Thomas Brooks III | |
---|---|
Born | Newport News, Virginia, U.S. | August 8, 1948
Criminal status | Escaped |
Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
Criminal penalty | 20 years imprisonment |
Escaped | August 24, 1970 |
Details | |
Victims | Milton Carey Powell, 68 (as an accomplice) |
Date | April 3, 1968 |
Country | United States |
State(s) | Virginia |
Location(s) | Newport News |
Thomas Brooks III (born August 8, 1948) is a convicted American murderer and fugitive who is wanted by the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC). On April 3, 1968, Brooks and three other teenagers participated in the robbery and murder of a man in Newport News, Virginia. Brooks was convicted of murder for being a lookout during the robbery and sentenced to twenty years in prison. In August 1970, he walked away from a prison work crew and was never recaptured. He is currently the oldest case on the VADOC's most wanted list.
Around 5:15 p.m. on April 3, 1968, 68-year-old Milton Carey Powell was closing his hardware store on Roanoke Avenue in Newport News when two teenagers walked in, fatally shot him, and made off with $400. The shooting was witnessed by Milton's brother, Allen Powell. [1] Four teenagers were arrested and charged in the case five days later. [2] They were 19-year-old Clarence Alexander Spratley, who was the triggerman, 19-year-old Thomas Brooks, 18-year-old Raymond Hill, and an unnamed 17-year-old boy. Spratley was also charged with two counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted armed robbery, and three counts of attempted murder for several other crimes he had committed. Prosecutors made a deal with Hill for him to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for not being prosecuted. [3] [4]
Brooks was tried first. During the trial, Hill testified that Brooks, who was found with a revolver when he was arrested, gave a gun to Spratley and was given $10 after the robbery. Brooks took the stand and claimed he left the gun without believing he was participating in a robbery and that he was not in the area at the time of the murder. However, Hill said Brooks was present and heard his two co-defendants laughing about "hitting" Powell. [5]
On June 14, 1968, Brooks was found guilty of first-degree murder for his participation in the robbery. After his lawyers said he had only been a lookout, the jury recommended the most lenient sentence possible, 20 years in prison. [6]
Spratley went on trial in November 1968. Allen Powell testified against him during the trial. [1] Spratley was found guilty of first degree murder after a two-day trial. Prosecution sought a death sentence in his case, but the jury gave him a life sentence after deliberating for three hours and 35 minutes. [1] [7] In January 1969, Spratley received a concurrent 55-year sentence for two counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted armed robbery. [8] He was presumably paroled in the 1980s or 1990s.
After Brooks was found guilty of murder, he was sent to the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond to serve out his sentence. He lost his appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court in March 1969. [9]
Brooks was eventually assigned to the Nansemond Correctional Field Unit in Isle of Wight County. On the morning of August 24, 1970, Brooks was part of a work crew clearing ditches alongside Virginia State Route 662 when he suddenly decided to walk away. He is currently the oldest case on the most wanted list for the Virginia Department of Corrections. [10] To this day, authorities have not found any clues to Brooks's whereabouts. [2]
The 2006 Richmond spree murders took place during a seven-day period in January 2006 in and around Richmond, Virginia, United States; seven people—four members of the Harvey family and three members of the Baskerville–Tucker family—were killed.
James Alan Gell is an American who was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to death in Bertie County, North Carolina, at the age of 22. He served nine years as an inmate on death row before being acquitted in a second trial in 2004; he was freed from prison and exonerated that year. He was the 113th person to be freed from death row in the United States.
In 1969, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a twentieth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women is a prison facility for women of the state of New Jersey Department of Corrections, located in Union Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, near Clinton. Its official abbreviation is EMCFW. The facility was named for Edna Mahan, one of the first female correctional superintendents in the U.S.
The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is the government agency responsible for community corrections and operating prisons and correctional facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The agency is fully accredited by the American Correctional Association and is one of the oldest functioning correctional agencies in the United States. Its headquarters is located in the state capital of Richmond.
