The Killing Kind (25 page)

D
istrict 27A, which is the Gaston County District Attorney’s Office, was busy preparing a case for what both sides believed would be a fall 2010 trial. The DA’s office was charging Hembree with one first-degree count in the murder of Heather Catterton. His other alleged victims, Randi Saldana and Deborah Ratchford, would be tried as separate cases. Being a death penalty case, it was going to consume the DA’s office, and Locke Bell relied on his assistant district attorney Stephanie Hamlin to dig her heels in for a serious fight. As February 2010 approached, ADA Hamlin was on the case full-time.

Danny Hembree wasn’t about to lie down, roll over, and plead; neither was the DA’s office. There was not going to be a deal. The DA’s office believed Hembree was a vicious predator, career criminal, repeat, serial violent offender, and, at the least, three-time murderer (which made him a serial killer). Danny Hembree was not going to talk his way out of prison.

Hembree was a different guy these days from that admitted murderer showing cops around his mother’s house, taking them on a tour of his madness. Hembree was using every resource available to mount what the DA’s office assumed would be an insanity defense. On paper, it seemed to be the only card Hembree could play. The evidence against him—in the murders of Heather and Randi—was overwhelming.

Hembree had other plans, however.

Defense attorneys Brent Ratchford (no relation to Deb Ratchford, the woman Hembree was charged with killing) and Richard Beam lodged a full-scale investigation into Hembree’s psychological and medical history, looking for a kernel to latch on to and use as a springboard to fight the death penalty and an assumed guilty verdict. Juries do not like to put defendants to sleep if there’s the chance they could be insane or mentally handicapped/challenged. It goes against the natural order of morality. You add religious beliefs to that pie and you have a juror (or several, possibly) who would never vote for death. Defense attorneys, the good ones, know this.

According to a request filed by Ratchford and Beam, one of the most pressing issues surrounding Hembree was having their client psychologically evaluated, especially his “propensity to provide false confessions.” It appeared Hembree had set a precedent long ago for admitting to crimes he did not commit. If Beam and Ratchford could prove this theory with clinical research and then bear it out with professional and expert testimony, they might have a shot. Furthermore, Hembree had apparently given up on the notion (and come to his senses) of representing himself, since he’d recently agreed to allow Ratchford and Beam to defend him.

In one of the reports written about Hembree’s psychological, mental, and physical state, licensed psychologist Claudia Coleman found that Hembree had an enlarged spleen, cirrhosis of the liver, and hepatitis C, among many other medical issues. Most of this stemmed from intravenous drug use, although with Hembree’s sexual history of prostitutes and bedding drug users, there was no telling how he had contracted the disease. Hembree had also been whacked with a baseball bat in the head during the late summer of 2009. But a CT scan of his brain had produced nothing in the form of results proving the injury had affected him much more than a terribly bad headache.

Hembree was complaining of shortness of breath and a slow heart rate. The Raleigh prison, where he was being housed—he got his original wish, after all—had ordered a medical evaluation based on those complaints. That evaluation did not produce any life-threatening results. Hembree was not a picture of perfect health, but he was not ready to start sizing up caskets, either.

One particular finding of Coleman’s that explained how Hembree truly felt inside focused on his passive-aggressive behavior, the doctor diagnosed. Hembree was paranoid, sure, but he was also a “narcissist” who anticipated “being disillusioned by others.” Because of that expectation, he would behave “contrarily” and in “self-destructive ways.” Moreover, Coleman said Hembree was “socially unpredictable.” He felt “misunderstood” and “unappreciated.” He feared that displaying “any weakness” was a “concession” to an “inner feeling of insecurity and ineffectiveness.”

Despite these conclusions, Coleman could not give an opinion, she wrote,
with regard to mental status at the time of alleged offense . . . [in reference] to insanity or diminished capacity.

Why?

[Hembree had] recanted his statements to authorities,
she wrote.

(To be clear, though, Hembree “never,
ever
recanted his admissions about Heather and Randi—only Deb Ratchford and the Florida cases,” ADA Stephanie Hamlin clarified.)

Coleman addressed the possibility of Hembree giving authorities a “voluntary false confession” under the pretense of him being a guy who liked to play games with cops for the sake of the thrill and the ego stimulation. She made a point to write,
Many false confessions ... occur in highly publicized sensational crimes.

But that scenario barely fit here: Hembree’s case had not become a national story until after Hembree confessed and began the process of poking at the DA’s office and making a mockery of the justice system.

No opinion could be made,
Coleman wrote in her report of Hembree giving a voluntary false confession. She warned she was well aware of Hembree having said he made false confessions in the past and even additional false confessions about other crimes in 2009, when he spoke to the YCSO and GCPD.

There was one aspect of a false confession Coleman agreed with. She wrote that it concerned
[Hembree’s] desire for attention and the thrill and excitement of duping others.
After speaking with him, she was convinced that all of her observations
[were] factors . . . consistent with aspects of Mr. Hembree’s personality disorder.

