Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 47

Thread: Danny Robbie Hembree, Jr. - North Carolina

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Danny Robbie Hembree, Jr. - North Carolina


    Heather Marie Catterton




    Deborah Ratchford

    hembree.jpg



    Man charged in Gastonia murders wants to represent himself

    GASTONIA, N.C. -- Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell says he will ask for the death penalty against the man charged with murdering two women from Gastonia over the past two months.

    Danny Hembree appeared in court Monday for the first time since his arrest Saturday. He is charged with the murders of 30-year-old Randi Saldana and 17-year-old Heather Catterton.

    Hembree said in court that he wants to represent himself, and he also said he has been the target of threats since his arrest.

    "I'm receiving death threats in the jail. I haven't been tried. I haven't been convicted," he said.

    The district attorney said he did not think security was a question and that Hembree would stay where he is in the Gaston County jail.

    Investigators will still not say how the two women were killed or why, but NewsChannel 36 has learned police believe Hembree murdered both girls at the house where Hembree lives with his mother.

    Hembree faces an additional charge of murder for the death of yet another woman in Gastonia. He allegedly killed 30-year-old Deborah Ratchford in August 1992.

    Her body was found in a cemetery. She had several cuts around her throat and chest.

    A second man, 41-year-old James Swanson, was also charged in that killing.

    Investigators say there is no relationship between that murder and the recent killings of Saldana and Catterton.

    http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Accused-Killer-in-Court-78719997.html

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Triple-murder defendant Hembree to face death penalty

    A Gaston County man charged with killing three women and dumping two victims’ bodies in the South Carolina woods last fall will face the death penalty if convicted of murder, said District Attorney Locke Bell.

    Prosecutors announced their intentions at an administrative hearing for 47-year-old Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. held Tuesday afternoon in Gaston County Superior Court. Judge Timothy Patti ordered Hembree to be provided with a second attorney.

    Bell said he couldn’t discuss evidence against Hembree, but explained that state law allows a case to be designated capital if a defendant is charged with first-degree murder and the crime had at least one aggravating factor. He said the state is pursuing two aggravating factors against Hembree.

    Hembree is accused of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton and 30-year-old Randi Dean Saldana. Catterton’s body was found Oct. 29 along Robinson Yelton Road outside Clover, S.C. Saldana’s burned remains were found Nov. 15 in Kings Mountain State Park near Blacksburg, S.C.

    During the investigation into the two Gastonia women’s deaths, police say the discovered evidence that Hembree killed Deborah Denise Ratchford in a 1992 Oakland Cemetery slaying. Ratchford’s chest and neck were slashed, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

    Gastonia resident James Swanson was also charged in Ratchford’s murder, but Bell dismissed the charge Dec. 16, nearly two weeks after Swanson’s arrest. Bell said prosecuting Swanson would jeopardize the state’s ability to seek the death penalty against Hembree.

    Police say Hembree knew all of his alleged victims. He, Catterton and Saldana were friends, and he dated Catterton’s older sister, Nicole. Hembree, Swanson and Ratchford all knew each other at the time of Ratchford’s 1992 death, according to Gastonia police.

    Hembree’s trial has not been scheduled, Bell said. Rick Beam has been appointed his primary attorney.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/news/penalty-43258-face-charged.html

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Man accused of murdering 3 women pleads not guilty

    GASTONIA, N.C. -- The man accused of killing three Gaston county women pleaded not guilty in court Monday.

    Danny Hembree Jr., 47, is charged with killing 30-year-old Randi Saldana and 17-year-old Heather Catterton, whose bodies were found dumped in South Carolina. He is also accused of killing 30-year-old Deborah Ratchford in 1992.

    If convicted, Hembree could face the death penalty

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Judge sets trial date for Gaston man accused of killing 3 female friends

    The man accused of killing three women will stand trial for capital murder in September.

    A date was agreed upon Monday in front of Superior Court Judge Jesse Caldwell.

    The first-degree murder trial of Danny Hembree Jr. will begin Sept. 12, 2011.

    A clean-shaven Hembree stood in front of the judge with his attorneys, Rick Beam and Brent Ratchford. He waved to some supporters in the crowd before being returned to jail.

