Decision made, the judge ordered jurors back into the courtroom and explained what was happening. He gave specific instructions for what they could and could not do during the outing, banged his gavel, and told everyone to get a good night’s rest.
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When they returned the following morning from what was an uneventful trip out to the locales, the judge called a longer than usual recess so jurors could have a break, eat lunch, and be ready to resume testimony. The trial was beginning to weigh on those involved. It had become a long, tedious process of watching a runaway cart careen down a rocky slope toward a cliff. It was almost a given, anyone sitting in the courtroom felt, that Danny Hembree was going down. There was nothing that could save Hembree from a guilty verdict, anyone involved in the day-to-day business of the trial agreed. The only question left surrounded the death penalty: Would this jury put the value of the two victims’ lives, regardless of what types of lives they had led, over Hembree’s? There was no doubt in the minds of most court watchers that Hembree deserved it. He had played God and taken lives for his own twisted reasoning. He wasn’t mentally challenged, insane, or incompetent. He wasn’t acting out on voices inside his head. There had not been a shred of evidence to prove these were two accidental deaths.
And so, by the end of the day, November 3, 2011, after a bus trip, several instructions from the judge, and arguments by attorneys that each side had met its burden of proof, the defense rested.
Very soon Hembree’s fate would be in the hands of this jury, which had been paraded countless times in and out of the courtroom so the attorneys could argue their points.
At 3:26 P.M., the judge brought the jury in and announced that the “evidence portion” of the case had concluded.
One could almost hear a united, silent sigh from the jury: Thank goodness.
The judge indicated he was giving jurors the following day off. This was so that each juror could “refresh” him- or herself and take Friday through the weekend to relax. They would be back on Monday, well rested for closing arguments, which the judge warned were “quite likely to be lengthy.”
Deliberations would begin after that.
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On Monday morning, November 7, the law allowed for both of Hembree’s attorneys to give a closing argument.
Brent Ratchford, who had worked doggedly for Hembree behind the scenes, spoke to jurors first. A point Ratchford banged about first was that Heather and Randi lived sordid lives within an underground, dodgy Gastonia drug culture that not many people in the courtroom would comprehend. He said the girls had “passed on”—a strange term that Ratchford had chosen, one that is generally used to describe the end of a sick aunt or granddad’s life, instead of “murdered” or “died”—because of their chosen lifestyles. Same as his client, he stopped short of blaming the girls for their own deaths.
Ratchford quoted their experts and explained how—all of them—believed Heather died from a cocaine overdose: “Because [Heather’s] levels [of cocaine] . . . fall within impaired driving, people who go to the emergency room having distress because of toxicity, and also fatalities—people who die of a cocaine toxicity or overdose. Her levels fell in all three of those categories, so that’s extremely important evidence. That’s why [our experts] put it in the report.”
The word “cocaine” came up again and again in Ratchford’s closing.
He leaned heavily on it: cocaine, cocaine, cocaine.
Ratchford pushed the notion of convicting Hembree on lesser charges, explaining, “[The judge is] going to break down first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and . . . involuntary manslaughter. . . . Danny didn’t choke Heather Catterton to death.” He said Hembree didn’t suffocate Heather, either. He did, however, give her cocaine . . . “and she died as a result.” And that, defense attorney Ratchford contended, was “not first-degree murder” or “second-degree murder.... It’s involuntary manslaughter!”
Near the end of what became an argument built around the idea of feeling sorry for Hembree and looking at Heather as desperate and strung out, Ratchford got caught up in his own narrative, pleading: “Can you imagine what it feels like to be hopeless? Let your mind wander on that just a second. Hopeless. Without any hope.” He called it “a dark hole” for a guy like Hembree to “be in.” Then the attorney asked what anyone else would do. “You take cocaine and alcohol to make yourself feel better . . . ,” he said, adding how the drug made Hembree “feel normal.” Why? “Because you are abnormal and you don’t know why—”
The judge interrupted. “Mr. Ratchford, I’ll . . . ask you to pause for a second.” Then Judge Beal spoke to the jury. “At no time should you put yourselves in the position of anyone involved in the case. To the extent that it’s part of argument, it’s intended to be a rhetorical device, but it’s not proper to put yourselves in the position of someone—you should apply the rules of law I give. . . .”
For the next half hour, Ratchford talked about the dangers of cocaine and how “any amount” could “kill” and “be lethal.”
He closed by imploring jurors to “pay attention” and “listen for what you don’t hear,” saying how what we don’t hear is sometimes “the most telling fact, and the one thing you’re going to not hear with certainty is what caused Heather Catterton’s death.”
Strange ending. It was clear throughout this trial, and jurors would be able to view the DVDs again if they chose, that Hembree explained perfectly well how Heather Catterton had died. Her killer had gone into great detail, in fact.
Richard Beam began with the burden of proof argument and morphed into a discussion about a Robert Redford, Daryl Hannah, and Debra Winger film, Legal Eagles, and how the judge and Redford’s lawyer character in that film got into a little tiff as Redford’s character made the point that his case was more complicated than the prosecution wanted jurors to believe. That same argument was relevant in Hembree’s case, Beam insisted.
