The Killing Kind (37 page)

O
n November 18, after a day of deliberations, the jury came back. After a series of questions, the judge addressed the jury foreperson regarding Hembree’s mental state and relationships with his family and the aggravating factors surrounding the murder of Heather Catterton. The jury’s decision was announced in the form of a question to the foreperson: “Is it the recommendation of the jury . . . [to] recommend that the defendant, Danny Robbie Hembree Jr., be sentenced to death—is that the unanimous decision of the jury?”

“Yes, sir,” the foreperson said.

Danny Hembree’s hubris and narcissism were never more evident than after being asked at the end of the death penalty proceedings if he had anything to say.

“Yes, sir, there is,” Hembree insisted. “This verdict here is what the Catterton family was asking for, and I hope that it can bring some closure and start the healing process for them.... And I would like to read these four verses. It’s the lyrics of a [Johnny Cash] song that I modified into a poem.... It says everything that I’d like to say.” And with that, Hembree talked about how prison had been “a living hell” for him and how he hated “every inch” of a system that had “cut me and have scarred me through and through.” He said after every bid, he walked out “a wiser, weaker man.” He blamed politicians for the conditions and how no prisoner is rehabilitated. He said prison had “bent” his “heart and mind ” and the “stone walls turn my blood a little cold.” He asked for Prison (as a proper noun) to “rot and burn in hell,” repeating how the four-wall institution he had lived in throughout much of his life was “a living hell.”

Perhaps it was the power of suggestion, but moving back into that Hollywood metaphor Hembree’s attorneys had brought up earlier, the judge’s final words seemed to have been pulled straight from the script of one of those blockbuster legal thrillers: “The prisoner, Danny Robbie Hembree Jr., having been convicted of murder in the first degree by unanimous verdict of the jury . . . having unanimously recommended the punishment of death, is therefore ordered and . . . sentenced to death. And the sheriff of Gaston County, North Carolina, in whose custody the said defendant now is, should forthwith deliver said prisoner . . . to the warden of the state’s penitentiary . . . and the said warden shall cause the said prisoner . . . to be put to death as by law provided.” Judge Beal paused a moment, taking a breath before delivering his final words: “May God have mercy on his soul.”

Danny Hembree, who did not react in any way to the verdict, was on his way to death row, where he would mount one of his most revolting manipulative moves ever.

I
t took Hembree two months to stir up controversy and piss off everyone. It was almost humorous how much noise a guy facing death, locked up for basically twenty-three hours a day, could make from that space. But Hembree managed to rattle the media and public’s cage from the confines of death row.

This latest outburst of disrespect came in the form of a letter addressed to the local Gastonia newspaper, the
Gaston Gazette.
It was taunting and sarcastic and shocking. In the one-page missive, Hembree called himself a “gentleman of leisure” while on death row, enjoying “color TV” with air-conditioning, while taking “naps at will.” He bragged about eating “three well-balanced, hot meals” a day and being housed in a building with a “55 million dollar hospital,” providing him with “round the clock free medical care.”

The quote that stirred the most public outrage as the letter went viral had Hembree taunting his death sentence:
Kill me if you can, suckers!

Hembree knew there hadn’t been an execution in North Carolina since 2006 and asked the public if
[it was] aware that the chances of my lawful murder taking place in the next twenty years if ever are very slim?

“He’s sitting down there, looking at the law and laughing,” Locke Bell told the same newspaper. “He’s been sentenced to death. He shouldn’t be watching color TV.”

Nick Catterton was in tears as he read the letter. He felt Hembree was spitting on his daughter’s grave.

Kathy Ledbetter, Hembree’s sister, came out and apologized the following day, saying she was sorry. The letter, Kathy suggested, was just another sign that her brother was mentally unstable.

Others said Hembree was out of control.

The discussion turned global as the
Daily Mail
and other British media covered it.

People were outraged.