    Hembree, 48, who has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, faces the death penalty.

    He was transported from Central Prison in Raleigh to the Gaston County Jail for the appearance. Hembree is serving 12 years in Central Prison for armed robbery with a dangerous weapon in Cabarrus County.

    Hembree has been charged in the 1992 murder of Deborah Ratchford, 30, whose body was found in the woods near Oakland Street Cemetery, according to police.

    Charges for Ratchford’s death did not come about until 2009 when two other women were killed in less than a month.

    Heather Catterton, 17, of Gastonia was found dead Oct. 18, 2009, in York County, S.C.

    Randi Dean Saldana, 30, was found Nov. 11, 2009, also in York County, S.C. The bodies were discarded less than 10 miles apart.

    Catterton’s body was found along Yelton Road near Clover, S.C., and Saldana’s burned body was found near a trail in Kings Mountain State Park.

    Gastonia resident James Swanson was also charged in Ratchford’s murder, but Bell dismissed the charge nearly two weeks after Swanson’s arrest. Bell said prosecuting Swanson would jeopardize the state’s ability to seek the death penalty against Hembree.

    Police say Hembree knew all of his alleged victims. He, Catterton and Saldana were friends, and he dated Catterton’s older sister, Nicole.

    Hembree, Swanson and Ratchford all knew each other at the time of Ratchford’s 1992 death, according to Gastonia police.

    According to an affidavit in Hembree’s court file, police said that on Dec. 5, 2009, Hembree confessed to killing Heather Catterton and Saldana in his mother’s house at 2304 Oakstone Drive, Gastonia. The affidavit says the two bodies were stored in a closet in the house’s basement and later dumped in York County.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/news/he...ratchford.html

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Suspect's attorney wants limits on gruesome evidence at trial of accused triple killer

    Prosecutors seeking the death penalty against a man accused of killing three women, including a teen that once called Cleveland County home, showed a judge well more than 100 crime scene photos on Wednesday as part of a hearing dealing with what evidence jurors will see at trial.

    District Attorney Locke Bell and defense attorneys representing Danny Hembree appeared before Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal to consider which photographs should be allowed into evidence during Hembree's trial, which has not yet been scheduled.

    A judge decided in May that there will be three separate trials in the deaths of the women, Randi Saldana, Heather Catterton and Deborah Ratchford, who was killed in 1992. The bodies of Saldana and Catterton were found dumped in York County, S.C., in 2009.

    Catterton spent much of her short life in Cleveland County.

    Defense attorney Rick Beam objected to many of the photographs because he contended they dealt with Saldana's killing, but not Catterton's death. Catterton was found first and then Saldana was killed and then discovered a few weeks later. They were not killed at the same time.

    Some of the photographs depicted pieces of Catterton's clothing that prosecutors say Hembree told investigators he threw from his car after killing Catterton, the youngest of the three women.

    The set of photographs also included grisly images of all three women's bodies at their respective crime scenes, including Catterton's body, which was found in a rural ditch culvert.

    "She had been out there for a number of days before she was found, so a certain amount of decomposition had happened," Bell told the judge concerning Catterton. "This corroborates Mr. Hembree's statements to investigators afterward regarding what he did and the timing of when he did it."

    The hearing will continue into Thursday morning.

    http://www.shelbystar.com/news/accus...nty-trial.html

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Judge deals accused triple killer setback in Gaston death penalty case

    Accused killer Danny Ronnie Hembree will go on trial Monday despite an attempt by his attorneys to get the date postponed.

    Defense attorneys Rick Beam and Brent Ratchford made a motion for a continuance Tuesday morning in front of Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal.

    Hembree’s lawyers referenced a need for further DNA testing in the investigation into who murdered Deborah Denise Ratchford, a 30-year-old woman found dead in 1992. Hembree confessed to the Ratchford murder during the investigation into the deaths of two other women, Heather Catterton and Randi Saldana, according to prosecutors.

    Defense attorneys say Hembree, 49, recanted his confession in the days after the initial interview.