Bottom line: The DA’s office didn’t know it yet, but Hembree was going to lodge an argument that he had made it all up. He had confessed to the murders because that’s what Danny Hembree liked to do: He lied in order to bolster his ego and feel like he mattered.

“Laughable,” said one law enforcement official. “That’s what Hembree’s sudden plea of making it all up sounded like.”

A freakin’ joke.

F
rom a bird’s-eye view, the road surrounding Perry Correctional Institution, where Hembree’s criminal cohort Bobby Johnson was serving a life sentence, is in the shape of a heart, which encircles a large concrete building and barbed-wire fence. Must be a sardonic metaphor for the love that the South Carolina corrections system has for each and every inmate it checks into its popular, level-3 facility in Pelzer, South Carolina.

On February 26, 2010, Matt Hensley and Michel Sumner took that heart-shaped road into the prison for a sit-down with Johnson. They wanted to hear from Johnson what he and Hembree had done. Get a complete picture of Hembree. In turn, it would tell them how much of what Hembree had admitted to could be corroborated by other sources.

Johnson had a hard look to him. He kept a thick Tony Orlando–style mustache against his pockmarked face. He had the most chilling beady eyes a guy could have. It was obvious that behind those lenses was a man who liked to wreak havoc any chance he could, and prison was probably the only way of stopping him from doing it.

After Johnson waived his rights, he talked about robbing that convenience store in Bessemer City in such fine detail it sounded as though they’d hit the establishment the previous night. It drove home a point Hensley had made that criminals remember their crimes, especially the violent ones. They become pivotal moments in their lives, like having children or celebrating birthdays.

“We were in a blue Chevy,” Johnson explained with his Southern inflection. “We parked at a car wash near the store, on the side. We robbed the clerk, kidnapped her, and then took her with us to Lincoln Academy, where we both raped her.”

Within his explanation, Johnson took the opportunity to bash the victim, a common trait serial offenders routinely display (blame their victims in some way for having been victimized) by calling her a “chubby white female, with big glasses.”

His memory was fresh. He recalled the color of the “smock” she wore: “Red.”

Hensley listened intently to Johnson’s scratchy voice. The detective knew a “red smock” had been entered into evidence in a case he had looked at with similar watermarks, and the smock was actually sitting in a property room. This was important: Johnson was being truthful, and the evidence, scant as it was, backed up his statements.

Then Johnson talked about the moment they decided to kill the woman. He said as they were up on Crowders Mountain, “Danny got a shovel from the truck.... He took the shovel and hit her across the head.” When the blow didn’t do what Johnson and Hembree assumed it would, Hembree hauled off and struck her again. That was when, Johnson said, she screamed, frightened them, and they took off.

Hensley asked Johnson about the hotel incident that Hembree had mentioned, without giving many details.

Johnson said he recalled that night, too.

“We robbed a Holiday Inn at Kings Mountain.”

“Weapon?”

“Yeah, we had a gun with one bullet in it,” Johnson said, going against Hembree’s proud admission of never having used a “real” gun during a robbery.

The way Hembree had described this crime differed. Hembree claimed it took place in 1981, or possibly 1982. Hembree couldn’t recall the exact year. He said he and Johnson kidnapped, as Hembree labeled the guy, “a nigger” from the Holiday Inn. Hembree gave no reason why they kidnapped the guy after robbing the hotel; but they took the guy out into the woods off Crowders Creek Road and Hembree shot him in the back.

“I was gonna shoot him in the front, but my gun jammed and he done run away,” Hembree admitted.

Hembree thought he’d killed the guy, anyway.

“But we’s saw it in the papers the next day that he was shot in the shoulder and he done lived,” Hembree had told Hensley.

Johnson told the story in somewhat similar detail, but he added more information.

“We put him in the trunk of Danny’s blue Ford Escort. We took him out to Henry’s Knob in South Carolina.” Henry’s Knob is a mountain in York County. It’s located in Clover, a popular stomping ground of Hembree’s. It was a kyanite mineral mine at one time, now deserted. It is a good place to bring someone if you don’t want him to return. “We was gonna toss him in a tavern with red water,” Johnson said. By “tavern,” he meant an actual watering hole. But as they approached it, they thought they’d heard someone in the woods. So they took him to an area near Old Crowders Creek Road. “We made him lie on his stomach. I pointed the gun toward his head and pulled the trigger.” It was dark. They couldn’t see. “He got up and started running. We jumped in the car and took off. The next night, I set Danny’s car on fire.”

H
ensley needed to go back to the library. He had plenty of information to track down regarding this latest tale of madness from one of Hembree’s criminal cohorts. He still wanted to find out about the woman they had raped and attempted to murder. Justice doesn’t have an expiration date. Hensley wanted these victims to have their day. Even if the statute of limitations came into play and nothing could be done, Hensley could look each victim in the eyes and say their attackers were in prison on other charges. They would not have to worry or fear them again.

Hensley had YCSO and GCPD records search the archives for reports relating to both cases, but they did not turn up anything. His only chance was the library.

