Marvin Gabrion was sentenced to death by the Federal Government for a murder on Federal land. According to court documents Marvin Gabrion sexually assaulted the victim Rachel Timmerman in Michigan. Just days before the trial was to begin Rachel Timmerman and her eleven month old daughter went missing. Police received a letter allegedly written by Timmerman saying the rape charges against Gabrion were fabricated. A month later the body of Rachel Timmerman was found in a lake, she had been chained down by cinder blocks, Rachel daughter has never been found. Marvin Gabrion was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. As of 2021 Marvin Gabrion remains on Federal Death Row
A Michigan man convicted of a 1997 murder is one of 62 federal death row prisoners who soon may be executed after the federal government announced on Wednesday it would resume capital punishment.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to adopt an addendum to federal execution protocol allowing the federal government to carry out the death penalty after a 16-year lapse, according to a news release from Barr’s office.
Five death row inmates convicted of killing children or elderly people are scheduled to be executed in December 2019 and January 2020.
“The Justice Department upholds the rule of law — and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system,” Barr said in the release.
Marvin Gabrion is the only Michigan convict on the list of federal death row prisoners, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Gabrion is not one of the five scheduled to be executed in December or January.
Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847, but Gabrion was sentenced to death by a federal court because he committed the crime on federal land.
In 2002, Gabrion was sentenced to death for murdering Rachel Timmerman, 19, who had accused him of rape. The woman and her 18-month-old daughter went missing days before Gabrion was to stand trial on the rape accusation.
Timmerman’s body was found weighted down by cinder blocks in a lake at the Manistee National Forest. Her daughter was never found.
Gabrion is the first person sentenced to death by a federal court in a non-death penalty state since the federal death penalty was reinstated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
It is unclear when or if he will be executed under Barr’s new ruling.
The attorney general said additional executions will be scheduled later.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were two serial killers who would go on a crime spree through six states that included the murder of eight people. Eventually Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would be sentenced to death in three separate States. Alton Coleman would be executed in Ohio and Debra Brown will spend the rest of her life in prison. In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at Alton Coleman and Debra Brown.
Alton Coleman And Debra Brown Early Years
Alton Coleman was born in Illinois on November 6, 1955. Alton Coleman mother worked multiple jobs and Coleman was raised by his grandmother. During his middle school years he would drop out and would be arrested six times for sex related crimes between 1973 and 1983. Ultimately two of the cases would be dropped. Two of the cases he was acquitted. Alton was scheduled to go on trial in Illinois for the sexual assault of a fourteen year old girl when the multi state crime spree began
Debra Brown was born in Illinois on November 11, 1962. She has a borderline intellect and suffered a severe head injury as a child. At the time she met Alton Coleman in 1983 she was engaged to another man however she would leave him to go with Alton. Debra Brown before the crime spree had no criminal record.
Alton Coleman And Debra Brown Murders
The multi state crime spree began in Wisconsin. Alton Coleman had befriended a single mother and soon after her nine year old daughter, Vernita Wheat, went missing on May 29, 1984. A few weeks later the little girls body would be found she had been sexually assaulted, tortured and strangled with a ligature.
Soon after in Gary Indiana Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would abduct two little girls, nine year old Annie and her seven year old niece Tamika Turks, who would be sexually assaulted. Annie would survive the brutal assault however seven year old Tamika would not.
Donna Williams was reported missing the same time as the little girls were abducted. Her body would be found in a river in Detroit Michigan a month later. The woman had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a ligature.
In Michigan Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would break into the home of an elderly couple who were badly beaten and robbed.
In early July 1984 a woman in Ohio family became concerned as she stopped communicating with them. When the family went to her home they would find her body along with her nine year old son hidden in a crawlspace of the home. Both had been strangled with ligatures.
Later that same day Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would force their way into the home of a couple who were brutally beaten and robbed. Oddly Alton and Debra would stay at a local Revered home and attended church services.
