Deceased/Not Found GA - Shannon Melendi, 19, Atlanta, 26 March 1994

[Bobbisangel]

Me too. Especially since I believe the interview he is talking about is the one that started the "Shannon Melendi - ten years later" thread, when her parents were trying to renew interest in the case. I was also moved to tears remembering the billboards and pleas for help when Shannon first disappeared. This explanation for why he waited so long to come forward strikes a truthful chord with me, and I think will with any jurors who have been in the area since Shannon's disappearance as well.

I admit to being completely baffled on the defense strategy, though. I cannot imagine what they are going to say. Anyone who had any doubts about Hinton's guilt had them erased when he burned his own house down and then confessed to it.

Obviously Howell has some shred of human decency if he wept for Shannon's family...unlike Butch.

How long ago was it when he burned his own house down for the insurance money? Was it anywhere near the time that Shannon disappeared?

 

[Bobbisangel]

An FBI agent told jurors Tuesday that a ring found near a rest stop outside Atlanta links a missing college student to a former Delta mechanic accused of abducting and killing her.

The ring is the only piece of physical evidence linked to the body of Emory University sophomore Shannon Melendi, whose remains were never found after she went missing in 1994.

Several witnesses testified Tuesday that the bag in which Melendi's ring was found only could have come from the technical operations center of Delta Airlines, where first-degree murder defendant Colvin "Butch" Hinton worked during the disappearance.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/083005_ctv.html

I thought the ring was found around a phone booth by a cafe that Hinton frequented.... where Hinton made the call about ransom? Sometimes I don't think journalists listen half of the time or they couldn't come up with so many different versions of one story!!!

 

[mysteriew]

Colvin "Butch" Hinton's father testified Wednesday the younger Hinton borrowed a large saw from him the morning after Emory University student Shannon Melendi vanished in 1994.

C.C. Hinton kept his gaze on the prosecutor who called him to the witness stand, making no apparent eye contact with his 44-year-old son. The elder Hinton was shown the bow saw, with a blade about 2 feet long, which authorities found in a search of Hinton's garage in 1994.

He said he was getting ready for church on March 27, 1994, when his son called.

"He asked me if I had a particular saw," the elder Hinton said. His son then came and got the saw because "he knew I had an engagement at church."

His seven minutes of testimony came near the end of a day in which prosecutors presented evidence suggesting how Hinton might have disposed of Melendi's body, which never has been found.

Hinton testified his son worked as a butcher in Illinois. Earlier, former prison inmate Ronson Westmoreland said Hinton had boasted to him that he could cut up a cow in 30 minutes to an hour without getting blood on his apron.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/01melendi.html

 

[mysteriew]

Jurors in the trial of a Georgia man accused in the 1994 abduction and murder of a college sophomore learned Thursday that in addition to lacking a body and a crime scene, the state's case against Colvin "Butch" Hinton III is also deficient of fingerprints linking him to the victim, Shannon Melendi.

A forensic print analyst for the FBI testified in DeKalb County Superior Court that known fingerprints from Hinton, who was umpiring a softball game where Melendi was keeping score before she disappeared, did not match prints found in items among the victim's car.

Furthermore, the expert, Mitchell Howell, said that none of Melendi's prints matched those lifted from Hinton's car or home.

Prosecutors acknowledged in their opening statements that they had no strong forensic evidence linking Hinton to the death of Melendi, who was 19 when she went missing.

Instead, they promised jurors they would prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt using circumstantial evidence, including incriminating statements that the defendant allegedly made to inmates over an eight-year period of incarceration on unrelated arson charges.

Another forensic analyst with the FBI testified Thursday that a bag containing Melendi's ring found at a rest stop was linked to Hinton's workplace.

