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Thread: Danny Robbie Hembree, Jr. - North Carolina

  1. #41
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    Death row inmate prepares for second murder trial

    Jurors for Danny Robbie Hembree’s next first-degree murder trial will come from Burke County.

    The convicted killer made an appearance in Gaston County court Thursday morning. Attorneys presented a slew of motions for the upcoming trial set for March 2013.

    Hembree, 50, was convicted of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009. He was sentenced to death.

    Hembree went on trial again in 2011, accused of killing Randi Dean Saldana.

    Saldana, 30, was found dead in York, S.C., just two weeks after Catterton’s body was discovered, partially naked in a culvert.

    Saldana’s body had been wrapped in bedding and set on fire.

    Hembree’s second trial went on for weeks and was in the hands of the defense when Superior Court Judge Beverly Beal declared a mistrial.

    Change of venue

    Hembree has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in December 2009, but the case involving Catterton was the only capital case.

    The first trial captured regional media attention, showing up on TV and in newspapers before and during the proceedings.

    That attention prompted defense attorneys to ask for a change of venue during the Saldana trial.

    Beal came up with a compromise – the jury would be selected from Rutherford County then bussed to Gaston for the trial.

    Now assigned to the new case, Superior Court Judge James Morgan stayed with the same set up. The only revision is that this jury will come from Burke County.

    Morgan expected to hear another round of motions from attorneys in January.

    Three women slain

    The cases of Catterton and Saldana had a multitude of similarities, according to Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell.

    Their bodies were found near each other. Their deaths happened just weeks apart. They ran with the same crowd.

    Hembree also confessed to police that he killed them both in his mother’s house and stored their bodies in a closet in the basement.

    Jurors in both trials watched video confessions in which Hembree recalls details about the slayings. But during each trial, Hembree recanted those confessions from the witness stand – saying that he lied to detectives to distract Mecklenburg officers who wanted him for a string of armed robberies.

    Segments of the video confessions were redacted during both trials.

    Bell wants them to stay that way.

    Jurors during the two trials never heard that Hembree is also charged in a third killing – the 1992 death of 30-year-old Deborah Denise Ratchford.

    Ratchford’s death was different from the others.

    Catterton was suffocated. Saldana was strangled. Ratchford was cut repeatedly and left to die in Oakland Street Cemetery in Gastonia.

    But they share one common thread. Hembree told investigators in 2009 that he killed the three women.

    No physical evidence ties Hembree to Ratchford’s death, according to Bell so he said there’s no reason to confuse jurors with the topic.

    Cummings said admission of such evidence is crucial to his case.

    Hembree was convicted of capital murder in November 2011 for suffocating Catterton.

    His first-degree murder trial in the death of Saldana began in March of this year and ended in a mistrial in April.

    No trial date has been set in Ratchford’s case.

    The waters are muddier in the older case, Bell said in court Thursday.

    Some of the witnesses have since died.

    According to Bell, Hembree brought up Ratchford’s name to police multiple times over the years. Hembree came in contact with detectives often, having spent more than half his life in prison.

    When he was interrogated in the other women’s killings in December 2009, Hembree told detectives that he held Ratchford down while James Swanson cut her.

    Swanson and Hembree were both charged with murder.

    Charges were later dismissed against Swanson.

    Bell said in court Thursday that he had to let Swanson go in order to pursue a capital case against Hembree. He said in order to get Swanson he’d have to make a deal with Hembree. That’s a deal he wasn’t willing to make.

    “I told law enforcement that I would not make a deal with Mr. Hembree,” Bell said.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/death-r...-trial-1.36884
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  2. #42
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    Hembree off death row, back in Gaston

    Death row inmate Danny Robbie Hembree walked into Gaston County Superior Court Tuesday with a thick folder of documents in his shackled hands.

    The 51-year-old former Gastonia resident temporarily left death row to return to a Gaston County courtroom where he and attorneys took care of pre-trial matters in a second, first-degree murder trial for him.

    He’ll face the possibility of a second death sentence for the 2009 killing of Randi Dean Saldana.