The next week Alton and Debra would abduct a fifteen year old girl, Tonnie Storey, whose body would be found eight days later. Police would discover an item stolen earlier in the crime spree under the teenagers body which would lead the FBI to place Alton Coleman on their Top Ten Most Wanted List
A day after the abduction of Tonnie Storey Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would break into another home where the woman was sexually assaulted and beaten to death. The woman’s husband would survive a brutal beating and would contact police. The man would tell police that Alton and Debra came over regarding a camper for sale and soon after the attack began
The vehicle stolen from the couple was found in Kentucky days later where Alton Coleman and Debra Brown kidnapped a college professor and stole his car plus drove back to Ohio with him locked in the trunk. The college professor was later rescued.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would head back to Illinois. Along the way way they would steal yet another vehicle and kill its owner.
Soon after arriving in Illinois Alton Coleman and Debra Brown would be arrested.
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown Trials
Due to the fact that the crimes committed by Alton Coleman and Debra Brown covered such a large area it took awhile to plan out the course of action in terms of prosecution. Michigan was ruled out pretty quickly as it did not have the death penalty.
In Ohio Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were convicted of the sexual assaults and murders of Tonnie Storey and Marlene Walters however they were not convicted of the murders of Virginia and Rachelle Temple. The two however were sentenced to death for the murders of Tonnie and Marlene. The pair would later be sentenced to twenty years in Federal Prison for transporting the college professors across state lines.
Alton Coleman Execution
Alton Coleman would be executed in Ohio on April 26, 2002 by lethal injection. For his last meal Alton had filet mignon, fried chicken breasts, salad, sweet potatoes, french fries, collard greens, onion rings, cornbread, broccoli, biscuits and gravy plus a cherry Coke.
Debra Brown Prison
Debra Brown borderline mental intellect has kept her from being executed and Ohio and Indiana no longer include her on their list of death row inmates. As of 2020 Debra Brown is in prison in Ohio
n the words of prosecutors here, Alton Coleman is a “poster child” for capital punishment, a cold-blooded killer whose murder spree in the summer of 1984 terrorized the Midwest, leaving eight people slain and Coleman with death sentences in three states.
But to his defenders, Coleman is exactly the kind of killer who should be spared: a man whose mother left him in a garbage can as an infant and whose grandmother subjected him to physical and sexual abuse–a history that coupled with brain damage prompted one doctor to describe Coleman’s mind as a “damaged container with damaged contents.”
Sitting in one of the low-slung buildings that house Death Row here, his hands and legs shackled with steel chains, Coleman looks back on both sides of his life and views it as something of a waste. His gaze is firm, his words are measured.
“I think I was doomed,” Coleman, now 46, said in an interview at Mansfield Correctional Institution. “Perhaps I should have died at birth.”
Instead, Coleman is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Friday morning. On Wednesday, Gov. Bob Taft denied clemency, saying no court has questioned Coleman’s responsibility for the slaying of the suburban Cincinnati woman–the case leading to Friday’s execution.
But as the execution nears, nagging questions about Coleman’s cases are unresolved, especially in Ohio, suggesting that even death penalty cases where guilt and innocence are clear–and where the crimes are truly horrible–can leave troubling legacies.
Last year, a panel of judges from the federal appeals court in Cincinnati reversed the death sentence in one of Coleman’s cases in Ohio–the murder of teenager Tonnie Storey–because his defense attorneys did no investigation of his upbringing.
That investigation, the appeals court said, would have uncovered a background so horrific that there was a strong likelihood that at least one juror would have been swayed to spare Coleman from a death sentence.
But in his other case–the murder of 44-year-old Marlene Walters, for which he is being executed, and the attempted murder of her husband, Harry–a different panel of judges from the same federal appeals court let the sentence stand, though the attorneys in that case also did no investigation of Coleman’s childhood.
The federal appeals court as a whole has refused to resolve the inconsistency, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to deal with it as well.
“Two different panels coming to contrary conclusions–that has to be resolved one way or the other,” said Dale Baich, a federal public defender in Arizona who has represented Coleman for more than a decade. “It comes down to basic fairness.”
`I wasn’t used to normal’
By virtually all accounts, Coleman’s upbringing was terrible. He never knew his father, and his mother–a drug user and prostitute who was institutionalized several times–abandoned Coleman in a trash can as an infant, court records show.
He was rescued by his grandmother, but under her care he was often neglected and subjected to physical and sexual abuse while living in Waukegan’s depressed and crime-ridden Market Street section of town, court records show. She practiced voodoo and often enlisted Coleman’s help, having him collect dirt from cemeteries and kill small animals for her potions, records show.
