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Thread: James Opelton Bradley Sentenced to LWOP in 2014 NC Slaying of Elisha Tucker

  1. #1
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    James Opelton Bradley Sentenced to LWOP in 2014 NC Slaying of Elisha Tucker






    Man arrested in Van Newkirk murder convicted of murdering 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1988


    By Caroline Curran and Christina Haley
    The Port City Daily

    James Opelton Bradley—arrested today in the death of a Wilmington woman missing since earlier this month—was paroled last year from a life sentence in the 1988 murder of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

    Bradley, 51, served 23 years of his life sentence.

    He was arrested Tuesday night, charged with the first-degree murder of 53-year-old Shannon Rippy Vannewkirk, who was reported missing April 7. On Wednesday, investigators announced they found a body believed to be Vannewkirk in Hampstead a day earlier.

    Bradley was convicted of first-degree murder in Cumberland County on Jan. 22, 1990, for an offense that occurred on June 9, 1988.

    According to a June 1988 Fayetteville Observer article, Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies reported that 8-year-old Alisa Ivy Gibson was beaten and strangled before her body was left in a dumpster and found days later in a landfill.

    Bradley, who was 25 at the time of Gibson’s death, was convicted of first-degree murder on Jan. 22, 1990.

    He was released from prison on Feb. 11, 2013, under the Fair Sentencing Law, which governed sentencing and parole in North Carolina from July 1, 1981, until Sept. 30, 1994, according to the N.C. Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission.

    The N.C. Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission is required by law to grant a 90-day mandatory parole to offenders sentenced under the Fair Sentencing Act, though the mandatory parole isn’t necessarily granted at the end of the offender’s parole.

    On Oct. 1, 1994, The Structured Sentencing Act took effect in North Carolina, eliminating parole as it previously existed under the Fair Sentencing Law guidelines.

    During his first court appearance today, Bradley was appointed a capital defender, though District Attorney Ben David’s office said it was too early in the process to determine whether the state would seek the death penalty in the case.

    District Judge Rebecca Blackmore ordered Bradley remain in custody at the New Hanover County Detention Facility without bond.

    http://portcitydaily.com/2014/04/30/...ghter-in-1988/

  2. #2
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    Elisha Marie Tucker




    Bradley charged with second murder, state to seek death penalty

    By F.T. Norton
    Star News Online

    WILMINGTON -- A convicted killer charged in the presumed death of Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk is now also charged in the death of another woman, and the district attorney announced Monday he intends to seek the death penalty.

    James Opelton Bradley, 54, appeared in New Hanover County Superior Court on Monday where he learned a grand jury indicted him on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of Elisha Marie Tucker.

    District Attorney Ben David said there will be Rule 24 hearing Jan. 9. Such a hearing is typically where the state first announces its determination on whether to seek the death penalty.

    "I can tell you my review committee has already met on that and that is our determination," David said. The death penalty would be for Tucker's murder, he said.

    Bradley -- who has an attorney in the Van Newkirk case -- appeared at Monday's hearing without counsel. Judge W. Douglas Parsons appointed the new case to the capital defender's office.

    Bradley was stoic throughout the proceeding, speaking a few times in response to questions from the judge. In one instance, Parsons mentioned the Van Newkirk charge.

    "It's my understanding you are currently in custody on murder charges. Is that correct?" Parsons asked.

    "One, your honor," Bradley replied.

    The decomposing body of Tucker, 34, of Wilmington was found wrapped in three trash bags and buried in a Hampstead field on April 29, 2014. The discovery of Tucker's body came in the hunt for Van Newkirk -- missing since April 9, 2014 -- as detectives were searching a plot of land Van Newkirk and Bradley frequently visited for their employer. Van Newkirk's body has never been foundand little evidence exists beyond her silence that indicates she is dead.

    An autopsy determined Tucker died from blunt force trauma to her head and strangulation.

    Tucker, who lived a transient lifestyle, had disappeared in August 2013 from an area between the 600 and 800 blocks of Dawson Street. At the time, Bradley -- who was released from prison in February 2013 after serving 25 years in the 1988 killing of his 8-year-old stepdaughter Ivy Gipson -- was living in the 700 block of Dawson Street with his daughter.

