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Preston Phelps Teen Killer Murders Father

Preston Phelps was a fourteen year old from Georgia who would murder his father. According to court documents Preston Phelps would attack his father with a knife and a pipe. Once his father was dead Preston Phelps would attempted to dispose of the body using a blowtorch and an axe. Preston Phelps would take a shower after the brutal murder and take a nap. This teen killer would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for thirty years.

Preston Phelps 2023 Information

MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: JENKINS CORR FACILITY
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: LIFE

Preston Phelps More News

Sixteen-year-old Preston Cato Phelps on Wednesday pleaded guilty to malice murder in return for a life prison sentence for the brutal slaying of his father at their Talahi Island home.

Phelps, who was 14 at the time of the killing in September 2012, also pleaded guilty to charges of domestic violence-aggravated assault, and tampering with evidence.

He received a 10-year probated sentence on the aggravated assault charge to be served in addition to his life prison sentence.

The negotiated plea and sentence before Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley leaves Phelps’ mother, Judith Ann Phelps, 54, scheduled to stand trial Monday on charges of tampering with evidence and trying to conceal the death.

As part of his agreement with the state, Preston Phelps cannot refuse to testify “truthfully and fully” at his mother’s trial, Chief Assistant District Attorney Greg McConnell told Walmsley.

Thomas Phelps, 64, was found slain Sept. 2, 2012, inside the garage at the family’s home at 130 Nilsson Drive on Talahi Island. Judith Phelps’ sister, Debra Turner, alerted police after she saw the victim’s body in the garage that night.

McConnell told Walmsley the victim suffered more than 100 separate injuries including stab and chop wounds and blunt force injuries, including those from a pipe hatchet or ax among “four or five different weapons.”

Other injuries were inflicted by burns, he said. Some were inflicted after Phelps died, McConnell said.

Afterward, Preston Phelps showered, washed his clothes and took a nap, McConnell said.

The plea bargain came in the face of a possible sentence of life plus 52 years in prison. Court-appointed defense attorney David Burns said after court that Phelps’ main reason for accepting the plea and sentence was to avoid the additional years in prison had he been convicted on all charges.

Phelps must serve at least 30 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole, Burns said, and then will be on lifetime parole.

At Burns’ request, Walmsley made a condition of the sentence that Phelps get credit for time served since his September 2012 arrest.

While a condition of his probated term is that he cannot refuse to testify in any related cases, Phelps could refuse to testify against his mother and face possible violation of that probation.

The defendant, wearing an orange Department of Juvenile Justice jumpsuit, told Walmsley he was entering the guilty plea voluntarily.

McConnell told the court Judith Phelps’ sister, Debra Turner, went to the Phelps residence on Sept. 2, 2012, and, after seeing the body, Preston told her, “‘I’m sorry, Aunt Debbie, I snapped,'” according to the prosecutor.

At the house, Turner was directed by Judith Phelps, who she said appeared to be drunk, to the garage where Turner found the victim’s body, McConnell said.

An hysterical Turner then called Bloomingdale police to report the slaying. Savannah-Chatham police arrived to find blood oozing from under the garage door and when no one answered their knocks at the door, broke in, McConnell said. They found a knife and pipe hidden in the yard.

Both defendants were found leaving the bedroom inside the home after police forced their way in after no one responded to knocks on the door. Police found evidence hidden in the bedroom.

Among the charges against Preston Phelps were that he assaulted his father with a knife and metal pipe and used an ax to chop the victim in the back of the head. Both defendants are charged with cutting the fingers from Thomas Phelps’ left hand to obstruct prosecution, applying a torch to his body and burying the knife in the backyard.

https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/crime/2013/11/27/preston-phelps-admits-killing-father-gets-life-sentence/13487586007/

Preston Phelps Videos

Preston Phelps Now

Preston Phelps is currently incarcerated at the Jenkins Correctional Facility

Preston Phelps Release Date

Preston Phelps is serving a life sentence and is not eligible for parole until 2041

Lakeith Smith Teen Killer Felony Murder

Lakeith Smith was just fifteen years old when he broke into a home with a friend and when police shot and killer his friend he was charged with murder. According to court documents Lakeith Smith and A’Donte Washington broke into a home. When the two were leaving the home a gunfight started between A’Donte Washington and the police officer. Washington was shot and killed during the exchange. Lakeith Smith would be arrested and charged with the murder under the felony murder law and would be convicted and sentenced to sixty five years in prison which was later reduced to fifty five years.

