in front of the stairwell near Carter and Gibson’s apartment. Trae Gibson was standing in her doorway talking to a man in a black car whom Ratliff did not know. Defendant told Ratliff that he was going to try to make some money and showed Ratliff two pieces of crack cocaine. Ratliff asked defendant if he needed money, and defendant told him no. Ratliff left and did not see defendant again.

Randy Lee Webster, Gibson’s cousin, testified that he saw her between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. in her burgundy Toyota MR-2, with her baby Yo Yo, on her way to the laundromat. At about 11:00 a.m., he saw her again at home. She stood in the doorway of her apartment talking to Webster, who was in his black Talon automobile. While Webster was there, defendant approached the car and said he was trying to raise money for a hotel room. Webster saw no conversation take place between defendant and Gibson. Webster told Gibson he would see her later and left. He never saw Gibson again.

At 3:00 p.m., Carter arrived at home and noticed that Gibson’s Toyota was not in the parking lot. He spoke with a neighbor for about thirty minutes before walking into the apartment. The apartment was unlocked, which was unusual. When Carter entered, he saw that it had been ransacked. Carter went to the bedroom and found Gibson’s naked body lying on the floor. She was bound and gagged and had been cut and stabbed. Carter ran out of the apartment screaming for his neighbor, Shawn Ratliff, to call 911. Tammy May, who was dating Carter’s brother and who had spent a lot of time with Carter, Gibson, and their daughter Yo Yo, was present and saw Steve Carter come running out of his apartment. May’s immediate concern was the baby, and she ran into the apartment, where she saw Gibson’s body. The baby was lying on the bed, a few feet away from her mother’s body. She was not moving. May lifted Yo Yo’s head and saw that her eyes were swollen and red as though she had cried herself to sleep. May had kept Yo Yo on the weekends before and had never seen her eyes look like that. As Carter was too hysterical to take care of the baby, May held her until Gibson’s parents arrived.

Officer Chris Bullard of the Winston-Salem Police Department was the first officer to arrive at the crime scene. He testified that there was no sign of forced entry into the apartment. Dr. Donald Jason, who performed the autopsy on Gibson’s body, testified that there were twenty stab wounds to the neck; eight incise wounds to the neck; five stab wounds to the midchest; and burns on the lower back, right buttock, and left upper thigh. The burns were consistent with having been inflicted by a curling iron. The incise wounds appeared to have been made in order to cut the skin off the neck, consistent with torture. Trae Gibson bled to death; the stabbings would have caused her great pain and suffering. Dr. Jason testified that death would have occurred in fifteen to thirty minutes.

Officer Mark Triplett of the Hickory Police Department got a call regarding a car matching the description of Gibson’s car. Triplett and two other officers chased and stopped the car and found a man named J.D. Williams in the car by himself. Williams told Officer Triplett the whereabouts of the person who gave him the car. He did not know the person’s name, but identified defendant from a photographic array. When defendant was arrested at 5:00 a.m. on 3 April 1994, he was wearing orange pants stained with blood that was later found to match the victim’s blood.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nc-supreme-court/1235767.html

Timothy Richardson North Carolina Death Row

Timothy Richardson was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of Tracy Marie Rich. According to court documents Timothy Richardson would rob a convenience store and in the process murder Tracy Marie Rich. Timothy Richardson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

North Carolina Death Row Inmate List

Timothy Richardson 2021 Information

Offender Number:	0492102
Inmate Status:	ACTIVE
Gender:	MALE
Race:	BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
Ethnic Group:	AFRICAN
Birth Date:	02/13/1964
Age:	57
Current Location:	CENTRAL PRISON

Timothy Richardson More News

On 6 October 1993 twenty-three-year-old Tracy Marie Rich (victim) went to work at the L & L Food Store in Castalia, North Carolina. Linda Rich, the victim’s mother, spoke with her daughter at approximately 10:00 p.m. According to the computer records of the alarm system installed at the store, the victim closed the store at 11:41 p.m. Ordinarily, the victim would arrive home from work around 11:40 or 11:50 p.m. When her daughter did not return home at her usual time, Linda Rich became worried and drove to the store. Ms. Rich did not find her daughter at the store and did not see anything unusual at the scene; Ms. Rich returned home.

The store’s front-door motion detector and alarm “tripped” at 1:50 a.m. on 7 October. Lieutenant Leonard Brantley of the Nash County Sheriff’s Department was called to the store. Brantley checked the rear of the store and found it to be secure. Another officer informed Brantley that the front door was also secure. Brantley noticed a red car parked behind the store. The car was unoccupied, and no heat was coming from the hood. Brantley subsequently learned that the car was registered to Terry Richardson, defendant’s wife. Neither Brantley nor other officers at the store observed anything out of order, and they left the scene. The front-door alarm did not indicate that the front door was opened again until the next morning when the store was opened for business.

Rose Hankerson, the assistant store manager, arrived at the store on 7 October at approximately 5:55 a.m. and unlocked the store, which was equipped with a two-way lock. When Hankerson reached to put her key in to relock the door from the inside, she noticed that there was a key already in the door. Hankerson walked to the back of the store to turn off the alarm system and saw what she recognized as the victim’s key ring lying on the floor. When Hankerson turned the store lights on, she noticed that part of the store’s ceiling had been knocked out and was lying on the floor. At this time Hankerson called the Sheriff’s Department.