“I wasn’t used to normal,” Coleman said. “I didn’t know what normal was.”
Coleman also suffered brain damage–believed to be linked to his mother’s drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy and his childhood head injuries–making it difficult for him to make rational decisions, a condition worsened by his own drug abuse. Thomas Thompson, a New Mexico neuropsychologist hired by Coleman’s attorneys, described Coleman’s brain as a “damaged container with damaged contents.”
Prosecutors dispute Coleman’s claim of brain damage.
In a plea for mercy, Coleman also pointed to prison records that show he has been a model inmate, with no violations in 17 years. Two guards offered sworn affidavits of Coleman’s good behavior behind bars–a prison record that the prosecutors ridiculed as meaningless.
Coleman’s explanation for his murder spree is simple–drugs.
“All I know, I had to get narcotics to keep going,” Coleman said. “My main goal was to use drugs. I had no other destination whatsoever.”
Coleman’s case also has been dogged by charges that Cincinnati prosecutors improperly rejected nine of 12 blacks from the jury pool. The issue has not been addressed by appeals courts because Coleman’s original appeals lawyers did not raise it, and so it was forfeited for future appeals.
Those issues are set against one of the nation’s worst crime sprees, which Coleman undertook with a girlfriend, Debra Brown. She faces a death sentence in Indiana, and long prison terms in Ohio and Illinois.
“If there is ever a case that cries out for justice, it is this case,” said Ohio’s Hamilton County prosecuting attorney, Mike Allen. “This case cries out for Alton Coleman to pay the ultimate penalty for crimes he committed.”
Said Harry Walters, who was permanently disabled by Coleman’s attack: “It’s time to do it. I sincerely mean it. Execution is the solution.”
Strangled girl was first
The spree began in May 1984 in Kenosha, where Coleman, using the name Robert Knight, befriended Juanita Wheat and earned her trust. Coleman then kidnapped and murdered her 9-year-old daughter, Vernita. Vernita’s body, strangled and bound with wire, was found in an abandoned building in Waukegan.
At the time, he had already served time for rape and deviate sexual assault, had been arrested on other occasions for sex charges, and was facing a current rape charge, records show.
“I want to see something happen to him. I want to see it happen and feel it all,” said Juanita Wheat, now 55 and a nurse’s assistant in Kenosha who plans to travel to Ohio to witness Coleman’s execution.
“Justice is for all,” she added, “and you get what you deserve.”
As police pursued Coleman, he and Brown traveled the Midwest, stealing cars to get from Illinois to Indiana and through Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, leaving dead bodies almost everywhere they stopped.
In Gary, he was convicted of killing Tamika Turks, 7, and in Detroit, Toledo and Indianapolis, he and Brown are believed to have murdered others, though Coleman was not prosecuted.
In Norwood, a working-class suburb of Cincinnati, Coleman and Brown stopped at the Walterses’ home to try to buy a camper that the Ohio couple were selling. Inside, they beat both, tied them up and left them for dead. Marlene Walters suffered some two dozen wounds to her head. Coleman and Brown were arrested a week later as they sat in the bleachers at an Evanston park.
“His alleged tough childhood does not excuse him from suffering the ultimate punishment,” said Allen, the Ohio prosecutor. “Alton Coleman is pure evil.”
Days before his execution, Coleman, bowed his head, said that he was remorseful and that he was preparing himself to die.
“I take responsibility for what I did,” he said. “I’ve messed up terribly in this life.”
Kelly Cochran is a serial killer from Michigan that has been convicted of two murders but is believed to have murdered nine more.
In October 2014 Kelly Cochran and her husband Jason Cochran lured Christopher Regan over to their home with the promise of sex. Once Christopher was in the home he was “caught” having sex with Kelly and fatally shot. Kelly and Jason Cochran would then use an electric saw in order to dismember Regan body. The body would later be disposed around Michigan
Christopher Regan would be reported missing a few days later and Kelly Cochran and Jason Cochran would be named as suspects however the twisted married couple would not be charged due to lack of evidence.
In 2016 Jason Cochran would die from a massive heroin overdose. Police did not believe that the death was an accident and investigated Kelly Cochran.
Weeks later Kelly Cochran was charged by Michigan police for the murder of Christopher Regan however she would flee before they were able to arrest her. A few weeks later Kelly would be arrested by US Marshals.
