The Killing Kind

by M. William Phelps

  CHAPTER 64

  As they pulled up to Momma’s house and looked at the yard, it had the feel of autumn, with the sunburst-colored leaves from the maples strewn about all over. The stray tree branches, dead and fallen, lay about the grass like the limbs of rusted and fallen old-school TV antennas. Although winter, indeed, there was a fall essence to the look of the Hembree home.

  It was 9:41 A.M. when Hembree, Sumner, and Hensley arrived at the redbrick ranch house that Hembree lived in with his mother. A third investigator had gone along beforehand and documented a walk-through on videotape before Hembree and the others arrived. The video is eerie, displaying how the simplest, most basic, everyday items, under such a dark context, can magnify into creepiness when you know what happened. For example, a green plastic watering can sitting on the entrance porch into the Hembree home, a half-opened umbrella hanging off the railing, a shaky hand behind the video camera capturing the images as the cameraman walks into the house, all now had an ominous, almost surreal, black-and-white Blair Witch Project effect.

  There was no narration or explanation of what was being filmed, just a video of the inside of the home. The GCPD wanted a clean copy of the house, as it was when they arrived.

  The house could have used a makeover. Carpets were old; curtains were faded and dirty; closets overflowed with clothing and other common household items; graffiti had been written on the inside of one closet; linens, a touch out of date, were dirty; the kitchen overflowed with clutter. Yet, there was still a someone-lived-here sense to it all. This was a home. It wasn’t until the den that blood showed up on camera. The one piece of furniture in the den—a blue couch, with white polka dots—had a few obvious dried bloodstains. There was a pillow that seemed to have plenty of blood spatter and drippings. Likewise, the carpet had several areas where dried blood could have been present. Luminol would tell that story later, and when the lights were turned off and the chemical reacted to the bodily fluids, it would probably illuminate the room like the Milky Way galaxy.

  Down in the basement, stuff was strewn everywhere: black garbage bags filled with clothes and odds and ends, old appliances that no one used anymore, books, hubcaps, old lights, laundry baskets, chests, and other items most people would have tossed into the garbage long ago. Of interest to the man behind the camera were dried spots of blood spread about a large area on the concrete flooring. There were also white garbage bags with blood droplets on them, and then a pillow without a case. Blood turns almost black when dried and coagulated, days or weeks old. On this pillow was what seemed to be an enormous amount of dried blood.

  Back upstairs in the den, the cameraman found a pair of Hembree’s work boots with specks and spots of dried blood around the toes.

  And then the video tour was done.

  Cut and print.

  Hembree got out of Hensley’s Crown Vic and popped a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it as he walked up to the front door. Obvious was an incredible swagger. Danny Boy Hembree was in his element here: the cat bringing his master his catch of the day. He was gloating (buzzing) as he walked, no doubt thinking that all of this—cops, their cameras, their questions, their eagerness while awaiting his responses—was all by his design.

  I did this.

  It’s my work.

  This time, right now, is mine.

  No one can take it away from me.

  Indeed, this was “The Danny Hembree Show.” He led the way.

  It was one thing walking through a crime scene with a video camera and taking images of empty spaces and what might have happened here or there. It was quite another when you had a killer walking you through that same scene, pointing things out, talking about what he did.

  Hembree wasted no time in getting right down to it, stepping into the house with a lit cigarette, nearly running down the hallway toward the den, stating, “Right here . . . this is where I strangled Randi.”

  The first words out of his mouth.

  “This is where I strangled Randi.” It said a lot about the mind-set of the guy as he walked into his home for what was likely going to be the last time.

  Officers lifted the cushions off the couch. With his hands cuffed, Hembree spouted off: “Blood there . . . there . . . right there . . . that, right there, that’s her blood, too. That’s blood,” he said loudly, pointing to the corner of the couch. Then he stood up straight, looked down on the carpet below him, pointed, and proclaimed: “And that-there [spot] is where she shit.”