Further along, Beam brought up Randi: “I want you to listen to what [the state] talked about. They’re going to talk about all the evidence about Randi Saldana because they don’t have much evidence of what caused the death of Heather Catterton.”
After that, Beam mentioned the drug lifestyle and the effect smoking crack cocaine had on the human body. As he went on and on, Beam’s theme came into focus with one word he routinely leaned on: “abnormal.” He said over and over that everything in Hembree’s case was abnormal: Hembree asked for coffee while being interrogated; he jumped around from crime to crime during his interrogation; he readily admitted to several murders; he had no trouble confessing to crimes that police could not later prove.
This sort of “dodge the real issue” argument did not come across as patently salable. Hembree was a liar, absolutely. He was a lifelong convicted felon, yes. He was a repeat violent offender, certainly. One could talk around that all he wanted; but when the facts of the case were there to look at, there was no choice but to believe Hembree was exactly who he had said he was: a serial murderer.
Then Beam brought in an age-old defense tactic: reasonable doubt. He said, “Mr. Hembree told you on the stand [Heather] passed away in her sleep on the bed. That actually does appear to be consistent with the condition of the body. As I said, abnormal is normal in this case.”
It was clear Beam could have gone on all day, arguing each point as if back at university debating a classmate.
“There [are] a lot of things in this case, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of evidence, much of it dealing with Miss Saldana. But the real question still remains—What killed Heather Catterton?”
Beam went on so long, in fact, the judge called a recess.
When they came back, Beam bantered on about the differences between Randi’s and Heather’s deaths. Finally he concluded, “When you view Mr. Hembree, you have to view in context, and when you do that, you’ll understand he would say anything that he thought would benefit him then.” In this case, “it did,” he added. Yet that d
idn’t “mean he did it.” What it meant, the lawyer said, was that Hembree wanted “to benefit” from it.
And that was “the reason the appropriate verdict is involuntary manslaughter.”
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Stephanie Hamlin took on the state’s task of wrapping up its evidence in a bow and presenting it to jurors. While sitting and listening to Beam and Ratchford, Hamlin considered two things. Thus, she started off on a reproachful note, totally dismantling Ratchford’s and Beam’s arguments, bringing the state’s case back to ground level: “I hope at this point you’ve had a couple of minutes for the smoke to clear,” she said, standing up. “The smoke that the defense just kind of put up there and tried to confuse you. This is reality. This is not Shawshank Redemption or Legal Eagles.... There are two women dead, and that man right there”—Hamlin pointed at Hembree—“killed them. Danny Hembree, who has been sitting in front of you for approximately four, five weeks of evidence, he has been manipulating the system his entire adult life.”
Hamlin next smartly warned jurors not to allow Hembree to manipulate them, too. Then, after some difficulty getting a PowerPoint presentation up and running, the ADA read from a statement Hembree had given the YCSO when he admitted killing both girls. The quote Hamlin focused on, of which she played a recording for jurors, came out clear and chilling: “I killed them at Momma’s. . . . I killed Heather downstairs in the laundry room, and I killed Randi in my den. You’ll find her blood all over the couch. . . .”
“I killed.... I killed.... I killed”—.
Words of a guilty man uttered from his own mouth—now an admission that reverberated in everyone’s minds.
Hembree was an admitted killer. Didn’t matter what he said now.
Why not believe him? He was broken when he confessed. He was tired. He was finished. Given two years to come up with a way out of those confessions, here they were now, arguing whether a killer admitted to murdering two women—possibly several others—or made it all up to catch a break on a few robberies.
“Everything Danny Hembree said back on December 5, 2009,” Hamlin said, “he confessed to two capital murders to get a deal on robbery charges? That makes no sense. That makes no sense at all.”
The way the ADA put it, Hembree’s new version was so weak, so half-baked and desperate, could there be any other scenario possible besides what he had confessed to?
She went through all of the state’s evidence. She played pieces of video/audio to hammer key points home, again and again using Hembree’s own words to bury him.
Hitting her stride, Hamlin made an important observation: “First of all, Danny and Heather were not boyfriend-girlfriend.” She added how they “were not in a relationship.” She explained how Heather was sleeping with him, sure—and she was “having sex with him,” absolutely—but it was all “for crack.”
“When the crack is gone, she is gone.... She didn’t spend the night at his house to have breakfast in the morning. . . .”
So true. The way Hembree played up his relationship with Heather, it was as if they had been in a romance and he was spending the night with her as a normal course. But that wasn’t the case. By all accounts, Heather despised her sister’s boyfriend. She hated him. She could not stand to be around him.
Unless, that is, he had drugs.
For thirty more minutes, Hamlin described the differences between a cause of death and what science proves, making sure to note that the science in Heather’s case backed up her being strangled with a cut lamp cord and suffocated.
The signs were subtle, but they were there.
After talking for a time about Randi’s death and how Hembree’s autoerotic asphyxiation story could not be true, Hamlin moved on to how the jury should view the case under the law, pointing to how the state had to prove only Hembree’s “intent.” They did not have to prove how he did it, only that he intended to do it.
