Patricia Belanger
Laverne Jansen
Summary of Offense:
Willie James Hodges, of Epes, Alabama, was convicted and sentence to death in the murder of Partricia Belanger on December 19, 2001, in her Clio Drive home in the Mayfair neighborhood.The 58-year-old grandmother was beaten on the head with a hammer and stabbed in the neck and throat with a steak knife hours before she was to leave on a Christmas vacation to Idaho with relatives and friends, Molchan said.When Belanger's daughter came to her mother's home to take her to the airport, she saw a man flee from the house and enter a nearby swamp.
Molchan cited fingerprints, DNA evidence, hair, carpet fibers and other clues that linked Hodges to the killing. Hodges wasn't charged for two years until evidence led investigators to him. By then, he was jailed on an unrelated burglary charge.
Hodges faces possible charges in two other slayings:
He's accused of capital murder in the November 26, 2001, death of Winnie Johnson, 66, of Sumter County, Alabama. She was shot to death in November 2001 during a burglary of her home. He's charged with aggravated murder in the March 2003 rape and stabbing death of Laverne Jansen, 81, of Cincinnati. Prosecutors in Alabama and Ohio said they will wait to see the outcome of Hodges' case here before moving forward on other charges.
Hodges was sentenced to death in Escambia County on February 12, 2009.
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