by BobA. Troutt
*****
Odds n Ends
Case #02A085-4
“Tommy Campbell,” called the guard.
It seemed like the longest walk of my life as I made my way down the long semi-lighted corridors. Some of the inmates were standing around talking and wished me luck as I passed by and others kept doing their morning cleanup and never acknowledged me. I walked slowly with the guard through the building that housed the prisoners. We went through several locked doorways, across the yard, past the chapel and by death row before we reached the administrative building. Once inside, we made our way up to the third floor. Officer Hackett slipped his key into the lock and slowly turned the key. I remember the clicking sound of the tumblers inside the lock. He reached for the handle of the door and slowly pulled it toward him. The seams of the door that were embedded in the metal door casing parted and the door opened. Officer Hackett escorted me in. There before me was a short hall with a room on each side. At the end of the hall was a big room filled with tables, chairs and several people sitting around talking. I went in and sat down. Within a few minutes, the chairman of the parole board called the meeting to order. There were three other inmates that went before me. One of them made parole and the other two were denied.
“Tommy Campbell, please come forward,” instructed the chairman. “We are here today to discuss your parole. You were sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for second degree murder. What do you have to say for yourself?”
I explained why I thought I should be set free and sent bent back into society. I also explained what I had done for myself while I had been incarcerated.
“Last month you appeared before the board of appeals on March third and requested a new trial,” stated the chairman of the parole board. “The motion was passed and turned over for a thirty day review pending the investigation of new evidence presented. The motion carried and was moved by the state district attorney’s office. The finding of the review fell in your favor. You have been granted parole. Mr. Campbell you have served thirty percent, seven and a half years, of your twenty-five year sentence. You have proven to be a model prisoner and it appears you have been rehabilitated during your stay here at Georgia State Penitentiary in Claiborne. Both the appeal board and the parole board agree for your parole and immediate release. Congratulations, Mr. Campbell, you are a free man. Good luck to you.”
Officer Hackett took me back to my cell to get my things, to Warden Stephen Stewart’s office and then out the front door. At first I didn’t know how to feel about being on the outside after being locked up for so long. But, it sure did feel good. I only had to wait for a few minutes it seemed before a bus came by; it stopped, I got on and took a seat. I asked the bus driver if he was going to Short Hollow Creek and he said he was. The driver pulled the bus back onto the highway. I stared out the window and tried to figure out what I was going to do. It’s hard to do after you lose your freedom and then all of a sudden one day you get it back. I have no idea why I even went back to Short Hollow Creek. My parents had passed and I didn’t have any sisters or brothers. My wife divorced me while I was locked up. I guess I just needed some answers to a lot of questions.
When you are sitting in a jail cell day after day, you began to search and ask yourself many questions. The burden of finding the answers to those questions will drive a person crazy as they search for the truth.
It wasn’t long, not many miles down the road, before the bus arrived at Short Hollow Creek. As the bus slowed down to pull off the highway, I slowly turned and looked out the window at the town. It didn’t surprise me at all; nothing much had changed. I got off the bus and started walking down the street. Getting older is the only thing that changes in Brandon County, I said to myself. As I approached the little five and ten cents store, I decided I would go in and look around. When I went it, I saw some silk roses. I bought one and then eased back out onto the street. I made my way toward the end of town to the city cemetery. I looked for Shannon’s grave. She was my girlfriend; the one I was supposed to have killed. It took me a while but I finally found her grave. I stood for a moment before I knelt down and placed the rose on her grave. I stayed there for a few minutes. When I stood up to leave, I noticed Gary Downs, a police offer, sitting in his car; he was looking directly at me. I stared back and yelled out that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I flipped him off and he left. I was glad he knew that I, Tommy Campbell, was back in town. I believe he got my message. All I had was time and I needed to find answers to some questions. As I was about to leave, Officer Downs came back to the graveyard. But, this time he had the DA, Kenneth James, with him.
“Well, what do we have here?” asked the DA.
I acted as if they weren’t there and never said a word.
“I would like to congratulate you, Tommy, on your parole. I heard you were getting out,” he said.
He stuck his hand out to shake mine. I had no intention of shaking his hand. It made him a little mad so he waved his butter-finger in front of my face.
“This attitude ain’t going to get it,” he said.
He took his hand down and started to walk away but stopped.
“You killed her Tommy, it has been proven. It would be in your best interest to move on,” insisted the DA.
They left and I went on my way as well. Like I mentioned before, nothing in Brandon County ever changes. After I left the graveyard, I got me a room and a bite to eat. I lay around the room for the rest of the day. The next day I looked up some of my old buddies I hadn’t seen in a while. I found out one of them had been killed in a car wreck and one was in the Marietta, Georgia prison for armed robbery. But, my good buddy, old Smokie was still around. I found him doing what he loved to do best, shooting dice and playing the numbers. He was surprised to see me because he hadn’t heard anything about me getting out. We went over to Burgett’s Bar and had a few drinks. I asked him about Diana, my ex-wife; he told me she was still around. She had stopped coming to see me in prison. After the divorce was final, I didn’t see her anymore. The rumor was that Kenneth was seeing her. While I was in prison, I heard she got pregnant by him. However, she got an abortion and kept it hush-hush. Smokie also informed me that when I was in prison, not long after Shannon’s murder, he heard from another inmate that the county coroner had tampered with the evidence of the case and falsely documented his report. As a favor to the DA, the county coroner had helped frame me for Shannon’s murder. Of course, nothing was ever done with that information. The coroner moved shortly after the case was closed. No one knew where he went.
“Does Diana still live at the old place?” I asked.
“Yes,” replied Smokie, “but you don’t need to go out there.”
“Oh, I assure you nothing is going to happen,” I stated. “I just want to talk to her.”
“I just don’t think you should go see her,” warned Smokie.
I was ready to call it a night so we finished a few more beers and Smokie took me to my room. The next morning, I went over to Diana’s house to talk to her. When I arrived, she met me at the door. It was almost as if she was waiting for me. I asked her how she was and she told me she was doing okay. I also asked her why she had stopped coming to the prison to see me.
“I just wanted to put everything behind me,” she said, “and move on with my life.”
“Is there someone else?” I asked.
“Sort of,” she replied. “I guess you can say...well, yes, there is.”
“I don’t guess there is any chance for us,” I said.
“At one time I would have said there was,” she replied. “But, there’s been a lot of water to go under the bridge since then. You should have thought about that when you were with your girlfriend.”
“I understand,” I replied.
I knew she was right so I turned and walked away. I knew the DA had set me up to take the fall for Shannon’s murder. Unfortunately,
I couldn’t directly prove it; I didn’t have enough hard evidence. I stopped off at the café to get a bite to eat. In wasn’t long before Smokie came in. He sat down and we started to talk.
“You know that night you left Shannon’s house,” said Smokie, “I was coming in the back way to the house. Before I reached the house, I saw Kenneth running out the back door, get into his car and leave. I watched him as he left; he kept his headlights off until he got to the main road. I told the sheriff about it but he insisted it wasn’t Kenneth because he was playing cards with him and some other guys all night.”
“Well, when I left she was alive,” I said. “He must have been hiding in the house while I was there. Smokie, you were the last one there. Did you kill her?” I asked. “What were you doing over there anyway?”
“Tommy, you know me better than that. I never went in. I left because I figured something bad had happened,” Smokie explained.
“You still avoided my question, Smokie. What were you doing over there?”
“Shannon called me earlier and asked me to come over later to talk about something.”
“What, you and her?” I asked.
“No, Tommy. She was your girl. But, one of Shannon’s friends said the reason Shannon was killed was because she was going to leave you for Kenneth. You know around the time Shannon was killed, Kenneth was up for a judge’s position. The DA’s office and the sheriff’s department had to cover up Kenneth’s involvement because he couldn’t afford any trouble; it would mess up his opportunity to become a judge.
About that time a customer came in the café and took a seat at the bar. He told the bartender George May, the county coroner at the time Shannon was killed, had been found murdered in Macon. Apparently, he walked in on someone trying to rob his house and was killed. Smokie and I looked at one another and didn’t say a word.
“Tommy, what about the rag with Shannon’s blood on it the police found when you were pulled over?” questioned Smokie.
“I have thought about that a lot,” I replied. “The only thing I can figure is that night I was at Shannon’s, she was fixing something to eat and cut her finger with a knife. She wrapped a dishrag around it to help stop the bleeding. When I left Shannon’s that night, I saw a cop car pulled off the road behind some trees. I really didn’t pay much attention because I wasn’t speeding and I hadn’t done anything wrong. He pulled out and followed me a little ways down the road, turned on his flashing lights and pulled me over. It was Gary Downs. I believe he planted the rag in my car when he put me in the backseat of the patrol car. I saw him searching my car but I couldn’t see what he was doing; it was too dark. He took me in and a few days later I was charged with Shannon’s murder.”
I hadn’t of been out of prison long, but the weeks passed quickly. I had gotten a job as a part-time mechanic at one of the garages in town. I saw Diana a few times when she came to town. I eventually got up the nerve to speak to her and she spoke back. Not long after that, Diana and I started talking a little. Kenneth James, the DA, had become a judge. In the back of my mind, I believed she was still fooling around with him. A few weeks later, Diana and I decided to see if our relationship would work again. Things went good for a long time until I started drinking more and that clouded my mind. I started getting stuff on my mind, bad things, and that wasn’t good. If Diana was still seeing Kenneth, she did a good job of concealing it. But, so did Shannon. We started arguing over little things that escalated into bigger issues. She started threatening to leave me. I didn’t know what to do. However, I knew if she left I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Eventually, I accused her of seeing Kenneth and I told her about their baby she aborted. Of course, just like I figured she would, she denied it. Then one day I lost it; I couldn’t hold back my rage. I slapped her and grabbed her hair. She finally managed to get away from me and ran out of the house screaming and crying. I knew exactly where she went, to Kenneth. Later on that evening, three cop cars pulled up in front of the house. It was the sheriff and three deputies. He severed me with a warrant for domestic violence, put me in the car and took me to jail. There were already two domestic violence incidents on record. A few days after I had been released, Gary Downs served me with a restraining order and it only got worse from there. A week later, Diana was found dead and I was the prime suspect. I was arrested and charged with her murder. I wished a thousand times I would have stayed on that bus and never got off at Short Hollow Creek. After all this time I’m right back where I was, in jail. I kept thinking back trying to figure thing out, but none of it made any sense.