    In April a judge ruled
    Tucker’s killing, as well as the Gipson killing, could be heard by the Van Newkirk jury, despite the fact that Bradley hadn't yet been charged in the Tucker case. During the April hearing a Wilmington woman testified that Bradley introduced her to Tucker as his girlfriend.

    Bradley is set to go to trial in April
    in the Van Newkirk case.

    http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/2...-death-penalty
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    State expected to seek death penalty against convicted killer

    The New Hanover County District Attorney's office is expected to formally announce Monday it will seek the death penalty for James Opelton Bradley.

    The convicted killer, charged with first-degree murder in the presumed death of Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk, was indicted by a grand jury in December on another first-degree murder charge in connection to the death of Elisha Tucker.

    Tucker's body was found wrapped in trash bags on April 29, 2014, while investigators were searching for Van Newkirk's body on a piece of property in Pender County. Tucker had been missing since August 2013. Van Newkirk's body was never found.

    In July, a judge ruled the jury for the Van Newkirk murder trial could hear evidence from Tucker’s murder and the 1988 killing of Bradley’s 8-year-old stepdaughter -- for which he spent 25 years in prison.

    The hearing will take place at 3 p.m. A crew will be inside the courtroom and have the latest tonight on WECT News.

    http://www.wect.com/story/34217663/s...nvicted-killer
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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Jury selected in Bradley murder trial; opening statements to begin Thursday

    The murder trial for James Bradley is set to begin after 12 jurors and 3 alternates were seated in Pender County Wednesday.

    Opening statements are expected to begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in New Hanover County Superior Courtroom 401. The trial is expected to last several weeks.

    Bradley, 54, of Wilmington, is charged with first-degree murder in the presumed death of his coworker, Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk, who was last seen alive April 5, 2014, at a bar in downtown Wilmington.

    When questioned by detectives, Bradley, who was convicted in 1988 of killing his 8-year-old stepdaughter, Ivy Gipson, admitted he was “the last person to see [Van Newkirk] alive,” but denies involvement in her disappearance or death.

    In the search for Van Newkirk on April 29, 2014, investigators found a body wrapped in trash bags in a makeshift grave on a plot of land in Pender County Bradley had ties to through his landscaping work. Investigators initially believed the body was Van Newkirk’s, but an autopsy later identified the remains as Elisha Tucker, a Wilmington woman who had been missing since August 2013.

    For more than two years Bradley was suspected in Tucker’s killing, but was not formally charged until testing done in November 2016 determined a patch of blood found in his vehicle was from Tucker.

    A crime scene investigator who directly dealt with the blood was the basis for a continuance request from Bradley's lawyer. In the motion, defense attorney Rick Miller said he was recently made aware of an SBI investigation into Michele Mahamadou on allegations mishandling evidence. Miller also requested more time to have independent testing done of the sample taken from Bradley’s vehicle.

    A spokesperson for the SBI said the case was closed in early 2016, and no charges were filed. Mahamadou resigned from the WPD June 1.

    On Monday, the judge denied the continuance request and jury selection began shortly afterward.

    Prosecutors will be able to share evidence in the killings of Tucker and Ivy, along with two short stories Bradley wrote while in prison, a judge ruled following a pretrial hearing last year.

    A trial date has not been set in the Tucker case. The state is seeking the death penalty for her murder.

    http://www.wect.com/story/35664977/j...begin-thursday
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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    Jurors hear Van Newkirk never found, discovery of 2nd Wilmington woman's body

    By F.T. Norton
    Star News Online

    WILMINGTON -- A jury in New Hanover County on Wednesday learned the victim in their murder trial has never been found.

    Wednesday was day four of the state’s case against James Opelton Bradley of Wilmington, a convicted child killer charged in the presumed death of his missing co-worker Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk. The 53-year-old Wilmington woman was last seen April 5, 2014, walking into a downtown bar. When she failed to show up the next day for a brunch with her mother, her family reported her missing.

