William Raines was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murders of Pam and Phillip Holder. William Raines was living with the victims when he would slay Pam and Phillip Holder in 2002. William Raines would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
For the first time in more than 20 years, a Henderson County jury sent a convicted killer to death row.
After less than five hours of deliberating Friday, jurors recommended the death penalty for 29-year-old Billy Raines, who murdered his longtime friends, Phillip and Pam Holder, in 2002.
Raines remained silent and showed no emotion as Superior Court Judge Ronald Payne read the jury’s decision, while relatives of the Holders and of Raines wept. Two jurors also wiped tears from their eyes.
State law required Payne to sentence Raines to the fate decided by the jury. He ordered Raines to be sent to Central Prison in Raleigh to await the lethal injection.
“May God have mercy on his soul,” Payne said.
Raines’ relatives left the courthouse in tears before he was sentenced. Afterward, the Holder family hugged each other, smiling and crying.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” said Jill Gilbert, Phillip Holder’s sister.
Justice was done, she said.
“I don’t hate Billy,” she said. “I hate what he did.”
Family members hugged Assistant District Attorney Beth Dierauf, who whispered to them, “It’ll never be even. It’ll never be even.”
Dierauf praised jurors, saying they “did a great job.”
“The facts in this case were just so atrocious and so cruel, not only the way he killed Phillip and Pam but their personal history,” she said.
Raines was living with the Holders when he killed them. He and Phillip Holder were childhood friends, and Raines left his abusive mother’s home to live with the Holder family when he was about 12 years old, witnesses said.
Raines’ attorneys had pleaded with jurors to give their client life in prison, saying the extensive abuse and neglect he suffered as a child left him with emotional, behavioral and mental problems as an adult.
“Of course we’re disappointed with the verdict,” said defense attorney Vince Rabil. “We know it was a hard decision for the jury.”
He and co-counsel Mike Klinkosum prepared Raines for the possibility that he would receive the death penalty, Rabil said.
“He’s disappointed, but he’s accepting it,” he said.
The last time a Henderson County jury sent anyone to death row was in 1982, when Eldred Leon Hill was convicted of first-degree murder. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1984.
Raines was found guilty Tuesday of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery. Payne sentenced him to eight to 10 years in prison for the robbery.
Like all capital cases, Raines’ case will be automatically appealed to the N.C. Supreme Court.
The Holders were found dead Dec. 11, 2002, in their Brickyard Road home. They were beaten in the head with a heavy wrench and shot multiple times.
After killing the couple, Raines robbed them and spent the next two days posing as Phillip Holder, driving his truck and using his stolen credit card to make purchases at various stores in Western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. He was arrested three days later in Greenville, S.C.
Jeremy Murrell was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for kidnapping and murder. According to court documents Jeremy Murrell would kidnap Matt Harding from a restaurant in Winston-Salem and his body would be found a week later in Virginia. Jeremy Murrell would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Death row inmate Jeremy Murrell was back in Forsyth Superior Court on Wednesday.Murrell was given the death penalty last Friday for the 2003 kidnapping, robbery and murder of a 19-year-old Matt Harding. Harding’s decomposing body was found in the trunk of his car in Virginia over a week after he disappeared from outside his job at a Winston-Salem restaurant. Murrell was apparently sentenced under the wrong guidelines for the kidnapping charge. He was re-sentenced in a brief hearing to 80 to 100 months on for that charge on Wednesday, before being returned to Central Prison in Raleigh.
Darrell Maness was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Darrell Maness was pulled over on a traffic stop and would fatally shoot Boiling Spring Lakes police Officer Mitch Prince. Darrell Maness would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
A long nightmare came to an end Tuesday for the family of Mitch Prince. Another is just beginning for Darrell W. Maness.
After initial confusion about the nature of his punishment, a Brunswick County Superior Court jury recommended that Maness, 20, receive the death penalty for shooting Boiling Spring Lakes police Officer Prince to death during a traffic stop early Jan. 18, 2005, along a dark stretch of N.C. 87.
Family members of both the victim and defendant shed tears as 11 days of witness testimony and emotional arguments to the jury came to a close.
Maness cupped his face in his hands and looked down when he learned his fate. Maness will be processed at Central Prison in Raleigh and take his place as the state’s 173rd death row inmate.
