Showing posts with label serial killer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label serial killer. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

In Memoriam: Crystal Dozier

Crystal Dozier R.I.P.





"As a mother, I'll have a hole in my heart for the rest of my life," says Florence Bray, 57, whose oldest daughter, Crystal Dozier, 36, was one of the victims. "But at least I won't go to my grave wondering and not knowing where she was. I can find peace."- Florence Bray, Crystal Dozier's mother.


"She made some bad choices, but she wasn't a bad person. Remember her."- Find A Grave contributor Meow139 on Crystal Dozieributor 


This post is dedicated to Mrs. Crystal Dozier, good mother to her children despite her unfortunate circumstances and troubles throughout her lifetime, daughter, sister, and hardworking.  

We need to remember her as such and not dwelling on her troubles.  We tend to dwell on the troubles, not to seed the goodness of Mrs. Dozier.  She left behind several children and grandchildren as well as her siblings, mother, and a host of relatives, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and others devoted to her memory.

Monday, July 01, 2019

Serial Murders of Immigrant Women and Children in Cyprus

Take a look at the women whose lives were taken mercilessly by an evil man, neglectful police, and an apathetic public.  Those murders would have been prevented had the police and the public done their jobs.

Just like Charlotte P.D. brushed off the concerns of the Black murder victims of serial killer Henry Louis Wallace, the police in Cyprus brushed off concerns of immigrant Filipinas in connection with the missing and murdered women of Cyprus serial killer.


Cypriot police chief fired over the handling of the serial murders of women and children of Color.  Good for them.  I wished for the same kind of action back in the U.S. where police chiefs and investigators have the tendencies to mishandle serial murder cases involving poor and working class Black women, past and present.


Vigil and protest for the murdered victims as well as to protest violence against women and children in the island nation of Cyprus.


Nikos Metaxas was convicted in connection with a string of murders of young immigrant women and children of Color in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. The discovery of the remains of seven women and children in the toxic lakes of copper mines and shooting range outraged the inhabitants of that island.  

Protesters took to the streets to demand answers in why the deaths of the women went unreported by the authorities and that the police and government had been slow in searching the missing women and children because they were immigrants and foreign workers.

Most of the murdered women were from the Philippines.  Two were from Romania.  One woman was from either Nepal or India.  


These women were attractive, hard working individuals who were improving their lives and their families by working overseas.  

Women and men from economically disadvantage nations had to take work in richer nations because of economic and social inequality in their home countries.  Wealthy countries take advantage of adverse economic conditions of poorer nations by promising women to work in domestic and agricultural jobs.  Many of the workers worked in poor conditions without rights. They're poorly paid and are subjected to abuse, deportation, and worse.

The case in Cyprus really exposed an exploitative system that allow thousands of migrant women to work as housemaids in conditions that critics have described as modern-day slavery.

This exploitative system isn't confined to Cyprus.  It's all over the whole world including America.

The women and children murdered are:

* Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38, Philippines
* Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, Philippines
* Maricar Valtez Aquiola, 31, Philippines
* Sienna Graze Seucalliuc, 6, Mary Rose' daughter, Philippines
* Livia Florentina Bunea, Romania
* Elena Natalia Bunea, 8, Livia's daughter, Romania
* Unknown woman, either from Nepal or India



Members of the Filipino community in Cyprus held a vigil in honor of the victims


Greek National Nikos Metaxas(inset)murdered 7 women and children over a two-year period.
A lake in Cyprus where the remains of some of his victims were found. 



The following article is from the BBC News Network

Nikos Metaxas, 35, plead guilty in court on Monday to 12 charges relating to the abduction and killing of seven women and girls in Cyprus over three years.
In tears, he apologized to the victims' families and said he did not know why he committed the "hateful crimes".
The case, Cyprus's first trial of a serial killer, has stunned the island.
"Cypriot society will be wondering how one of its members reached this point," he told the court in the capital Nicosia, adding: "I have also asked myself why; I have not yet managed to find an answer."
Metaxas said he was willing to assist authorities "in search of those answers".



A candlelight vigil held in honor of the seven murdered victims


The killings took place between September 2016 and August 2018. Of his victims, three of the women were from the Philippines, one from Nepal and one from Romania. Most were working as housekeepers.
The two children were aged six and eight.
The country's police chief was later sacked and the justice minister resigned over the failure to properly investigate following the missing persons reports.

Associated Press Archive.  On Monday June 24, A Cyprus criminal court on Monday sentenced an army captain to seven life terms in prison after he pleaded guilty to the premeditated murder and kidnapping of seven foreign women and girls.
In handing down the sentence, the three-judge panel said that Nicholas Metaxas appeared to have mounted a "campaign of murder" in choosing defenceless women, most of whom came to Cyprus looking for work.

The case first came to light in April, when the bodies of two women - Marry Rose Tiburcio, 38, and Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, both from the Philippines - were discovered.
One of the bodies was spotted by tourists down a mine shaft that had flooded following heavy rains.
The discoveries triggered an investigation and, after tracking Ms Tiburcio's online messages, police arrested Metaxas on suspicion of murder.
At first he denied killing a third Filipino woman, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, 31, who was reported missing in 2017, but then changed his testimony and confessed.
Following his arrest, Metaxas showed investigators to a well at an army firing range where the body of one of the victims was discovered.
Authorities then scoured two lakes in the south for two other bodies.
Metaxas reportedly gave police detailed information about how he disposed of the bodies.
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I'm glad justice has been served and that POS served seven consecutive life terms in prison.  While the verdict won't bring the victims back to life.  This tragedy would have been prevented had the police took the reports of missing women and girls seriously as well as taken the time to thoroughly investigate the crimes.  It's a pattern we see involving poor people of Color and Immigrants, time and time again.  This needs to stop.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Wes Craven Passed Away!