  It seemed the amount of blood Hembree described coming out of Randi had to be generated by more than a bloody nose or cut above her brow from a fist blow to the head. But no one was going to challenge Hembree here. Not now. This was his game.

  They were curious about the stain on the carpet in front of the couch, where Hembree said Randi had moved her bowels.

  “Was she naked when you strangled her?” Hensley asked. This was not what Hembree had said back in the box.

  “No.”

  “Well, at any point, did you, um, take her clothes off—”

  Before Hensley could finish, Hembree said, “I stripped her down, took all of her jewelry and everything off.” Hembree stared at the floor as he described the moment, reliving it. “Carried her down and put her in the closet.”

  Sumner watched and listened. He took note of how “detailed Mr. Hembree was as he explained things to us. But what I noticed, too, was how emotionless, flat, and so very nonchalant. On the inside, we were kind of freaked out by that.”

  It was chilling to hear Hembree talk about such horrifying moments with such a stark, cold demeanor. He didn’t care. He had no feelings for these girls and the way he treated them. They were things.

  Objects.

  Hensley indicated he wanted to head into the basement. As the detective led the way down the stairs, he asked Hembree, who was following closely behind, “Any weapons down here?”

  CHAPTER 65

  First things Hembree pointed out while walking Hensley and Sumner around the basement were Randi’s boots. “Some of her shit might have spilled out in there.” He pointed to a box next to the boots. “Because that’s where I had her stashed, getting ready to move her.”

  As Hensley took in the basement, he understood why Hembree chose to put the girls here. The driveway went behind the house and there was a space to pull a car under the back deck and up to a door that led into the basement. Thus, there was hidden access to the basement. The closet he put the girls in was down the hall from the exit, but it was easy for him to drag the girls down the hallway, out the door, and place them into his car without being seen.

  The question Hensley and Sumner asked themselves, although they never posed the theory to Hembree: “Why hadn’t anyone smelled the girls?” Both were in the Hembree house long enough for their bodies to decompose. Why hadn’t Hembree’s mother smelled the odor of rotting flesh? Why hadn’t anyone visiting the house noticed an odd smell?

  Hembree had no trouble finding those areas where he hid the bodies and some of the women’s clothing and pointing out the blood left behind. By the washer and dryer, he acted out killing Heather, step by step, hand motions and all, as if auditioning for a play. There was one area where he showed Hensley a large spot of blood in the shape of Florida on the concrete floor. As he talked about murdering Heather, what made Hembree’s explanation so unsettling—and maybe ironic—was the presence of a children’s bible on a desk right above the blood spot.

  As he talked, Hembree chain-smoked, sometimes lighting one with the next.

  “So far, everything I’ve told you today has been the truth,” Hembree said just after discussing how he had killed Heather.

  He inhaled a drag, blew it out slowly, as if taking a very deep breath.

  “Thank you for that,” Hensley and Sumner said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

  Sumner asked Hembree about a mark they had found on Randi’s back.

  “Tramp stamp,” Hembree said.

  “Huh?”


  Hembree was referring to a tattoo.

  “No, a red mark,” Sumner clarified.

  “Probably where I done drugged her.”

  “What?”

  There was some confusion.

  “Yeah, where I done put her over my back.”

  “Drugged” was Hembree’s way of saying “dragged.”

  Whenever Hembree talked about blood, clothing, or any detail other than the actual murders, he exhibited a calm, casual demeanor. He even sounded somewhat articulate (if only in his strange Southern brogue). Whenever he went into a murder narrative, however, and talked about the actual moment he took the girls’ lives, a sudden mania came over him. His eyes bulged. His speech grew faster and harder to understand. He used his hands to make points, clearly caught up in the exact moment he took their lives.

  Finished in the basement, after some time in the kitchen, Hembree asked if he could warm up some tea he had found on the stove.

  Hensley said sure.

  “That’s about it, huh?” Hensley observed as Hembree took his tea out of the microwave.