    Attorneys discussed two matters before Superior Court Judge James Morgan – bringing in jurors from Burke County and omitting information in a third killing for which Hembree’s been charged.

    Three women, one conviction

    A jury gave Hembree a death sentence in 2011 for one of the three killings.

    The conviction was for suffocating 17-year-old Heather Catterton in October 2009 and leaving her partially nude body in a culvert in South Carolina.

    Hembree went on trial again in 2011 for the killing Randi Dean Saldana.

    Saldana, 30, was found dead in York, S.C., just two weeks after Catterton’s body was discovered.

    A judge declared a mistrial in the trial for Saldana’s killing after Hembree alleged an improper relationship with a Gaston County prosecutor.

    Upon mistrial, Hembree‘s attorneys, Rick Beam and Brent Ratchford, both of Gaston County, asked to be removed from the case.

    Hickory attorney Ted Cummings now represents Hembree as lead counsel.

    Connections to cases

    Hembree confessed to all three killings for which he was charged with murder in December 2009. In addition to Catterton and Saldana, Hembree also claimed he killed 30-year-old Deborah Ratchford in 1992.

    District Attorney Locke Bell wants to keep jurors in the Saldana case from hearing evidence related to Ratchford’s killing.

    Cummings will argue at trial that Hembree lied when he confessed to the killings.

    “Danny has a propensity to make statements that really throw the light on him because he likes the attention… the notoriety,” said Cummings. “He has a history of misrepresenting the truth.”

    Bell said bringing up the 1992 slaying would confuse jurors.

    The deaths of Saldana and Catterton had a multitude of similarities, Bell said. The Ratchford slaying was completely different.

    Bell said he intends to present a Dec. 4, 2009, confession to jurors, a recording that doesn’t have any mention of Ratchford.

    Cummings said a Dec. 9, 2009, confession is also relevant, and that recording includes Ratchford.

    Morgan said he’d listen to the recordings before making a decision.

    Impartial jurors

    The first trial captured regional media attention, showing up on TV and in newspapers before and during the proceedings.

    Jurors in the first Saldana trial were brought in from Rutherford County.

    Morgan adopted a similar strategy in deciding to bring in jurors from Burke County.

    Jury selection will take place in Burke County, but the trial will be conducted in Gaston County.

    The trial is scheduled for March.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/hembree...gaston-1.86095
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #43
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    Danny Hembree pleads guilty in second murder

    Convicted killer Danny Hembree took a plea deal Tuesday morning in the 2009 murder of Randi Saldana, according to the Charlotte Observer.

    Hembree had already been sentenced to death by a Gaston County judge on November 18, 2011 for the murder of 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009.

    On Tuesday Hembree was sentenced to 26 years in prison for Saldana's death--avoiding a second death penalty sentence. With the plea, prosecutors dismissed Hembree's connection to a 1992 murder of 30-year-old Deborah Ratchford, the newspaper reported.

    Hembree has previously confessed to killing both Catterton and Saldana and claimed responsibility for Ratchford's death. Saldana's burned body was found in Blacksburg, South Carolina. Ratchford, meanwhile, was slashed to death in a Gastonia cemetery.

    In April of 2012 a judge declared a mistrial in the Saldana case because Hembree said he had a letter claiming to prove that he had a sexual relationship with the Assistant District Attorney.

    Saldana's sister had to be taken away from the courtroom on April 2 by deputies after she ran toward Hembree screaming that he killed her sister.

    In the 2011 trial for Catterton, jurors were shown confessions where Hembree claimed he suffocated Catterton by putting a plastic bag over her head.

    Before the sentence was imposed by Judge Beverly Beal last November, Hembree said he hoped this would bring closure for the Catterton family.

    He then read the words from a song by Johnny Cash. "I've seen 'em come and I seen 'em die and long ago I stopped asking why," he read aloud.

