Lawsuit accuses NC sheriff and SBI of coercing confession in death of 11-year-old girl
.JPG "McKenzie Sessoms, 11, was found raped and murdered in her Sampson County home in 2013. Her then-neighbor, who was 14 at the time, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging police misconduct that led to charges in the case that have now been dismissed.")
A sheriff’s deputy and an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation forced a rape and murder confession from a 14-year-old boy with an IQ of 55, questioning him without a parent present, a federal lawsuit says.
Trey Jones, now 24, spent five years in confinement while charged with killing McKenzie Sessoms, his 11-year-old neighbor found asphyxiated and sexually assaulted on the couch of her Sampson County mobile home in 2013.
The confession, which was not recorded, served as the central piece of evidence in the case against the teen with a lifelong intellectually disability who told one detective, “I can’t hardly read that good.”
Since then, a Superior Court judge has suppressed Jones’ confession, calling it factually inaccurate and unreliable. All charges against Jones have been dismissed.
In return, Jones filed suit in U.S. District Court against Sampson County Sheriff James Thornton, his detectives Andrew Worley and Christopher Godwin and SBI Special Agent William Brady, calling their actions “shocking, malicious and objectively unreasonable police misconduct.”
Neither the sheriff’s office nor an SBI spokeswoman responded to requests for comment. Sampson County Attorney Joel Starling said his office does not comment on pending litigation.
Developmental delays
By age 5, Jones’ developmental delays and severe speech impediment began showing up in Sampson County schools, the lawsuit said. A psychologist especially noted delays in his communication skills, making it difficult for him to understand basic instructions or make himself understood.
In an IQ test, his verbal comprehension and reasoning scores ranked in the 1st percentile. Past age 10, Jones showed “serious problems” with oral instructions, relating experiences, telling stories and using the right vocabulary to express his thoughts, according to the suit. He repeated several grades and was identified as mentally impaired/intellectually limited.
In September 2013, McKenzie Sessoms was found unresponsive on a couch in her father’s double-wide trailer, which sits at the end of a long dirt road in Sampson County. The coroner’s report suggested her neck had been twisted rather than choked by some kind of ligature, and her wounds were violent enough that her carotid artery was crushed.
Investigators pursued leads without an arrest for eight months after Sessoms’ killing, drawing outcry from the rural community of Salemburg where she lived. Then they interviewed the girl’s 16-year-old cousin, who told them Jones had been asked to leave their family swimming pool almost a year earlier. In his anger, the lawsuit said, Jones made vulgar comments about Sessoms and another cousin.
Based on that tip, Brady and Worley drove to Franklin County outside of Louisburg, where Jones had moved to live with his mother. They interviewed Jones on the porch for two hours without reading him Miranda rights or telling his mother he was a suspect. Rather, the lawsuit said, they explained that they wanted Jones’ help because he had been friends with Sessoms, and that he insisted on speaking to them alone.
Family members blocked from interview
The investigators blocked both family members and Jones’ mentor from intervening in the interview, during which Brady leaned into Jones’ face and called him a liar, the suit said. Jones began to cry.
“Brady and Worley promised Trey that if he told the truth, he would not get in any trouble and Brady and Worley would leave the residence,” the suit said. “Upon information and belief, Trey only confessed to the rape and murder of McKenzie to terminate the coercive interrogation.”
Several members tried to tell the investigators afterward that Jones wanted to recant his statement, but they did not wish to hear it, according to the suit. After questioning, Jones’ mother took him to the emergency room for emotional distress.
Later, while Jones was in custody in the Sampson sheriff’s office, Godwin asked him to acknowledge having been read his Miranda rights, the suit said. Jones misspelled his name on the form and did not know how to write the date.
Once Jones was charged, the Sessoms family expressed doubt investigators had caught the right suspect.
“He didn’t weigh 80 pounds soaking wet,” Cathy Starke, Sessoms’ grandmother, told The N&O in 2017. “McKenzie was bigger than he was.”
Further, the suit said, the sheriff and investigators held a press conference after Jones was arrested, announcing they had linked him to Sessoms through DNA evidence. This evidence did not exist at the time, the suit said, and when DNA results were received, they not only cleared Jones but pointed to unspecified members of her father’s family.
The lawsuit, filed by Fayetteville attorney Patrick Anstead, seeks unspecified damages.
This story was originally published January 2, 2024 at 3:50 PM.