As Hamlin spoke, Hembree stared. He wrote something down on a scrap of paper.
Hamlin made sure jurors heard the word “manipulation” in relation to Hembree and his entire criminal career. She said there was no reasonable doubt in this case. Like a lot of things, the defense was tossing it out there, hoping it would stick.
In a concluding, passionate plea, with commitment to what she was saying, ADA Hamlin brought it all back to day one, fleshing out more of Hembree’s lies: “So he took his time, he got advice, and he tried the best he could to make his elaborate tale fit the evidence. Think back to December fifth.... When he knew nothing, when he had no legal advice—consistently, voluntarily, he told the police everything, and it was consistent with what the evidence showed.” She then pointed at Hembree, saying, “This man—and this is rare—confessed to murder.” She pointed out how for “hours” jurors had watched Hembree “confess to killing Heather and Randi.” But now, of course, “after . . . two years, the defense . . . put up smoke screens,” she added, saying how they had tried to confuse jurors any way they could get away with it.
“This is not ‘The Danny Hembree Show,’ ” Hamlin said. “This is not some bad episode of CSI. This is real life! We’ve got two women dead—and he killed them.”
She then asked that jurors find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Heather Catterton. Then ADA Hamlin thanked them and sat down.
The judge read his instructions and recessed until the following morning.
A deputy called Stephanie Hamlin over as the day wound down and the attorneys gathered their things to leave.
“I found this,” the deputy said, handing the prosecutor a piece of paper.
Hamlin took it. “Thanks.”
Hembree had written it while Hamlin was giving her closing and handed it to one of his defense attorneys. It must have gotten dropped on the floor.
The paper said: I wish this bitch would shut up.
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The next morning, the jury began deliberating and returned a verdict after lunch, likely taking that much time to make it look good.
On the way into court, Hembree spoke to one of the deputies. “If I get the death penalty,” he said, nodding toward ADA Hamlin, who was just then walking in, “it’s because of that bitch.”
The judge addressed the jury foreperson. “Ma’am . . . has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?”
“Yes, sir.”
The judge took the envelope and handed it to the clerk. “Members of the jury . . . you have found . . . Danny Hembree guilty of first-degree murder. Is this your verdict, so say you all?”
There was some noise in the courtroom. The gallery buzzed. People whispered and talked loudly. Some left, running to go make calls to editors and producers.
“Quiet,” Judge Beal said.
“Yes,” the jury said in unison.
ADA Hamlin, who had spent a year preparing for this case, dropped her head and took a deep breath. The trial had been exhausting—emotionally and physically. Part of it had to do with a family member of Hembree’s subtly alerting her that they knew more about Stephanie Hamlin’s personal life than the prosecutor felt comfortable with.
“It always scared me that [this person] knew a lot about me,” Hamlin said later. “About my family, my husband, where he went to school, where he used to work.”
Hembree smiled a cocky smirk after the verdict.
Tears came for the families of his victims.
Hembree’s mother and sister sat unsurprised, but in obvious shock.
The trial was far from over, however. Now it would shift to the penalty phase as Hembree’s team argued to save his life. They’d present testimony and evidence they believed could help get Hembree a life sentence. It was going to be emotional and tense. There were lots of people in the courtroom thirsty for Hembree’s blood. And with the jury coming back so quick on first-degree murder—essentially saying Hembree was a double murderer and maybe even a serial killer—it was going to be a war.
The judge asked everyone to be ready for the penalty phas
e. It was set to begin on the following morning, November 8.
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As they got started the following day, the judge asked Danny Hembree to stand.
“I understood that there is some recommendation that you have a psychiatric evaluation. What’s your approach to that?” Beal asked.
Hembree responded with his signature swagger: “You want to do the mental thing, that’s fine. But like I said, I just want to be left alone. Let these people go ahead and have their show, sign the paper, and get me the hell back up to Raleigh, and I’ll be calm, cool, and cooperative.”
The judge said he wanted to be sure the process was fair.
The rest of that day was taken up by motions and mechanics.
When they returned after a weekend break, Hembree spoke again. This time, he lashed out at his defense team: “My attorneys have advised the state . . . [and] court numerous times that they couldn’t adequately prepare a defense for me. They have told me point-blank they have been ineffective in assisting me. Now . . . for the last six weeks . . . I have assisted constantly in my defense. I have been called upon to make decisions, competent decisions, or I should say they should be competent decisions based on information that I get. Now I found out yesterday there’s documents I haven’t gotten.... I may need [more time] in defense of my life.... I ask you to set aside the verdict based on ineffective assistance of counsel, and let’s start this thing over and do it right! That’s all I have.”
Locke Bell stood and defended Rick Beam, noting, “Mr. Beam and I were first involved in a capital murder case in 1993. . . . Beam was with the district attorney’s office.... Since 1993, Mr. Beam and I have continued to try murder cases all over the western part of North Carolina. Mr. Beam, I know, has tried them in numerous counties and has done very well with them.... Mr. Beam, after leaving the DA’s office, defended many, many, many people charged with first-degree murder, capital cases. He has worked in federal court . . . [and] has always done a very professional job, as he has done here today.”
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