    Bradley, 54, came under suspicion when detectives with the Wilmington Police Department checked Van Newkirk’s phone records and saw the two had exchanged 17 phone calls from April 1 until April 5, 2014, when the calls stopped.

    Upon checking his background, said Detective Carlos Lamberty of the WPD, they discovered Bradley had been released from prison 14 months earlier after serving 25 years of a life sentence for killing his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Fayetteville.

    Lamberty, lead investigator in the case, testified Wednesday that Bradley lied about being with Van Newkirk until police were able to track his and Van Newkirk’s location that day via cellphone towers and traffic cameras.

    Once Bradley learned that, Lamberty said, he changed his story to say the two had driven to Greenfield Lake nearby and got into a heated discussion that ended when Van Newkirk jumped from his truck and ran off.

    A tree stump out of place

    Bradley has maintained he does not know what happened to Van Newkirk. The jury heard Wednesday that although her body has never been found, investigators who visited land in Pender County where the two worked discovered the body of another missing Wilmington woman, Elisha Tucker, 33.

    Sgt. Lee Odham of the Wilmington Police Department testified that on April 29, 2014, during the search for Van Newkirk, he and other investigators visited property owned by Mott’s Landscaping off Hoover Road in Pender County. Odham said in a far back corner of the 14-acre plot he noted the ground had recently been cleared.

    As a result, a tree stump left sitting on the soil looked out of place. Odham said he wanted to test the “sponginess” of the soil.

    “So I hopped on it. As I did so water came to the top,” he said. “At that point you could see that the water was oily and I bent down and immediately recognized the smell of human decomposition.”

    Police later uncovered a body bagged in trash bags, he said.

    As a result of the discovery, police found Bradley during a traffic stop and arrested him.

    Lamberty said when he showed Bradley a picture of the unearthed bags, Bradley showed little reaction outside of a “smirk.”

    Body bound with duct tape

    Forensic pathologist Karen Kelly testified that two days later when the body was unwrapped from three trash bags during autopsy, it was discovered that the body was not Van Newkirk. Dental records would later determine it was Tucker. Bradley also is charged in her death and the state says it will seek the death penalty.

    Kelly said Tucker’s knees were pulled up to her chest and held in place by duct tape. Her ankles were also bound with duct tape. Tucker, who was reported missing in August 2013, had lacerations to her scalp, four broken ribs and bleeding on the brain, and bruising to her muscles that indicated Tucker was alive when the injuries were inflicted upon her, Kelly said.

    She determined the cause of death was blunt-force trauma.

    The defense has objected to any testimony concerning the discovery of Tucker’s body and the 1988 murder. Judge Paul Jones ruled at a pretrial hearing that the state could present the Tucker evidence, evidence concerning the 1988 murder of Bradley’s stepdaughter and short stories he wrote about serial killers while in prison. The judge denied the defense’s motion to suppress the evidence and, instead, instructed the jury the evidence was submitted for the limited purpose of establishing motive, intent, identity, modus operandi (a particular method), premeditation and deliberation.

    Testimony in the case resumes Thursday.

    http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/2...on-womans-body

  6. #6
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    June 29, 2017

    Bradley found guilty in murder of Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk

    Superior Court Judge Paul Jones sentenced Bradley to 30.4 to 37.5 years in prison.

    WILMINGTON -- More than three years after Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk was last seen, a Pender County jury on Thursday found James Opelton Bradley guilty of second-degree murder in her presumed death.

    Superior Court Judge Paul Jones sentenced Bradley to 30.4 to 37.5 years in prison.

    Bradley’s defense attorneys said they would appeal the verdict. New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David David said he is “thrilled” with the verdict and is confident it will hold up under appeal.

    Bradley, 54, of Wilmington was charged with first-degree murder April 29, 2014, after Wilmington Police Department detectives looking for Van Newkirk unearthed a woman’s nude and bound body from a shallow grave in a Pender County farm field.

    Missing

    Van Newkirk, 53, of Wilmington was last seen April 5, 2014, at the Husk Bar in downtown Wilmington. Her mother Roberta Lewis reported Van Newkirk missing after she didn’t show up for a brunch to celebrate her 54th birthday on April 6, 2014.