Wes Craven, actor and movie director passed away of terminal brain cancer.

On Sunday, the entertainment industry lost a legend. Famed horror director Wes Craven passed away of brain cancer.

His representatives confirmed the director had passed away fighting terminal cancer.

Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, writer, producer, and actor known for his work on horror films, particularly slasher films. He died weeks after his 76th birthday.
Wes Craven on the set of The New Nightmare with Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger.
Wes was famous for the cult classic Nightmare on Elm Street. It introduced the world to Freddy Krueger, the infamous serial killer who stalked his victims in their dreams. He was responsible for the hit thriller Scream. Craven also directed all four films in the Scream series, and co-created the Ghostface character. Some of his other films include The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, Red Eye and My Soul to Take.


Grown up in Cleveland, Ohio, Wes always had an interest in the art of horror. He was a professor working at a college. He taught English studies. He got bored with teaching. He thought of doing X-rated movies but felt that the market was swamped with it. So he decided to take advantage of the teenage lust of sex and spice it up with a serial maniac who took advantage of their naive awareness.

The directing of Nightmare of Elm Street was on a low budget. That movie would go on to become one of the best screams in history. It would spark numerous sequels, a crossover with infamous Jason Voorhies of Friday The 13th and a reboot.

Also the Scream movie was one of the highest grossing horror movies to ever exist. He would produce the three sequels and executive produce the television series.

His art gave people a reason to fear the unknown. Believe me the damsel in distress is often the first to go in a most horror movies.

We're gonna miss them days.

World News Today send our condolences to the family of Wes Craven.



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Henry Louis Wallace Serial Murder Case- 20 Years Later



Henry Louis Wallace Murder Case- 20 Years Later



Some of the victims of Henry Louis Wallace, Shawna Denise Hawk and Betty Jean(Susie) Baucum


It has been 20 years ago today that I first heard about a serial killer killing beautiful young Black and Biracial women in Charlotte.  I was only 22 years old in 1994.  I was horrified that someone went around the neighborhood slaughtering women at their prime.  Those women didn't get a chance to see their future. No college graduations(although Valencia M. Jumper was given a posthumous degree from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte), mo weddings(several of the victims were engaged). No chance to see their children grow up, graduate, have careers, get married and have children of their own. That wicked, evil man senselessly took their lives between 1990 and 1994.  His name is Henry Louis Wallace.

Henry L. Wallace was born in Barnwell, S.C. in November 1965.  He was raised by his mother and never met his father who was a schoolteacher who died a long time ago.  His childhood was marked with great unhappiness and abuse, with much of the abuse came from his mother.  Despite his woeful circumstances, he became a popular student at Barnwell High School.  He participated in extracurricular activities, even tried out as a male cheerleader and ran for the school student council.  He graduated there in 1983 and moved to Washington State to join the U.S. Navy.  He was honorably discharged in 1987.  In that year, he married a local girl.  That marriage fell apart later. 

 In the late 80s and early 90s,  Mr. Wallace has committed various crimes, including robbery.  It wasn't until 1990 that he killed Tashonda Bethea.  She was killed in February 1990.  Her badly decomposed body was found in a pond by two fishermen a month later.  Mr. Wallace was the suspect, yet the police let him off because of technical difficulties and that they didn't find evidence on him.  To me, Barnwell Police Department did a poor job in investigating Ms. Bethea's murder. From then on, he got into trouble at work, stealing items from Barnwell's radio station where he once worked as a DJ.

Sometime in 1992, he relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. He found jobs at several fast-food restaurants in East Charlotte.  Most employers hired him on the spot because he was articulate and intelligent.


In May 1992, he picked up Sharon Nance, a convicted drug dealer and prostitute. When she demanded payment for her services, Wallace beat her to death, then dropped her body by the railroad tracks. She was found a few days later.

In June 1992, he raped and strangled Caroline Love at her apartment, then dumped her body in a wooded area. Love was a friend of Wallace's girl-friend.[1] After he killed her, he and her sister filed a missing person's report at the police station. It would be almost two years (March 1994) before her body was discovered in a wooded area in Charlotte.
On February 19, 1993, Wallace strangled Shawna Hawk at her home after first having sex with her, and later went to her funeral. Hawk worked at Taco Bell where Wallace was her supervisor. In March 1993, Hawk's mother, Dee Sumpter, and her godmother Judy Williams founded Mothers of Murder Offspring, a Charlotte-based support group for parents of murdered children.

On June 22, he raped and strangled coworker Audrey Spain, whom he once dated and even officiated as the DJ at her birthday party.  Her body was found two days later.

On August 10, 1993, Wallace raped and strangled Valencia M. Jumper -- a friend of his sister's -- then set her on fire to cover up his crime.] A few days after her murder, he and his sister went to Valencia's funeral.

A month later, in September 1993, he went to the apartment of Michelle Stinson, a struggling college student and single mother of two sons. Stinson was a friend of his from Taco Bell. He raped her and then some time later strangled and stabbed her in front of her oldest son.[1]

That October, his only child was born.

On February 4, 1994 Wallace was arrested for shoplifting, but police had not made a connection between him and the murders.

On February 20, 1994, Wallace strangled Vanessa Little Mack, one of his employees from Taco Bell, in her apartment. Mack had two daughters, aged seven and four months, at the time of her death.

On March 8, 1994, Wallace robbed and strangled Betty Jean Baucom. Baucom and Wallace's girlfriend were co-workers. Afterwards, he took valuables from the house, then he left the apartment with her car.[1] He pawned everything except the car, which he left at a shopping center.

Wallace went back to the same apartment complex on the night of March 8, 1994, knowing that Berness Woods would be at work so he could murder his girlfriend, Brandi June Henderson. Wallace raped Henderson while she held her baby, and then strangled her. He also strangled her son, but he survived. Afterwards, he took some valuables from the apartment and left.