I
n March 2012, just before jury selection began on the second trial, Danny Hembree wrote Stephanie Hamlin a letter. He said he was “concerned” about her “health,” because in his view she had gained some weight recently (she hadn’t). He told the ADA she should get herself a gym membership and start working out.

Hamlin laughed at Hembree’s stupid, desperate attempt to get to her.

By March 13, both sides were at it again. Bell, Hamlin, Judge Beal, Beam, and Ratchford tried the same case, mostly, with the same witnesses. It had a déjà vu feel to it. The only difference for the state was they presented Randi’s murder first and backed it up with Heather’s. The reason they went forward with prosecuting Hembree for Randi’s murder, a source in law enforcement explained, was as an insurance policy (“a backup sentence”) should anything happen with the automatic appeal initiated in the first death penalty verdict. The state wanted a second guilty verdict to fall back on, should Hembree find a way out of the first.

One of the more dramatic moments for the state during the second trial came when Shellie Nations, Randi’s sister, testified. When Shellie saw Randi’s boots, which had been placed on the stand before her, she lost it, saying later that all she could think of while staring at her sister’s shoes was “the final steps my sister took.... It really broke me down.”

“This case was a slam dunk,” Hamlin said. “It was a stress-free trial for us because we knew the evidence so well. We knew what to expect.”

Cruise control.

That is, until Hembree took the stand.

The defense put up Hembree first, after the state concluded its case. It was a tactical move. In order to prove Hembree was a liar and had made false confessions, his lawyers needed him to explain it.

So Hembree sat and told that same tale he had back during the first trial.

When it came time for cross-examination, however, Locke Bell told ADA Hamlin, “You had a crack at him already—I want my shot.”

“No problem,” Hamlin said.

Which was when Danny Robbie Hembree decided to cause mayhem.

P
rior to Hembree’s defense presenting its case, ADA Hamlin shared with the court that she had received a letter from the attorney general’s (AG’s) office regarding Danny Hembree. It was serious stuff. The AG informed Hamlin that an anonymous, typed letter had been sent to its office indicating she and Hembree had had an affair. The letter writer knew things about Hamlin and her husband’s personal lives. Details not many others could have known. Things only someone close to them would know. The letter explained that prior to Heather’s death, Hamlin and Hembree had had sex; after Hembree hooked up with Nicole, and Heather wound up dead, Hamlin decided to prosecute Hembree because she was jealous.

“The AG’s office didn’t take it seriously enough to open an official inquiry,” a source told me. “They laughed it off, apparently. I guess they checked it out, but nothing came of it, basically.”

The judge called a hearing to discuss the matter and figure out if the court needed to conduct its own investigation and remove ADA Hamlin from the case.

The jury was sent out. There was talk among the lawyers and judge whether everyone should be heard on the record and allowed to argue each side of the matter. Beam and Ratchford took a moment and spoke to Hembree privately about it.

When they returned, Beam explained there was no reason to be heard. He said he couldn’t discuss their reasoning because of attorney-client privilege, but the bottom line was that none of them deemed the letter valid.

“In the end, either Hembree typed the letter himself or had someone else do it,” a source close to both sides told me. “But he knew it to be a false document.”

The judge was convinced the letter was bogus. He warned the courtroom that nobody was to mention the letter—in any way—during the trial.

So Hembree sat on the stand once again. The trial had been going on for two weeks by then. Hembree was being buried by the prosecution.

On April 2, 2012, while Locke Bell was cross-examining Hembree, he approached the convicted killer with a question about that letter he had written to the local newspaper while on death row—the letter in which Hembree mocked the system.

Hembree said, “What I’m wondering about, are you gonna show the letter about the sexual relationship between me and Stephanie that the attorney general sent in here the other day . . . ?”

With his arms folded, standing in front of the witness, Locke Bell dropped his head and smiled. He knew what Hembree had just done.

“Laugh!” Hembree said to Bell, who had turned his back to the convicted killer and walked away. “But the truth’s the truth!”

Jurors looked at each other:
What just happened?

That was it. The judge called a recess.