The ring was found at a pay phone where police traced a call from a man who claimed to be holding Melendi.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/090105_ctv.html

 

[mysteriew]

A lawyer for Colvin "Butch" Hinton on Thursday attempted to cast doubt on the way authorities handled the key piece of physical evidence in the 1994 disappearance of Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

The prosecution contends that scientific testing to be discussed later in Hinton's murder trial will link him to a ring belonging to Melendi. The ring, in a bag wrapped in masking tape, was found behind a pay phone from which a man had called Emory to claim he was holding Melendi. Prosecutors say metal particles found on the tape were matched by recent testing to unusual alloys used at a Delta Air Lines maintenance facility where Hinton worked

While cross-examining FBI agent and evidence expert Chris Allen, defense lawyer B.J. Bernstein noted that another FBI agent who found the taped-up bag handled it with bare hands and kept it in his coat pocket for some minutes. Allen said "we could have lost some evidence" from the tape, and some fibers in the agent's pocket could have gotten on the tape.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/02melendi.html

 

[angelmom]

As always, I cannot comment due to the stupid gag order. I just want you all to know that I am reading your posts and sharing them with my parents. Your words mean so much to us. It's nice to know so many good people are pulling for Shannon. Thank you all...

With love,

Angel's lil sis

Hugs to all of you. Shannon has not been forgotten. She never will be.

 

[mysteriew]

Eight days of testimony has shed some light on what happened at a DeKalb County softball park the day Shannon Melendi vanished more than 11 years ago.

The testimony constructs a timeline for Saturday, March 26, 1994. It suggests that it was possible for Colvin "Butch" Hinton to kidnap and kill the 19-year-old Emory University student — but only if he moved quickly to cover his tracks and hide the body.

Hinton's trial, which resumes today, is necessarily heavy on circumstantial evidence, because no body was ever found.

A key circumstance that prosecutors hope to prove is that Hinton dropped from sight at the same time as Melendi and reappeared only after he had had time to kill or incapacitate her.

"Time is so critical," defense lawyer B.J. Bernstein told Superior Court Judge Anne Workman in arguments while the jury was not in the courtroom.

Several witnesses told the jury that they could be precise about times they saw Melendi or Hinton at the Softball Country Club because a tournament was being held on a strict schedule that day.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/dekalb/0905/06melendi.html

 

[angelmom]

I am anxious to see what kind of defense there is. What on earth could they possibly say? I think I'd really have to go with no defense/insufficient evidence and just sit down. Nothing else will be even remotely believable. :snooty: That is their best shot. I hope they do it and the jury nails Hinton's @$$ to the wall. Just MHO!

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/07melendi.html

Prosecution ready to wrap up Melendi case

By DAVID SIMPSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/06/05
The prosecution Tuesday neared the end of its murder case against Colvin "Butch" Hinton, presenting scientific tests to try to link Hinton to a phone call claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of Emory University student Shannon Melendi in 1994.

Soon after the 19-year-old sophomore from Miami vanished, a caller to Emory claimed he would make demands later. There were no more calls, and Melendi's body never was found. But authorities found a ring belonging to her wrapped in a taped-up bag near the pay phone where the call originated.

Mary Miller, a scientist for MVA Scientific Consultants in Gwinnett County, testified Tuesday that metal fragments found on the tape were unusual alloys that were used at Hinton's then-workplace, a Delta Air Lines maintenance facility.

On cross-examination, defense attorney B.J. Bernstein pointed out the lab normally does not usually handle criminal cases and that lab notes showed technicians had some difficulties testing the tape. She also reminded jurors that the tape was handled with bare hands by the FBI agent who found it.

Bernstein said in opening statements she would present experts who disagree with the lab findings.

Hinton, now 44, is accused of abducting Melendi from a DeKalb County softball park on March 26, 1994.

Assistant district attorney John Petrey said prosecutors plan to rest their case today Wednesday 8-7 after calling two women who say Hinton sexually assaulted them years before Melendi vanished.