Lakeith Smith 2023 Information

Inmate: SMITH, LAKEITH ANTWON

AIS: 00314060

Institution: ST.CLAIR CORRECTIONAL FAC.

A petition created three days ago calling for the release of Montgomery resident Lakeith Smith, 20, who faces 55 years for crimes committed when he was 15, has topped 100,000 signatures.

The five-year-old case gained national attention in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police.

Smith’s case also involves the killing of a black male, A’Donte Washington, 16, by a police officer. That shooting was ruled justifiable. He was originally sentenced to 65 years, which was lowered to 55 years a year later because of a sentencing technicality.

“As you share posts and speak out after those that were brutally murdered by the justice system, don’t forget about the living that have had their lives taken away from them by the same system. “lakeithsmith is serving a 65 year prison sentence after a police officer killed his friend in racist #alabama @governorkayivey because of the #felonymurderrule which unfairly targets black/brown men and boys,” one Facebook post states.

Smith was arrested following his participation in the break-ins of two Millbrook homes in 2015. During the commission of those crimes, an officer responded to the second home and one of Smith’s accomplices and friend, Washington, allegedly exchanged gunfire with the officer.

Subsequently, Washington, was shot and killed by the officer. Under Alabama’s accomplice liability law, Smith and the other three men participating in the break-ins were found liable for the death of Washington.

The law states a person is legally liable for the behavior of another who commits a criminal offense if that person aids or abets the first person in committing the offense. Alabama is one of 46 states that have a similar version of this law.

The other defendants — Montgomery residents Jadarien Hardy, 22; Jhavarske Jackson, 23; and La’Anthony Washington, 22; — accepted plea agreements for the charges.

Smith took his case to trial, receiving a 30-year sentence for felony murder, 15 years for burglary and 10-year sentences for two theft charges.

“The officer shot A’donte, not Lakeith Smith,” Smith’s lawyer, Jennifer Holton, said during the trial. “Lakeith was a 15-year-old child, scared to death. He did not participate in the act that caused the death of A’donte. He never shot anybody.”

A decision by the Court of Criminal Appeals determined that one of Smith’s 10-year sentences for a theft charge could not be run consecutively with his 15-year sentence for a first-degree burglary conviction. Elmore County Judge Sibley Reynolds moved the sentence to run concurrently, meaning Smith will complete that charge’s sentence while serving time for the others.

Comments attached with signatures call for justice and equality for Smith.

“I’m signing because the punishment should fit the crime and children should be tried as such! This child did not murder his friend…,” one signee wrote.

“Gross display of injustice here,” wrote another

Another petition that was initially created after Smith’s sentencing is regaining momentum now, with nearly 60,000 signatures.

Additionally, an Instagram post made in 2018 by theshaderoom, an account with about 20 million followers, is now resurfacing. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had about 75,000 likes and over 20,000 comments.

Other Alabama cases in which the accomplice law was used included Nathaniel Woods’, who was executed in March.

Woods held no guns and fired no shots the night three Birmingham police officers were killed in 2004, but he was there and thus complicit, according the law.

In April, two young men were charged with the fatal shooting of their friend, Brian Daniels, 17, after allegedly exchanging gunfire with another group.

In June 2019, three Montgomery men were charged with murder after two went to a home for a drug transaction that turned deadly. During the transaction two men tried to rob the other two and got into an exchange of gunfire, killing one. The three remaining men were charged.

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2020/06/11/alabama-case-lakeith-smith-inmate-sentenced-55-years-gains-renewed-interest/5344257002/

Lakeith Smith Now

Lakeith Smith is currently incarcerated at the St Clair Correctional Facility

Lakeith Smith Release Date

Lakeith Smith is not eligible for release until 2070

John Young Georgia Execution

John Young was executed by the State of Georgia for a triple murder. According to court documents John Young would break into the home of the victims and would beat to death three elderly people Coleman Brice, Gladys Brice, and Katie Davis. John Young would also attack three others in the home. John Young would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. John Young would be executed by way of electric chair on March 20 1985

John Young More News

The sister of triple murderer John C. Young, who died early Wednesday in Georgia’s electric chair, said he faced his execution calmly and his only concern was for the welfare of his brothers and sisters.

Katie Young Vasser, who spent more than three hours with the condemned man Tuesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center, said he read the Bible and expressed hope that his four sisters and three brothers would comfort each other after his death.

Young, 28, spent nine years on death row for murdering three elderly Macon residents during a 1974 rampage. Coleman Brice, 85, his wife Gladys, 83, and Katie Davis, 83, were beaten and kicked to death in their homes.

