TARGETED: A Deputy, Her Love Affairs, A Brutal Murder

by M. William Phelps

  Those items, when Maddox found out what they were, told an incredibly interesting and incriminating story.

  32.

  Scott Knowles said he remembered Tracy Fortson specifically, because he had helped her select the items she wanted to purchase.

  “Yeah,” Knowles said as he and Maddox walked around the store. “And I also helped her load the items onto her truck.”

  Maddox took out a photo of Tracy. “That’s who we’re talking about?”

  “Yup, that’s her.” Knowles turned, picked up and heaved a bag of feed onto a pile in front of where they stood.

  Maddox showed Knowles a Polaroid of Tracy’s truck.

  “And that’s the same truck we loaded the items into,” Knowles said, looking at the photo, slapping the dust off his gloves.

  Knowles explained the sale. It was about 1 p.m. that day, he said. “I know that it was about 1 because I arrive for work on Sundays at 12:45 to begin my shift at 1. We’re open on Sundays from 1 to 5:30. She was here as soon as we opened. She was alone. She walked in and first started talking to Sherry Michael. I was in charge of the warehouse on that day. Sherry came back to ask me a question.”

  “Hey, Scott,” Sherry had said, “I have someone out here looking for a watering trough, can you help her?”

  Maddox was interested in this bit of what seemed to be astounding information. Tracy Fortson buying a galvanized horse-watering trough on the weekend her boyfriend went missing.

  “I took her out to the warehouse,” Knowles continued. “I helped her select a 2-foot wide, 2-foot deep, 6-foot-long water trough.” The store clerk couldn’t recall if that particular watering trough Tracy was interested in had what he called “a bar” across the middle of it for support. But then remembered, in fact, it was likely Tracy who asked him if “that bar could be removed?”

  While discussing the sale with Tracy, Knowles said, he grabbed the bar, noticed it was loose and told Tracy, “Yes, it can be removed, no problem.”

  As he explained this to Maddox, Knowles then changed his mind. He was now unclear, adding, “I am not certain if (Tracy) was that particular customer (asking if the bar can be removed), however, it just stands out in my mind that it was.”

  “No problem,” Maddox said. “Continue.”

  “Well, I took the trough out of the warehouse and placed it on the dock.” The idea was that they would both load it onto the bed of Tracy’s truck.

  Tracy then went back into the store. She wasn’t yet finished shopping. Sherry Michael was in the store when Tracy walked back in.

  “How much concrete mix would I need,” Tracy asked Sherry Michael, “to pour a foundation for a dog pen?”

  Sherry wasn’t sure. She called Knowles up to the front of the store and asked him to call the local Lowe’s to see if anyone there could figure out the ratios of concrete mix Tracy Fortson would need to pour a foundation.

  Knowles dialed up the Lowe’s and got someone on the line. He asked about the number of bags it would take to pour a dog pen foundation.

  “I do not recall the exact amounts they advised,” Knowles told Maddox. “However, Miss Fortson decided to purchase 10 bags.”

  Tracy indicated to Knowles that she would back her truck up to the dock.

  Knowles waved and said he’d meet her out there with all the items she had bought.

  Knowles placed two 8-pound bags of concrete mix into the trough before placing the trough in the back of Tracy’s black 4X4 truck.

  “Don’t put any more bags into the trough, please,” Tracy told Knowles when it appeared he was going to load the remaining eight bags into the trough. “It’ll be too heavy.”

  Knowles put the eight additional bags—80 pounds each—on her truck bed alongside of the trough.

  Maddox never indicated whether he asked or what prompted the response, but Knowles added here: “I did not notice anything out of the ordinary in the back of the truck. I did not see any blood or flies collecting in the back of the truck.”

  Odd thing to add, but anyway …

  Tracy was at the store for about 30 minutes, Knowles recalled, explaining how she was a “husky woman” who, wearing Carhart brand blue jeans on that day, appeared to “work out.”