Jay D. Scott was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the state of Ohio for the 1983 murder of a delicatessen owner in Cleveland. He was the second man put to death by Ohio since it reinstated capital punishment in 1981 and the first to be executed involuntarily. Scott's execution generated attention as he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, with his lawyers arguing he was too mentally ill to be executed.
State of Nevada v. Orenthal James Simpson, et al, Case Number: 07C237890-4. was a criminal case prosecuted in 2007–2008 in the U.S. state of Nevada, primarily involving the retired American football player O. J. Simpson.
The United States Penitentiary, Hazelton is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in West Virginia. The high-security facility has earned the nickname "Misery Mountain" by the inmates who are incarcerated there. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility has a satellite prison camp for minimum-security male offenders.
Paul Dennis Reid, Jr., known as The Fast Food Killer, was an American serial killer, convicted and sentenced to death for seven murders during three fast-food restaurant robberies in Metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee and Clarksville, Tennessee between the months of February and April 1997. At the time of the murders, Reid lived with roommate Brian Fozzard at a boarding house, and he was on parole from a 1983 conviction in Texas on charges relating to the aggravated armed robbery of a Houston steakhouse. He had served seven years of a 20-year sentence, and was paroled in 1990. Originally from Richland Hills, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, Reid went to Nashville to pursue a career as a country music singer.
The San Quentin Six were six inmates at San Quentin State Prison in the U.S. state of California who were charged with actions related to an August 21, 1971 escape attempt that resulted in six deaths and at least two persons seriously wounded. They were Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo Pinell, Johnny Larry Spain, Willie Tate, and Luis Talamantez. The dead included George Jackson, a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family; two other inmates, and three guards.
Ronald Adrin Gray is an American serial killer and rapist whose convictions include four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and eight counts of rape. His crimes were committed when he was in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Terry Anthony Blair is an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, though investigators believe he may have additional unidentified victims.
Taymor Travon McIntyre, better known professionally as Tay-K is an American rapper and convicted murderer. He is best known for his 2017 hit song "The Race", which peaked at number 44 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA in January 2018. The lyrics detail criminal activity carried out by McIntyre, and became popular following a nationwide manhunt for his eventual arrest in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
One-year-old Antonio Santiago was murdered on March 21, 2013, during an attempted robbery in Brunswick, Georgia, United States. As Santiago and his mother, Sherry West, were returning home from the post office, they were confronted by two youths, 15-year-old Dominique Lang and 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins. Elkins, who had previously shot another victim he tried to rob, pointed a gun at West and demanded money. When she did not comply he fired two .22-caliber bullets, one of which grazed her head, and the other of which went through her leg. He then shot Santiago in the face, killing him. The murder received national as well as international attention due to the victim's young age.
On June 2, 2020, David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain, was fatally shot after interrupting the burglary of a pawn shop in The Ville, St. Louis. The incident occurred on the same night as riots in St. Louis, Missouri over the murder of George Floyd. Stephan Cannon, who was 24 years old at the time of the incident, was convicted of his murder on July 20, 2022.
Syvasky Lafayette Poyner was an American spree killer who killed four women and a teenage girl during a series of armed robberies in Hampton, Virginia in 1984. Convicted of multiple counts of capital murder and condemned to death, Poyner was executed in 1993.
Andre Vernell Jones and Freddie Clyde Tiller Jr. are American spree killers who killed three people in East St. Louis, Illinois in 1979. Jones is also a serial killer, committing at least two additional murders.
Robert Wesley Knighton was an American spree killer who, after serving time for kidnapping and manslaughter in Missouri embarked on a four-day, two-state killing spree along with Lawrence Lingle Brittain and Ruth Renee Williams. Brittain and Williams both pleaded guilty and testified against Knighton in exchange for leniency, and have since been released from prison. Knighton was convicted of two murders in Oklahoma and executed in 2003.
Dennis James Skillicorn was an American criminal and murderer. Originally sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for a 1979 second degree murder charge, he was later paroled and, with the help of two accomplices, embarked on a crime spree that resulted in the deaths of at least four more people. Convicted and sentenced to death for one of these murders, he and one of his accomplices were executed in 2009 and 2013, respectively.