“What Darrell Maness is going to be receiving is light compared to what Mitch received. Darrell’s going to see his family. Darrell Maness is going to get off light,” said Pam Prince, wife of the slain officer, after the defendant was escorted from the courtroom.
Pam and Mitch Prince were married for 13 years. The dedicated father of two was 36 when he died.
Maness “was 19 years old. He knew right from wrong. I hate it for his mom and his sister, but they’ve got to endure,” Prince said.
Maness’ mother, Annette Tidwell, broke into loud sobs as the jury’s recommendation was announced. On Friday, the seven-man, five-woman jury convicted Maness of first-degree murder. The sentencing phase of the trial lasted only two days and included testimony from Tidwell and other relatives, along with impassioned pleas by defense lawyers to spare Maness.
Tidwell quickly left the courtroom after the jury recommended death for her son. Others, including Maness’ grandmother and his sister, followed a few minutes later.
District Attorney Rex Gore told jurors during his opening statement that Maness was a “cold-blooded killer.” He said prosecutors are satisfied with the outcome of the trial.
“When you think of losing someone who is protecting us out there, and in such a senseless way, it reminds us of what our job is,” Gore said.
An appeal of the death verdict was automatically filed on behalf of Maness. It will be at least a decade before all of his appeals are exhausted. One of them could focus on a false ray of hope for Maness about an hour after jurors began deliberating.
The seven-man, five-woman jury returned to the courtroom about noon, apparently with a decision. A clerk announced a jury recommendation of life without parole. Tidwell held her hands together, as if in prayer, and embraced her daughter. The Prince family appeared stunned.
When each juror was polled by presiding Judge D. Jack Hooks Jr., a different picture emerged. Eight jurors appeared to favor the death penalty and only four life in prison. Hooks directed the jury to continue deliberations. He denied defense motions for a mistrial because the jury was tainted by witnessing reactions in the courtroom.
Jurors might have been confused by the wording of instructions that directed panel members to consider if aggravating circumstances favoring the death penalty outweighed mitigating ones supporting a prison sentence of life without parole.
To Larry Prince, the victim’s father, the jury couldn’t have made a recommendation other than death.
Prince said he awakens every night about 1 a.m., about the time Mitch Prince was killed.
“Hopefully, the nightmares will subside,” he said. “I was always there to provide and take care of him, and I couldn’t take care of my son. That is destroying me. I want to help him so bad, but I can’t help him.”
Defense lawyers used all the resources at their disposal to sway the jury toward choosing life in prison without parole. A psychiatrist’s testimony focused on Maness’ attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, marijuana addiction and details of a troubled upbringing in Alamance County by a cocaine-addicted mother and alcoholic grandparents.
Jurors also considered the haunting fact that Maness grew up knowing his father was serving a life term in prison for killing a retired police officer in 1986.
Larry Prince, still overcome with a father’s grief, didn’t accept any of the defense arguments.
“It’s absolutely the same as me or anyone else. Be accountable for what you do,” he said.
Prince’s family members weren’t the only ones deeply affected by his death. Others included Prince’s colleagues at the Boiling Spring Lakes Police Department, where a memorial plaque was dedicated last year.
“Twelve good people deemed Darrell Maness beyond redemption. Darrell Maness challenged life with anger and violence. He will reap the consequences of his actions each and every day of his incarcerated life. It will not be a tragedy when this man is put to death,” Boiling Spring Lakes Police Chief Richard White said in a prepared statement.
Pam Prince said she discussed the concept of the death penalty with her teenage children, and both thought it appropriate for Maness.
“Mitch favored the death penalty,” she said.
Assistant District Attorney Lee Bollinger summed up the views of the law enforcement community:
“It’s the right result. If you kill a police officer in cold blood, it ought to be the result every time,” he said.
Maness was also convicted of seven other felonies in connection with his actions after Prince was shot, including firing Prince’s gun at three other police officers. In addition to the death penalty, he was given up to 55 additional years in prison, prosecutors said.
Larry Prince said he was concerned at first that the memory of his son would fade from the public consciousness.
“My biggest fear was that he would be forgotten, but no, he will never be forgotten in Brunswick County. He touched too many lives,” Prince said.
