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September 2008 |
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 Kirk Rosenhan/For the SDN Kirk Rosenhan/For the SDN Paramedics and volunteer firefighters gather around a pickup truck which was involved in a collision with a bus from Hebron Christian School Monday morning on U.S. Highway 82 west of Starkville. By PAUL SIMS
Starkville Daily News
A total of four people — including two children — were injured Monday when a pickup truck collided with a Hebron Christian School bus along U.S. Highway 82 west of Starkville, authorities said.
The accident took place approximately one mile west of Highway 182 at 7:22 a.m. Monday, Mississippi Highway Patrol Lt. Randy Ginn said. |
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Man draws 30 years in prison for robbery |
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Sunday, 03 August 2008 |
By BRIAN HAWKINS
Starkville Daily News
A Crawford native received a 30-year prison sentence Friday after pleading guilty to an armed robbery charge, but not before several people, including the mayor of Columbus and a state representative, pleaded with Judge Jim Kitchens for a lenient sentence.
Fredrick Wilson, 23, was under indictment for armed robbery and aggravated assault in the July 2007 armed robbery of the BP convenience store at the intersection of Highway 12 and Louisville Street — an incident that also saw the store owner, Mohamed Ali Saleh, stabbed in the chest with a butcher knife.
Saleh spent 10 days at Oktibbeha County Hospital, with five of those seeing him treated in the intensive care unit, court officials said.
With Wilson’s guilty plea Friday to the armed robbery indictment, the aggravated indictment was retired to the files.
The robbery incident
The robbery took place shortly after 8:30 a.m. on July 19, 2007, when Wilson entered the BP store, stabbed Saleh with the butcher knife as he opened the cash register and made off with an unspecified amount of money, leaving the knife behind.
Saleh himself called E-911 operators and was waiting outside the convenience store when responding police officers and OCH paramedics arrived.
Wilson was arrested following a short car chase with Police Officer Carl Carrithers that ended on the dead-end C.C. Clark Road near the Northeast Mississippi Coca-Cola Bottling Co. plant off Miley Road.
Carrithers, one of the Police Department’s community-oriented policing officers, had just left Sandhill Arms apartments off Sand Road and was turning south onto Louisville Street when police dispatchers gave a description of the suspect, who was described as a black male about six feet tall and wearing a gray T-shirt and blue jean shorts. The suspect was seen leaving the scene in a white 1997 Ford Taurus heading west on Highway 12, SPD detectives said.
Carrithers, receiving this information over the police radio band, turned west onto Miley Road and then north onto Airport Road in hopes of intercepting the suspect around Highway 12.
As he headed north on Airport Road, Carrithers spotted the Ford Taurus matching the description of the suspect’s car, turned around and attempted to pull the car over, but the driver of the Taurus accelerated and a chase ensued, which Carrithers said he relayed to backup officers by radio.
The suspect then turned east onto Miley Road, then south onto C.C. Clark Road, stopping after about 60 to 70 yards when the road ended. The suspect — then identified as Wilson — was arrested, and police officers recovered a large amount of cash from his pockets.
Police also recovered a Wal-Mart receipt for the butcher knife used in stabbing Saleh during the robbery; the knife had been purchased about 12 minutes before the incident, said Assistant District Attorney Rhonda Hayes-Ellis during Friday’s sentencing hearing for Wilson.
Hayes-Ellis, in arguments before Kitchens, said that if Saleh had died, this case would have been a capital murder.
Lenient sentence sought
By law, a suspect found guilty of an armed robbery charge can receive a sentence of 3 years to life in prison.
Wilson’s attorney, Monique Montgomery of Columbus, however, attempted to paint a different picture of Wilson during Friday’s court proceedings. Each of the six witnesses Montgomery called to testify asked that Wilson be granted a lenient sentence.