  “I guess . . . y’all are the ones—”

  “Well, have you covered everything?”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  Hensley was confident they had enough—more than enough, actually. It doesn’t get much better for a detective than having an alleged murderer walk you through the crime scenes, pointing out what he did, when, how, and where he left evidence. Not only was Hembree confessing to these crimes, but he was giving the GCPD corroborating evidence with which to prosecute him. All of this, one had to imagine, Hembree did with some kind of deal in mind. Maybe he was betting on getting the death penalty taken off the table for his cooperation?

  There had to be a catch to all of this: Serial killers don’t do anything without a payoff.

  Standing near the cops’ Crown Vic, Danny Hembree continued to chain-smoke, knowing that when they locked him up, he wasn’t going to be smoking at will. He looked around at the neighbors’ homes as he leaned against the back of Matt Hensley’s unmarked cruiser. He seemed lost in the memories of the house and the neighborhood. There was a moment where it felt as if Hembree was taking it all in, realizing this would be the last time he ever saw the old place.

  Michel Sumner walked over.

  And here was where Sumner’s background in sales came into play.

  “I believe it’s called the ‘soft sell,’ ” Sumner explained. “Once you’ve got somebody wanting to buy one thing, that’s when you try to get them to buy something else.” The add-ons. “At that time, once I knew that he had spilled so much, I walked over there with the intention of wanting to get more information out of him.”

  Once a suspect gives up the “big stuff,” admitting to the “smaller stuff,” lesser crimes, can come easy. Throughout the entire interview process, in the back of their minds, Sumner and Hensley had unsolved rapes and robberies and violent attacks they liked Hembree for. Now was the time, Sumner knew, to move in stealthily and get Hembree to talk about those crimes.

  Sumner first mentioned a recent rape case Hembree had been fingered for, but had never been convicted. The case was still open. It involved a girl, Ashley Campfield (pseudonym), who had been brutalized in a wooded area not far from Momma’s house. There was no doubt Hembree was involved on some level.

  Hensley stood nearby, listening.

  The girl had reported that Hembree—she knew him—forced her, using a knife, from that familiar abandoned trailer and then drove her to Crowders Creek Road, not far from where he’d tossed Heather’s clothing. He then walked her deep into the woods.

  The report of the rape was graphic and violent. Hembree had allegedly threatened to kill her by placing a plastic bag over her head. Scared for her life while under Hembree’s control, she allowed him to rape her brutally.

  “Part of that’s true . . . ,” Hembree said as he took pull after pull from a cigarette, again using his hands to articulate his points. “I used a knife to force her out of the trailer, but I done never raped her. She got out there, where we agreed to go in the woods, and she done agreed to have sex with me. We had made a deal and she wanted to back out of it. I couldn’t let her back out of no deal she done made.”

  Interesting way to spin what was a savage, sexually motivated assault.

  “Again,” Sumner commented later, “he was very flat, the way he explained this.”

  By 10:06 A.M., Hensley said it was time to go. There was still one more task ahead.

  Hensley and Sumner drove Hembree to each location so he could point out for them where he had placed Heather’s clothing after dumping her body. Sumner documented the trip on video from the backseat. Hembree sat in the front. Hensley drove.

  By now, Hembree was showing signs of fatigue: His five o’clock shadow had turned into a gray stubble; his hair was disheveled; he smelled foul; his shoulders drooped more than they had all night.

  Hembree confirmed where he had thrown Heather’s clothes by the bridge, her sneakers down the street. Hensley pulled up and stopped. It was a hasty dump-and-run situation, Hembree explained. He never got out of the vehicle. He did it all from the window while driving by.

  From Crowders Creek Road, Hembree took them to several additional locations: where he picked Randi up and where they partied that night at Shorty’s. Along the way, he pointed out a known drug dealer’s house, to whom, Hembree said, he had sold some stolen property on the night before his arrest. Then he took them to the gas station, where he claimed to have purchased the fuel to burn Randi’s body. He pointed to a house where he bought most of his dope. As he admitted to murder, Hembree was giving up as many people as he could from the circle in which he ran.