Ryan Garcell was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for robbery murder. According to court documents Ryan Garcell would break into the home of Margaret Hutchins Bennick who he would murder during the course of a robbery. Ryan Garcell would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
In June 2004 defendant and his girlfriend, Kaylee Proctor, resided in a mobile home belonging to defendant’s half sister and her boyfriend in Rutherford County. Proctor was pregnant with defendant’s child. Neither defendant nor Proctor was gainfully employed, and the couple were in need of cash. Proctor initiated discussions with defendant about robbing Mrs. Bennick, who resided several miles from them on Old Caroleen Road. Mrs. Bennick had lived in Rutherford County all her life and worked part-time at a Goody’s Family Clothing store. Proctor knew Mrs. Bennick from Proctor’s earlier relationship with Mrs. Bennick’s grandson.
The Crimes
Defendant and Proctor agreed to rob Mrs. Bennick. At their residence on 22 June 2004, defendant and Proctor divulged their plan to three of their friends, Jerome, Anthony, and Quntia Davis.1 As defendant described the plan, he pointed a firearm at one of the boys, saying they could go along or stay at the residence “and be dead too.” The three friends felt intimidated into accompanying defendant and Proctor. Shortly before leaving to carry out the robbery, defendant telephoned Mrs. Bennick’s residence to confirm she was at home.2 Defendant stated he would have to kill Mrs. Bennick after robbing her.
Defendant, Proctor, Jerome, Anthony, and Quntia traveled to Mrs. Bennick’s residence in defendant’s vehicle, with Proctor providing directions. When they arrived, defendant made them wear latex gloves that he had brought. Defendant and Proctor went to the side door of the residence. When Mrs. Bennick came to the door, Proctor asked if Mrs. Bennick’s grandson, Proctor’s ex-boyfriend, was at the residence and then asked to use the telephone. Mrs. Bennick welcomed Proctor and defendant into her residence. At first they were pleasant with Mrs. Bennick, but Proctor became upset when Mrs. Bennick stated several times that she did not have any money. Defendant then grabbed the victim and placed his firearm to her head.
Proctor motioned for Jerome, Anthony, and Quntia to leave the vehicle and come inside the residence. Inside, Jerome and Anthony saw the victim lying facedown on the floor in a bedroom at the rear of the residence, and defendant was pointing his firearm at her. Jerome heard the victim begging, “Don’t kill me,” and promising she would not “call the cops” if defendant let her live. Defendant told his victim to be quiet or he would kill her. Defendant and Proctor told Jerome, Anthony, and Quntia to search for valuables. They ransacked the residence and carried groceries, a VCR, a game console, jewelry, a coin collection, and clothes outside to the vehicle. The victim pleaded with defendant to take anything he wanted as long as he did not kill her. Defendant stole the victim’s automated teller machine (ATM) card and retrieved from her checkbook the personal identification number (PIN) required to access the victim’s bank account.
Defendant then asked Proctor what she thought they should do with Mrs. Bennick. Proctor stated, “She can point me out. You are going to have to kill her. They are going to know who I am.” For approximately ten minutes, defendant contemplated what to do while Proctor repeatedly encouraged him to kill the victim. Defendant told Jerome to come to the rear bedroom of the residence and to send Anthony and Quntia to the vehicle. As Anthony was leaving for the vehicle, he heard a gurgling sound coming from the rear bedroom. Jerome held the firearm while defendant sat on his victim’s back and strangled her with his right arm around her neck. Proctor went outside to smoke a cigarette. When his victim ceased struggling or moving at all, defendant retrieved Proctor so she could check the victim’s pulse. Jerome went to wait in the vehicle.
Approximately five minutes later, and after ransacking the residence, defendant and Proctor returned to the vehicle where Jerome, Anthony, and Quntia waited. With a smile on his face, defendant told them how he had “choked” and “killed” his victim and warned that they better not “get cold feet” or they might “end up dead like that woman.” Anthony testified defendant told them how, after strangling the victim, he wrapped an electrical extension cord around her neck and rode her limp body like a horse, saying, “Giddy up, giddy up.” Defendant tied one end of the cord around his victim’s neck and the other end around a bedpost in an attempt to make the murder appear like a suicide.
The group returned to defendant’s residence for a short time and stored some of the stolen items in defendant’s bedroom. They then went to defendant’s mother’s residence and presented her with some of the victim’s jewelry, the coin collection, and the VCR as birthday presents. Defendant’s mother inquired about his activities, and defendant confessed to the murder. Defendant’s mother suggested ways to conceal his identity so he could use the stolen ATM card without being apprehended by law enforcement. The group traveled to various locations that night and the next night and used the ATM card. Before access to the victim’s bank account was blocked on 25 June 2004, $1,790.35 in cash was fraudulently obtained.