I do remember, one day at the garage, I happened to see Gary Downs talking to Diana. I didn’t think too much of it until I saw them coming out of the cafeteria together. I asked her about it and she told me that I must have been mistaken because she hadn’t seen or talked to him. I knew that was a lie. I know what I saw. Smokie told me the night Diana was killed Gary Downs was the first on the scene. Diana had been stabbed in the neck and bled to death. When the police searched my room, they didn’t find anything. But, they took me in and held me for seventy two hours for violating the restraining order. They found the murder weapon, with my fingerprints, in the trash barrel behind the building where I was living. I told them I stayed had stayed with Diana several nights so my prints were probably on everything in the house; they didn’t believe me. Gary Downs had written in his report that on the night of Diana’s murder my car was parked down the road from her house. That was true and I didn’t deny it. I had gone over there to see if she would drop the restraining order so we could try to work things out. But, she wouldn’t. She was still alive when I left.
A few days later, a buddy of mine was brought in. He told me that he saw Smokie over in the Huddleston County Jail. He was locked up for a marijuana charge and DUI, his third. That’s why he hadn’t visited me for a couple of weeks. I knew he would have to do a lot of time for that third DUI.
The DA, Sam Dickens, gathered more and more evidence pertaining to my case. He gathered enough to indict me for the murder of Diana Campbell. Unfortunately, the judge who would hear my case was Kenneth James. I asked my lawyer to request a different judge because of a conflict of interest. I also requested to have a bench trial, considering the jury selected would be prejudice since I lived in Short Hollow Creek all my life and I wasn’t the most popular guy in town. I figured the bench trial would be more in my favor since Judge Walters didn’t know me like Judge James and the town did. I felt I would get a fairer trial. Nonetheless, everything I requested was denied.
I sat in my cell, day after day, and thought about having to go through a murder trial again. I was right back where I started. My lawyer came to see me every day to go over the facts and evidence related to the case. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that my changes of walking free were slim to none. I was seen close to her house the night she was murdered and plus the murder weapon had my fingerprints on it. I didn’t have the proof I needed to prove I had been setup, just like I had been for Shannon’s murder. Everyone in town knew Kenneth James had been seeing Shannon and Diana; it wasn’t a secret. However, he was a goody two shoes who they saw no wrong in. He had grown up in Short Hollow Creek and was a big football star in high school. He married right out of high school and then went off to college. He returned as Short Hollow Creek’s hometown hero. His wife died of cancer shortly after he returned home from college. They didn’t have any children so he was left alone to be Short Hollow Creek’s playboy, so to speak. But, I was only a nobody going nowhere in a nothing happening town.
Time in jail went slow. I believe it was worse the second time than the first. As the days and weeks passed, I tried to prepare myself for what was about to happen. My trial came and went so fast. I remember the bailiff calling the court to order. When he stated my case number, 02A085-4, it sounded like a good group of numbers to play. It took about three days for all th
e evidence to be presented and witnesses to be called. On the fourth day of the trial, I was told to stand and face the bench.
“Tommy Campbell, after hearing the evidence and listening to the testimonies of witnesses and others, I find you guilty of first degree murder,” stated Judge James.
My heart fell into my stomach.
“You will appear in two weeks for your sentencing hearing. You will be held here in Brandon County Jail until that time and then you will be transferred to the Georgia State Penitentiary in Claiborne. Court adjourned,” he said as he slammed the gavel down.
Well, it went about like I figured it would. The news spread quickly in that little small town. I waited my two weeks out. I received a life sentence, plus the time I had left to serve, seventeen and a half years, from my other conviction with no possibility of parole. A few days later, I walked back through the doors and heard the click of the lock I left behind. I could picture in my mind Kenneth James with a big smile on his face. I didn’t try to appeal because some things never change.
I’d been back in prison for three months when I ran into Smokie. He was serving an eight year stretch for drugs and DUI. I was happy to see someone I knew; I had known him all my life. We had both grown up in Short Hollow Creek. He was like me, another nobody. We started hanging around together and watched each other’s back. We went out in the yard and shot basketball to pass the time. We got into a few fights with other inmates. But, like I said, we watched out for each other. One day when we were in the yard, Smokie asked me if I killed Shannon and Diana. I sat for a few minutes, looked him in the eye and slowly nodded my head up and down with a big smile on my face. He wasn’t too shocked that I had. He told me he had figured as much. That was the last time we ever mention Shannon and Diana’s murders.
Two weeks later, in the laundry room, Smokie was stabbed with a shank by a couple of gang members. I was on my way to meet him there. By the time I arrived, he was already dead. There was no one around; I was there alone with Smokie’s lifeless body. When the guards got there, I was standing over his body with the bloody shank at my feet. They immediately took me to lock up. Before I could comprehend what had happened, I was accused of his murder.