During the interrogation Kelly would tell police where they could find the remains of Christopher Regan. While in custody police returned to the investigation of the death of Jason Cochran and it turned out he did not die from a heroin overdose but by asphyxiation. Apparently Kelly gave Jason a large does of heroin and then smothered him to death
Kelly Cochran would ultimately be convicted for the murder of Christopher Regan in Michigan and Jason Cochran in Indiana. Kelly would be sentenced to two life sentences without parole.
Kelly Cochran 2021 Information
MDOC Number: 356714
SID Number: 5267595X
Name: KELLY MARIE COCHRAN
Racial Identification: White
Gender: Female
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Hazel
Height:5′ 10″Weight:165 lbs.
Date of Birth:06/05/1982 (38)KELLY MARIE COCHRAN
Image Date:7/3/2020
Current Status: Prisoner
Earliest Release Date: LIFE
Assigned Location:Huron Valley Complex/Women’s
Maximum Discharge Date:LIFE
Kelly Cochran More News
Kelly Marie Cochran, 34, stands accused of helping her husband kill and dismember her boyfriend. She is also charged with killing her husband to “even the score” – and the prosecuting attorney thinks her body count may not stop there.
According to reports, on October 13, 2014, Cochran and her husband, 37-year-old Jason Cochran, came up with a diabolical plan: the next night, Cochran would lure 53-year-old Christopher Regan, Kelly’s coworker and boyfriend, to her home with the promise of sex and Jason would kill him. The plan worked, and when Jason “caught” Regan with his wife, he shot him in the head with a .22 caliber long-barrel shotgun.
The Cochrans then set about dismembering Regan’s body – Kelly later admitted to getting a cord for an electric hand saw, known colloquially as a “sawzall”, so Jason Cochran could cut up his corpse. They then divided Regan’s body between garbage bags, and threw the bags into the woods around the Iron River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Regan was reported missing a few days later, and his car was found abandoned at a park-and-ride lot four miles east of Iron River, Michigan. According to the local Daily News, police honed in on Cochran because she was one of the last people to see Regan. When police searched her home with the FBI in March, 2015, they found nothing – but Cochran was spooked and she and her husband packed up and moved to Lake County, Indiana.
Police continued their investigation with Kelly listed a person of interest, but a year passed and still they had nothing. Then, in February 2016, Jason died of an apparent heroin overdose. Kelly held a memorial service, writing on Facebook that his death was “the hardest thing I will ever have to deal with.” But police weren’t buying it. Nine weeks after Jason died, Michigan authorities charged Kelly Cochran with Regan’s death – and she fled Indiana. The U.S. Marshals Service eventually tracked her down in Kentucky, where she was arrested on April 28th and taken into custody. According to court documents, she spent her time in her jail cell turning her glasses into shanks and threatening violence against anyone who came near her. She was extradited to Michigan where she is now in custody awaiting trial.
Following her arrest, Cochran was interrogated by both Michigan and Indiana police for almost 70 hours. According to the northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, she was able to direct investigators to a desolate stretch of Michigan woods where they discovered evidence of Cochran’s alleged crimes, including a human skull with an apparent bullet hole, bones and bone fragments. Police also recovered a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber bullet, and a pair of glasses at the scene.
While Cochran was in custody, police also questioned her about the death of her husband. They had grown suspicious when Cochran’s version of what happened the night that Jason Cochran died kept changing. Paramedics had been called to the house that Cochran shared with her husband in February, but the EMTs found Jason unresponsive and were unable to revive him. At first glance it looked like he had died of a heroin overdose, but the Indiana Lake County Coroner discovered that Jason had actually died from asphyxiation, not heroin. That’s when suspicion turned to his wife, who had been “disruptive” while EMT were working on her husband’s body.
The Post-Tribune reports Cochran told police that she delivered an overdose of heroin to her husband and proceeded to put her hands on his neck, nose, and mouth, until he died less than a minute later.