Three other elderly residents of Young’s racially mixed neighborhood were seriously injured in similar attacks. All six were white.

Young is the sixth man, and the fifth black, to be executed in Georgia since the state resumed using the electric chair in 1983 after a 19-year suspension.

Mrs. Vasser, who lives near Houston, Texas, said her brother never acknowledged the murders.

″I don’t think he knows,″ she said, adding that he was ″real, real out on drugs″ when the attacks occurred.

Mrs. Vasser and another sister, Annie Duncan of Milledgeville, were among Young’s last visitors Tuesday.

″We read the Bible, we cried and when we left he had a smile on his face,″ Mrs. Vasser said in a telephone interview. ″He had peace within … and, having come to know Christ, he was calm.″

No representatives of the victims’ families were at the prison for the execution.

Young’s attorneys filed numerous last-minute appeals based on the admission of his trial lawyer that he was under the influence of drugs while representing Young. But Young’s last chance for a stay vanished Tuesday evening when the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal request by 5-3.

About four hours later, Young was escorted into the execution chamber and strapped into the varnished wooden chair by six guards.

In a barely audible final statement delivered to 12 official witnesses, Young complained that poor people and blacks were ″pawns of society.″

″Being born black in America was against me,″ he said. ″Y’all cry that America was built on Christianity, I say it was built on slavery.″

At 12:15 a.m., Warden Ralph Kemp read the court’s execution order and two guards placed a leather harness over Young’s shaved head, while two others attached electrodes to his right leg and head.

Then, with a leather mask over his face, 1,080 volts of electricity was applied.

Two minutes later the current was turned off and his body was allowed to cool for six minutes before two doctors pronounced him dead.

Outside the central Georgia prison, about 30 death penalty opponents staged a 45-minute vigil, holding candles and singing hymns.

About 20 people demonstrated in favor of the execution, including Ed Stephens, grand dragon of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan, and two other robed Klansmen. The two groups were separated by a barbed wire fence.

https://apnews.com/article/3618d56eb2dfb6d1c53cf6cbc8b47bb8

Van Solomon Georgia Execution

Van Solomon was executed by the State of Georgia for the murder of a store manager during a robbery. According to court documents Van Solomon would shoot and kill the store manager during a robbery. Van Solomon who was a former Minister was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Van Solomon would be executed by way of the electric chair on February 20 1985

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Van Roosevelt Solomon, a former minister who was once a robbery-shooting victim himself, was executed in Georgia’s electric chair early Wednesday for the 1979 torture-murder of a convenience store manager.

Solomon went to the execution chamber after a final meal of fruit and chocolate ice cream and was put to death with a single, two-minute surge of 2,080 volts of electricity.

The 41-yearold former Oklahoma Baptist minister was pronounced dead at 12:27 a.m. EST. Prison officials said his body was turned over to his family for cremation.

‘I would like to say I would like to give my blessing to all the people who tried to save my life,’ Solomon said after being strapped into the electric chair.

Among those who joined the fight to save Solomon was was the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who said his execution would be ‘a travesty.’

Solomon walked into the execution chamber calmly and spoke quietly to prison guards who strapped his arms, legs and chest into the wooden chair. After making his final statement, Solomon prayed briefly with the prison chaplain, then stared intently while warden Ralph Kemp read his death sentence

When the electricity surged through Solomon, he bolted upright with clenched fists. Afterwards, his torso relaxed and slumped forward and moments later he was prounounced dead by two prison physicians.

Defense attorney George Kendall, who witnessed the execution, sighed deeply, closed his eyes, lowered his head briefly, then stared intently at his dead client before leaving the execution chamber.

About 50 demonstrators stood in a light rain outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center. Death penalty protesters decried executions as ‘modern day crucifixions’ while capital punishment advocates called it ‘a permanent attitude adjustment.’

Hours before Solomon was put to death, the Supreme Court and Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles refused his pleas for a stay and clemency.

He became the 38th convict executed in the nation and the fifth put to death in Georgia’s electric chair since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Solomon was sentenced to death for killing Roger Dennis Tackett, the manager of a convenience store in Smyrna. Five years earlier, Solomon almost died when he was shot in the stomach during a holdup of a downtown Atlanta grocery store he managed.

Defense attorneys insist Solomon’s accomplice, death row inmate Brandon Jones, pumped five bullets into Tackett, a 35-year-old Phi Betta Kappa graduate of Georgetown University and father of a 7-year-old daughter.

Prosecutor Tom Charron disagreed. He said there were two pistols and both men had gunpowder residue on their hands.