The police beefed up patrols in east Charlotte after two bodies of young black women were found at The Lake apartment complex. Even so, Wallace sneaked through to rob and strangle Deborah Ann Slaughter, who had been a co-worker of his girl-friend, and stabbed her some 38 times in the stomach and chest.[1] Her body was found on March 12, 1994.

Wallace was arrested on March 13, 1994. For 12 hours, he confessed to the murders of 10 women in Charlotte. He described in detail, the women's appearances, how he raped, robbed and killed the women, and his crack habit.

The Video:  Charlotte Tragedy: The Nine Victims of Henry Louis Wallace

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From Charlotte Magazine:  1993:  Charlotte's Deadliest Year

"Two miles away, Dee Sumpter was happy to move to Elon Street that year. A single mother of four, she was thrilled to be buying a house. And although parts of the west side were sketchy, her block was close-knit, she says.
Aside from one burglary, the neighborhood was pretty quiet.
She and her 20-year-old daughter Shawna Hawk settled into life there. Dee worked as a receptionist and Shawna took classes at Central Piedmont Community College while also working at an east side Taco Bell. They watched TV and read the papers, even stumbled on a crime scene once driving to the grocery store. But the crime didn’t really touch their lives. 
“That was something that happened to other people,” Sumpter says. “On February 19, 1993, I became ‘other people.’ ”
That’s the day she found Shawna strangled in the bathtub. It took more than a year for police to connect her murder to others, to figure out that someone was killing young black women who had worked in east side fast food restaurants. The homicide unit was stretched thin. And this serial killer had an unusual M.O. Shawna Hawk was Henry Louis Wallace’s third victim. He would kill seven more before confessing in March 1994.  Wallace had been Hawk’s boss at Taco Bell. He even showed up at her funeral.
Sumpter now describes the weeks and months after Shawna’s murder as the “pinnacle of pain. I remember lying in bed and thinking ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’ ” Her lifelong friend Judy Williams thought Sumpter needed a new purpose. The pair, along with Williams’s son and present-day City Councilman David Howard, thought a support group for mothers of other murder victims could help channel some of their pain. So in March 1993, Mothers of Murdered Offspring (MOMO) started meeting.
Beyond supporting other victims’ families, Sumpter began to advocate for changes to police department procedures, saying detectives were not doing enough to solve Shawna’s murder and others. It was a tense relationship. She made some enemies on the force. But today, she says, her organization and the department’s homicide support group work together to help victims’ family members cope."
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Here’s the article from Wikipedia below: 

Henry Louis Wallace (November 4, 1965 - ) is an American serial killer who killed 10 young attractive Black women in Charlotte, N.C. from May 1992 until March 12, 1994.
Mr. Wallace behaviour toward women was chivalrous in public. However, he had another side to him when he killed his victims, usually at night and alone. The murdered young women knew and trusted him well enough to let him into their homes. He filed a missing person report on Caroline Love the day after she was missing, accompanying Love’s sister and Sadie McKnight to the police station in June 1992. Other victims were strangled or stabbed during his two-year reign of terror that wrecked East Charlotte.

He was arrested on March 13, 1994 after the bodies of three young women were found in East Charlotte. A crack addict, Wallace confessed to murdering 10 young Black women in Charlotte, N.C. between 1992 and 1994. He was arraigned on March 16, 1994. Some community leaders and activists as well as victims’ rights groups such as Mothers of Murdered Offspring complained to the press that Charlotte Police Department didn’t do much to solve the murders because the women were African American.
He was tried for the murders of nine women in 1996. Mr. Wallace was convicted and sentenced to death on January 29, 1997. He’s currently on death row at Central Prison.

Biography

Henry Louis Wallace was born in Barnwell, S.C., on November 4, 1965, son of Lottie Mae Wallace and a married school teacher who walked out on Lottie while pregnant with Henry and who never acknowledged his son. Mr. Wallace grew up in extreme poverty, with Lottie Mae working long hours as a textile worker. His mother was a harsh displinarian, constantly criticizing Henry for even the smallest mistakes. In spite of all this, he was a very popular high school student, having been elected to student council and an extremely popular male cheerleader at Barnwell High School in Barnwell, S.C. Mr. Wallace graduated from that school in 1983. He became a deejay for a local radio station in Barnwell. His smooth, sexy voice swayed women so much that earned him the nickname “The Night Rider.” He went to several colleges before joining the U.S. Navy in 1985. Wallace married his high school sweetheart, the former Maretta Brabham in 1987. In 1988, Wallace was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy.

His Crimes

His criminal activities began while being stationed in the U.S. Navy . This is the time when he started experimenting with various drugs. In Washington State, he was served warrants for several burglaries in and around Seattle metro area. In January 1988, Mr. Wallace got into his first real trouble with police. He broke into a Bremerton garden and hardware store, and as he carted away a TV, videocassette recorder and microwave, police arrested him.
In June 1988, Wallace pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary. A judge sentenced him to two years of supervised probation. According to Probation officer Patrick Seaburg, Wallace didn’t show up for most mandatory meetings.

In early 1990, he met an 18-year old high school student Tashanda Bethea. He dated her for a while. In March 1990, Henry murdered Tashonda Bethea, then dumped her in a lake in Barnwell, S.C., his hometown. It wasn’t until weeks later that her body was discovered. He was questioned by the police regarding her disappearance and death. He was never formally charged in her murder. He was also questioned in connection with the attempted rape of a 16-year old Barnwell girl. She accuse Wallace of attempting to rape her at a local motel. However, his mother told the girl’s family to dropped the charges. He was never charged. By that time, his marriage to Maretta fell apart due to emotional and psychological toll. It was aroung that period that he was fired from his job as Chemical Operator for for Sandoz Chemical Co.
Things have gone from bad to worse for Mr. Wallace. In February 1991, he broke into his old high school and the radio station where he once worked. He stole video and recording equipment and was caught trying to pawn them.