  There was one other purchase Tracy made on that day, Knowles remembered just before Maddox was about to wrap things up.

  “What was that?”

  “Trace mineral salt block,” Knowles said.

  The trip Tracy took to this store and the items she purchased is an interesting fact in this case. For one, Tracy would later indicate that she had, in fact, gone to the feed store that afternoon and made those purchases. She never tried to hide this. The salt block and the watering trough were for her horse, she said. Salt block being a common mineral given to livestock.

  “The medical examiner’s report said Doug was encased in the metal trough with at least 25 bags of concrete,” Tracy told me in 2016. “When I bought Sakrete at Southern State’s … I had to ask how much it would take to pour a concrete pad, 6x6, two- to three-inches deep.”

  There was no mention in the reports of Tracy giving Sherry Michael or Scott Knowles specific measurements of what she wanted to build.

  “I was told 10 bags (80 pounds each),” Tracy continued. “Where did the other 15 bags come from? I certainly didn’t have it.”

  Tracy would later question why, if she were planning on murdering Doug that weekend and using these items to hide his body, she would even ask about the bags of cement and buy the watering trough and other items in town? She was a cop. She knew law enforcement would ultimately find out where she purchased these items if she purchased them in town.

  Made sense.

  Looking at these purchases through that prism, one would question Tracy’s decision to not even try to hide the purchases or where she purchased the materials. Maybe the timing, too. If you ask her, Tracy claims those innocent, fairly common purchases on her behalf became part of an elaborate set-up put in place to frame her.

  But what if Tracy were simply setting up an alibi for herself and why she needed the concrete and trough by asking them about the measurements? She specifically stated to the clerk what she was building with the concrete.

  Scottie Knowles brought Maddox around the store and showed him duplicates of the same items Tracy had purchased.

  Maddox photographed each one.

  “Thanks,” Maddox said when he was done. “I’ll be in touch.”

  33.

  As Jesse Maddox uncovered what must have felt like an overabundance of evidence against Tracy Fortson, Capt. Bill Strickland got busy taking care of the public’s growing interest in what was shaping up to be one hell of high-profile murder case in this otherwise quiet south central Georgia county.

  Speaking to the media, announcing Tracy’s arrest, Strickland stepped out on that Friday afternoon, June 24: “No one else has been implicated as an accomplice” in Doug Benton’s murder. The sheriff added how they’d recently uncovered where Tracy purchased the concrete mix to encase Doug’s body, but did not say where.

  Wasn’t this an odd statement to make at such an early stage of the investigation and arrest? Law enforcement had not yet recovered a murder weapon, as reported by Mainstreet News, a local website covering Madison County, citing Strickland in the same unscheduled press conference. Didn’t mean they didn’t have the weapon in evidence, but ballistics and evidence examination took time to make or break matches. Still, why give this type of sensitive information to the public within such a short period of time after making an arrest?

  A spokesperson for the GBI then came out this same day and said the note found on Doug’s truck was a piece of evidence they were carefully looking into. The sheriff interrupted, calling the note “short and cryptic,” with the GBI spokesperson adding, “We suspect she (Fortson) wrote it.”

  One other fact the GBI made public was that Jerry Alexander and the man who owned the farm where Doug’s body had been recovered were “still under inv
estigation.” Both men were considered suspects, in other words, and no scenario had been ruled out as of yet. The assumption was that the investigation was still open to interpretation.

  Yet they had a suspect in custody?

  “Some feel she is capable of doing it herself,” the GBI spokesperson concluded, “but I don’t think she could have.”

  The Mainstreet News interviewed one of Doug’s neighbors, Lisa Watson, Larry Bridges’ girlfriend. Lisa had two daughters, both of whom knew and liked Doug. Both girls explained they valued Doug as a neighbor always willing to give of himself, a guy who had no problem helping them and others in the neighborhood whenever they needed it.

