Bond denied for homicide suspect
By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun
Oct 19, 2006 : 10:57 pm ET
DURHAM -- No bond was allowed Thursday for a man charged in last year's execution-style murders of four people, and District Attorney Mike Nifong announced he would seek capital punishment against the suspect, 27-year-old Rodrick Vernard Duncan.
Nifong's announcement put Duncan in line -- if convicted on all charges -- to become the first person to receive multiple death penalties in Durham since Phillip Thomas Robbins in the early 1980s. Robbins, who has yet to be executed, received two death verdicts in Durham and one elsewhere.
Wearing orange jail coveralls, handcuffs and shackles around his legs, Duncan said virtually nothing on his own behalf during Thursday's brief appearance in Durham County Superior Court. He stared straight ahead or kept his head lowered and made no eye contact with relatives of the homicide victims, who sat in a nearby spectators' gallery and wept softly.
Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. Titus appointed the Public Defender's Office to represent Duncan.
Thursday marked Duncan's first court appearance since he was picked up earlier this week in Forsyth County, where he was jailed on federal drug charges. The Durham County grand jury indicted him Monday on four counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of robbery with a dangerous weapon.
The charges arose from a Nov. 19, 2005, incident at a townhouse in the Breckenridge subdivision off Hope Valley Road.
Those killed that day were Lennis Harris Jr., 24; LaJuan Coleman, 27; Jamal Holloway, also 27; and Jonathan Skinner, 26. All were from Durham except Skinner, who lived in Raleigh.
Harris and Skinner were cousins.
Ryan Taylor, Coleman's brother, said it was "not good" Thursday to sit behind the alleged murderer in court.
"I felt like I wanted to kill him," Taylor said. "Business ain't done. I wanted to jump up and beat his a--. But all I really want to do is move on and let the justice system take its course."
Lennis Harris Sr., father of another of the homicide victims, said his family was pleased with the progress of an investigation into the multiple slayings.
"It's very hard, very painful," Harris said of Thursday's courtroom experience.
"Bad memories came back. I urge any parent who has a child to take lots of pictures, lots of videos. Lots of hugs. Hug them [the children]. Try to understand them. The last thing my son and I said to each other was that we loved each other. I'll never forget that. It's in my heart forever."
Asked what it felt like to sit within a few feet of Duncan, Harris had no comment.
"I'm a Christian," he said.
Officers found the four murder victims lying on the floor of a second-story bedroom, each with a bullet wound to his head.
Twenty-two-year-old Allen Shuler was injured by the gunfire.
A sixth man, Nacoree Upchurch, 27, reportedly escaped the bullets by leaping out a window onto a patio.
In a news conference on Monday, Police Chief Steve Chalmers said he believed the crimes were "drug-motivated."
"Multiple individuals are involved in this," Chalmers added, hinting that more arrests might follow.
"In the 28 years that I have been in Durham County, this is by far the most egregious single act of violence that has occurred in this county," prosecutor Nifong said during the same news conference. "And I don't recall having heard or read about anything prior to my arriving here that in any way approaches this in terms of overall violence, destruction of human life."
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-780250.html
* The Durham DA's election surprise. Wonder what he has up his sleeve with today's discovery deadline.
Have Precious and friends been helping out on this case? Duncan may have lived near her old haunts.
I am not sure I understand the asterisked comment.
Was it ever determined whether Crystal is/was an informant? I remember it being alluded to early on.
Has this whole thing just been a "shake down" of the University? Nifong is under direction by City management to keep the case alive? I keep trying to figure out where the money is in all this. I smell money but haven't seen it yet--but I know it's there.
If so the Brodhead apologists are perhaps correct. He may not be a weasel. He may be an idiot.