In an interview with detectives in Hobart, Indiana, Cochran finally gave police a motive for her brutal crimes –her decade-plus marriage needed saving. According to the Post-Tribune, Cochran told police that the night before the murder, she and her husband had argued – perhaps about Regan – and her husband wanted to know how “she was going to fix things.” The answer they stumbled on, apparently, was to kill Regan. In interviews, Cochran said she blamed her husband for Regan’s death and for “taking the only good thing I had in my life.” The Post-Tribune notes that in court records Cochran said, “I still hate him (her husband), and yes, it was revenge. I evened the score.” There was a brief moment before Regan’s death, she had reportedly considered killing her husband instead of her boyfriend. Instead she ended up killing them both, waiting 16 months to exact her revenge on her husband.
In Indiana, Cochran has been charged with the death of her husband; in Michigan, she faces charges related to Regan’s death, including homicide, assisting her husband to “mutilate, deface, remove or carry away a portion of a dead body” and concealing the death of an individual. Cochran pleaded not guilty to all the charges. While she initially claimed that she wanted to defend herself, she eventually relented and asked for assistance from a public defender.
While Cochran is charged with two murders, Iron County prosecuting attorney Melissa Powell thinks there may be more bodies buried in Cochran’s past. According to her court filings, Cochran has “claimed responsibility for the deaths of other individuals, which, if true, make her a serial killer.”
While it’s unclear what other deaths Cochran may be talking about, Powell appears to be taking the statements seriously enough to question Cochran’s mental health – before Powell can launch an investigation into Cochran’s claims, she has to prove that Cochran is competent. Iron County District Court Judge C. Joseph Schwedler agreed and has ordered a forensic examination of Cochran to determine both mental competency and criminal responsibility.
According to Powell’s filings, Cochran has a long history of mental illness, including a voluntary admission to a psychiatric hospital in Indiana and suicidal ideation. Cochran has “written her family goodbye letters and has threatened to commit suicide while incarcerated as well as threatened bodily harm against any persons whom she may have contact with while incarcerated.”
Until the forensic examination can determine her competency, which the judge has asked to expedite, Cochran remains in the Iron County Jail on a $5 million cash bond.
Angela McConnell was seventeen when she took part in a triple murder. According to court documents Angela McConnell and Brandy Jo Miller pretended they had car trouble at the home of an elderly couple which enabled the three men they were with to enter the home. Before it was all over the elderly couple and their adult daughter were murdered.
The brutal murder case went unsolved for seven years before the five were arrested. This teen killer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison
Angela McConnell would take her own life February 2023
Angela McConnell 2023 Information
MDOC Number:656895SID
Number:2165677A
Name:ANGELA RENEE MCCONNELL
Racial Identification:White
Gender:Female
Hair: Brown
Eyes:Brown
Height:5′ 5″
Weight:151 lbs.
Date of Birth:08/22/1983 (36)
Assigned Location:Huron Valley Complex/Women’s
Angela McConnell Other News
She’s one of only 10 women serving mandatory life sentences in Michigan prisons — and for a crime committed before she could vote or legally buy cigarettes.
Now 28, Angela McConnell says the prospect of spending the rest of her life behind bars is not what she finds most difficult. What is harder to accept, she says, is being away from her two young daughters.
“How many more birthdays are you going to be in there?” McConnell said her 12-year-old daughter asked her on the tween’s most recent birthday.
She knows that I’m here potentially for a long time,” McConnell said as she sat inside a quiet, sunlit visiting room at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti. “She knows that we don’t know if I’m ever coming home.”
McConnell, who is three years into her life sentence, was 17 when police and prosecutors say she and Brandy Jo Miller feigned car trouble so they and three men could gain access to the Pavilion Township home of Marinus and Sary Polderman and rob the elderly couple. What unfolded that day, Aug. 31, 2000, was one of the most brutal slayings in Kalamazoo County’s history.
The Poldermans and their daughter, Anna Gipson Lewis, 63, were stabbed and beaten to death, and the case went unsolved until 2007, when police charged McConnell; Miller; Miller’s brother, Andrew Miller; Benjamin Platt and Jerome “Joe” Williams. All were convicted.
McConnell and three other defendants are serving mandatory life sentences for first-degree murder; the fifth defendant, Brandy Jo Miller, pleaded to a lesser charge and is serving 13 to 221/2 years.
As McConnell reflected on the case that led to life behind bars, she spoke of growing up in Kalamazoo and Portage without a father figure. She was raised by a single mother who, she says, rarely disciplined her.
“I do think that if my dad could have been in my life, it could have been different,” McConnell said. “My mom tried to make up for that person not being in my life, and she was probably a little more lenient than she should have been.”
