Grand jury considers murder charges against 4 Morrisville defendants

A Wake County grand jury convened Tuesday to determine if there is enough probable cause to hand up indictments charging three teens and a 20-year-old with felony murder of a 16-year-old in what police described as a drug deal gone bad late last month.

A defense attorney for one of the defendants said he expected the grand jury to take up the case on Wednesday, but Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the closed door session was held on Tuesday.

Afterward the grand jury handed up indictments accusing the four of murder.

Two of the defendants, Jourdan Chanquion Mack and Beth Marie Strange, could be put to death or spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole if they are convicted of the first-degree murder of Katherine “Katie” Burdick-Crow.

But the death penalty is not an option for their co-defendants, Joshua Odell Simmons and Abijah James Masse, both 17. If convicted of felony murder, they could be eligible for parole after 25 years behind bars. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional for those under the age of 18, said Jamie Markham, a legal expert with the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government.

“A 20-year-old could get life in prison without the possibility of parole or potentially the death penalty,” Markham said Tuesday. “So could an 18-year-old.”

Mack, 20, graduated from Green Hope High School in 2014. Strange, 18, graduated from Panther Creek High School in June.

Masse and Simmons are rising seniors at Green Hope and Panther Creek, respectively.

The Wake County District Attorney’s Office charged all four with felony murder in the death of Burdick-Crow, a student at Green Hope High School.

In a search warrant, police said Burdick-Crow had “significant injuries to her head” after she was robbed of marijuana she was trying to sell the others and fell from a Ford F-150 truck that Simmons drove with the other defendants inside. Police say the transaction was to take place in Walnut Street Park shortly after 9 p.m. on Friday, June 26.

Wake District Attorney Freeman said her office opted to charge each of the defendants with murder because there was the “commission of a violent crime that led to the victim’s death,” in this case robbery.

The search warrant does not indicate any violence taking place when Burdick-Crow was robbed of the “quarter bag of weed,” as one attorney involved with the case described it. But as he drove off, Simmons admitted to investigators that he “punched Burdick-Crow in the face and head with a closed fist two (2) or three (3) times until she fell from the moving 2003 truck,” the warrant says.

Using violence to retain stolen property is the same under North Carolina law as using violence or intimidation to obtain it in the first place, said Jessica Smith, the W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government.

“If I point a gun in someone’s face, that’s violence or intimidation,” Smith said. “But it’s also robbery if I am picking someone’s pocket and they notice me doing it, struggle with me and I punch them in the face. That counts for robbery.”

N.C. Central University Law Professor and defense attorney Irving Joyner of Durham agreed.

“Under North Carolina law, robbery is considered a continuous action until it ends,” he said. “The fact that the girl ran to the truck does not alter the fact that it is a robbery.”

Joyner said it’s not unusual for prosecutors to charge someone with murder when a death occurs during the commission of another felony, like a robbery.

“In fact, it’s used more often than not,” he said. “It relieves the prosecutor of having to establish intent to kill by anyone... The prosecutor has a bonus, in effect.”

Joyner thinks Freeman, the Wake district attorney, could have opted for “more appropriate charges.”

“It’s a very sad situation, all the way around,” Joyner said. “From the girl’s death to the charges the four young people are facing. I think she is using a sledgehammer when a belt would be more appropriate, like involuntary manslaughter.”

This story was originally published July 7, 2015 at 8:22 PM with the headline "Grand jury considers murder charges against 4 Morrisville defendants."