 

[angelmom]

The details of Hinton's past crimes are horrific. I can't believe he was allowed to walk among us. I am glad the judge allowed this testimony into the record, and that the previous victims were finally able to confront their attacker. It must have been devastating for Shannon's family to hear exactly what might have happened to Shannon and how terrified she would have been, but I have to believe this will help the jury see Hinton for the depraved sexual sadist he really is.


http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/08melendi.html


Melendi jury told of previous attacks

By DAVID SIMPSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/08/05
Colvin "Butch" Hinton pleaded guilty to kidnapping in 1982, so his 14-year-old victim never got the chance to tell her story to a jury.

Until Wednesday.

And the story of a long-ago night of terror in Illinois came with higher stakes for Hinton, now on trial for murder in the 1994 disappearance of another young woman, Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

Melendi's body was never found, and much of the prosecution case against Hinton is circumstantial. But the Illinois victim unflinchingly portrayed Hinton as a man capable of "evil."

Now a 37-year-old woman, the victim took a long, steady look at Hinton after she pointed him out to the jury. Her voice never faltered, even at the explicit language she said he used in demanding sex and her description of being sexually assaulted. She said Hinton had a "Jekyll and Hyde element in his personality" on the night he abducted her.

"I saw what I would describe as the presence of evil in his eyes," she said.

Hinton, then 21, admitted to police at the time that he lured the girl, a friend of his younger brother, to a cemetery on the pretense of a meeting with her brother. The DeKalb jury was told he explained to officers that he suddenly had an "instinct to go out and do bodily harm to someone."

He admitted to binding her hands and feet and locking her in his basement. The victim and Hinton's wife at the time, Gale Rodgers, testified Wednesday that the girl's screams attracted Rodgers, who freed her as a near-catatonic Hinton looked on.

Over defense objections, Superior Court Judge Anne Workman ruled Georgia law allowed the DeKalb Superior Court jury to hear the woman's testimony as a "similar transaction" that could be used to demonstrate a possible motive in the Melendi case.

The woman's testimony also included a detail which might bolster the prosecution's sparse physical evidence against Hinton. She said he bound her with "some type of wires" in addition to tape and rope. Police who dug up Hinton's property in Clayton County after Melendi's disappearance found wire ties, which are sometimes used by police to bind suspects.

Hinton told Illinois police that he didn't understand what happened to him, adding, "I've never been this way before."

However, another witness testified Wednesday that Hinton attacked her in her Kentucky home in 1977 and ordered his younger brother to tie her up. She was able to persuade him to leave after promising not to tell.

Hinton was 17 at the time of the first attack and entered counseling. After the second attack, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to kidnapping and enticing a minor and was sentenced to four years in prison. Neither of the victims who testified is being identified by The Atlanta Journal- Constitution.

Hinton, now 44, is accused of abducting Melendi, a 19-year-old Emory University student from Miami, on March 26, 1994. Hinton was umpiring on the same softball field where Melendi was last seen working as a scorekeeper, and authorities focused on him early on because of his criminal record. But he was indicted only last year, shortly after his release from prison on an arson conviction.

Melendi's parents appeared shaken by the testimony of the Illinois victim, who told of Hinton alternately showing kindness, then violent rage and, finally, contrition.

When Hinton's wife briefly left her alone with Hinton after freeing her, she recalled, Hinton asked if she would forgive him.

"Amazingly, I said that I would," she said. A few minutes later, she walked calmly from the courtroom, again looking directly at Hinton, who reached for a cup of water.

 

[angelmom]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/08melendi.html

Melendi jury told of previous attacks

By DAVID SIMPSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/08/05
Colvin "Butch" Hinton pleaded guilty to kidnapping in 1982, so his 14-year-old victim never got the chance to tell her story to a jury.

Until Wednesday.

And the story of a long-ago night of terror in Illinois came with higher stakes for Hinton, now on trial for murder in the 1994 disappearance of another young woman, Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

Melendi's body was never found, and much of the prosecution case against Hinton is circumstantial. But the Illinois victim unflinchingly portrayed Hinton as a man capable of "evil."

Now a 37-year-old woman, the victim took a long, steady look at Hinton after she pointed him out to the jury. Her voice never faltered, even at the explicit language she said he used in demanding sex and her description of being sexually assaulted. She said Hinton had a "Jekyll and Hyde element in his personality" on the night he abducted her.

"I saw what I would describe as the presence of evil in his eyes," she said.

Hinton, then 21, admitted to police at the time that he lured the girl, a friend of his younger brother, to a cemetery on the pretense of a meeting with her brother. The DeKalb jury was told he explained to officers that he suddenly had an "instinct to go out and do bodily harm to someone."

He admitted to binding her hands and feet and locking her in his basement. The victim and Hinton's wife at the time, Gale Rodgers, testified Wednesday that the girl's screams attracted Rodgers, who freed her as a near-catatonic Hinton looked on.

Over defense objections, Superior Court Judge Anne Workman ruled Georgia law allowed the DeKalb Superior Court jury to hear the woman's testimony as a "similar transaction" that could be used to demonstrate a possible motive in the Melendi case.

The woman's testimony also included a detail which might bolster the prosecution's sparse physical evidence against Hinton. She said he bound her with "some type of wires" in addition to tape and rope. Police who dug up Hinton's property in Clayton County after Melendi's disappearance found wire ties, which are sometimes used by police to bind suspects.

Hinton told Illinois police that he didn't understand what happened to him, adding, "I've never been this way before."

However, another witness testified Wednesday that Hinton attacked her in her Kentucky home in 1977 and ordered his younger brother to tie her up. She was able to persuade him to leave after promising not to tell.

Hinton was 17 at the time of the first attack and entered counseling. After the second attack, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to kidnapping and enticing a minor and was sentenced to four years in prison. Neither of the victims who testified is being identified by The Atlanta Journal- Constitution.

Hinton, now 44, is accused of abducting Melendi, a 19-year-old Emory University student from Miami, on March 26, 1994. Hinton was umpiring on the same softball field where Melendi was last seen working as a scorekeeper, and authorities focused on him early on because of his criminal record. But he was indicted only last year, shortly after his release from prison on an arson conviction.

Melendi's parents appeared shaken by the testimony of the Illinois victim, who told of Hinton alternately showing kindness, then violent rage and, finally, contrition.

When Hinton's wife briefly left her alone with Hinton after freeing her, she recalled, Hinton asked if she would forgive him.

"Amazingly, I said that I would," she said. A few minutes later, she walked calmly from the courtroom, again looking directly at Hinton, who reached for a cup of water.

 

[MrsMush99]

CourtTV has complete coverage on their site.

http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/index.html

 

[mysteriew]

When Colvin "Butch" Hinton's lawyer opens the defense case in his murder trial today, the focus apparently will be on minuscule — in fact, particle-sized — evidence prosecutors have used in their only alleged physical link between Hinton and Shannon Melendi after her disappearance in 1994.

Lawyers in the case are prohibited by a gag order from commenting, but defense lawyer B.J. Bernstein has said in the courtroom that she planned to call at least one expert today to attack the handling of scientific evidence.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/12melendi.html

 

[mysteriew]

The defense case in Colvin "Butch" Hinton's murder trial took just one day, most of it aimed at discrediting the scientific tests that prosecutors contend show a link between Hinton and missing Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

"I probably would not have accepted their data," defense witness Joseph Bushi testified Monday. Bushi, who runs an engineering and research laboratory near Cleveland, reviewed the findings prosecutors obtained from a local private lab, MVA Scientific Consultants.

Bushi testified some of MVA's electron microscope scans of the same samples varied widely, and he questioned whether enough time elapsed between the scans for technicians to have properly cleaned the equipment.

On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney John Petrey challenged Bushi's characterization of the matches between various samples as not "good," when Bushi's written report said the same degree of matching would be less than "excellent."

The defense also hired a technician to scan some of the same samples tested by MVA. Defense witness Ed Basta said he analyzed those results and could not duplicate MVA's findings. He criticized MVA's work as poorly documented, especially because the lab often did not photograph the microscopic particles it examined.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/13melendi.html

 

[mysteriew]

During closing arguments Wednesday morning, Dekalb County Assistant District Attorney Mike McDaniel portrayed Hinton as a lifetime sexual predator who was planning to assault the ex-wife of a friend that Saturday, but instead turned his sights on Melendi after he met her during a game they worked at together.