In November 1991, he relocated to Charlotte, N. C. He found jobs at several fast-food restaurants in East Charlotte. Around the same time, he met various attractive young Black women whom he dated, one of them is Sadie McKnight. In May 1992, he picked up Sharon Nance, a convicted drug dealer and prostitute. When she demanded payment for her services, Henry mercilessly beat her to death, then dropped her body by the railroad tracks. She was found few days later. Then he sets his evil designs upon the lovely Caroline Love. He brutally strangled her at her apartment, then dumped her body in a wooded area. After he killed her, he and Caroline’s sisters filed a missing person’s report at the police station. It would be almost two years later (March 1994) before the police find her body. It would be nine months later before he killed again, this time setting his deadly designs at this beautiful princess.

Mr. Wallace went looking for Shawna Denise Hawk in February 1993. He murdered her after visiting her at her home on February 19, 1993. Ms. Hawk was a college student studying to become a paralegal at the time of her death. He was once her boss at Taco Bell in East Charlotte. In January 1993, a month before Shawna was murdered, Mr. Wallace went to the wrong house looking for Ms. Hawk, but found a then 10-year old girl home alone. He ran around the back of her house and jumped over the fence. The girl feared for her safety. Shawna came to the girl’s rescue and offer to babysit for her until her parents came home. Ms. Hawk did this until two weeks before her untimely death. Mr. Wallace may have been stalking Shawna since January 1993. He came to Shawna’s funeral in late February. He offered his sympathy to her mother. A month later, March 1993, Shawna’s mother, Dee Sumpter and her godmother Judy Williams founded Mothers of Murder Offspring, a Charlotte-based support group for parents who lost their children to murder.

Three months has passed and this time he claimed another victim he knew. This time he targeted his friend and co-worker Audrey Spain. He killed her on June 22. Her friends were looking for her when she didn’t show up for work at Taco Bell. Her body was found two days later.

A little over a month later, on August 10, 1993, Mr. Wallace strikes again, this time taking young, ambitious, and very popular college student Valencia M. Jumper. She was the sister of Vanessa Jumper and was a good friend of Henry’s sister, Yvonne. He came over to her house that night because of difficulties with his girlfriend. He wanted to be consoled that night. Instead, he strangled Valencia, then set her on fire to cover up his crime. A few days after the murder, he and his sister went to Valencia’s funeral.

A month later, in September 1993, he went to the apartment of Michelle Stinson, a struggling college student and single mother of two sons. He strangled and stabbed her in front of her oldest son. She was his last victim of 1993.

As community pressure mounted in the wake of Charlotte’s high crime rate, Mr. Wallace took a break from criminal activity. One reason is the birth of his only child in October. Another is that community activists were protesting the lack of concern regarding Black crime victims in Northern and Eastern Charlotte neighborhoods. They contended that the police didn’t solve the murders of Blacks aggressively as they have done with White victims in South Charlotte and that the police and the general community didn’t care for the safety of residents who had to live in such crime-ridden areas.

On February 20, the day after the anniversary of Shawna Hawk’s death and Dee Sumpter’s pleas to the media to help solve her daughter’s murder, Mr. Wallace killed Vanessa Little Mack in her apartment. His crack habit was very strong at the time and he was on the lookout for money to support the habit. He targeted Ms. Mack because she had a good job and income. Her mother-in-law, Barbara Rippy found her dead. Her four-month old daughter was alright. Ms. Mack had two daughters, aged seven and fourn months at the time of her death.
On March 8, 1994, Mr. Wallace went to the apartment of his longtime friend Vernon Lamar Woods, with the intention of robbing, raping and murdering Woods’s girlfriend, Brandi Henderson. Brandi was the mother of 10-month old Tareese Woods. Brandi, Vernon, and Mr. Wallace once worked at the Golden Corral and have been good friends since. Brandi’s boyfriend was home, foiling his motive in coming over there in the first place. He realized he knew someone else that lived in the apartment complex: His girlfriend’s best friend.

Betty Jean Baucom, who worked with his girlfriend Sadie McKnight at Bojangles. Betty was the assistant manager. When Betty Jean Baucom answered the door on that same day, Wallace told her he needed to use her phone. She was more than glad to help her friend, Sadie McKnight who was Henry’s boyfriend. He demanded keys, the safe, and the alarm code for Bojangles in order to rob the place to support his drug addiction. Baucom resisted, refusing to give them to him. Finally, she surrendered. According to Wallace’s confession, Baucom stood up and told him that she forgave him. Wallace strangled her to death. Afterwards, he took valuables from the house. Then he left the apartment with her car. He pawned everything except the car, which he left at a shopping center.

Mr. Wallace went back to the same apartment complex on the night of March 8,1994, knowing that Vernon Woods would be at work so he could murder his girlfriend Brandi June Henderson. Earlier in the day he came to the couple’s house admiring the new entertainment center the couple bought with their income tax refund money. Wallace strangled Henderson that night. Tarresse cried loudly. That startled Mr. Wallace. He then went to the couple’s bathroom to get a towel. He tied it tightly around the Tarreese’s neck. Then he took the valuables inside the apartment and left afterwards.

The police beefed up patrols in east Charlotte after two bodies of young Black women were found in the same apartment complex. While the police patrolling the neighborhood, Mr. Wallace stopped by at an apartment of a woman he knew before.