    Hembree is accused of murdering all three women, but the upcoming trial will only address the death of 17-year-old Catterton.

    Prosecutors attempted to have the cases tried at one time but that request was denied in a previous hearing.

    Since the murders will be tried separately, the Catterton case shouldn’t be postponed because of pending evidence in the 1992 killing, Beal said Tuesday morning.

    Defense attorneys compiled an “intense and proficient” motion, according to Beal, but they did not convince the judge that a delay of the trial was necessary.

    Beam then asked why District Attorney Locke Bell had not provided discovery evidence in the Ratchford murder until April 2011.

    Bell said he handed over the information as soon as it was provided to him.

    Beal again said that one case has nothing to do with the other, and that matter could be addressed during hearing motions leading up to the Ratchford trial.

    Hembree, now in prison on robbery convictions, has been awaiting trial on the three first-degree murder charges since he was arrested in December 2009.

    Ratchford’s body was found in North Oakland Street Cemetery in Gastonia in 1992. She bled to death from multiple cuts to her upper chest and neck, but an arrest was not made in her killing until Hembree reportedly confessed to it in 2009.

    Catterton’s half-naked body was discarded beside a ditch culvert off Robinson Yelton Road in rural York County, S.C., before being discovered on Oct. 29, 2009. She was wearing only socks and a Hollister sweatshirt, her badly decomposed remains speckled with leaves and mud. Red marks were visible around her neck.

    Saldana was last seen alive Nov. 11, 2009. Her badly burned body was discovered by horseback riders on Nov. 15, 2009 along Apple Road, a dirt and gravel trail in Kings Mountain State Park near Blacksburg, S.C. That path is less than 10 miles away from where Catterton’s body was found.

    Hembree knew both Catterton and Saldana, and dated Catterton’s older sister, Nicole, according to her family. Investigators have said both women lived “high-risk” lifestyles that involved drug use and crime.

    The capital murder trial is expected to take six to eight weeks.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/article...#ixzz1ZByoyv7j

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Accused of murdering three women, on trial for killing one

    Danny Robbie Hembree lives in prison. He has spent a third of his life behind bars.

    If prosecutors have their way, Hembree will face state execution.

    The 59-year-old man stands accused of killing three women, one in 1992 and two in 2009.

    He will go on trial for one of the killings Monday. The capital murder trial could span two months in Gaston County courts.

    First trial

    Hembree was out of prison for less than a year when he took the life of 17-year-old Heather Catterton, according to police and prosecutors.

    Catterton’s half-naked body was discarded beside a ditch culvert off Robinson Yelton Road in rural York County, S.C., before being discovered Oct. 29, 2009. She was wearing only socks and a sweatshirt, her badly decomposed remains speckled with leaves and mud. Red marks were visible around her neck.

    The place where Catterton was found likely wasn’t where she was slain, according to Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell.

    During a July hearing, Bell presented photos that were taken in the basement of the Oakstone Circle home where Hembree reportedly lived. Comments during those court proceedings indicated that Catterton might have been killed in that house.

    Catterton and Hembree knew each other. The girl’s older sister, Nicole Catterton, dated Hembree at the time of the slaying.

    Second 2009 killing

    Thirty-year-old Randi Dean Saldana was found about 10 miles from where a worker discovered Catterton’s lifeless body nearly two weeks earlier.

    Saldana was last seen alive Nov. 11, 2009. Horseback riders stumbled on her badly burned body four days later along Apple Road, a dirt and gravel trail in Kings Mountain State Park near Blacksburg, S.C. That path is less than 10 miles away from where Catterton’s body was found.

    Saldana’s body had been bound with strands of electrical cord, then wrapped in a quilt, doused with gasoline and set on fire in the park. Her face was unrecognizable, and her lower torso was also severely charred.

    Hembree has been charged with first-degree murder in relation to Saldana’s death. Like Catterton, Hembree and Saldana ran in the same circles.

    Before Saldana died, she swapped rings and jewelry with Nicole Catterton, family members have said.

    The trial date for Saldana’s case hasn’t been set yet.

    An old case

    While investigating the deaths of Catterton and Saldana, police got new evidence on the killing of Deborah Denise Ratchford.

