COUNTY OF BUNCOMBE / IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION
FILE NO. 00-CRS-65085
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,
Plaintiff,
v.
LARRY JEROME WILLIAMS, JR.,
Defendant / )
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MOTION FOR APPROPRIATE RELIEF
DEFENDANT LARRY JEROME WILLIAMS, JR.
TO: The Honorable Alan Z. Thornburg
Senior Resident Superior Court Judge
28th Judicial District
Buncombe County Judicial Complex
Asheville, NC 28801
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
MOTION FOR APPROPRIATE RELIEF ...... 3
PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND ...... 3
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT ...... 5
FACTUAL BACKGROUND ...... 14
The Death of Walter Bowman ...... 14
The Initial Investigation ...... 16
Crime Stoppers Tips ...... 18
Initial Media Coverage ...... 20
Statements by the “Group B” Suspects ...... 20
Larry Williams ...... 20
Teddy Isbell ...... 23
Damian Mills ...... 27
Kenneth Kagonyera ...... 28
Robert Wilcoxson ...... 30
Aaron Brewton ...... 32
The District Attorney’s Opinion of the Interview Evidence ...... 32
Exculpatory Evidence ...... 33
2001 Exculpatory DNA Evidence ...... 33
The 2003 Confession of Robert Rutherford ...... 33
Efforts of Kenneth Kagonyera to Obtain DNA Evidence . . . . . 36
The 2007 CODIS Linkage ...... 37
Kagonyera’s Motion for Appropriate Relief ...... 41
The Fresh Significance of the Kounty Line Amoco Security Video . . 46
The Pervasive Involvement of Matthew Bacoate III ...... 48
GROUNDS FOR RELIEF ...... 52
FIRST GROUND FOR RELIEF - FACTUAL INNOCENCE ...... 52
SECOND GROUND FOR RELIEF - IMPROPERLY WITHHELD
EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE ...... 58
The DNA Evidence ...... 58
The Rutherford Confession and the CODIS Hit ...... 63
THIRD GROUND FOR RELIEF - NEWLY DISCOVERED
EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE ...... 64
The 2001 SBI Laboratory DNA Results ...... 65
The 2003 Robert Rutherford Confession ...... 67
The 2007 CODIS DNA Match ...... 68
The 2010 and 2013 LabCorp DNA Results ...... 69
The Enhanced Footage from the Kounty Line
Amoco Security Camera ...... 70
NOTICE TO THE COURT OF INTENT TO AMEND ...... 71
PRAYER FOR RELIEF ...... 71
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE AND COMPLIANCE WITH
N.C.Gen. Stat. § 15A-1420(a)(1)(c1) ...... 73
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MOTION FOR APPROPRIATE RELIEF
NOW COMES Defendant, Larry Jerome Williams, Jr., pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1411 et seq., to move this Court to grant appropriate relief in this case. As grounds for this motion, the defendant shows unto the Court that his convictions were obtained in violation of the United States Constitution and the constitution and laws of North Carolina, and that evidence is now available that was unknown or unavailable at the time of trial, which could not have been discovered with due diligence, and which has a direct and material bearing on defendant’s guilt.
In this motion, Mr. Williams requests that this Court vacate his conviction on a finding of innocence and take other actions consistent with his demonstrated claim of innocence. Denying him such relief will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice within the meaning of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1419(b)(2) and under House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518 (2006).
In support of this motion, Mr. Williams shows the Court that:
PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
1. On October 24, 2000, Larry Jerome Williams, Jr. was charged with first degree murder, file number 00 CRS 65085. The charge arose out of the homicide of Walter Rodney Bowman on September 18, 2000. Because Williams faced the possibility of capital punishment, two attorneys - Howard McGlohon and Leah Broker, both of the Asheville, North Carolina bar - were appointed to represent him.
2. Five other individuals were also charged with the first degree murder in the Bowman matter: Kenneth Kagonyera, Robert Wilcoxson, Damian Mills. Teddy Isbell and Aaron Brewton.
3. On February 25, 2002, Williams entered a plea of guilty to second degree murder. Four of the defendants - Williams; Kagonyera; Wilcoxson; and Mills - pled guilty to second degree murder and related offenses. Isbell pled guilty to accessory after the fact of second degree murder. All charges against Brewton were dismissed.