The day after the murder, 23 June 2004, the victim’s coworkers called her sister when she failed to arrive for her 5:00 p.m. work shift. Mrs. Bennick’s grandson went to her residence and found it in disarray. He found her body in a rear bedroom of the residence with an electrical extension cord wrapped around her neck and tied to a bedpost.
Law enforcement immediately began an investigation. The crime scene yielded several items of direct and circumstantial evidence. The kitchen and other rooms were ransacked; a latex glove was found on the kitchen counter; latent fingerprint impressions indicated that the perpetrators wore gloves; and an ashtray with cigarette butts laid on the floor next to the victim’s body.
During the last week of June 2004, defendant and his friend, Nate Whiteside, were shopping at a retail store when Nate noticed a newspaper story reporting the murder. Nate knew the victim, so he discussed the story with defendant. Defendant’s reaction seemed unusual, making Nate suspicious. In response to Nate’s persistent questioning, defendant confessed to the murder, described how he committed it, and showed Nate his firearm.
On 2 July 2004, the day after defendant’s confession to him, Nate contacted law enforcement officials who asked him to telephone defendant and speak with him more about the crimes so that the conversation could be recorded. That evening Nate telephoned defendant. Defendant made incriminating statements that were recorded and subsequently admitted into evidence at trial.
Law enforcement received additional information on 2 July 2004. Francia Lopez, defendant’s older half sister with whom defendant and Proctor resided, learned of the victim’s death and suspected defendant and Proctor may have been involved. She remembered their arrival at the residence on the evening of the murder carrying bags of groceries and other items. Several days after the murder, Lopez and Proctor traveled in defendant’s vehicle to a retail store. Lopez asked Proctor if she and defendant were involved in the murder, and eventually, Proctor admitted the details of the crimes. Worried that defendant would harm anyone he suspected of reporting him to law enforcement, Lopez contacted her cousin in Florida who telephoned members of defendant’s and Lopez’s extended family. An out-of-state family member informed law enforcement in North Carolina about the details of Proctor’s conversation with Lopez. Defendant was arrested the next day, 3 July 2004.
After defendant’s arrest, law enforcement received several more pieces of critical evidence. Some of the victim’s jewelry and her VCR were discovered at defendant’s mother’s residence. On 5 July 2004, defendant’s mother gave a statement to law enforcement that included the following:
On Tuesday after they killed that woman they came to my house with the stuff they stole. Ryan had an ATM card he had stolen. Ryan laid a pistol on the table to ask me how he could use the card at a ATM. I told him ․ he couldn’t do it without getting caught․ I told him to cover his face and his body․
Ryan stole three hats from my boyfriend Luis․ Luis recognized the hat from the ATM [photos]․ They left to go to ATM and came back around 2:00 to 3:00 a.m.
․ They had a thousand dollars in a cigarette case․ Ryan gave me $160 and said, “If you know what’s good for you, don’t you say anything.”
During the last week of June 2004, defendant visited a friend, Christopher Jamell Joiner, wearing new clothes and jewelry and carrying a new cell phone. Joiner asked defendant how he acquired the items. Defendant told him, “ Don’t worry about it.” On 2 July 2004, defendant visited Joiner again and gave his firearm to Joiner without explanation. After Joiner learned of defendant’s arrest, he wrapped the firearm in a plastic bag and threw it into a wooded area on 4 July 2004. Joiner also contacted friends and members of the victim’s family to tell them he had possessed the firearm. When requested, Joiner led law enforcement to the weapon on 6 July 2004 and identified the firearm at trial.
On 8 or 9 July 2004, Francia Lopez retrieved her mail, which at the time was being delivered to her mother’s residence. Lopez discovered an envelope addressed to her mother having Rutherford County Jail as the return address. Lopez opened the envelope and found a letter written in defendant’s handwriting to their mother. After reading the letter, Lopez turned it over to law enforcement. In the letter, defendant expressed his love for Proctor and for his unborn child. He told his mother he believed he would receive a sentence of death and Proctor would receive a sentence of life imprisonment. Defendant begged his mother to “take the charge for me,” so that he and Proctor could be free to marry and raise their child. Defendant unfolded a story his mother was to tell law enforcement if she agreed to help him. In doing so, defendant corroborated evidence from the crime scene and corroborated many of the salient facts testified to by the State’s witnesses, including that an “ashtray was right beside” the victim’s body when she was killed and “an extension cord” was used to “tie[ ] her neck to the end of the bed, the post.”
