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Candace Walton Teen Killer Murders Mother And Brother

Candace Walton was a sixteen year old teen killer from Georgia who would set her family home on fire killing her mother and brother. According to court documents Candace Walton and her boyfriend Kaleo Pangelinan would set the house on fire before stealing a number of items including her mother’s car. The pair would be arrested days later, initially police believed that Candace Walton had died in the fire along with her mom and brother. The pair would be arrested and Candace Walton would plead guilty to double murder and robbery and would be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Kaleo Pangelinan is due to go on trial later in 2022

Candace Walton 2023 Information

MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: ARRENDALE STATE PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE

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It’s been almost two years since a Monroe County mother and son died in a house fire.

At a Wednesday morning hearing, the suspect – now 18-year-old Candace Walton – pleaded guilty to all counts in the case. That included charges of malice murder and felony murder for each victim, theft by taking, and first-degree arson.

Walton was then sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. The other suspect in the case, Walton’s boyfriend, is expected to be tried later this year.

Emergency units responded to a house fire at Walton’s home on Old Zebulon Road in the early morning hours of Feb. 27, 2020.

By the time crews got to the fire, the home was fully engulfed and two bodies were found inside shortly after.

One of the victims was identified as Walton’s 21-year-old brother with special needs, Gerald Walton, and the other was her mother, Tasha Vandiver.

Candace was found later that afternoon in McCracken County, Kentucky, when US Marshals pulled her over in her mother’s stolen Chevy Malibu. She was initially believed to be the female victim in the fire until she was arrested.

One of Gerald’s former teachers at Mary Persons said he was kind to everyone he met.

“He just loved life. He would never say anything negative…just to be around him, he was just happy all the time, and I think that is probably what we need to take away from that. Love one another no matter what,” Ellen Criswell told 13WMAZ.

Days later, Candace’s boyfriend in Oregon was named a person of interest (they met when he briefly lived in Monroe County). District Attorney Jonathan Adams said it appeared she was on her way to him when she was arrested.

“There was a tax rebate that was cashed by the mom that was stolen, we believe by Candace, and she stole mom’s car, the cash rebate, and was driving to Oregon to visit the boyfriend essentially to start over a new life,” said Adams.

At the time, Adams said even if Walton was convicted, then she wouldn’t be eligible for the death penalty because of her age.

Her boyfriend, Kaleo Pangelinan, was arrested in mid-May 2020 in Roseburg, Oregon.

In a 2021 #13Investigates story, Adams told 13WMAZ that he believed Vandiver was trying to save Candace when she died in the fire.

“The sad story is we believe the mother was trying to save Candace. She was going into her bedroom to try to alert her about the fire. We know the brother was at the door of his bedroom, trying to get out,” Adams said.

Their next-door neighbor, Bassema Dawoud, said Vandiver was protective of her kids.

“All she wanted was the best for her children with what little she had,” said Dawoud.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/monroe-county-teen-pleads-guilty-to-killing-her-mother-brother/93-1e8ce6e2-63a1-47d4-9473-58b0c5ffbe92

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Candace Walton Now

Candace Walton is currently incarcerated at the Arrendale State Prison

Candace Walton Release Date

Candace Walton is serving a life sentence

Marvin Leedale Cronan Teen Killer Sentenced To Life

Marvin Leedale Cronan was a sixteen year old teen killer from Georgia who would shoot and kill a Grandmother during a robbery. According to court documents Marvin Leedale Cronan and three other teens planned on robbing the victim’s Grandson however when they arrived at the victim’s home it would be the elderly woman who was shot and killer. Marvin Leedale Cronan would be arrested and later plead guilty to murder and robbery charges. Marvin would be sentenced to life in prison plus five years

Marvin Leedale Cronan 2023 Information

MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: FLOYD COUNTY JAIL
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE

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A teen who was 16 when he shot and killed a 57-year-old grandmother in Shannon was sentenced to life plus five years in prison on Monday.

Marvin Leedale Cronan, 17, pleaded guilty to a number of charges, including murder and conspiracy to commit robbery, in the August 2020 shooting death of Laura Regina Ross.