It was Deborah Ann Slaughter. Ms. Slaughter, who relocated from Atlanta the year before and a mother of an 18-year-old son. She used to worked at Bojangles, where his girlfriend worked. He came to her house asking for money for drugs. He stabbed and strangled her. Then he stole a few things upon leaving the apartment. Her body was found March 12, 1994.
Wallace was arrested on March 13, 1994. For 12 hours, he confessed to the murders of 10 Black women in Charlotte. He described the womens’ appearances, how he raped, robbed and killed the women in detailed descriptions, and of his crack habit.

The Aftermath and Criticism

On March 13,1994, Henry Louis Wallace was arrested for killing 10 young women. Charlotte’s police chief congratulated his arrest, reassuring the community that the women of East Charlotte are safe, now that the killer is behind bars. Many people, especially in the Black community wondered why the murders weren’t solved soon enough and that Charlotte Police didn’t consider the murders of 10 young Black women between 1992 and 1994 high on the priority list. As Shawna Denise Hawk’s mother, Dee Sumpter said concerning police neglect:
the victims “weren’t prominent people with social-economic status. They weren’t special. And they were black. "

Charlotte’s police chief, Rod Steiger was stumped by a serial killer in their midst. He said he wasn’t aware of a killer until early March 1994 when three young Black women were murdered within four days of each other. Charlotte Police Department apologized to its residents for not spotting a link among the murders sooner. However, they said the murder cases varied enough to throw them off Wallace’s trail. Until the Mr. Wallace’s murder pace picked up in the early weeks of March 1994, the deaths were sporadic and not entirely similar. It was only in the week of March 9, 1994 that Charlotte Police warned the people in East Charlotte that there was a serial killer on the loose.

One young lady said that the police didn’t care because the police viewed the young female murder victims as “fast girls who hang out a lot.” The victims were not the type. They were described by both the press and family members as pretty, hardworking, and serious young women. Others said the reason why the police didn’t take the murder cases serious because the women were both working class and Black.

Inside The Trial
After two years of hearing confessions, debates on whether to hold the trial in Charlotte, the DNA evidence from murdered victims, and the jury selection, his trial began in September 1996. In the opening arguments, the prosecutor argues for the death penaly while the defense attorney pleaded for life sentence for Mr. Wallace. The prosecutor told the jurors to sympathize with the victims and that Mr. Wallace’s crimes were heinous and cruel, while the defense urge them to consider Mr. Wallace dire circumstances and his mental illness as mitigating factors in giving him life in prison instead of the death penalty.

In the opening argument, the Assistant District Attorney Marsha Goodenow urge the jury to think about the victims and how they died heinously by Mr. Wallace. She told the jurors that the victims have several things in common:

“They were African American women, all young, all very attractive, she said. “They all knew the defendant and they all died at his hands. "

Public Defender Isabel Day told the victims’ families and jurors that Mr. Wallace was a man driven by hideous fantasies and disabled by mental illness rooted in childhood. Furthermore, Ms. Day said defense evidence will show that the killings were not first-degree murder because they didn’t result from “premeditation and deliberation.

According to FBI serial murder expert Robert Ressler:

“If he elected to become a serial killer, he was going about it in the wrong way,’ said Robert Ressler, one of the “Mr. Wallace always seemed to take one step forward and two steps back,” Ressler testified. ‘He would take items and put them in the stove to destroy them by burning them and then forget to turn the stove on.”

Psychologist Faye Sultan testified during the trial that Mr. Wallace was constant victim of physical and mental abuse from his mother since birth and that he suffered from mental illness at the time of the killings. Ms. Sultan argues for life sentence without parole instead of the death penalty.

Ms. Goodenow argued that Mr. Wallace deserved death because he is a calculating, cold-blooded killer who preyed on friends and co-workers and hid his crimes by cleaning up murder scenes.
Defense attorneys, Day and Cooney, on the other hand, did not dispute the fact that Mr. Wallace killed the nine young Black women. They argued he was mentally ill and drug addicted at the time of the killings, driven by obsessional sexual fantasies that rendered him incapable of forming the intent to kill. Ms. Day and Mr. Cooney wanted a second-degree murder conviction in hopes of avoiding a death sentence.

On January 7, 1997, he was found guilty of nine murders and on January 29, 1997, he was sentenced to nine consecutive death sentences. Mr. Wallace said nothing during his trial for murdering and raping nine women. After being sentenced to death, he broke his silence to apologize to the victims’ families.

“None of these women, none of your daughters, mothers, sisters or family mem
bers in any way deserved what they got. They did nothing to me that warranted their death,”

Wiping tears, Wallace sat down as George Burrell, Brandi June Henderson’s cousin shouted:
“Why did you kill them?”

After The Trial
On June 5, 1998, Henry Louis Wallace, was married to a former prison nurse, Rebecca Torrijas, in a ceremony next to the execution chamber where he has been sentenced to die. Mecklenburg County public defender Isabel Day, served as an official witness and photographer. Also attending was the manager of the death-row unit at the prison.

Since being sentenced to death in 1997, Mr. Wallace has been appealing to the courts to overturn the death sentences, stating that his confessions were coerced and his constitutional rights were violated in the process.

In 2005, Superior Court Judge Charles Lamm rejected Wallace’s latest appeal to overturn his convictions and nine death sentences, moving him another step closer to execution.
The legal battle to save Wallace, now 41, has already been through the state and federal courts. The N.C. Supreme Court upheld the death sentences in 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 denied his appeal. Lamm’s rejection is the first in a second round of appeals that will likely wind through state and federal courts again in the next few years.

No execution date is being set for Mr. Wallace to this day.

The Victims
The victims described in news reports and the victims’ families accounts were young, beautiful Black women between the ages of 18 and 35. Majority of Mr. Wallace’s victims were petite as well. Some were mothers of young children, others were pretty young college students.