    The 30-year-old woman was found dead in a Gastonia cemetery in August 1992. Ratchford bled to death from cuts on her body.

    Officials have not specified how Catterton and Saldana died.

    Evidence in the 2009 killings pointed a finger at Hembree, according to prosecutors.

    The most compelling evidence was a confession by the accused killer, according to a hearing in July 2011. But defense attorneys say their client recanted that confession in the days after it was made.

    Like the other two slayings, Hembree stands accused killing the woman. The trial date has not yet been added to the calendar.

    Bell initially tried to have all three murders prosecuted together, but Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal denied that request.

    Career criminal

    Hembree lived with his mother when he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

    Calls to her house were not returned to discuss Hembree’s past – where he went to school, was he ever married, did he have a specific trade.

    The one clear picture of Hembree’s past can be found on the North Carolina Department of Correction website.

    Hembree made his first appearance on the site with a conviction in 1979. He was 27 when he got a split sentence for felony breaking and entering into vehicles.

    His name didn’t pop back up in the system for nearly 20 years. But from then on, Hembree was in and out of prison for a series of robberies in Gaston, Cleveland and Mecklenburg counties.

    Though he’s now awaiting trial on the murder charges, Hembree is serving out a sentence for common law robbery. His projected release date, according to the website, is 2023.

    Time for trial

    Bell will represent the state along with Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Hamlin.

    Both were in court Tuesday to argue against the defense’s request for a continuance.

    Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal sided with the prosecution. He will preside over the trial that could take six to eight weeks.

    A great stretch of the proceedings will be spent selecting a jury, according to Rick Beam who along with Brent Ratchford will defend Hembree.

    The three murders have been highly publicized by print and TV news. That makes finding an impartial jury difficult.

    But even more challenging can be to find someone who can give up two months of their lives, said Beam.

    “How many people do you know that can take six to eight weeks out of their lives to hear a case, especially if they’re the sole earner in the family?” he said.

    Above all, weeding through hundreds of potential jurors willing to consider the death penalty can be tough.

    “Everyone has their own personal views on capital punishment,” said Beam.

    Jurors could sentence Hembree to death or life in prison if they find he took Catterton’s life.

    If the 12 men and women find him not guilty, he’ll go back to prison to serve out his sentence on the robbery conviction and await the two remaining first-degree murder trials.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/article...#ixzz1ZSji5v4j

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Did this man kill Heather Catterton? Trial begins in death of former county foster child

    None of the 12 people called to the jury box knew Danny Hembree.

    None said Monday afternoon that they knew Heather Catterton, the girl Hembree is accused of slaying.

    Catterton spent much of her life as a foster child in Cleveland County.

    But one woman felt she needed to speak up as to why she couldn’t sit on the jury for the capital murder case.

    Twelve jurors will decide whether or not Hembree, 49, killed Catterton and dumped her half-naked body in a culvert in York County, S.C., in 2009.

    Several members of the jury pool, which will include three alternates, told Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal of life circumstances that would make a six- to eight-week trial difficult for them: school, medical problems, children at home. Many of those telling their tales of woe were dismissed before names were called to fill the jury box.

    By late afternoon the first potential jurors took their seats in the box while nearly 100 others filled the audience, some being forced to stand due to lack of space.

    Beal began questioning potential jurors, asking about their residency and occupation. Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell threw out a few questions.

    The room was cleared when one of the possible jurors said she knew an important name in the case.

    Once alone in the jury box the woman said she was a distant relative of Randi Saldana, another woman Hembree is accused of killing in 2009.

    The potential juror said she and her family have talked about the case. Many of them have already formed an opinion of Hembree’s guilt, she said.

    “It might be really awkward for me to be on the jury,” she told Beal.

    Beal eventually agreed and dismissed the woman.

    Hembree faces three first-degree murder charges. The trial that began Monday will address solely the death of 17-year-old Catterton.

    Police arrested Hembree for the deaths of Saldana and Catterton in December 2009.