    No one has been executed in North Carolina since 2006.

    http://www.wcnc.com/news/editors-pic...189828471.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #44
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    N. Carolina high court orders new trial for death row inmate

    The North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for an inmate sentenced to die for the killing of a 17-year-old whose body was found in a South Carolina culvert.

    The court issued a 4-2 decision Friday to vacate Danny Hembree's conviction and death sentence in Heather Catterton's 2009 death and order a new trial.

    Hembree is also serving a 26-year prison sentence for killing another woman whose burned body was found in South Carolina in 2009. He had been accused of killing a third woman in 1992, but those charges were dropped.

    Bill Massengale, an attorney for Hembree, declined Friday to comment on the court decision.

    Hembree brought further notoriety to his case when he wrote a letter to a newspaper saying, "Kill me if you can, suckers."

    http://www.hickoryrecord.com/news/us...e93fd3d32.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #45
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    Hembree murder trial moves out of county

    By Adam Lawson
    The Shelby Star

    A convicted killer originally sentenced to death for the murder of a 17-year-old girl will have his new trial held in another county.

    Danny Robbie Hembree isn't scheduled to leave prison until he's 90 years old thanks to a series of robbery convictions and a second-degree murder conviction in the death of 31-year-old Randi Dean Saldana. But another 2009 murder charge, one that initially sent him to death row, could ensure the 54-year-old spends the rest of his life behind bars.

    Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell asked for a change of venue Monday for Hembree's upcoming murder trial related to the killing of Heather Marie Catterton and requested it be moved to Catawba County.

    After Hembree was originally convicted in Catterton's death, then-Judge Beverly Beal granted the prosecution's request to select a jury of Rutherford County residents for the Saldana trial, in an effort to avoid the heavy media coverage.

    "Since Judge Beal had ruled a change of venue on the second (case), we think that the state thinks, to air on the side of caution, that we need to go with that same ruling," Bell said.

    Bell said officials in Catawba County indicated a willingness to try the case there, with Catawba County jurors.

    Bodies found

    The woman Hembree pleaded guilty to killing and the teenager whose death at one point landed him on death row knew each other. Their bodies were found in York, S.C., within miles and weeks of each other.

    Catterton was found first, half naked in a culvert. Saldana's body was dumped and set on fire along the side of a road.

    Hembree was charged with unrelated armed robberies in Mecklenburg County, at which point he confessed to killing those women.

    Hembree later recanted those confessions at his two trials, saying he confessed in an effort to negotiate lighter sentences for the robberies.

    He admitted to smoking crack and having sex with the women on the nights they died, but said their deaths were accidental.

    An overturned conviction, and a mistrial

    Hembree's first trial ended with a first-degree murder conviction and a death sentence.

    Beal ordered the Rutherford jury for the second case, which ended in a mistrial after an anonymous letter claimed Hembree had an affair with the case's prosecutor.

    The judge found no evidence for the claim, and Hembree ultimately accepted a plea deal. He admitted his guilt and received a 26-year term behind bars.

    Hembree was on death row until the N.C. Supreme Court overturned his death penalty conviction in 2015. The court ruled that prosecutors relieved too heavily on evidence from Saldana's death in the Catterton trial.

    A new trial

    The second Catterton trial was slated to be held September 2017 with a pool of jurors bused from Wilkes County 75 miles south to Gastonia.

    That will no longer happen, and the date of the new trial is still to be determined.

    Catterton had lived her short life in both Cleveland and Gaston counties.

    http://www.shelbystar.com/news/20161...-out-of-county

  6. #46
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    Hembree says lawyer did him wrong

    By Alyssa Pressler
    The Gaston Gazette

    A convicted killer with an overturned death sentence was in Gaston County Court on Tuesday to request a new lawyer.

    A Superior Court judge denied Danny Hembree’s request. Hembree then decided to stick with attorney Theodore Cummings rather than represent himself.

    Hembree, who gained notoriety with a taunting letter extolling the luxuries of watching TV and taking frequent naps while on death row, faces a new trial in the 2009 death of 17-year-old Heather Catterton, a teen who lived in Gaston and Cleveland counties.

    But Hembree claimed Cummings, who works out of Hickory, cannot effectively represent him because Cummings at one time represented a co-defendant of his in the 1992 death of Deborah Ratchford.

    A jury sentenced Hembree to death in 2011 for Catterton’s killing. In 2013, Hembree pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2009 death of 30-year-old Randi Dean Saldana and was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

    District Attorney Locke Bell dismissed the murder charges against both Hembree and the other man in Ratchford’s death. Before Bell dismissed the murder charges against the two men, Cummings represented the other man for around two weeks. Cummings said in court Tuesday he did little with the case in that time, so he did not anticipate a conflict of interest.

    Additionally, he and Bell said they discussed the potential conflict with the N.C. State Bar Ethics Committee, which confirmed there was no conflict.

    Both Bell and Cummings said that Hembree knew for months that Cummings had once represented his co-defendant in the Ratchford slaying, although Hembree says he found out only 20 minutes before taking his 2009 plea deal in the Saldana killing. Hembree cited this as an example of Cummings deceiving him.

    Hembree additionally claimed Cummings did not return requests for contact, did not file motions he wanted filed and that there was no trust between the two of them.

    Cummings presented confidential information to the judge and to the state, saying there was reason for him to believe Hembree would pose a security risk at another trial should he continue to represent him.

    Background

    Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested Hembree in 2009 for a string of armed robberies. During an interrogation, Hembree would admit to not only killing Catterton, but also 30-year-old Randi Dean Saldana and Ratchford.

    Hembree would later try and recant his confession, saying both Saldana and Catterton died during rough sex fueled in part by crack cocaine. He would say he only confessed to their slayings in hope of negotiating a better plea deal in relation to the armed robberies.

    But the state Supreme Court overturned Hembree’s first-degree murder conviction in Catterton’s death in 2015, citing that Bell had relied too heavily on evidence from Saldana’s killing to convict Hembree of murder in the death of Catterton. After the court ruled against Bell, the Gaston County prosecutor announced he would no longer seek a death penalty in first-degree murder cases.

    Cummings represented Hembree when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Saldana’s killing. Prior to that, defense attorneys Brent Ratchford and Rick Beam represented him until a mistrial in the case of Saldana.

    The mistrial occurred when Hembree, on the witness stand, made statements about a letter that said he and an assistant prosecutor had an extensive sexual relationship. Hembree’s former employees submitted a motion to remove their representation at the advice of the N.C. State Bar.

    Hembree, who also once cursed at a judge in response to a question, attacked Cummings on Tuesday with personal insults and questioned his courtroom abilities.

    No new lawyer

    Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey, who will be the trial judge in this case, denied Hembree’s request for a new attorney, citing Hembree’s past in the courtroom and his overall demeanor.

    “You have made accusations against everyone,” Poovey said to Hembree. “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if you make accusations against me.”

    “Oh, I will,” Hembree replied.

    Hembree then indicated he may want represent himself at trial, which could take place in January 2018. Poovey encouraged him to reconsider that notion. Finally, after 30 minutes of convincing and a 20-minute break that allowed Cummings and Hembree to speak, Hembree decided against the notion.

    “I usually don’t take advice,” he told the judge. “Ted agreed to do some things to help me move forward.”

    Cummings had presented statements made by Hembree during visits he had with his client at Central Prison in Raleigh. These statements were confidential, but during a court recess Cummings said he “saw it as a clear intention to disrupt the trial.”

    Upon the meeting between the pair, though, Cummings announced to the court Hembree would not be taking the actions he had threatened in past meetings. After court he said he’s optimistic Hembree will follow his word.

    “I think we solved a lot of issues that, after looking at them, weren’t really issues,” Cummings said.

    Hembree’s second trial in the death of Catterton will take place in Catawba County because of pretrial publicity surrounding Hembree’s earlier convictions and statements. The trial date is set for Jan. 8, 2018.

    http://www.gastongazette.com/news/20...-did-him-wrong

  7. #47
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    GUILTY: Hembree takes plea in teen’s murder

    By Adam Lawson
    The Shelby Star

    Danny Hembree’s long saga in and around courtrooms ended with a final surprise Thursday.