4. Larry Williams was released from prison on September 9, 2009.
5. On August 26th and November 22nd, 2008, Kenny Kagonyera and Robert Wilcoxson filed petitions with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission (“NCIIC” herein), respectively, each claiming factual innocence of the murder of Walter Bowman pursuant to N.C. General Statute § 15A1460 et seq.
6. On September 1222, 2011, Kagonyera's and Wilcoxson's NCIIC claims were heard before a three judge panel consisting of the Honorable Bradley Letts of Jackson County, the Honorable Patrice Hinnant of Forsyth County, and the Honorable Erwin Spainhour of Cabarrus County. After a full, adversarial evidentiary hearing, the panel unanimously found by clear and convincing evidence that the petitioners had proved their innocence of the murder of Walter Bowman. Kagonyera and Wilcoxson's convictions were vacated and their charges of murder were dismissed.
7. Larry Williams initiated a claim with the NCIIC on April 26, 2012.
8. The undersigned, W. Bradford Searson, was appointed to represent Williams before the NCIIC.
9. On December 16, 17 and 18, the NCIIC claim of Larry Williams, along with the claims of codefendants Damian Mills and Teddy Isbell, was heard by the eightmember NCIIC panel. After all evidence was presented and the IIC failed to reach a unanimous decision, the Honorable Quentin T. Sumner, sitting as chair, entered orders denying the claims of Williams, Mills and Isbell.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
Larry Williams spent nearly nine years of his life - from age 16 to age 25 - imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Walter Bowman because the District Attorney and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office withheld evidence which would have enabled him to establish his innocence, and because additional exculpatory evidence was unavailable to him prior to his trial.
In September, 2000, Larry Jerome Williams, Jr., was 16 years old. He had two older sisters. Larry’s mother had an intermittent work history. Larry does not recall his father working. Both parents drank - his father excessively. Larry was raised by his grandmother until she was no longer able to care for him and the Department of Social Services intervened to obtain custody. In the years prior to his 16th birthday, he lived with a series of foster parents and in group homes, several as far away as Greensboro. Larry obtained a “home pass” from the Greensboro facility in late 1999, traveled back to Asheville and never returned to the group home. By the summer of 2000, he was living on the streets. He was 5' 6" tall and weighed approximately 115 pounds. To his friends and acquaintances, he was “Little Larry”.[1] Five and a half months earlier, he would have been eligible for prosecution as a juvenile delinquent.
Among his friends was Robert Wilcoxson.[2] Wilcoxson spent the night of September 18-19 with his girlfriend Dea Johnson at her grandmother’s home. Larry Williams fell asleep watching a movie in Wilcoxson’s van parked in the grandmother’s driveway.
Meanwhile, halfway across Buncombe County, in the rural community of Fairview, just before midnight, three intruders burst into a weather-beaten modular home rented by Alma Bowman. Mrs. Bowman had left earlier but other family members and friends were present. Shaun Bowman; his girlfriend, Wanda Renita Holloway; and a colleague of Bowman’s were watching television in the living room when the masked men entered. Walter Rodney Bowman – Alma’s sometimes estranged husband and Shaun’s father - was lying down in a back bedroom.
Shaun Lee “Dirty” Bowman had a history of drug dealing. He was also widely suspected of being an informant for District Attorney Ron Moore. Bowman and Ms. Holloway periodically stayed at Alma Bowman’s residence. Neighbors were disturbed by what they believed was regular drug activity at 74 Church Road and by Shaun Bowman’s neglect of several pit bulls which he kept at the residence. The Bowmans were the only black family living along that stretch of Church Road.[3]
The intruders - Bradford Summey, Lacy “J.J.” Pickens and Robert Rutherford - each wore a bandana tied across his face. Pickens and Summey wore gloves and were armed, one with a semi-automatic pistol, the other with a shotgun. Rutherford would later claim to have been unarmed - although occupants of the house remembered each man brandishing a gun. The intruders had been informed that they would find a large quantify of cash, marijuana and cocaine in the house.
