Search the ArchivesNavigation Contact InformationThe Citizen Newspapers For Advertising Information Email us your news! For technical difficulties |
Jury finds Robbins innocent of 2 murdersTue, 12/13/2005 - 5:50pm
By: John Munford
Robbins was immediately freed after being tried for a week for the murders of David Mangham and Mike Fowler, who were found shot to death in Mangham’s north Fayette home in May 2003. Handicapping the state’s case was a critical discrepancy between the testimony of the Fayette Sheriff’s Department’s chief investigator and a former Fayette prosecutor. That and the lack of a murder weapon led to the finding of not guilty by the jury Tuesday. Robbins allowed Fayette sheriff’s detectives to search the Jonesboro home he lived in about a month after the murders in 2003. Detectives didn’t find what they were looking for: a Colt .45 caliber gun Robbins once owned that officers believed might have been the murder weapon. But the chief detective on the case contended he did get a possible admission from Robbins that he killed Mangham in self-defense. Testimony from the chief sheriff’s detective about that “admission” became one of of the most significant bits of evidence in the case, and it was heavily contested in the week-long trial. Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office recalled asking Robbins about whether he shot Mangham in self-defense. “Is that what happened, did David pull a gun on you?” Jordan testified. “He started to barely nod his head.” No one else witnessed the exchange, so Jordan said he grabbed another detective and asked Robbins again. The second time, Robbins declined to answer. After that, Robbins was considered the chief suspect in the case, Jordan explained, “because an innocent man, in my opinion, would have said no.” Mangham’s gun was found about two feet from his outstretched hand when the bodies were discovered at his home in the Princeton Chase subdivision in May 2003, according to Lt. Tray Powell, head of the crime scene unit of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department. District Attorney Scott Ballard argued that the presence of Mangham’s weapon indicates that he was trying to defend himself moments before he died. Robbins was charged with two counts of malice murder, two counts of felony murder (for allegedly killing Mangham and Fowler while robbing the residence) and one count of armed robbery. Mangham and Fowler had both been shot twice in the head. Ironically, Robbins’s son, Matt, discovered the grisly scene after coming to check on Mangham, who hadn’t returned several phone calls. With no physical evidence tying Robbins directly to the murder scene, Jordan’s testimony was vigorously challenged by defense attorneys representing Robbins. Defense efforts got a boost when the former chief assistant district attorney in charge of the case, Dan Hiatt, testified that he didn’t recall ever being told about the “head nod” interview — and he never saw the detectives’ case report — even though he presented the case to a grand jury in September 2003. Hiatt said he would have remembered a detail that was so significant to the case. A secretary in the district attorney’s office who had prepared the case file testified that the report contained a reference to the head nod, and the report was in the DA’s case file prior to the grand jury convening in September 2003 — contrary to Hiatt’s recollection. Jordan said the head nod story was mentioned to Hiatt “at least 10 times” during the course of the investigation. Jordan was abrasive about Hiatt’s role in the investigation, claiming that Hiatt didn’t pay attention when sheriff’s detectives presented facts about the case to him on several occasions. There was no DNA or other physical evidence to tie Robbins directly to the crime scene on April 23, the day police say the killings occurred. Robbins did not testify in the week-long trial, but Jordan said Robbins lied to detectives several times at the outset of the investigation. Robbins’s sons, Matt and Billy, also had key testimony in the case about an occasion after the killings where they confronted their father, asking if he was responsible for the deaths of Mangham and Fowler, who went to high school with their dad. Matt Robbins said his father told them it was in their “best interest not to know” and that Eddie Robbins said he was “protecting” them. Jurors learned during the trial that ballistics tests confirmed the gun used to kill Mangham and Fowler was a Colt .45 or similar style gun, the same type that Robbins formerly owned. But without Robbins’s gun, which he said he traded for drugs, there was no way to determine if it was indeed the weapon that killed Fowler and Mangham. Detectives testified they believe Mangham and Fowler died the morning of April 23, 2003 because Mangham stopped making and answering phone calls then despite the fact that he depended on his phone for his business. That date was crucial because prosecutors alleged that Robbins took cash away from the murder scene, and bank records were introduced showing that he made several cash deposits the same day the killings allegedly occurred. Jordan said Robbins’s father-in-law Jerry Lowry told him that Robbins paid Lowry $810 in cash April 23, which was recorded in a notebook he kept to show payments from his son-in-law and daughter, who lived in his home in Jonesboro. “I said, ‘Mr. Lowry, that day he paid you is the day we think the killings occurred,’” Jordan said. “He got all upset that he’d even shared the notebook.” Robbins, who worked as a painter, didn’t explain to detectives where the money had come from, Jordan said. “He told me he hadn’t worked all the month of April,” Jordan added. Several witnesses testified that Mangham kept a large amount of cash in his home. When the killings were discovered, only a $100 bill was found in the home near the hiding place where Mangham reportedly kept several thousand dollars of cash on hand. Robbins’s wife, January Shea Robbins, testified Monday that she didn’t remember where the money for the April 23 bank deposits came from, although she worked as a school bus driver and as a clown for children’s parties at the time. She also said that the couple’s main bank accounts were in her name. Defense attorneys tried to discredit the investigation by questioning why several other persons weren’t investigated more thoroughly, particularly: • Mangham’s drug dealer, who admitted to selling Mangham crack cocaine; • Mangham’s girlfriend, who also knew about the hiding place for the cash and who claims Mangham choked her on his bed days before his death, sparking a break-up; and • Another man Mangham had quarreled with shortly before his death over a woman he was trying to woo romantically. Jordan said the drug dealer was ruled out in part because he didn’t know where Mangham lived. The drug dealer also came forward when detectives started looking for him, which he said a guilty person wouldn’t do. “He could have hid from us all day long,” Jordan said, referring to where the drug dealer was interviewed in Atlanta near Turner Field. The girlfriend was ruled out in part because she kept sending love messages to Mangham’s cellphone even after he had died, Jordan added. Although Mangham confronted John Miller about comments Miller allegedly made to the woman Mangham was interested in romantically, Miller was ruled out because he never owned a gun similar to the murder weapon, and he never lied, Jordan added. login to post comments
|
Copyright 2010 - Fayette Publishing, Inc. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use Policy
Server 4