With few rules to follow, McConnell said, her teenage years were a string of “bad decisions, doing all the wrong things.” She began using alcohol and drugs, became pregnant at 15 and left high school well before graduation.
She said she met her co-defendants when she was 16 and the group introduced her to crack cocaine. By 19, she was married with two children, she said.
McConnell has been behind bars since she was 22, when she was sentenced to six months in the Kalamazoo County Jail for a probation violation. It was then, about five years after the Pavilion Township slayings, that detectives began interrogating her about the triple homicide.
“I figured it would be OK because I had been arrested before and investigated on it and . . . passed it all,” McConnell said.
This time, she didn’t pass.
It’s now been nearly six years since her arrest for the probation violation. During that time, she has been able to regularly talk to her oldest daughter but has not seen or spoken to her younger daughter, now 9.
After McConnell and the other co-defendants were charged in the triple homicide, Brandy Miller and McConnell each made plea agreements with the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office. The agreements called for each to plead guilty to second-degree murder and receive reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony against the other three suspects.
Under McConnell’s agreement, reached in July 2007, she would have served 35 to 521/2 years in prison. McConnell testified at Platt’s trial and the probable-cause hearings for Andrew Miller and Williams but then withdrew her plea in April 2008 and decided to take her chances at a jury trial.
“I was scared, and I didn’t know what else to do, and I didn’t want to get life in prison,” McConnell said of her decision to enter into the plea agreement in 2007 in exchange for her testimony and a reduced sentence.
Asked why she changed her mind and withdrew her plea, McConnell said, “Because I didn’t do it.”
Karen Wilcox, Lewis’ daughter and the Poldermans’ granddaughter, said she doesn’t hate McConnell and the other defendants for what they did to her family members. But she feels no empathy for McConnell and her longing for her daughters.
“I guess if she was truly innocent, I never would have said I was guilty to begin with,” Wilcox said. “It was sad, but at the same time by her reneging on (the plea), then she did get life in prison, and she’s the one who said she did these things. You know, my mom had a life sentence, too.
McConnell is among more than 350 “juvenile lifers” doing time with the Michigan Department of Corrections without chance of parole. That could change through a federal lawsuit in Detroit that has gained traction.
Attorneys who filed the suit are seeking mandatory parole reviews once young offenders turn 21 and then every five years thereafter. Attorneys say sentencing youths ages 14 to 17 to mandatory life without parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment because the inmates are not allowed “a meaningful opportunity for release upon demonstrating their maturity and rehabilitation.” Michigan law also fails “to recognize the difference in moral culpability between adults and juveniles who commit first-degree homicide offenses,” the lawsuit argues.
A federal judge could issue a decision in the case this fall.
To fill her days, McConnell said, she is taking college classes in prison and working full time in the food-services area. She sees a therapist weekly and speaks with her oldest daughter daily.
“If I hadn’t talked to none of (my co-defendants) or been hanging around any of those people, I’d be home with my babies being the mom I’m supposed to be,” McConnell said. “And that’s what I think about a lot, being home with my kids.”
Devon Robinson was eighteen years old when he opened fire on a house party in Detroit Michigan killing three people and severely injuring two. According to police the teen killer who fired twenty shots at the home targeted the residence because it was full of members of the LGBT community. Devon Robinson who was initially at the party and was reportedly taunted after he had physical contact with number of people including one of the victims a transgender woman. Devon Robinson would leave and come back a couple of hours armed, opened fire on the residence killing three people and injuring two more.
Devon Robinson would be convicted on multiple counts of murder, attempted murder and assortment of other charges., Devon Robinson was sentenced to three life without parole sentences.
Devon Robinson 2023 Information
MDOC Number:628243
SID Number:5221048K
Name:DEVON KAREEM-BUCKINGH ROBINSON
Racial Identification:Black
Gender:Male
Hair:Black Eyes:Brown Height:5′ 8″Weight:185 lbs.