The victims:
Tashanda Bethea
Sharon Lavette Nance
Caroline Love
Shawna D. Hawk
Audrey Ann Spain
Valencia M. Jumper
Michelle Stinson
Vanessa Little Mack
Betty Jean Baucom
Brandi June Henderson
Deborah Slaughter

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Houses of Horror by Sikivu Hutchinson

Relatives searching for missing victims
Mother holding flyer of her missing daughter

Houses of Horror
by Sikivu Hutchinson

Sexualized violence permeates the reality and culture of American life. But in poor locales of Black America, those who prey on women are too often allowed to “hide in plain sight” by a police mentality that obscures the lines between victims and predators. Even as the horror of the mass murders in Cleveland began to surface, “some of the Internet stories of the missing evoked the stereotype of drug-addicted black women, alluding to their being prostitutes and transients.”

Houses of Horror
by Sikivu Hutchinson

“Sexualized violence continues to be a national unaddressed epidemic.”

House of horrors. Nightmare on X Street. Shiftless apathetic residents with criminal pasts. Throwaway victims with dead-end lives. Over the past several weeks the news cycle has churned with high profile examples of systematized violence against women and embattled communities of color. The Richmond High gang-rape incident, the Department of Justice’s egregious findings on untested DNA rape kits and the Cleveland serial killer case have all demonstrated that sexualized violence continues to be a national unaddressed epidemic. When news of convicted rapist turned serial killer Anthony Sowell’s Cleveland killing spree broke recently the media dove in feet first with its boilerplate on black urban dysfunction. In incredulous narrative after incredulous narrative, black criminal pathology, neglect, neighborhoods saturated with and inured to violence were all on lurid display.

The Cleveland story received more coverage than is normally devoted to poor black communities. Yet the coverage was noteworthy for its relentless focus on the macabre circumstances of the discoveries in Sowell’s house. Lost in the mainstream outrage over the house of horrors was the specter of decades-long neglect by the local police. Cleveland residents have long complained about the lack of police follow-through on missing person cases in the community. In language that echoed the sentiments expressed by black communities from South L.A. to North Carolina, Cleveland community members weighed in on the lack of coverage, exposure and law enforcement presence around local efforts to track their missing. Some of the Internet stories of the missing evoked the stereotype of drug-addicted black women, alluding to their being prostitutes and transients. With their spotty pasts and run-ins with the law the two Sowell victims who were positively identified were portrayed as textbook examples of black female criminality. And what bigger contrast could there be to nationally mourned white female abduction victims who are invariably depicted as apple-cheeked pictures of unblemished innocence.
This is so true when it comes to serial killings of Black women. It seems like history repeats itself. It happened in the 70s Boston. It happened in S.Central LA in the early eighties. It happened in Charlotte, N.C., with serial killings of 11 Black women by Henry Louis Wallace in the 90s. It happened in Peoria, IL, when a white man killed seven Black women in the early 2000s. It's still going on in Rocky Mount, N.C., and in Los Angeles, CA., with the Grim Sleeper Murders. The mainstream media prefer to concentrate on pretty missing white women such as Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, Stacy Peterson. Asian women such as Annie Le. The victims of serial killer Ted Bundy are still remembered. They received far more press than victims of Color. Not one serial murder case involving Black women victims get the People magazine coverage. Not one.

“Lost in the mainstream outrage over the house of horrors was the specter of decades-long neglect by the local police.”

In the mainstream narrative, unruly, criminal, illicit black women, the kind who “invite” rape anyway, are hardly worthy of mention must less sympathy. Thus, Sowell was able to hide in plain sight because of the presumption of guilt that the criminal justice system associates with black communities. As a parolee in a criminalized community it was easy for him to rack up multiple victims. It was easy for him to let these murdered women literally decompose in plain view on his living room floor because of the belief that black communities are cesspits and black lives are not worth protecting.
Exactly!

In a more “rarefied” sector of the East Coast another misogynist house of horrors is being buttressed in the name of “healthcare reform.” Nancy Pelosi and her lawless Blue dog Democrat posse in the House of Representatives have voted to include an amendment to the healthcare bill that would deny women the right to abortion coverage. Under the terms of a private healthcare exchange in the misnamed public option women could not purchase plans from private insurers who provide abortion coverage. This provision would essentially create a two or three tier system in which wealthier women would once again be able to fund abortions and poorer women would be left to back alley quacks and coat hangers. Black and Latino women, who are disproportionately un- and under-insured, and have the most to lose from unwanted pregnancies, would be the most deeply impacted. And with the draconian conservatives in the Senate trotting out their mangled bill in a month, the real white collar state sanctioned violence against women will be on full display.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7FM Los Angeles.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Is there a serial killer killing black women in Rocky Mountain NC?

Is a serial killer murdering black women in Rocky Mountain North Carolina. Six bodies have been found and three women are currently missing.

The bodies of,Tahara Sheniece Nicholson, 28, Jackie Thorpe 35, Jarniece Latonya Hargrove, 31; Ernestine Battle, 50; and Melody LaShae Wiggins, 29, were all found in the same area.