    During the course of their investigation, detectives say they uncovered new evidence that pointed to Hembree as the killer in the death of Deborah Ratchford. The 30-year-old woman’s slaying had gone unsolved since she was found dead in a Gastonia graveyard in 1992.

    Police have said that Hembree knew Catterton and 30-year-old Saldana. He dated Catterton’s older sister, and they all ran in the same circles.

    Investigators have said that the trio lived an at-risk lifestyle.

    Hembree’s mother, sister and son spent the day watching the proceedings. They gave modest waves as the tall man walked into the courtroom wearing a lime green shirt and khaki pants. He took his seat between his attorneys, Brent Ratchford and Rick Beam.

    Catterton’s family sat behind Bell and Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Hamlin.

    Jurors filled out a six-page questionnaire that was handed to the attorneys late in the day Monday.

    Finding 15 impartial people who are willing to consider the death penalty might be time consuming, according to Beam.

    Jury selection could take more than a week, and the trial could go on for two months.

    Attorneys barely scratched the surface in questioning the jury panel before Beal adjourned for the day. That practice will resume at 9:30 a.m. today.

    http://www.shelbystar.com/news/catte...ne-foster.html

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jury almost complete for murder trial

    The jury panel that will decide the fate of a man accused of killing three women is almost complete.

    Danny Robbie Hembree, 49, could be sentenced to death if found guilty of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys have worked nearly 40 hours trying to select the men and women best suited to make that decision.

    Once the panel is complete, three alternates will be selected.

    The trial, which started Oct. 3, could easily take another six weeks, according to defense attorney Brent Ratchford.

    The pool of potential jurors collectively shifted in their seats Wednesday afternoon when Ratchford mentioned that possibility.

    Hembree is accused of killing two women in 2009, Catterton and 30-year-old Randi Dean Saldana.

    Information about both of the women’s deaths will be presented during the trial even though the trial date for Saldana’s slaying has not yet been set.

    The two women were killed just weeks apart and their bodies were found in York, S.C., in close proximity to one another.

    Officials will not release information about how the women died in the 2009 slayings.

    Catterton was found half-naked in a culvert, while Saldana’s burned body was found along the side of the road.

    Hembree will also eventually be tried for the killing of Deborah Denise Ratchford, a 30-year-old woman killed in 1992. Her murder had gone unsolved until evidence was discovered by police during the more recent death investigations.

    Ratchford died from cuts on her body, which was found in a Gastonia cemetery.

    Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal is presiding over the trial that is being prosecuted by Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell and Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Hamlin.

    Ratchford and Rick Beam represent Hembree.

    Each of the attorneys tag teamed during the jury selection process, asking each person hundreds of questions.

    The more than 100 men and women called for jury duty filled out a questionnaire before jury selection began, but they also have to answer questions from the judge, the prosecution and the defense.

    Jurors already selected sat in the jury room while the vast number of remaining people watched the interrogation.

    The jury could find Hembree not guilty of first-degree murder. But if they decide he killed Catterton, a second phase of the process will demand that the 12 men and women sentence Hembree to death or life in prison.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/article...#ixzz1arxNSB7U

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Judge allows jurors to hear accused killer's taped interview with police

    Gastonia, NC (WBTV) - 49-year-old Danny Hembree looked comfortable and at ease sitting in court for the first day of testimony in his murder trial.

    Hembree is accused of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton two years ago in Gaston County, then dumping her body in York County. He could face the death penalty.

    Hembree is also accused of killing two more women. Randi Saldana's body was found weeks apart from Catterton's. Police say they also connected Hembree to the 1992 murder of Deborah Ratchford. Hembree will face those trials separately.

    The first police officer to testify Tuesday, introduced evidence including Catterton's dirty, stained sweatshirt and socks. Those were the only items found on her body.

    Prosecutors said Hembree either strangled or suffocated Catterton. They had previously met through a prostitution arrangement involving Catterton's mom, said attorneys.

    Defense attorneys said the autopsy will show Catterton's cause of death is unknown and that she had drugs in her system that could have killed her. They said Hembree will admit to some wrong-doing in the case, but not murder.

    http://www.wbtv.com/story/15724487/t...-serial-killer

Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •