2015 a strange year for area in crime and courts
The troubles and trials of 2015 will not easily be erased from memory.
The bizarre kidnapping and homicide of Renee Eldridge, the conviction and death sentence of Lisa Graham, the shooting spree Columbus native Rusty Houser embarked upon in Louisiana -- these and other shocking events will not soon be forgotten, even for those who saw them only from a distance.
Here are the top crime and court stories of the year:
The Eldridge DNA
An area homicide took a surreal turn this year when court testimony revealed DNA testing showed a Columbus woman kidnapped here before she was found dead in a creek in Chambers County, Ala., had been raped by the homicide suspect but had accused someone else.
It was a bizarre twist in the Renee Eldridge case because murder suspect Stacey Gray was well known to her, having had a relationship with her mother. Yet authorities said she swore another man tied her up and raped her Dec. 22, 2014.
The Army Ranger she falsely accused was held without bond for 10 weeks before he was released, and Columbus police did not officially clear him until July 17.
Eldridge's mother reported her 25-year-old daughter missing July 4 from the Columbus home they shared on 46th Street. Eldridge's body was found bound and weighted down in a creek in Chambers County on July 7. She died of blunt-force trauma to the right side of her head.
Chambers County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case.
The homicide toll
With but a few days left, the year's headed toward a lower homicide count in Columbus than 2014, when according to police the city had 22. The count so far is 18, police say. But that is the police department's tally. Muscogee Count Coroner Buddy Bryan's count is 22. His count last year was 23.
Such a discrepancy is not uncommon: Police count what they call "murders," usually meaning deliberate acts involving malice or the clear intent of one person to kill another. The coroner counts homicides, though police may decide a homicide is not murder, but rather manslaughter or, in one case this year, a justifiable killing. The latter was the case of Edward Kirkland, whom police say a resident killed Dec. 14 as Kirkland invaded his home. Investigators decided the resident acted in self-defense. The coroner decided it was still a homicide, regardless of that circumstance.
In two deaths, Trenton Hill in June and Benjamin Walker in October, police charged manslaughter rather than murder. Still, the coroner lists them as homicides.
In a third case, a disabled woman named Shanita Rutherford whom police said died after being pushed off a porch, the coroner has counted it a homicide. Columbus police say they're still awaiting autopsy results, so Rutherford so far is not on their list.
Rusty Houser
Columbus was dragged into the national and international news when Columbus native John "Rusty" Houser, a government gadfly and failed politician, killed two women and wounded other moviegoers 20 minutes into "Trainwreck" in a LaFayette, La., theater.
Houser shot himself in the head as police closed in, leaving those who remembered the son of a city tax commissioner to wonder what he was thinking.
Research profiled a man who long had craved power and attention but never found his place. He tried to crusade against pornographic theaters and got arrested for trying to pay someone to burn the office of a lawyer representing the businesses. He ran for his father's job and lost. He bought a house in Phenix City, lost it to foreclosure, and sabotaged it when he was evicted.
He became estranged from his wife and daughter when they sought a protection order to prevent his disrupting his daughter's wedding.
The Steve Toms trial
Over the summer, Columbus witnessed a long and emotional trial that closed the case on what in 2011 had been a lingering murder mystery: Who killed Steve Toms?
Michael Jerome "Big Smoove" Johnson, a jury decided June 19, convicting Johnson in the Nov. 15, 2011, homicide at the Gold & Silver Trading Center that Toms managed at 3717 Gentian Blvd.
The jury also convicted Johnson and accomplice Morris "Slim Deezy" Gordon of robbing the 4227 Victory Drive Diamond Exchange on May 5, 2012, and the 5750 Milgen Road Winn Dixie on April 11, 2012. Testimony showed Johnson and Gordon were among a gang of robbers involved in multiple incidents, with Johnson wanting money to finance music videos that also featured Gordon.
Prosecutors showed jurors two of the videos that showed Johnson and others brandishing weapons, some of which authorities said were used in the robberies.
Johnson during his sentencing was unrepentant, cursing the court and saying, "I don't want to give y'all the satisfaction of sitting here and crying and saying how sorry I am."
Judge William Rumer sentenced Johnson to life without parole plus 10 years. He gave Gordon 25 years in prison. Gordon already was serving 10 years on another robbery.
CSU officer cleared
In a year when fatal police shootings of black men made headlines across the country, Columbus had its own case to resolve, as the investigation of a Columbus State University police officer's fatally wounding a campus visitor went to a grand jury.
After hearing six hours of testimony from 20 witnesses, the grand jury recommended authorities pursue no criminal investigation into CSU Police Sgt. Ben Scott's twice shooting Zikarious Flint on March 30, 2014, when officers reported Flint pointed a gun at them as they chased him through the college's main campus off University Avenue.
The grand jurors were asked to make a "civil determination" of whether Scott's actions deserved a criminal probe.
CSU officers called to investigate a man with a gun said they chased Flint until he neared student apartments off University Avenue, where he turned and raised his gun toward them. Scott fired two shots: One hit Flint in the neck and the other hit him in the back.
By Flint's side, they found a semi-automatic .40-caliber Glock Model 22 pistol holding eight rounds, they said.