Lieutenant Brantley returned to the store shortly after 6:00 a.m. Pieces of plasterboard from the ceiling were on the floor inside the store. There were also indications that someone had attempted to move the store safe. A ventilator opening on the rear of the building had also been removed. Brantley observed that the red car was gone.

The victim’s body was found wedged under her car on a dirt road not far from the store. The victim’s tennis shoe and her eyeglasses were found in the road near the car. The eyeglasses appeared to have been run over by a vehicle.

Because defendant’s wife’s car had been seen at the store the previous night, defendant became a suspect in the murder investigation. Officers went to defendant’s home and located defendant hiding in the attic. Defendant was arrested and gave several statements to law enforcement officers.

In defendant’s first statement he denied any knowledge of the murder. Defendant told officers that he went to work on the morning of the sixth and then went home for the rest of the night. Defendant stated that he hid from the officers because he thought they were after him for writing a bad check.

When confronted with inconsistencies in his original statement, defendant gave a second statement in which he implicated Kevin Hedgepeth. Defendant stated that he gave Hedgepeth a ride to the store so he could get some money. According to defendant, Hedgepeth grabbed the victim when she came out of the store, put her in the passenger side of her car, and motioned for defendant to follow in his car. Defendant followed Hedgepeth and the victim to a dirt road. Defendant stated that he saw the victim run by his car and that he witnessed Hedgepeth run over the victim. Defendant told officers that the victim attempted to crawl out of the road and that Hedgepeth backed up and ran over her again.

Defendant stated that Hedgepeth came over to his car and got in the passenger side. Hedgepeth told defendant that he had some money and wanted “to go to get a rock” (crack cocaine). Defendant stated that after purchasing “a rock,” Hedgepeth told him that he wanted to go back to the store because he had the keys.

Defendant stated that he and Hedgepeth returned to the store, and Hedgepeth went inside while defendant parked the car. Defendant then also went into the store. When officers arrived at the store in response to the alarm, Hedgepeth hid inside the store and defendant left through the roof. After the officers left the area, Hedgepeth also left the store through the roof. Defendant stated that he gave Hedgepeth a ride home and that Hedgepeth gave him thirty dollars. Defendant stated that he knew Hedgepeth did not have any money before the victim was murdered.

After defendant gave his second statement, the police located Kevin Hedgepeth. Hedgepeth told officers that on 6 October, he got home around 11:00 p.m. Hedgepeth stated that defendant arrived at his house at approximately 2:00 a.m. and asked for a ride to Castalia. Defendant told Hedgepeth he was out of gas and needed a ride to his car. Hedgepeth and his uncle dropped defendant off near the store but did not see defendant’s car. The police cleared and released Hedgepeth.

In a third statement defendant told officers that he and Hedgepeth were dropped off together by Hedgepeth’s uncle at the store. Defendant maintained that Hedgepeth was also present during the murder.

At trial State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Joyce Petzka, an expert in comparing footprint and tire-track impressions, opined that a shoe impression left on a piece of plasterboard collected from the store was made by defendant’s right shoe. Special Agent Jonathon Macy, an expert in the field of forensic fiber identification, testified that fibers taken from the T-shirt defendant was wearing when he was arrested were consistent with fibers found on the victim’s shirt. Agent Macy also testified that polyester fibers taken from the plasterboard at the roof entry of the store were consistent with fibers that made up the yarn of defendant’s T-shirt.

Dr. Robert E. Zipf testified that the victim died as a result of multiple blunt-force injuries and compression injuries to her body, head, and chest as a result of being hit by and run over with a vehicle.

Defendant presented evidence during the sentencing proceeding that he had been married to Terry Richardson for ten years and had a two-year-old daughter. Mrs. Richardson testified that defendant had a good relationship with his daughter. Mrs. Richardson also testified that defendant had a problem with drugs.

Defendant presented the testimony of two mental health experts. Dr. Billy Royal testified that based upon his evaluation and the results of defendant’s testing, defendant suffered from crack-cocaine abuse and dependency, cocaine intoxication which was in remission, marijuana dependency which was in remission, alcohol abuse and alcohol intoxication in remission, borderline mental retardation, mild neurocognitive disorder, and personality disorder. Dr. Royal testified that he felt defendant’s retardation was caused by acute lead intoxication at the age of three. Dr. Royal also testified that the lead accounted for defendant’s neurocognitive disorder. Dr. Royal testified that in his opinion defendant’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct was impaired at the time of the crime and that on the date of the murder defendant suffered from an emotional illness that prevented him from appreciating the criminality of the present charge.

Dr. John Gorman testified that defendant had significant difficulty with anything based upon language functioning and that his “overall functioning would be comparable to that of an average eleven-and-a-half [or] twelve-year-old.” Dr. Gorman testified that defendant has “fairly significant intellectual limitations” which are aggravated by drug use, making “his judgment and other functionings even less effective than they normally are.” Dr. Gorman also opined that defendant “has significant limitations as far as being able to anticipate consequences when he’s straight or when he’s in regular state of mind. And when he has been ingesting various drugs, I’m sure he has even less capacity to anticipate the consequences of his acts.”

The prosecution and defense stipulated that defendant’s criminal record consisted of a misdemeanor worthless-check charge in 1989, a misdemeanor larceny in 1991, and several traffic violations.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nc-supreme-court/1140639.html