Awakened by the shouting and barking of the dogs, Walter Bowman arose and tried to lock the bedroom door. Summey fired the shotgun through that door, fatally wounding Walter Bowman. Summey, Pickens and Rutherford ran from the house. With his father dying on the bedroom floor, Shaun Bowman also fled the scene. For weeks, thereafter, the younger Bowman - inexplicably - evaded detectives while Ms. Holloway continued to deny that Shaun Bowman had been present at the time of the shooting.
Two days later, at 7:10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 20, the BCSO received a Crime Stoppers tip that correctly identified Lacy “J.J.” Pickens, Bradford Summey and Robert Rutherford[4] as the individuals who had attempted the armed robbery which left Walter Bowman dead. All three had histories of involvement in the drug trade in Buncombe County.
Thus began an investigation that produced results which alternated between comically slapdash and carefully contrived. From the outset, Buncombe County authorities seemed resistant to the idea that Summey, Pickens and Rutherford had broken into Shaun Bowman’s house and killed his father. BCSO Det. George Sprinkle concluded, incorrectly, that Pickens had been in jail on the night of September 18. Eyewitnesses were never shown photographs of Summey, Pickens or Rutherford. No one attempted to compare Pickens’s car - a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass with a vinyl top - to a car identified at a gas station/convenience store near the Bowman home minutes before the home invasion. The three young, black male occupants were “acting strangely” just minutes before the home invasion. A security camera at the convenience store on Highway 74A, the main road into Asheville, captured footage of the three black males arriving and departing in a 1970 or 1971 vinyl-top Oldsmobile Cutlass. Despite those tantalizing connections, no one ever questioned Summey, Pickens or Rutherford.
Three days later, on September 23, a second Crime Stoppers tip was received by BCSO. This caller reported that Kenneth Kagonyera, Aaron Brewton and Larry Williams[5] were involved in the murder of Walter Bowman.
Kagonyera was the first of the subjects to be interviewed. Detective Lt. Sam Constance questioned Kagonyera on the day that he was first named in the Crime Stoppers tip. Kagonyera denied any involvement in or knowledge of the Bowman homicide. For over a year, Kagonyera would insist to the police and to his attorneys that he had had nothing to do with the robbery attempt and killing of Walter Bowman.
Also on September 23, the detectives interviewed Aaron Brewton. He too disclaimed any knowledge. Despite being named as a participant by his eventual co-defendants and being indicted for the murder, Brewton never stopped insisting upon his innocence. Eventually, the charge against him would be dismissed outright.
The first interview of the 16-year-old Larry Williams took place on September 24. The interview lasted more than an hour. No notes were taken or, if notes were taken, they have never been disclosed to defense counsel. In a second interview the next day, September 25, Williams told Detectives George Sprinkle and Michael Murphy that he knew nothing about the Bowman matter.
On September 25, Matthew “Matt” Bacoate III interjected himself for the first time into the investigation. Bacoate was the director of “Life On Life=s Terms,” an organization ostensibly dedicated to assisting individuals addicted to drugs. Many of those enrolled in Life On Life’s Terms were simultaneously facing criminal charges related to their drug use. Bacoate had a close relationship with Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore. Bacoate strongly encouraged program participants to “cooperate” in pending criminal investigations. Moore made a practice of reducing charges against defendants who signed up for Life on Life’s Terms. Individuals paid to participate in the program.
On September 25, 2000, Bacoate contacted Detective Lieutenant Sam Constance of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) to report that Teddy Isbell, a resident at the Life on Life’s Terms facility, had information about the Bowman homicide. At the request of Isbell, DA Moore and Bacoate participated in an interview of Isbell. All told, between September 25 and October 10, Isbell would be interviewed at least four times. Several of the interviews were broken up into lengthy segments. Notes were taken of some, but not all, of the interviews. According to Bacoate, Isbell was high on drugs at the time of the second, and most extensive, interview. Isbell’s tale on that occasion - the second interview on October 25 - was a phantasmagoria of avoidance, admission and finger pointing. Ultimately, detectives were able to extract the names of Kenneth Kagonyera, Robert Wilcoxson, Larry Williams and Isbell himself from the tangle presented them by Isbell. Brewton and Mills were not mentioned by Isbell in this second iteration of his story.