  “I mean, I got me no reason to be lying,” Hembree said after being asked to go into more detail about the alleged conspiracy to murder Randi, which he said Stella, her sister, and Shorty had dreamt up. “I done told y’all the truth.... It was Stella that had asked me, mainly. I mean, she’d sell her soul. . . .”

  After Sumner asked what Shorty said exactly, Hembree backtracked, offering, “I don’t know.... ‘Kill the bitch. Kill the whore.’ Whatever. Shorty was just the payout man—not the mastermind. . . . Hell, I was killing two birds with one stone.”

  “How’s that again? You were helping the family out, you said, right?” Hensley asked as they drove by the house where he picked Randi up as she walked down the block.

  “Shit, I was helping them out and paying Randi back for what she done did to Heather.”

  Hensley wanted to know what he was talking about.

  “Pimping her out,” Hembree had the audacity to claim. He was saying that Randi had been acting as one of Heather’s pimps. It was a preposterous accusation.

  As they headed back to the GCPD, Hensley asked about the girl in the cemetery from the early 1990s, whom Hembree had mentioned back in the box.

  Deb Ratchford.

  He didn’t say much about it, giving them only enough to want more.

  Then Sumner asked about the Florida girls Hembree claimed to have murdered.

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” Hembree said at first. Then: “I want a deal.” He described the situation with his car again and the money he had and where he wanted it sent, concluding, “Raleigh. I want to go to safekeeping in Raleigh. And then we’s can talk about them girls in Florida.”

  As Hensley pulled into the GCPD parking lot, Hembree said, “Is that the media or something?”

  “No, no, no . . . ,” both Hensley and Sumner answered simultaneously. “That’s a fire truck.”

  Hensley parked. They sat in the car and continued to talk.

  “Anything else you want to tell us about, Danny?”

  “Yup, there’s some old stuff.”

  Hensley and Sumner got out. Hembree was escorted by a uniformed officer.

  Hembree stopped and asked if he could have a smoke before they went in.

  Hensley leaned against a railing outside the door into the
DU as Hembree rested against a redbrick wall.

  “Y’all need to go and lock Stella up!” Hembree said angrily. He hated this woman. It was obvious he had a vendetta against Stella and wanted to see her go down in flames. “There’s already a warrant out for her.”

  Sumner was behind the camera, still rolling. He asked the question both he and Hensley had been holding off on until now, the end of the interview: “Let me ask you, Danny, what made you come clean at this point?”

  Hembree stared straight ahead. He tipped back on his feet, rocked on his heels. “Well, I’m gonna be honest with y’all. . . . I wanted to kill Shorty today.... And then on Monday, I was going to do a bank robbery and shoot it out with the cops—with a plastic gun. And when they caught me last night, I just took it as a sign it wasn’t supposed [to] come out like that.”

  Hensley asked Hembree about that “old stuff” he had made reference to inside the car.

  There were crimes, Hembree explained, he had committed in the late 1970s with a partner, a guy named Bobby Johnson (pseudonym). There were several major crimes for which he and Bobby had never been caught. These were brutal, vicious offenses. Hembree gave scant details, but enough to make Hensley wonder, as he listened, if he could investigate and find out more.

  “We’s robbed a store together in Bessemer City back in 1979,” Hembree explained. “Bobby kidnapped the clerk at knifepoint.”

  They took the woman out to Lincoln Academy Road, raped and beat her, leaving her for dead somewhere inside Crowders Mountain State Park.

  “But she didn’t die,” Hembree added. “We saw it the next day in the papers.”

  Hensley knew they would approach these topics again. But Gastonia Police detectives were waiting for Hembree downstairs in the box to talk to him about another murder. Hensley and Sumner escorted Hembree into the building.

  The GCPD wanted Hembree’s account of killing Deborah Ratchford in 1992. He’d talked about it a few times. Now was the time to get this murder on record. The idea was to get as much as they could out of Hembree. Once he went before a magistrate, was arraigned, and then locked up, questioning him was over.