Hembree’s defense team asked to withdraw from the case.

The judge approved the request.

The state objected, arguing that Hembree should represent himself because he had caused the entire problem. The trial should go on. The state should not be punished.

Standing now behind his table, both lawyers flanking him, Hembree went on a rant, shouting, “No matter what the state says, I got a conflict with these two guys!”

As he said that, Shellie Nations, who had sat and listened to Hembree’s antics and long-winded outbursts long enough, stood, pointed at Hembree, and shouted: “I got a conflict with
you,
too! You killed my sister! Did you not say you killed my sister? You son of a bitch!”

Hembree turned around in utter shock, his upper lip quivering. He seemed startled, rattled, surprised by Shellie’s eruption.

Shellie was immediately taken into custody by sheriffs.

In the end, the judge declared a mistrial.

Which was maybe what Danny Hembree had planned all along.

O
ne of the problems for ADA Hamlin arising out of this latest fiasco, something she wanted to clear up, was how the media reported what took place inside the courtroom that day. Some of the reporting had brought Stephanie to tears that night when she saw it.

Reading and watching some of the reporting, if one didn’t know better, one would come out of it thinking Stephanie Hamlin and Danny Hembree had had sex. That’s what many locals thought. The thread of the story surrounding the bogus letter to the AG’s office was not a part of the reporting. Stephanie would go to her local supermarket and people would stop her and say, “Aren’t you the prosecutor that had sex with that killer? You were the reason why it was mistried!”

No one in the media focused on the fact that Hembree’s statement on the stand was untrue. The way it was reported made it seem as though Hembree had testified to having sex with the prosecutor. No media outlet reported how, in a hearing earlier in the trial, it had been discussed that the letter was a false document and everyone—including the judge and Hembree’s lawyers—agreed.

“What hurt me so bad is that I am friends with a lot of them (reporters) who covered the trial,” Hamlin told me later.

A
s the days and months went on, ADA Hamlin and DA Bell wondered what in the heck Hembree was going to do next. How could they try him for Randi’s murder and assure that he not make a spectacle of the court? He was sure to cause problems if they went back to trial. Hembree was having fun, exploring all layers of his narcissism.

There was also the issue of Hembree “becoming obsessed” with Hamlin and her family, ADA Hamlin had heard from a source.

Hembree knew “way more” than anyone should have known about the prosecutor. It seemed he wanted to destroy her.

After long discussions with Hembree and his attorneys, Shellie Nations, and others involved in the case, the state decided to offer Hembree a plea.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2013, surprising everyone, Danny Hembree took that plea, which resulted in a twenty-six-year sentence for murdering Randi Saldana.

Part of the plea, however, was that the state would dismiss Hembree’s potential connection to the murder of Deborah Ratchford.

Shellie Nations recalled being there to hear the plea: “I think he finally realized he had been defeated. He took my sister’s life. You see, the only prayer I have for his life is that when he meets his Maker, those two girls, Randi and Heather, are standing, side by side, and they take a piece of him like he took a piece of them.”

I
t was a year after Randi’s murder. By then Shellie Nations had explained to Randi’s son—the boy Shellie had custody of—who his mother was. It was a graceful, tragic moment in many ways. Shellie had fulfilled her sister’s wish. Shellie was alone in the car with the boy. It was just the two of them. The moment she finished explaining the situation to the child, Shellie couldn’t believe it, but she heard three knocks on the back windshield of her car. They were driving down the road at the time.

“Did you hear that?” Shellie asked Randi’s son.

He looked over at his aunt. His “eyes were big” and bulged, Shellie recalled. It was an OMG moment.

“Did you
hear
that?” Shellie asked again.

“Them three knocks?” the boy asked.

“I had never told him about the knocks or how many,” Shellie explained. “He came out with it. I felt like it was Randi sitting right behind us in the car, telling me it was all okay now. And I knew. I
knew,
” Shellie added through tears, “Randi was telling me it was all okay now.”