    Van Newkirk and Bradley were employed by Steve Mott’s landscaping company and occasionally went to work on a farm Mott owns in Hampstead. It was on that farm where the woman’s buried body was found, wrapped in garbage bags.

    Detectives at first thought the woman’s body was Van Newkirk’s. Tattoos observed during an autopsy confirmed it was not Van Newkirk, but the body of Elisha Tucker, 33, of Wilmington, who had been missing since August 2013. A DNA expert testified during the trial that Tucker’s DNA was found on the carpet pad of Bradley’s Chevrolet Tahoe. Crystal Sitosky, a Wilmington woman who said she had seen Bradley with Tucker in the summer of 2013, also testified she went to meet with Bradley on the property where Tucker’s body eventually was found.

    Bradley also is charged with first-degree murder in Tucker’s death, but a trial date has not been set. The state has said it will seek the death penalty in that case.

    Past Conviction

    Bradley was convicted in 1989 in the murder of his 8-year-old stepdaughter Ivy Gipson in Cumberland County. A retired homicide investigator said Bradley at first said Ivy didn’t return home after school in June 1988, but later confessed to killing her, putting her body in trash bags and disposing of her in a Dumpster. Investigators found Ivy’s body in a landfill.

    The prosecution built its case on Bradley’s previous conviction for murder, the discovery of Tucker’s body and the discovery of stories Bradley wrote while in prison that featured serial killers who preyed on women.

    WPD detectives testified Bradley lied to them about not being with Van Newkirk on the day she disappeared, but changed his story several times after being presented with cellphone records that showed the two had talked and surveillance camera photos appearing to show her in his vehicle. Bradley eventually told detectives he and Van Newkirk argued as they drove in Greenfield Lake Park, where she jumped out of his SUV and ran away. He said it was the last time he saw her alive.

    Jurors heard hours of recorded interviews with Bradley and saw the phone records and surveillance photos.

    They also saw photos of Tucker’s exhumed body and heard detectives describe how they discovered the grave, concealed beneath a stump.

    The Verdict

    Following the jury’s verdict, family and friends who had attended the nearly two-week trial clasped hands and some even shed tears.

    Van Newkirk’s mother, Roberta Lewis, gave a brief victim impact statement before sentencing.

    “Thank you,” Lewis said to the jury. “But I still want my daughter home,” she said, speaking directly to Bradley.

    “We’re not done,” David told Lewis after sentencing. He said authorities would never stop looking for Van Newkirk and alluded to the fact that Bradley is still facing a first-degree murder charge in Tucker’s death.

    “The goal has never changed,” he said. “While we obtained legal closure today and James Bradley will never be getting out of prison and so we are pleased with that, the goal has always been to bring Shannon home and that remains our goal.”

    David said in his 18 years at the district’s attorney’s office, this case may have been his most difficult because there was no murder weapon, crime scene or even a body.

    But he added that didn’t mean it was a “no-body homicide.”

    “There were two other bodies, and unfortunately that is an aspect of this case that caused other suffering to two other families, but gave us the ability to delve into the mind of Mr. Bradley and to show a pattern of conduct and to flesh out what actually happened here,” he said. “And it was not easy.”

    David said while no trial date has been set, he wanted Bradley to know he was just as committed to Tucker’s trial as he has been to Van Newkirk’s.

    “Shannon and Elisha and Ivy are three very different individuals, and they are all linked by one common theme and that is James Bradley,” David said. “We still have Elisha’s trial, and I’m committed to making sure we get justice for her.”

    http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/2...py-van-newkirk

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    MURDER TRIAL FOR CONVICTED KILLER JAMES BRADLEY SET FOR JANUARY

    By WWAY News

    WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — James Bradley will once again face a judge and jury, this time, he faces the death penalty.

    The twice convicted killer is charged with murder in the death of Elisha Tucker, a woman whose body was found buried in trash bags in Hampstead.

    Tucker’s body was found while investigators were searching for a missing woman, Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk.