Searching for a second time, Hensley came upon the front page of the local
Gaston Gazette
and the headline he had been looking for jumped out at him:
STORE CLERK ALLEGES RAPE, ROBBERY
.

September 10, 1980.

“The article outlined the event almost exactly the way Danny Hembree told me it happened,” Hensley later said.

The woman’s name was never mentioned, making it more difficult to find her. However, there were two investigators quoted in the article. Hensley had an idea.

He left the library that afternoon and contacted one of the GCPD property officers. The officer found a name logged into an old records book near the date of the incident.

Had to be her.

Hensley then found one of the detectives quoted in the article. She was working for a local sheriff’s department and remembered the case well—confirming for Hensley that the name he had been given by the property officer was indeed the name of the victim.

The way police work sometimes comes together is that when one domino falls, the others begin a downward trek. As it turned out, Hensley found the second detective quoted in the article. That cop said he not only remembered the incident, but he had gone to high school with the victim. He even thought he knew where she lived today.

This gave Hensley a maiden name to go along with her married name at the time of the crime. Hensley found her date of birth.

Then an address.

It was exciting to walk up to the door of the woman with the news that they had caught the animals that had brutally raped, beat, and left her for dead in the woods. Of course, there was no way the woman could have forgotten the incident. Hensley was thrilled to be able to bring this news to her.

Hensley and another investigator approached the woman’s front door. They knocked. But their air of excitement quickly deflated. Turned out it was the wrong address. The woman no longer lived there.

H
ensley could not let it go. He had to find this woman. That second incident involving an African-American man was going to be harder for Hensley to nail down. They did not have a name in that case, and Hensley could not find anything in the local newspapers about it. But the woman—he had a name and date of birth.

So Hensley did a LexisNexis search, a widely used background checking service that, according to its website,
provides an extensive collection of industry-specific background check solutions for organizations such as law enforcement & government agencies.

Hensley came up with two names.

On March 19, 2010, Hensley knocked on an apartment door near Kings Mountain, North Carolina, and there she was—finally—standing before him.

The victim was eager to talk about her ordeal. She gave details nobody had heard thus far. Some were awfully graphic and equally as disturbing as anything Hensley had heard about the case. According to the victim, Hembree walked into the store about two-thirty in the morning. He went back to a cooler and grabbed a can of beer and then presented it and a sandwich at the counter. It was then that the woman dropped something on the floor. When she bent down to pick it up, Hembree walked up behind her, grabbed her by the throat, and brandished a knife. It had happened so fast, she said. One moment, she was preparing to ring up his purchases; the next, he had his hands around her throat.

“Open the fucking drawer,” Hembree ordered through clenched teeth.

“Please don’t hurt me,” the woman pleaded. “Please—”

“Open. The. Drawer.”

She hit the button and the drawer popped open. “I’ve already done the drop for the night.”

Hembree took the $11 inside the drawer.

“You’re going with me,” Hembree said, not giving her a reason why.

He dragged her out the door and across the street to a car wash, where Johnson was waiting in the truck. She sat in the middle between Hembree and Johnson. They placed a shirt over her head, but she could somewhat see through it. She feared the worst.

“They were not saying anything much,” the woman explained. “They were mad because of the eleven dollars. They wanted more money.”

When they got to the location near Lincoln Academy Road, deep into the forest, Hembree initiated the rape. He pushed her down on her back after pulling her out of the truck and dragging her out onto a golf course. She was terrified they were going to kill her. Hembree pulled her pants down and “lifted my legs up. . . . He put his penis in my vagina and raped me. He ejaculated inside me. Then the driver put his penis in my vagina and raped me.” Johnson “quit” at one point, she explained, telling Hembree, “I’m nervous.... I cannot do anything.” Johnson couldn’t stay erect, so he stopped.

“They got me up and I pulled up my pants and buttoned my shirt—they had my hands tied with my bra [behind my back] as they raped me.”

Throughout the entire ordeal, she pleaded with them not to hurt her.

“Please let me go.”

Then they took her to a second location. Now up on Crowders Mountain, Hembree dragged her out of the truck again and told her to lie down on the ground. He then took out a shovel from the back of the truck.

“That’s when the beating started,” she told Hensley. “They hit me in my head, my chest, and neck with the shovel. They stabbed me with it. I prayed for the Lord Jesus to help me. And that’s when I went out.”

She fell unconscious.

As she talked through this portion of her statement, the woman showed Hensley the enormous scars she had from the crime: They “reminded” her “of what happened . . . every day.”

When she “came to” in the woods on Crowders Mountain, Hembree and his partner were gone. So she started walking.

Down near the bottom of the mountain, the woman heard dogs barking. As she walked closer to the barking, she thought,
The dogs cannot hurt me worse than what I have already been through.

She found a house and knocked on the door. The police came.

“I believe they were trying to kill me,” she concluded. “I heard them talking about killing me.”

Hensley asked if she wanted to press charges.

“Yes,” she said.