A sixth body discovered in February has yet to be identified, and three other missing women with similar descriptions and backgrounds – Christine Marie Boone, Renee Joyce Durham and Yolanda Renee Lancaster – remain missing. Learn more about this story by using the link below:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHSpecialReport.html

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

The Lives of the Victims of Serial Killer Henry Louis Wallace


Betty Jean Baucum


Shawna D. Hawk


Brandi June Henderson



Audrey Ann Spain




Valencia M. Jumper









Caroline Love








Deborah Slaughter









Michelle Denise Stinson


The Victims of Henry Louis Wallace: Remember These Ladies :


May 27, 1992 Sharon Lavette Nance 32


When Sharon Nance left her aunt's house in May 1992, she wore a black dress and talked about going out with friends. When she didn't return and didn't call, aunt Linda Nance knew something was wrong. But it wasn't until a week later, when TV reports showed police finding a woman's body in a black dress, that the family knew how bad it was. She had been beaten and left beside Rozzelle's Ferry Road. For almost two years the Nance family struggled with a mysterious, violent end to a troubled life. This week police said Nance was a victim of Henry Louis Wallace. Her family knew her as a sweet woman who drew, wrote poetry and loved her son. ``Whatever she could do for somebody, she would do it,'' said Linda Nance. Relatives say she fell in with a bad crowd, started using drugs and got into trouble. Police records show she faced 61 charges between 1975 and 1992, including minor traffic offenses, assault, drug and weapon charges. She had recently been released from prison before she died, police said. On Monday, the family was glad the killer had been caught, puzzled about how Nance encountered Wallace, and angry that her legal troubles were being dredged up. ``Regardless of what she had ever done, she was the best person I ever knew,'' said sister Doris Nance.


* June 15, 1992 Caroline Love 20


Whenever Bojangles' manager Terry Bizakis was working the night shift, he'd try to schedule Caroline Love to work, too. ``She did her job - never gave me any problems,'' says Bizakis, now an area manager for the fast-food chain. ``She could stretch out and pick up a little extra and never really complain about it.'' Love was hired as a cashier at the Central Avenue Bojangles' in September 1989 and worked there until June 15, 1992. She finished her shift that day and, just after midnight, began walking home to her Darby Terrace apartment on Central Avenue, six blocks away. Her sister, Kathy Love, who also worked for Bojangles', reported her missing the following day. In her quiet way, Love was a character, says Bizakis. She'd stroll into work every day with her headset playing her favorite rap music. ``And there was no way you were going to get her into that restaurant on her day off. You had to get her before her hair appointment,'' says Bizakis. ``She'd spend four or five hours getting it done and you never knew what to expect.'' What Bizakis liked about her best, he says, was that she was always on time, even though she was going to school, too. ``She had good work ethics. Everybody liked her.'' ''Caroline was a real sweet kid. A steady, all-around good person and employee.''


* Shawna D. Hawk Age: 20 Found: Feb 19, 1993


On the way to the Junior Prom, Shawna Hawk's date told her she didn't need the fake fingernails. So, all dressed up in the fanciest clothes she'd ever worn, Hawk peeled off the nails and tossed them out the window of her date's Mercedes and onto Independence Boulevard. ``That was the epitome of Shawna,'' says her mother, Dee Sumpter. ``She was herself. Unpretentious.'' Sumpter found her daughter strangled, in a bathtub full of water at their home on Elon Street more than a year ago. Hawk was working at the Taco Bell at 3612 N. Sharon Amity Rd. She had been hired by Henry Louis Wallace, who police charged with murdering her and nine other women. Hawk also was a student at Central Piedmont Community College, studying to become a paralegal. She had worked part-time to help pay the family bills from the time she was 14, lying about her age to get a hired at McDonald's. ``This kid would bring her entire check to me and say, Mommy, here it is for meals.' The entire check - from the time she was 15,'' says Sumpter. She graduated from East Mecklenburg High School in 1991 where she was just a shy, unassuming student, who wasn't involved in student activities, her mother says. ``She was just a basic, everyday good kid.''


* June 25, 1993 Audrey Ann Spain Age 24


Audrey Spain grew up in a tiny coastal town in South Carolina, and her parents hated seeing her move to the big city. But Spain hoped to find a job working with computers in Charlotte. She came here from Bayboro, S.C., about three years ago. Her career plan fizzled, and she ended up working at Taco Bell restaurants. There she fell in with a group of young singles who shot baskets, cooked out and went to comedy clubs together. One of them was Henry Wallace. Another was Shawna Hawk. Police say Wallace strangled Hawk in February 1993, and Spain four months later. Spain was the youngest daughter of six children. Her parents, Broughton and Mae Helen Spain of Bayboro, called her ``Baby'' and remember her as a friendly youth who knew no strangers. Charlotte co-workers say the same. ``She always liked to make you smile and laugh,'' said Stephanie Cook, who worked with Spain at the Sharon Amity Taco Bell, where Spain was a shift manager. Cook got the news of her death from Wallace. ``Guess what?'' she remembers him saying. ``You aren't going to believe this. Audrey's dead.'' Spain's parents took her body home to South Carolina. Her friends never heard about her funeral.


* Valencia M. Jumper Age: 21 Found: Aug. 10, 1993


Vanesa Jumper never believed that her younger sister, Valencia, would have failed to turn off the stove before falling asleep. But law enforcement officials told Valencia Jumper's family last summer that she died of smoke inhalation during a fire in her home at Greenbryre Apartments, off Sharon Amity Road. Sunday, Vanesa Jumper found out she was right. Valencia was one of 10 victims police say were killed by Henry Louis Wallace. ``Grieving is bad enough. Now seven months later, it's hitting just as hard as when they called the first time,'' Vanesa Jumper said Monday from her home in Columbia. ``I know my sister. I know how we were raised. The last thing you do at night is you check your door and you check your stove.'' The weekend before Valencia's death, Vanesa had been visiting. ``She cooked dinner and she unplugged everything. I know she was careful.'' Valencia Jumper grew up in Columbia, the youngest of five children. She was a senior at Johnson C. Smith University, majoring in computer science. She was a good student, and worked two jobs, as a cashier at the Food Lion on Central Avenue and as a sales associate at Hecht's. Vanesa Jumper said she became very good friends with Wallace's sister when they attended Winthrop University in Rock Hill. She said Wallace introduced himself to Valencia Jumper in 1990 when he was a customer at the Food Lion.