    The 55-year-old Gastonia man — who gained notoriety for, among other things: confessing to multiple killings and then maintaining his innocence, earning a mistrial by alleging a sexual affair with an assistant district attorney, writing to a Gazette reporter about being a “gentleman of leisure” watching color television and enjoying air conditioning while on death row and then having that death sentence overturned by the state Supreme Court — pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and apologized for his past hijinks.

    “I apologize to Mr. (District Attorney Locke) Bell and Miss (Assistant District Attorney Stephanie) Hamlin for the dirty tricks, the aggravation and chaos I caused,” Hembree said. “I apologize to Mr. (defense attorney Ted) Cummings. I tried to create something for the record in the case that if it went to trial and I was found guilty. I tried to create that conflict. There never was that conflict.”

    The decision to plead guilty in Heather Marie Catterton’s 2009 death stunned attorneys on both sides of the aisle. Cummings only learned of Hembree’s plans after arriving to court.

    Prosecution prepared to discuss evidence that could be used during an anticipated murder trial next month in Catawba County. After news of a potential plea was relayed to the state, one prosecutor said such an action would constitute an “early Christmas present.”

    Second-degree murder

    Hembree will spend another 23 1/2 years in prison on top of the decades he’s sentenced to for robbery and another murder. He said he had no hope of outliving those sentences, much less another one on top of them, but said his reason for pleading guilty had more to do with evidence against him than anything else.

    “The drugs that I provided to her and the amount of drugs that I provided to her contributed to her death,” he said, wearing a blue button down shirt, khakis and a brace around his waist. “Under the statute as I understand it, that makes me guilty of second-degree murder. I’m ready to just go ahead and take a plea and be done with it. Put it to bed and just deal with it.”

    Catterton and Hembree engaged in a sex- and cocaine-filled night on Oct. 17, 2009, that continued into the following morning. Hembree once told police he suffocated the teen though that cause of death was never verified in an official autopsy.

    Catterton, who once lived with a foster family in Shelby, was just 17 when she was found outside Clover, South Carolina, down a ravine off of a highway wearing nothing but toe socks and a Hollister sweatshirt. A pair of jeans with a crack pipe in the back pocket was later located where Hembree said they’d be.

    Nobody in Catterton’s family was in court to hear Hembree’s plea. Her father died Oct. 26.

    “I would love to have had Nick Catterton witness this,” Bell said. “He never got over the death of his daughter and died recently.”

    Life behind bars

    Catterton was found just a little more than two weeks before Randi Saldana’s burned body was discovered at Kings Mountain State Park. Catterton and Saldana, 30, knew each other, and Hembree has now pleaded guilty in each of their deaths.

    He would have to live well past 100 to ever see freedom again.

    “He needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars,” Bell said. “He killed these two women who were innocent young ladies. He needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars but now we have him having admitted to killing both of them.”

    Hembree was originally sentenced to death for Catterton’s murder in November 2011, after which he recited lyrics from the Johnny Cash song, “San Quentin” in court. But the state Supreme Court overturned that verdict, arguing that prosecution used too much evidence from Saldana’s case during that trial.

    Bell hasn’t gone after the death penalty since that ruling, and says Thursday’s plea won’t change that.

    “He got the death penalty, he deserved it,” he said. “The state Supreme Court reversed it and I said, ’If they’re not going to let the death penalty stand on Danny Hembree then I’m not going to spend time and money from the citizens to get the death penalty if nothing’s going to happen.”

    Finishing the marathon

    Hembree originally earned a mistrial in the Saldana case after alleging an affair between himself and a prosecutor. He later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in that case in exchange for 26 years in prison.

    Now that Hembree’s legal defense appears to have run its course, Gaston County’s top prosecutor couldn’t recall a defendant who has required as much effort or time.

    “No, this one has been the marathon,” Bell said.

    http://www.shelbystar.com/news/20171...n-teens-murder

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