Cronan declined to speak prior to sentencing, only commenting on his education and that he understood the court proceedings.

“There’s nothing I can say at this moment to unburden the hurt that Ms. Ross’s family feels,” Floyd County Superior Court Judge Bryan Johnson said. “This was a completely senseless act that seems to have been a group of young people playing with things that have very, very real consequences.”

Of the four co-defendants, three were juveniles at the time of the crime. Only Tyree Kozel Daniels was technically an adult, at 17 years old.

Thomas Lane Dean Jr. and Selena Jenae Barnes pleaded guilty to charges related to the crime in October 2021. Neither Dean nor Barnes had been sentenced as of Monday. The trial for Daniels, the sole remaining co-defendant, is tentatively scheduled for March 9, according to court records.

The indictment in the case states that Barnes, Cronan and Dean conspired to rob the victim’s grandson Owen Dotson. Dotson had earlier stolen shoes from Dean and then later bragged on social media that he had come into some money, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Salmon said in a court hearing.

They decided to rob Dotson and split that money. Barnes brought Daniels into the group because he had a car and none of the others did, she testified earlier. Originally, the idea was to steal from or jump Dotson, but prosecutors said Daniels brought a .380 Smith & Wesson from his father’s storage box in Polk County and the plan got more serious.

Both Barnes and Dean gave testimony during their plea hearings. Cronan answered a few questions, acknowledging that Daniels had brought the gun but said that he was the only person on the porch when he fired the gun into the home.

When they arrived at Ross’s home at 126 Baker St., Dean, Cronan and Daniels got out of the car. Daniels handed Cronan the gun and told him “use it to scare them into not doing anything back,” Dean said during his plea in Oct. 2021.

They walked to the porch while Dean remained behind as a lookout.

“(Cronan) listened at the door and kicked the door,” Dean testified, “then fired into the house.” Cronan and Daniels ran back to the car but had to retrieve one of Cronan’s white Crocs that had fallen off.

“(Cronan) said she had seen his face, he had no choice,” Dean testified.

Over the next few days, Dean, Barnes and Cronan came up with a false alibi, and also talked about ways to pin the crime on Daniels. Several of the co-defendants originally told police the concocted story blaming Daniels, Salmon said in court.

They were all arrested several days later and have been held at the Floyd County Jail or regional youth detention centers since.

https://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/rome/news/local/teen-pleads-guilty-sentenced-to-life-plus-5-in-shooting-death-of-57-year-old/article_946d59bc-7246-11ec-b57e-eb759bf6cb0c.html

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Marvin Leedale Cronan is currently incarcerated at the Floyd County Jail

Marvin Leedale Cronan Release Date

Marvin Leedale Cronan is serving a life sentence plus 5 years

Anthony Terrell Teen Killer Murders 3

Anthony Terrell was a seventeen year old teen killer from Georgia who an argument with his mother would turn into a brutal triple murder. According to court documents Anthony Terrell would get into an argument with his mother that turned violent with the teen killer shooting her with her own service weapon (Mom was a Sheriff Deputy) which freaked out his younger sisters so Terrell would shoot and kill the eleven year old and four year old girl. Anthony Terrell would ultimately be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison

Anthony Terrell 2023 Information

MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: SMITH STATE PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE

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The rap star Juvenile is “shocked and devastated” by the shooting death of his young daughter, the girl’s mother and another child, his manager said Saturday.

The 32-year-old rapper is still trying to cope with the death of 4-year-old Jelani; her mother, 39-year-old Joy Deleston; and the woman’s daughter Micaiah, 11, whose bodies were found Thursday night in their home, said manager Aubrey Francis.

“It really shocked him and devastated him to the point where I’ve never seen him before,” Francis said. “Right now he is relaxing and trying to grasp everything of what has happened.”

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Anthony Tyrone Terrell Jr. is being held in the DeKalb County jail, charged in the deaths of his mother — a Gwinnett County sheriff’s deputy — and siblings at the home near Lawrenceville, outside Atlanta. He was arrested Friday.

Deleston brought a paternity lawsuit in 2004, claiming that Juvenile, whose real name is Terius Gray, was Jelani’s father, Gwinnett County court records show. Both parties later agreed Juvenile was the father.

Juvenile, who is in New Orleans, had been making regular child support payments, Francis said.

In 1998, Juvenile released his third album, “400 Degreez,” which sold 4 million copies. At one time he was part of the four-man group The Hotboyz, along with Lil Wayne, Young Turk and B.G.

Attorney Randy Kessler, who represented Juvenile in the paternity suit, said Saturday he had not talked with the rapper about the killings.

“Any time you have a situation like that, it’s shocking,” Kessler said.

Terrell was taken to jail in neighboring DeKalb County to avoid any potential conflict because Deleston worked for Gwinnett County, said Lawrenceville police spokeswoman Illana Spellman. She could not confirm Friday whether Deleston’s service weapon was used.

Because of his age, prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty against Anthony Terrell. A preliminary hearing will be set next week in Gwinnett County Superior Court, prosecutor Danny Porter said.

Defense attorney Lyle Porter did not return calls Friday and Saturday.

Rapper ‘Shocked’ by Daughter’s Killing

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It was the kind of argument that could crop up any time between a mother and a teenage son

Anthony Tyrone Terrell, then 17, broke the rules by inviting a girl over to his Lawrenceville house without supervision on Feb. 28, 2008. But instead of resulting in a shouting match or slamming door, it ended with the slaying of his mother, Joy Deleston, who was a Gwinnett County sheriff’s deputy, and her two young daughters.

Terrell pleaded guilty to murder charges Friday and was sentenced to back-to-back life terms. He apologized and said he wished he could trade his life for the lives of the departed. But he was hard-pressed to explain how an argument so trivial could prompt a reaction so brutal.

“I never planned what happened that day,” Terrell said, his voice even as he read a prepared statement before Superior Court Judge Debra Turner. “My mom and I got into a disagreement and things just spiraled out of control.”

Prosecutors said after the pair argued Terrell retrieved his mother’s service handgun and shot her twice.

Terrell’s half-sister Micaiah was an 11-year-old whom relatives described as happiest when she was reading a book. She saw her mom get shot and started screaming. Terrell turned and fired several times, killing her. Then he went upstairs to find 4-year-old Jelani, a talkative, inquisitive child who Terrell affectionately called his “homie,” relatives said. He kissed her and then shot her twice in the chest.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said Terrell told investigators he killed her because he didn’t want her to grow up without a mother.

Terrell said he considered committing suicide next.

“That night my plan was to take my own life, but in the end I was unable to shoot myself,” Terrell said.

The court heard testimony from Dominic Ross, the father of Micaiah, and from Mildred Richardson, Deleston’s mother. Both said they forgave Terrell and that they loved him.

The rapper Juvenile, whose real name is Terius Gray, fathered Jelani. He did not attend the hearing. Juvenile did not respond to attempts to contact him by mail at three different addresses or through his management company, Porter said.

Richardson said she learned her daughter had been shot when a law enforcement officer came to her home near Charleston, S.C.

“I thought maybe a robbery had gone on, and Joy being the person she is, that she stepped in to help somebody,” Richardson said. “I thought ‘Oh boy, what has she gotten herself into?'”

It wasn’t until she arrived in Georgia that she learned her granddaughters were also dead, and that her grandson was the culprit.

Richardson begged the judge to give Terrell one life sentence, instead of two, because he would be eligible for parole sooner.

“In my heart, I know he didn’t mean to do this,” she said.

Richardson became overwrought after the hearing, prompting a deputy to bring in a medical kit and close the courtroom for about 15 minutes while relatives tended to her.

Defense attorney Lyle Porter, who is not related to the district attorney, acknowledged the frustration of many in the community who struggled to understand why the murders occurred. He said he believes Terrell’s emotions went out of control in an instant and his actions after shooting his mother stemmed from a feeling of hopelessness.

“It’s a tragedy all the way around and I think it’s beyond comprehension,” he said. “I don’t think anybody will leave this courtroom with any better understanding.”

Sheriff Butch Conway issued a statement saying justice had been served, “even though it can never bring back Joy and her two beautiful little girls.”

“I believe two life sentences will give him plenty of time to think about what he did to his family and to the grieving family members and friends who were left to deal with his actions,” Conway said.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/gwinnett-teen-gets-life-sentences-for-shooting-mother-two-sisters/oeeK6uDOQ7PjKaJt6XjSgJ/

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Anthony Terrell is currently incarcerated at Hays State Prison

Anthony Terrell Release Date

Anthony Terrell is serving a life sentence

Jerome Bowden Georgia Execution

Jerome Bowden was executed by the State of Georgia for a double murder. According to court documents Jerome Bowden would break into a home and stab to death a mother and her daughter. The elderly woman who was paralyzed and bedridden and her daughter would be found days later. Jerome Bowen would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jerome Bowden would be executed by lethal injection on June 25, 1986

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Strapped into Georgia’s electric chair, moments from meeting his fate, Jerome Bowden uttered his last words.

I would like to thank the people of this institution for taking such care of me as they did,” said Bowden, 34, convicted of a gruesome murder in Columbus. “I hope by my execution being carried out, it will bring some light to this thing that is wrong.”

Then a prison official flipped a switch, sending 2,000 volts of electricity through Bowden’s body. Two minutes later, a physician pronounced him dead.

That was June 24, 1986. Thirty years later, Georgia officials insist that details of Bowden’s execution remain, by law, “confidential state secrets.”

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles recently turned down a request from two documentary filmmakers to release documents concerning Bowden’s long-ago appeal for clemency. The filmmakers are especially interested in a board-ordered IQ test that apparently found Bowden to be, in the language of the day, mentally retarded.

“They don’t care about historical accuracy,” said Paula Caplan, a Harvard University professor who has spent a dozen years working with the director Mark Harris on “American Justice: The Jerome Bowden Story.” Their film, still unfinished, credits Bowden’s execution with swaying public opinion – and the U.S. Supreme Court – against executing people with intellectual disabilities. (Warning: the film contains graphic crime-scene photographs.)

Two years after putting Bowden to death, Georgia became the first state to bar such executions. But the state law spares only condemned killers who are judged “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the highest standard of proof in the U.S. legal system. The Supreme Court prohibited the practice in 2002, but deferred to states’ judgment on whether inmates are disabled.

The film is “a history about a major turning point in U.S. law that started in Georgia,” Caplan said in an interview. “But it’s still happening, and it’s still happening the way it happened to Jerome Bowden.”

In 2015, for instance, Georgia executed Warren Lee Hill, whose IQ was 70, for beating his prison cellmate to death. An IQ of 70 or below is generally considered to indicate a disability.

The records the filmmakers sought on Bowden’s execution are confidential under state law, said Steve Hayes, a Parole Board spokesman. The law, however, also gives the board the discretion to make the documents public.

“In determining whether to declassify the records, the board determines whether declassifying the materials furthers public policy, assists law enforcement or aids in the protection of the public,” Hayes said. “The board determined their request did not meet any of the criteria.”

More than perhaps any other state agency, the parole board operates with virtually no public scrutiny. It considers clemency requests and most other matters in private and, in most cases, offers no explanation for its decision.

This decision leaves a hole in the film, which begins in 1976 in Columbus.

Police were called to check on the well-being of Kathryn Stryker, 55, who lived with her 76-year-old mother, Wessie Bell Jenkins. In the kitchen, an officer found Stryker’s body, disfigured from being beaten and stabbed. Jenkins lay in bed, badly wounded but still alive four days after the assault. She died of a heart attack in a hospital about a month later.

Detectives arrested a 16-year-old neighbor, James Lee Graves. He confessed to robbing the women but said his friend Jerome Bowden, then 24, killed Stryker and assaulted Jenkins.

Jerome Bowden had served time in prison on a burglary conviction, but relatives and friends told the filmmakers he was not violent.

“Jerome wasn’t a bad child,” his sister Josie Lee Henderson said in the film. “He was off some.”

Another sister, Shirley Thomas, said Bowden was “retarded” – a “slow learner” who attended “a special class for special people.” He could not read, Thomas said, and could not have comprehended the signed confession that detectives later presented at his trial.

Both sisters are now dead.

When Jerome Bowden went on trial, a judge denied a request from his court-appointed lawyer – trying his first criminal case – to pay for psychological testing. The judge did not allow the lawyer to mention Bowden’s intellectual disability in front of the jury.

Testifying in his own defense, Bowden denied killing Stryker. He said he confessed only because a detective told him it would keep him “from going to the electric chair.”

In a separate trial, Graves was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Now 56, he was released on parole in 2012.

Jerome Bowden spent nearly a decade on Death Row before officials set an execution date. He appealed for clemency from the parole board, mentioning that at age 14, his IQ was recorded as 59 – 41 points below average intelligence.

The board granted a temporary stay of execution and ordered a new IQ test. Ten days later, a psychologist told the board that Bowden scored 71 on a verbal section of the test and 62 on the non-verbal portion. His combined score was 65 – still in the disabled range.

But the board lifted the stay, describing Bowden as “mildly retarded.”

“We learned a great deal of what ‘mildly retarded’ means,” a parole board member was quoted as saying in news reports. “A mildly retarded person is not walking around in a cloud. … If he doesn’t understand the relationship between pain and punishment now, he did then.”

Jerome Bowden was put to death the following morning.

Caplan, who also is a psychologist, wants to see the test papers from 1986 to assess whether the IQ examination was properly administered and interpreted.

“It may be it was administered by the book,” she said. “But we do not know that. This man was executed because of it.”

https://www.ajc.com/blog/investigations/years-later-details-disabled-man-execution-still-state-secrets/GNtfMdTqyZrTpscahSaNZK/

Carmen Collins Teen Killer Murders Sister

Carmen Collins was a seventeen teen killer from Georgia who would fatally shoot her younger sister. According to court documents Carmen Collins was packing up her stuff planning to runaway from home when her younger sister attempted to stop her. Carmen Collins would grab her fathers gun and chased her sister around the home shooting her several times. Carmen Collins would then set fire to the home in order to cover up the murder. Carmen Collins would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison

Carmen Collins 2023 Information

MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: ARRENDALE STATE PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE

Carmen Collins More News

A teenage girl from the small town of Kathleen, Ga., was sentenced to life in prison this weekend after she pleaded guilty to killing her 12-year-old sister and setting fire to her family’s house in hopes of covering up the crime.

Carmen Collins, now 18, initially denied she had killed her sister, but reportedly admitted her guilt to her attorney two weeks ago. She pleaded guilty to malice murder and arson for the July 2012 crimes, according to the Telegraph of Macon. Superior Court Judge Edward Lukemire sentenced her to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Prosecutors said the girls’ parents had left the house when India caught her sister packing her things to run away. India tried to stop Carmen from leaving and threatened to call their parents. Carmen then got her father’s .40-caliber handgun, chased her sister through the house and ultimately shot her six times. Five of the shots were in the back, while final shot was fired as Collins stood over her sister.

Then, according to the prosecutor, Carmen Collins retrieved two gas cans from a shed, poured the gasoline around the house and set it on fire with the intention of making it look like her sister had been killed in the blaze. She fled in a car with the family dog to Columbus, where she was arrested two days later.

“This situation is a no-win, unbearable situation for these parents,” Hartwig told the judge. “They have basically lost both of their daughters. Our thoughts and prayers go out to these parents. This is a horrible situation.”

The Telegraph reports that the girls’ mother, Angela Collins, wept through much of the hearing. Prior to the sentencing, she spoke to the judge and smiled at her daughter as she walked past the defense table. She said while Carmen had run away a couple of times she was respectful and had never been violent.

“Our girls were very close,” Collins said. “They loved each other. … We look forward to the day Carmen is back with us, and we still love her and always will. We will love her and support her through any and everything.”

Collins was also charged with felony murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, burglary and auto theft, but those charges were dropped with her guilty plea to murder and arson.

Ga. Teen Sentenced to Life in Prison For Killing Younger Sister

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Carmen Collins is currently incarcerated at the Arrendale State Prison

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Carmen Collins is serving a life sentence