  The one aspect of Doug’s life that Lisa’s oldest daughter talked about was Tracy and her presence around the otherwise peaceful John Sharpe Road neighborhood. Doug “seemed different, more reserved” whenever Tracy was around, the daughter told the news site. He just wasn’t himself. In fact, the daughter added, “She tried to make him stop seeing all of his friends.” The daughter then gave an example of Tracy’s behavior, saying whenever she walked by Doug’s house, waved to Doug and said hello (and Tracy was around), she noticed how Tracy always said something to Doug like, “Don’t say ‘hey’ to her!” It rubbed the daughter the wrong way. Gave her and others the impression that Tracy was domineering and controlling, like she might have been pushing Doug around, bullying the guy.

  When investigators spoke with Lisa about the last time she saw Doug and Tracy, like everyone else in the neighborhood, Lisa Watson had a story to tell.

  It was Sunday, June 4. Lisa heard Doug start his motorcycle and take off out of his driveway about 9:30 or close to 10. She then heard Doug return home about 5 p.m., a timeframe consistent with what others had reported.

  Same as her boyfriend Larry Bridges had described, Lisa noticed Tracy’s truck parked in front of Doug’s garage—a familiar sight. She first recalled seeing Tracy’s vehicle that day around 3:30, which might indicate—if the timelines are accurate—that Tracy was at Doug’s before he got home. Lisa said she knew for a fact that it was Tracy there that day because she saw Tracy leaving Doug’s (alone) between “5 o’clock and … no …” She stopped herself while dredging up the memory. Then adjusted the time: “I would say it was between 6 and 7 o’clock that evening.”

  The timeframe is important when put into the matrix of the shocking allegation Lisa Watson next reported: At around 5 or 6 p.m., Lisa explained, “I heard a gunshot and looked over and I didn’t see anything.”

  The gunshot had come from Doug’s yard, Lisa was certain. She looked into Doug’s yard after hearing the loud crack, but saw nothing. That is, until about an hour later—when she watched Tracy Fortson walk out of the house and leave.

  A gunshot.

  Some time passed.

  Tracy Fortson leaving Doug’s house.

  Doug was like clockwork with those birds of his: Every evening, right around 6 p.m., Doug was outside tending to the birds. But after hearing that gunshot and seeing Tracy walk out of Doug’s house, Lisa Watson never saw her neighbor again.

  34.

  Tracy Fortson’s Bond was set at $500,000 cash.

  “No way I could ever make that,” she said later.

  The state waited until October 2000 to indict Tracy.

  In any case, Tracy was indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault and attempted arson. Prosecuting her case was now in the hands of Northern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bob Lavender.

  In January 2001, Tracy was transferred to Franklin County Jail in Carnesville, and no longer in protective custody. Her trial was scheduled for late summer or early fall. All involved believed it was not going to be pushed back or bumped into the following year, which was a good sign for the prosecution, but not for the defense. The state wanted the case resolved. Lavender and his team believed they had more than enough evidence for a conviction.

  “My first year in prison,” Tracy told me when I first started talking with her via email during the early summer of 2016, “I thought I had gone to hell. I was dogged out by staff, threatened by inmates, and went to protective custody four times, one of which I stayed 60 days.”

  As to the overwhelming amount of incriminating evidence against her, Tracy explained to me that it was all part of a carefully, well-thought-out plan to frame her because she had gone and brought a case of sexual harassment against the sheriff. Or, in fact, that Doug was murdered because of his work as a confidential informant. Maybe even a combination of both.

  Sounds incredible, I know. Yet you listen to Tracy talk about her case and all of the evidence against her—much of which simply fell into place, like dominoes, one clue leading to the next—and there are moments when you think: You know, she might have a point.

  “Why would I paint a container that held the body of a murder victim the same as my mailbox?” Tracy rhetorically asked me in one email exchange.

  I thought about that.

  Who the hell would do this? Better yet, a former cop.