Lisa Graham convicted
In what Russell County authorities called one of the most bizarre and disturbing cases they'd ever seen, Lisa Leanne Graham was convicted and sentenced to death for hiring a family friend to kill her own daughter on a remote dirt road on July 5, 2007.
It closed one chapter on a case that had many, as Graham's trial in the death of her 20-year-old daughter Stephanie Shea Graham repeatedly had been delayed, first by courthouse renovation and later by a mistrial resulting from a judge's bad health.
Graham was convicted of hiring Kenneth Walton to kill the daughter, whom she repeatedly had told people was ruining her life and whom she would kill if she could. Evidence showed Graham even loaned Walton her pistol for the homicide, which he returned to her the next day.
Her trial and sentencing do not mark the end of the story, as Graham already has sought a new trial and is to appeal to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. That process will add new chapters to what veterans of the criminal justice system saw as a sordid and surreal story of a mother whose hatred for her daughter led to a cold-blooded murder on Bowden Road near Pittsview.
Sheriff's worker cleared, sues
The criminal investigation into a long-running personnel dispute in the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office came to a dramatic end March 6 when jurors found suspended sheriff's worker Regina Millirons not guilty on 10 charges stemming from her complaints of official misconduct.
Supporters in the courtroom wept as Millirons embraced attorneys Mark Shelnutt and William Kendrick after the verdict, which jurors reached in 90 minutes.
Millirons was accused of mishandling confidential personnel records as she tried to get city administrators, particularly Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, to investigate whether sheriff's employees were being paid for time they didn't work, whether a worker who took a medical retirement was fit to supervise jail inmates when he came back to work as a bailiff, and whether cash paid to off-duty officers transporting inmates to family funerals was accurately tracked.
The result was that she was suspended with pay before prosecutors got a 10-count indictment charging public records theft and fraud.
Kendrick in his closing argument said the city was trying to silence Millirons in violation of its own "whistleblower" policy that encourages workers to report fraud, waste and abuse.
Shelnutt said it was an injustice for authorities not only to press criminal charges against a city worker trying to correct issues, but to put her through the ordeal of a trial at a cost to the taxpayers.
After her acquittal, Millirons went to work for the Columbus Police Department. She since has filed suit against the city.
Jack Hughes case
A long-running legal battle over evidence in a 2011 collision that killed a Fort Benning soldier ended this year with the suicide of the Columbus youth charged in the crash.
Jack Lynch Hughes was found dead around midnight on the side of Marvin Moore Road in Buena Vista, Ga., on April 26, 2015.
Hughes, 20, faced charges he was on drugs when his truck ran a red light and T-boned a car driven by Army medic Jerome Curtis Owens on June 27, 2011, at Macon Road and Elm Drive. Officers at the scene suspected Hughes was impaired, but did not seek a blood-alcohol test until they checked his pockets and found pills. The court for years went back and forth on whether the tests showing drugs in Hughes' system were admissible evidence, until finally the Georgia Supreme Court on March 16 ruled that it was.
Absent that evidence, Hughes would have been charged only with misdemeanor vehicular homicide for running the red light. Evidence of his using drugs made it a felony.
Police body cameras
The value of police body cameras became apparent after a violent confrontation Nov. 3, when a suspect fleeing police injured three officers before he was wounded and detained.
Witnesses supporting Towon Obryan Earl blamed police for the incident, alleging they fired without provocation, but the body camera video proved them wrong.
Earl was in a 2000 Honda Accord in the 300 block of 28th Street when he saw a police officer and backed the car into a nearby parking space. As the officer questioned Earl, who was wanted on warrants, the suspect tried to drive away. The officer grabbed onto the car to avoid being run over.
A second officer, Raymond Harralson, fired four shots to stop Earl, 29, who was hit in the leg. In the car, police found a loaded handgun, digital scales, plastic bags, 80.6 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of crushed Xanax. The gun and the Accord were stolen, investigators said. Police use of body cameras gained national attention after the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Columbus police Maj. Stan Swiney said body cameras have been used in Columbus since early 2014. They let the public see how officers do their work, he said.
Brian Roslund arrest, suicide
Former Georgia Senate candidate Brian P. Roslund was facing trial on racketeering and theft charges when he fatally shot himself Dec. 2.
Roslund, 31, a Democrat who in 2014 had challenged Republican state Sen. Josh McKoon of Columbus, was found in a car in Pine Mountain's First Baptist Church parking lot after he failed to show up for jury selection in his trial, which was to start Dec. 7. He faced one count of racketeering and 27 of theft for allegedly taking more than $11,000 from the Friends of Roosevelt's Little White House in Warm Springs. Anyone convicted of racketeering faces up to 20 years in prison. The penalty for a single count of theft by taking ranges up to 15 years in prison.
Roslund's indictment alleged he wrote $15,000 in checks on bank accounts that contained little to no money or had been closed. He also was accused of filing false campaign disclosures stating he'd received more than $52,000 in campaign contributions. Investigators said he inflated donation amounts and falsified donors.
This story was originally published December 28, 2015 at 10:46 PM with the headline "2015 a strange year for area in crime and courts ."