Columbus Mayor Robert Smith and Greta Gardner, who both knew Wilson when they were principal and teacher, respectively, at West Lowndes Middle School, and Oktibbeha County School District Supt. James Covington, who taught Wilson in a business course at West Lowndes High School and knew him from a church affiliation, all testified on Wilson’s behalf. While they did not condone his actions, all three testified that he was a good student and well-behaved.
“It’s not too often that I come to court in support of a student. I do not condone the charge against him, but no one is perfect. I can only ask the court for lenience, not to throw him away,” Smith said. “I would be willing to work with Fredrick from a rehabilitative standpoint.”
Under cross-examination from Hayes-Ellis, however, none of the three could say they knew about Wilson’s character and actions beyond his schooling years.
With the calling of later witnesses, including District 38 State Rep. Tyrone Ellis, and Wilson’s mother, Fannie, and older brother, Joe, Montgomery questioned them about Wilson becoming embroiled in alleged illegal activity in which Saleh was involved. Ellis, who has known the Wilson family for several years from school and church affiliations, testified that the Wilson committed the robbery because he was provoked by Saleh. The alleged illegal activity resulted in Saleh harassing Wilson over monetary debts he owed, including some bad checks, his mother said.
Saleh, they said, owned a convenience store near the Wilson home in Crawford — a store they alleged illegal activities were occurring that resulted in Wilson being involved in drug use.
Wilson himself, upon being placed on the witness stand, testified that Saleh was selling ephedrine pills and marijuana and that he himself sold the pills and marijuana for Saleh and was using them, which is how he came to be in Saleh’s debt.
The day of the robbery, Wilson said he had stopped into the BP store to purchase an energy drink before heading to work at the Northeast Mississippi Coca-Cola Bottling Co. plant off Miley Road. Upon entering the store, he and Saleh had another confrontation. Saleh, Wilson said, was threatening to go to his employers and tell them about the debt Wilson owed him.
At that point, Wilson said he left the store to purchase the butcher knife at Wal-Mart and “came back, which is how I got into the situation I am in now.”
“I bought the knife as a threat to leave me and my family alone,” Wilson said. “I had seen an opportunity, and I made a bad mistake.
Video of Wilson’s interview with police following his arrest, however, contains no mention of any conflict with Saleh. No evidence corroborating any testimony by Ellis or Wilson’s family regarding Saleh’s alleged illegal activity was presented during Friday’s hearing.
The video, which was shown in court Friday, showed Wilson — during questioning by Starkville Police Department Lt. Maurice Johnson and Detective Moultrie Lacey on July 19, 2007 — saying that he needed money for his birthday party the next day and because he and an unspecified woman were expecting a baby.
Johnson, who Hayes-Ellis called as a prosecution witness, testified that Wilson never mentioned any history of drug use other than four months before the robbery. Johnson testified that Wilson, during the interview with himself and Lacey, said that he went into the store to buy a drink, and when Saleh opened the cash register, he stabbed him, grabbed money and left.
A short time later, Johnson and Mississippi State Police Department Lt. Don Bartlett interviewed Wilson a second time because Wilson matched the description of a suspect involved in an assault incident on campus, both Johnson and Bartlett testified Friday.
During that interview, which was not recorded on video, Wilson told both of them that prior to going to the BP store on Highway 12 and Louisville Street, he had parked his car at the Chadwick Place Apartments on East Lee Boulevard and walked to the B-Quik convenience store nearby with the intention of robbing it, but did not because the store was closed, Bartlett and Johnson testified.
Montgomery repeatedly questioned Johnson and Bartlett about the time frame for the second interview.
Pronouncing sentence
Before handing down Wilson’s 30-year prison sentence, Kitchens said his testimony “made no sense.”
“You should have never gotten on the witness stand. You would have been better off telling me nothing. I saw your brother wincing as you spoke,” Kitchens said. “What you testified to makes absolutely no sense. I can’t figure out how you stabbing him would help get rid of bad checks.” |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 04 August 2008 )
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