Hinton guilty, gets life sentence
Jury convicts him of murder in Melendi disappearance
By DAVID SIMPSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/19/05
Colvin "Butch" Hinton was today sentenced to mandatory life in prison for the murder of Emory University student Shannon Melendi.
DeKalb Superior Court Judge Anne Workman sentenced Hinton on two counts of murder, one alleging he deliberately killed Hinton and the other that he killed her during the commission of another felony, kidnapping.
The 19-year-old Melendi disappeared from a DeKalb softball park March 26, 1994. Her body was never found.
During a brief sentencing hearing, Shannon Melendi's mother and sister spoke directly to Hinton.
"This is the first and last time I will ever speak to you," said Yvonne Melendi, Shannon's mother. "You murdered Shannon, but you did not kill her spirit. She will live in our memories forever."
Monique Melendi, Shannon's sister, told Hinton, "You robbed a child of her hero. ... When you killed my sister, you also killed a part of me."
Hinton looked straight ahead while the two women spoke. Moments later when Workman asked him if he wanted to speak, he said quietly, "No."
His voice dropped to a whisper as he answered two more questions from the judge to say that he understood the sentence.
Shannon Melendi disappeared from the Softball Country Club on North Decatur Road. Searches and a nationally publicized appeal for information failed to turn up any sign of her, but authorities quickly focused their attention on Hinton, who was an umpire on the field where Melendi was the scorekeeper.
Prosecutors said Hinton, 44, abducted her from a DeKalb softball park and then killed her.
Hinton, now 44, had served prison time for kidnapping and enticing a minor in 1982. Earlier, he had been sent by a Juvenile Court to counseling after attacking a woman in 1977, when he was 17. Both victims testified before the DeKalb jury last week.
Hinton later went back to prison on a 1996 arson conviction, and some of his fellow inmates testified he made statements to them about how to dispose of a body and his worries about being linked to the Melendi case.
Other witnesses testified Hinton came back to the softball park for no apparent reason after Melendi vanished, which the prosecution says was an attempt to establish an alibi.
But because authorities never found a body or any blood or other remains, the only physical evidence is a small, taped-up bundle found near a pay phone in McDonough where someone placed a call to Emory on April 6, 1994. The caller claimed he had Melendi and would make demands later.
Behind the outdoor phone, an FBI agent found a taped-up bag containing a ring that had belonged to Melendi.
That type of cloth bag was commonly used to hold small parts at Hinton's then-workplace, a Delta Air Lines' maintenance facility.
The manufacturer said Delta was the only purchaser of the bag in Georgia but acknowledged the bag was used at many other places across the country.
Prosecutors said metal particles found stuck to the adhesive tape around the bag by a private laboratory last year provide a strong match to the Delta facility.
The jury spent an hour and 15 minutes last week listening to court reporters read transcripts of the testimony by Adonis Cornwell and Ronson Westmoreland. Cornwell, who remains in federal prison for bank robbery, had testified Hinton once awoke crying and sweating and told Cornwell, "I didn't kill her. The demon inside of me killed her."
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/19melendi.html