‘They shot his thumb off as he was dying because they wanted to know where the money was,’ said Charron, who called the slaying ‘particularly horrible.’

The victim’s father, Norman Tackett, 72, said the execution would ease his pain ‘to some extent.’

‘They have all the evidence that proves they’re guilty and they should have to suffer too,’ he said.

The condemned killer spent his final day visiting relatives, including his mother, sisters, aunts, nieces and nephews.

Solomon, the son of an alcoholic father and pious mother, served 3 years in Oklahoma prisons for assault and armed robbery before becoming an assistant pastor of a Baptist church in Lawton, Okla.

Friends in Lawton and Atlanta, where Solomon moved in 1973, say he took in numerous homeless and needy people and the pastor of his Lawton church called him ‘a caring and deeply Christian man.’

Defense attorneys say the jury that sentenced Solomon to death was never told about his past good deeds.

Coretta Scott King wrote the pardons board that Solomon’s execution ‘would be a travesty of justice.’

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/02/20/Van-Roosevelt-Solomon-a-former-minister-who-was-once/8441477723600/

Roosevelt Green Georgia Execution

Roosevelt Green was executed by the State of Georgia for the robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Roosevelt Green would kidnap the victim from her place of work after stealing money from the cash register. Roosevelt Green would take the woman to a remote location where she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Roosevelt Green would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Roosevelt Green would be executed by way of the electric chair on January 9, 1985

Roosevelt Green More News

Coed killer Roosevelt Green, insisting he is innocent, lost a last-minute bid for clemency Tuesday and was to die in Georgia’s electric chair shortly after midnight with his mother watching.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to grant a reprieve for Green, a black man twice convicted of killing an 18-year-old white coed in 1976.

Green, 28, was to be executed at 12:15 a.m. EST Wednesday and prison officials said his mother, Annie B. Green, would be among the 14 official execution witnesses.

Prisons spokesman Freed Steeple said Green, after a lengthy afternoon visit with his mother, formally asked prison officials to allow her to witness his execution.

Steeple said warden Ralph Kemp then asked Green’s mother if she wanted to witness the execution, ‘and she said yes, which is surprising.’

Steeple said to his knowledge, no mother had ever watched her son executed in Georgia — at least not in recent history.

Green requested no special last meal, Steeple said, and declined to eat the regular prison dinner of turkey pot pie.

Steeple said Green’s visitors left the prison at 4:15 p.m. and the condemned man ‘is just just watching television

The former migrant worker insisted he was not present when Theresa Carol Allen, an honors student from Cochran, Ga., was shot twice with a high-powered rifle — a claim supported by his accomplice.

‘We believe Roosevelt Green was an active participant in a continuing conspiracy and the logical conclusion of that conspiracy was murder,’ said Michael Wing, chairman of the five-member parole board. ‘Whether or not he pulled the trigger, we do not know.’

Green would be the fourth person executed in Georgia and the 34th in the nation since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. He would be the third to die in the United States within two weeks.

The Supreme Court denied a stay of execution Monday in a rare 4-4 tie vote.

Prison spokesman Fred Steeple said Green spent most of his final hours visiting in his death watch cell with his mother, attorneys and the Rev. Murphy Davis, a prison minister. Steeple said Green made no special requests.

Davis said Green’s mother had hoped the parole board would grant her son a reprieve, saying she believed the evidence was ‘enough to grant clemency.’

Green visited Monday with his boyhood friend from Minter, Ala., William Daniels, Daniels’ wife and their five children.

‘They say he’s the meanest man in prison,’ said Davis, ‘but if you could have seen him sitting with those children on his lap …’

Green, was sentenced to death twice for the murder of Allen, who was abducted from a convenience store, raped, shot twice and her body dumped in a rural area.

Carzell Moore also was convicted of the slaying and sentenced to death. He remains on death row.

Moore, according to appeal testimony, told another inmate that after the abduction, he was left alone with Allen, a freshman nursing student at Middle Georgia College, while Green went to get gas. Moore said he then shot the woman.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in a 1980 appeal the conviction should stand because Green left the woman alone on a dark road witha man he knew to be dangerous.

Kenneth Allen, the victim’s 25-year-old brother, said he had forgiven Green for the murder, but still thought the execution should be carried out.

‘I am a born-again Christian, and even if the sentence isn’t carried out, I forgive him,’ said Allen. ‘But capital punishment is part of our judicial system. If they’re not going to carry it out, they should take it off the books.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/01/08/Coed-killer-Roosevelt-Green-insisting-he-is-innocent-lost/9820474008400/