Forensic pathologist Donald Jason, M.D., conducted an autopsy on the victim’s remains for the State Medical Examiner System. The autopsy revealed numerous bruises and abrasions on the victim’s arms, legs, and face. Two sets of ligature grooves were found on the victim’s neck, one in the front and another that went all the way around her neck. The marks around the neck were consistent with the testimony received regarding the electrical extension cord defendant wrapped around the victim’s neck. The cause of death was strangulation due to either the closing of the victim’s airway or the closing of the arteries that carried blood to her brain, or both.
After deliberating on the evidence presented by the State,3 the jury returned guilty verdicts for first-degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. The trial then advanced to the penalty proceeding as required by statute.
George Wilkerson was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a double murder. According to court documents George Wilkerson and an accomplice would go over to the home of Casey James Dinoff, 19, and Christopher Cameron Voncannon, 18, and would shoot dead the half brothers over a drug dispute. George Wilkerson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The North Carolina Supreme Court has found no error in the capital murder trial of George Wilkerson of Asheboro in the deaths of Casey Dinoff, 19, and Christopher Voncannon, 18, in Randleman in January 2005.
A review by the state supreme court is mandatory in death penalty cases.
Wilkerson was 25 years old when he was tried in Randolph Superior Court in December 2006 and found guilty on two counts of first degree murder on the basis of malice, premeditation and deliberation. The jury recommended a sentence of death which was pronounced by Judge Bradford Long on Dec. 20, 2006.
State Supreme Court justices heard the appeal by Wilkerson’s attorneys in December 2008 and filed its ruling at the end of August 2009. Wilkerson’s attorneys argued that 17 errors were made in the trial and filed motions to have the charges dismissed and for a new trial. The Supreme Court dismissed the motions and ruled that the defendant’s trial and capital sentencing proceeding were free from prejudicial error and that the defendant’s death sentence was proportionate to the crime.
Wilkerson and his lifelong friend, Logan Malanowski, then age 23, were both charged with the shooting deaths of half brothers Dinoff and Voncannon at their parents’ home on Adams Farm Road near Randleman on Jan. 11, 2005.
Malanowski pled guilty in Randolph Superior Court on Jan. 26, 2007, and received two life sentences without parole.
According to testimony and court records on events leading up to the shootings, Wilkerson and Malanowski had accused Dinoff of stealing $30 worth of cocaine and made threatening phone calls to Dinoff at his home. The half brothers were home alone at the time.
Voncannon had called a friend to come pick them up when Malanowski called again to say they had found the cocaine and would be stopping by with a gift of marijuana as a goodwill gesture.
Shortly after midnight, Wilkerson and Malanowski parked a car that belonged to Wilkerson’s girlfriend on the southbound shoulder of U.S. 220 Bypass and walked through a wooded area to the Dinoff residence on Adams Farm Road.
Voncannon and two friends were outside the residence (and Dinoff was inside) when they saw two men kick the door open and heard gunshots. Voncannon ran into the house and was also shot and killed. The friends drove away and called 911.
Wilkerson was apprehended shortly after the shootings when a deputy spotted him hiding under a parked tractor-trailer rig on the shoulder of northbound U.S. 220 Bypass. Malanowski was apprehended in Randleman the next morning.
The ruling, written by Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Edmunds, said the sentence of death imposed in a double first degree murder case was not disproportionate when:
x The jury found aggravating circumstances of malice and premeditation.
x Each murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of first degree burglary.
x That each murder was part of a course of conduct in which the defendant engaged and that included the commission of other crimes of violence against other persons.
x Our Supreme Court has never found a sentence of death disproportionate in a case where the defendant was convicted of murdering more than one victim.
x The murders occurred inside the home of one of the victims, and a murder in one’s home is particularly shocking, not only because a life was senselessly taken, but because it was taken at an especially private place where a person has a right to feel secure.
x Defendant was convicted of first degree murder both under the felony murder rule and on the basis of malice, premeditation and deliberation, and
x These murders involved the use of at least two semiautomatic assault rifles and a pistol against young, unarmed victims, resulting in multiple close-range gunshot wounds to each victim’s head or neck.
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