* September 15, 1993 Michelle Denise Stinson Age: 20


Michelle Stinson was aiming for a career as a graphic artist, and doing well in classes at Central Piedmont Community College when she was found dead inside her Grier Heights apartment last fall. Frank Granger, her graphic arts instructor, said she once chose to do a project about managing stress and raising two children. Until then, he hadn't understood why she would sometimes fall asleep in his class. After that, he admired her courage and determination. Stinson was making A's and B's in courses like desktop publishing, printing management, sculpture and water color. Then, a friend found her dead, facedown on the kitchen floor. Police said her two small sons, Ernee, 3, and Nashon, 1, were present when their mother was slain, stabbed to death. When the friend knocked, Ernee answered. ``My mommy's asleep on the floor,'' he said. Henry Wallace has been charged with killing Stinson and nine other women. All the victims were black women. Many of them knew Wallace from their apartment complexes or their jobs in fast food restaurants. Police said, at the time of her death, that there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry, and the apartment did not appear to have been burglarized.


* Feb. 20, 1994 Vanessa Little Mack Age: 25


Friends say Vanessa Mack had a troubled childhood. And sometimes, she lost patience with her own two children. But she was trying to do better, said Barbara Rippy, who found Mack strangled with a towel in her home off Wilkinson Boulevard. Rippy, whose son is the father of Mack's older daughter, Natara, 7, had come to Mack's home to babysit for her baby, Natalia Little, now 5 months old. Rippy raised Natara until she was 4-1/2. Then, when Mack won custody of Natara, Rippy moved from Florida to Charlotte. ``I was a mother to her . . . I used to tell her to watch who she associated with,'' said Rippy. ``We had our times, I'll tell you that. . . . `` After Mack died, Rippy said Mack's colleagues at Carolinas Medical Center told her Mack had often talked about how much Rippy had helped her. ``I used to think she hated me. . . . But after she passed, I felt real good that she really appreciated me. . . . `` Mack's sister, Leslie Little, had introduced Mack to Wallace in July 1993. Little and Wallace worked together at the Taco Bell on Sharon Amity Road. Eunice Stradford, Mack's friend and supervisor, said Mack always showed concern toward patients. When one woman died a year ago, Stradford said Mack was especially saddened. She said: ``Everybody I get close to, they die, Miss Eunice.''


* Brandi J. Henderson Age: 18 Found: March 9, 1994



Brandi June Henderson loved being a mother. At 18, she had set up house in a quiet apartment off Albemarle Road with her boyfriend and her 10-month-old son, Tareese Woods. ``She was my Brandi, my little cuddly Brandi,'' recalled her aunt, Dorothy Nance. ``She was just a happy person, and she wanted me to be happy too.'' Henderson's early life wasn't always easy. Her parents separated when she was 2, and she spent much of her childhood moving from house to house. Her aunt, Gale Burrell, said Henderson spent more time with her father than her mother. Lloyd Burris, who ran the children's church at Gloryland Baptist Church, remembers her as a young teenager. ``She was one of the sweetest kids I ever had in my program,'' he said. ``The main thing I remember about her is she hunted me up the second she hit that church.'' Henderson dropped out of high school but then went back to Harding High to try to get her diploma. She also studied at Central Piedmont Community College. ``I remember her being real sweet as she can be,'' said Jo Henderson, Brandi's cousin. ``And I remember her with a bookbag on her back, going up to Harding High School.''


* Betty Baucum Age: 24 Found: March 10, 1994



Ten minutes into his interview with Betty Jean Baucum, Phil Locke knew she was the kind of person he wanted working as a manager at the Bojangles' he ran on Central Avenue. ``She had a lot of good qualities,'' Locke said Monday. ``She was a very nice young lady, a hard worker, dependable. She just had a beautiful smile. And I never heard her use one word of profanity, even if she got burned or something.'' Locke hired Baucum on Sept. 20, 1993, as a management trainee. She became a co-manager at the store in November. A staff member at The Lake apartments on Albemarle Road found Baucum's body in her apartment Thursday morning after her family called, worried that they hadn't heard from her. Police said she had been strangled and dead for at least a day. Her car, believed to have been stolen, was found in a shopping center across the street from her apartment. Baucum was originally from Laurel Hill. Locke said she had recently asked about transferring to a new Bojangles' in Sanford, so she could be closer to her fiance. They hadn't talked about her plans in any detail, though. ``She was fair and consistent in the way she handled people,'' Locke said. ``She was somebody who was a joy to be around,'' Locke said.


* Debra Ann Slaughter Age: 35 Found: March 12, 1994


When Debra Slaughter's mother unlocked her door and saw Slaughter lying on the floor, she didn't panic. Slaughter had been suffering back pain and had an appointment with a chiropractor that day. Her mom assumed she'd stretched out to ease her back. But she was dead, a victim of killer Henry Louis Wallace, police said. Slaughter, a deli worker at the Morrocroft Harris Teeter, was the oldest of four children. Her family remembers her infectious laugh and beautiful voice singing in church choir. ``We used to sit around and tell childhood stories and she would make us laugh,'' recalls sister Linda Ball. ``She was sort of a comedian.'' Slaughter, who had an 18-year-old son living in Atlanta, moved into Glen Hollow apartments with her parents last year. They recently moved, leaving Slaughter alone. Police believe she, like most of the other victims, knew Wallace and let him in. The family doesn't recall hearing about him, but Slaughter may have met him while working at Bojangles' on Central Avenue. Wallace worked at several east Charlotte fast-food restaurants and met many of the victims there. Ball remembers her sister as a tall, strong woman. She wants to know more about the attack. ``I want to know if she was fighting him,'' Ball said.


Related:


The photos of the victims of HW
Lives Interrupted:  A Case Story of Henry Louis Wallace
Video:  Henry Louis Wallace:  Serial Killer
Violence Against Black Women:  Four Cases

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