"When he saw Shannon Melendi ... his target changed," McDaniel told jurors. "He didn't have to drive all the way out to Marietta. A more convenient and attractive target appeared."

But in her closing arguments, Hinton's defense attorney B.J. Bernstein characterized the investigation into Melendi's March 26, 1994, disappearance as shoddy and myopic. Bernstein urged jurors not to reach a verdict based on an emotional response to inconclusive circumstantial evidence and his history of violent sexual attacks against women.

http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/091405_ctv.html

 

[mysteriew]

After deliberating for nine hours over two days, jurors in the murder trial of Colvin "Butch" Hinton broke for a long weekend Thursday.

Hinton is accused in the 1994 kidnapping and slaying of 19-year-old Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

The 12-member panel has been quiet during deliberations, submitting only two questions to Judge Anne Workman.

The first question, submitted at about 3 p.m. Thursday, asked the court to read back the full testimony of two state witnesses, jailhouse snitches Adonis Cornwell and Ronson Westmoreland.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/091505_ctv.html

 

[Usher737]

DECATUR, GA (CBS4 News/AP) Jury deliberations are underway -- following closing arguments -- in a Georgia court in the trial of a man accused in the disappearance and death of Miami college student Shannon Melendi.

Thirteen days of testimony in the murder trial of 44-year-old Butch Hinton are over. He is charged with murder, felony murder, and kidnapping.

Let's hope that the jury sees Hinton for the murderer that he is!

FYI - No verdict yet, jury is off until Monday!

 

[angelmom]

During closing arguments Wednesday morning, Dekalb County Assistant District Attorney Mike McDaniel portrayed Hinton as a lifetime sexual predator who was planning to assault the ex-wife of a friend that Saturday, but instead turned his sights on Melendi after he met her during a game they worked at together.

"When he saw Shannon Melendi ... his target changed," McDaniel told jurors. "He didn't have to drive all the way out to Marietta. A more convenient and attractive target appeared."

http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/091405_ctv.html

Anyone know what this refers to? I have followed this case fairly closely (I thought!), and I have never heard this theory before about Hinton's plan to assault someone else. Who is that? How do they know? I obviously missed something.

Is it this?

Angeanette Brandt also testified that two days before Melendi's disappearance, Hinton told her that he planned to "have some fun" while his wife was out of town for the weekend.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/hinton/082205_ctv.html

Who is Brandt? Was she the person they think he was going to attack?

I'm lost.

 

[Bobbisangel]

Are they going for 1st degree murder? Oh how I hope they hang this guy. I wish CTV would have followed this trial. They did a little on it today. I can't see the jury letting him go. For the family's sake this guy has to get his just dues and Shannon has to have justice. It won't bring her back but it does help when you know that the person who took your loved one's life is behind bars where life isn't a picnic.

 

[fourboys]

Jury convicts Hinton of murder in death of Emory student

September 19, 2005
Decatur, Georgia-AP

A DeKalb County Superior Court jury has found Butch Hinton guilty of murder in the death of missing Emory University student Shannon Melendi.

Jurors deliberated for three days in the case. Hinton was accused of abducting and killing the 19-year-old Melendi, who disappeared eleven years ago.

Her body has never been found.

Melendi disappeared after a softball game at a complex where both she and Hinton had been working.

Hinton was considered a suspect shortly after Melendi disappeared, but authorities did not officially charge him until last year.

The jury spent an hour and 15 minutes last week listening to court reporters read transcripts of the testimony by two men who had been in prison with Hinton, 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.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3868220&nav=0RaP

 

[concernedperson]

Sentencing at 1:30 PM, mandatory life in prison for murder in Georgia. Will keep on the lookout for final sentence.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/0905/19melendi.html