Date of Birth:10/20/2000 (20)
Current Status:Prisoner
Earliest Release Date:LIFE
Assigned Location:Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility
Maximum Discharge Date:LIFE
Devon Robinson Other News
Devon Kareem Robinson was only 18 when he was arrested and charged with shooting Alunte Davis, Timothy Blancher, and Paris Cameron at a house party in Detroit, Michigan. This week, at 19, he was convicted by a jury and could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors were initially unsure if they should proceed to trial as they could not nail down Robinson’s motives, but they ultimately decided to move forward in November. Special prosecutors at Fair Michigan, a LGBTQ rights organization, joined forces with them.
After a week-long trial earlier this month, the jury returned a verdict in under two days. They voted to convict on all ten counts against Robinson: three first-degree murders, two assaults with intent to murder, and five charges of use of a firearm in connection with a felony.
Robinson’s victims were two gay men, Blancher and Davis, and a transgender woman, Cameron, all under the age of 22.
On May 25, 2019, Robinson ran into Cameron at a gas station before attending a house party with her. When he left, prosecutors alleged that Robinson returned with a black ski mask and gun, opening fire on more than 15 people in attendance.
Robinson was seen ‘dry heaving’ in security footage after leaving the party around 4:00 AM, less than an hour before the shooter arrived. Although the shooter was wearing a mask, witnesses testified to his ‘blank’ expression and noted he had light brown eyes, like Robinson.
More than 20 gunshots were reportedly fired, and one attendee testified that there was so much blood that the . Other than the three murder victims, two other people – Clifton Keys and Armon Matthews – were seriously injured.
Initially, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office believed that Robinson had deliberately targeted the victims based solely on their identity. It became clear through witness testimony and evidence, however, that Robinson had committed the killings out of internalized homophobia.
At the trial, Fair Michigan’s Jaimie Powell Horowitz led the jury through witness testimony, which described how Robinson engaged in sexual acts with multiple people at the party, including Cameron. He became enraged by people that began calling him gay, and Horowitz said that Robinson intended to murder everyone who knew about what he had done.
His DNA was found on Cameron’s body after her murder, which Robinson initially denied while talking to police.
Devon Robinson More New
Police have charged a Detroit man with murdering three people — two gay men and a transgender woman — in what authorities say was an anti-gay attack over Memorial Day weekend.
Police allege that Devon Robinson, 18, shot five people inside a home on Detroit’s east side on May 25, killing Alunte Davis, 21; Timothy Blancher, 20; and Paris Cameron, 20
Cameron was a transgender woman, while Blancher and Davis were gay men.
“It is alleged that these victims were targeted and killed because they were part of the LGBTQ community,” said Maria Miller, a spokesperson for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
Robinson was charged Thursday with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill.
“The alleged actions of this defendant are disturbing on so many levels, but the fact that this happened during Pride Month adds salt into the wound,” said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in a statement.
Erin Knott, the executive director of Equality Michigan, an organization that works to advance LGBT rights, told BuzzFeed News, “This is an example of the dangers that members of the LGBTQ community face each and every day in cities like Detroit and across the United States.
“It also exemplifies how much violence, discrimination, and harassment is experienced not just by the larger community but specifically by trans women of color,” said Knott.
Knott referred to the recent spate of murders of black trans women across the country, which she called an “unfortunate epidemic that we have not figured out a way to address.”
Last December, Kelly Stough, a 36-year-old black trans woman, was killed in Detroit. Police arrested a local pastor, who has been charged with murder, and said they believed her trans identity was a major factor in her being killed.
Two black transgender women were shot and killed in Dallas in just the last two weeks, leaving the community in a state of fear. Dallas has had four unsolved murders of black trans women since 2015.
The Human Rights Campaign counted 26 deaths of transgender people nationally in 2018 due to violence, the majority of them black trans women.
So far in 2019, HRC has tracked eight deaths of trans people resulting from shootings or other violent methods. All of them were black trans women.
The trans community in Michigan is “experiencing and uptick of violence and fears on a daily basis,” said Knott, who said that Equality Michigan offers victim advocate services and can help victims work with authorities.
Earlier this week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other lawmakers announced a bill to amend Michigan’s civil rights law to ban discrimination against sexual orientation or gender identity.
Discrimination cases often focus on situations such as a gay person getting fired from their job after getting married, “but it goes deeper than that,” said Knott. “People’s lives are at risk.”
Devon Robinson is currently incarcerated at the Earnest Brooks Correctional Facility in Michigan
Devon Robinson Release Date
Devon Robinson is serving multiple life sentences
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