  That missing knife from Tracy’s duty belt became a problem for Tracy as she thought about it. On the evidence list of items taken from her house, there were no knives. Tracy claimed she had a home full of hunting and cooking knives, even collectors’ knives. Yet none were taken and logged as evidence?

  Why not?

  “One of the OCSD investigators said there was an empty scabbard on my duty belt where he had seen a knife while I was working,” Tracy remarked. She’s speaking of Charles Morgan. “I never carried a knife on my duty belt! That was not part of my uniform or weapons I carried. Deputies do not wear knife scabbards on their duty belt. I had my service weapon/holster, OC spray, speed loaders, handcuffs, and maybe a flashlight ring, but not a knife scabbard.”

  This was just one more piece of misinformation that made her look guilty and set in place by those looking to hang her, Tracy purported.

  The so-called missing shower curtain was another point of contention for Tracy.

  “Shower curtain, rods and rings? Not sure why they listed this (on the evidence list of items). I had a shower curtain, rods and rings in my bathroom, they did not take (any of) it. I had purchased it at Walmart. The old one, (which) did not match the description of the one found with Doug, was put into a trash bag left on the carport and was never seen again. It disappeared about the same time as the trough and concrete. It was clear and had no pattern.”

  One report from the GBI noted that on June 23, 2000, at 8:59 a.m., Doug’s body and “the physical evidence” in the case had been driven to the crime lab for processing.

  Pretty standard procedure.

  The person transporting it all?

  Sheriff Ray Sanders.

  That, in and of itself, following along the lines of Tracy’s conspiracy to frame theory, might seem to fit congenially with her core argument: the notion that Ray Sanders was behind all of this.

  Left there, you might think: Well, she has a point.

  What’s missing from that report, however, are three words: at the time. Sanders transported the evidence they had at the time. Because on June 27, SA Jesse Cooper “transported all items of evidence for comparison to the Crime Lab.” These items included samples of concrete that had encased Doug’s body and “any other items located in the concrete.”

  Adding a bit of ambiguity to this, however, clearly documented in that same report was the fact that when the watering trough arrived at the Crime Lab, Patty Price, a CSS, poured Clorox bleach on part of the trough and its contents after Doug’s remains were extracted from it, thus possibly contaminating any forensic evidence that would have been uncovered inside the concrete or the trough itself: blood, hairs, fibers, nail shavings, skin—anything.

  Whomever killed Doug and placed him in that watering trough and encased his body in concrete, Tracy said, “Would have left some sort of DNA behind, but that would have been destroyed with no possible way to recover it once Clorox was poured on it.
”

  This could or could not be true.

  We will never know.

  In an affidavit produced by the state medical examiner, who did not perform Doug’s autopsy, he disagreed, saying he did not think pouring Clorox over evidence would contaminate it.

  That’s ignorant. Of course it would.

  It’s easy to write off a person decrying they’ve been set up and framed—especially in Tracy’s case—when you look at all of the incriminating evidence from so many different sources against her. It’s almost too much, as I have stated. Like a trail of breadcrumbs led directly to Tracy Fortson’s door, which then led to a narrative of the murder, it seems too, well, perfect.

  There are pieces of her case that Tracy pointed out to me as we got to talking that still baffle me. As I headed into reading through the transcripts of her first trial and all of the evidence and witnesses brought forward against her, Tracy asked me to keep several points in mind that she believes are vitally important when looking into the potential of her being innocent:

  “Number one, the presence of blood (DNA) of a male on the hall closet door (inside Doug’s house) that was never identified.”

  That is a true statement. CSS found blood no one was ever able to identify.

  “Number two,” Tracy noted, “no blood was ever found in my truck, clothing, or on any of my possessions.”

  With the amount of blood spilled inside Doug’s house during the course of his murder, save for Tracy wearing a full protective Hazmat body suit—which she certainly could have—there would have been some blood left inside her truck.

  “Number three, the audio tapes of the sheriff (Ray Sanders uttering sexually harassing comment Tracy secretly taped) disappeared during the search of my house—why?”