    Van Newkirk wen missing in April of 2014. She was never found.

    A jury found Bradley guilty of her murder over the summer. A judge sentenced Bradley to 30 to 37 years in prison.

    Bradley’s attorney filed an appeal in January, claiming Bradley’s trial was overshadowed by the murder of his stepdaughter in 1988. Bradley pleaded guilty to that murder and spent years in prison.

    During a court hearing on Wednesday, District Attorney Ben David asked the judge to set an October trial date for Tucker’s murder.

    The defense argued that wasn’t realistic.

    Instead, the judge set the trial for the week of January 14.

    https://www.wwaytv3.com/2018/03/14/m...t-for-january/
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    JURY SELECTION TO BEGIN IN PENDER COUNTY DEATH PENALTY CASE

    By WWAY News

    PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday afternoon in a Pender County murder case that could lead to the death penalty.

    James Opelton Bradley is charged with the murder of Elisha Tucker.

    Tucker, 34, went missing in 2013. Her body was found in Pender County in 2014 as investigators searched for Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk.

    Investigators have never found Van Newkirk’s body, but Bradley was convicted of her murder in 2017. Last year a state Court of Appeals panel ruled Bradley did receive a fair trial in that case. It was the second time Bradley had been convicted of murder.

    He pleaded guilty to killing his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1988 and spent 25 years in prison. He is currently serving 30-37 years for Van Newkirk’s death.

    District Attorney Ben David told WWAY earlier this month that hundreds of people received a jury summons for the case. He said the selection process could take several weeks, because it is a capital case.

    https://www.wwaytv3.com/2019/01/21/j...-penalty-case/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #9
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    James Bradley’s death penalty case starts in Pender


    By Cammie Bellamy
    Star News Online

    PENDER COUNTY - A twice-convicted murderer was back in court Tuesday in Pender County, standing trial in the 2013 murder of a Wilmington woman. If convicted, James Opleton Bradley, 56, could be the first person sent to death row from the region in 15 years.

    Potential jurors were called Tuesday in Bradley’s capital murder trial. Bradley is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Elisha Tucker, 33, whose body was found bound with duct tape and stuffed in trash bags in a Pender County field in 2014.

    According to the office of Ben David, the district attorney for New Hanover and Pender counties, jury selection is expected to take weeks.

    Between the large number summoned and the detailed questioning by attorneys necessary for a death penalty case (including on how potential jurors feel about capital punishment), it will likely be more than a month before opening statements can commence.

    There’s another issue that could slow the process: severe damage to the Pender County courthouse from Hurricane Florence. A judge is expected to tell jurors Tuesday that they will be bused to the New Hanover County Courthouse for voir dire -- their examination by prosecutors and defenders.

    If sentenced as prosecutors want, Bradley would be the first person from the Pender-New Hanover district put on death row since Paul Dewayne Cummings in 2004. Cummings, now 39, was convicted in the 2002 murder of Jane Truelove Head, found stabbed to death on the floor of her 202 Dogwood Road by her adult children.

    Cummings remains incarcerated at Raleigh’s Central Prison, one of 140 people on North Carolina’s death row. The state has not executed anyone since 2006, when Samuel Flippen, 36, was put to death for the beating death of his 2-year-old stepdaughter.

    https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/...arts-in-pender
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    12 JURORS SEATED, 3 ALTERNATES STILL NEEDED IN DEATH PENALTY CASE

    WWAY News

    WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — After seven long weeks of jury selection, 12 jurors have finally been seated in the James Opelton Bradley death penalty trial.

    Bradley is charged with the murder of Elisha Tucker, 34. Her body was found five years ago in Pender County while investigators were looking for Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk. Bradley is currently serving 30 years in prison for the murder of Van Newkirk, whose body was never found.

    Bradley also spent nearly 25 years in prison for the 1988 killing of his 8-year-old stepdaughter,

    The court is still looking for three alternate jurors in the Tucker trial. Jury selection began Jan. 22.

    https://www.wwaytv3.com/2019/03/05/1...-penalty-case/

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