Denard Sha Manns was the 422nd person executed by Texas since 1976. In 1998, he raped, murdered, and robbed a female neighbor in Killeen. Manns, an African-American, was born in New York City on December 22, 1965. While not much is known about his early years, he had an extensive criminal record in the Big Apple, including theft, armed robbery, and disorderly conduct. Manns had a reputation for robbing people on the New York subways during the era when the city was plagued by out-of-control crime. In 1992, he was charged with 15 counts of robberies committed in the Bronx, admitted to ten of then, and ultimately pled guilty to two. In between his criminal activities, Manns had legitimate jobs as a hairdresser and a mural painter.
All in all, Manns's rap sheet included disorderly conduct, attempted criminal mischief, criminal mischief, petty larcency, possessing a controlled substance, vehicle theft, robbery, and armed robbery. He had served a previous two year prison sentence in 1988-89 during which time he racked up 17 disciplinary infractions. Manns served his second sentence for six years and accumulated 15 disciplinary infractions. He was paroled in 1998 and moved to Killeen, Texas where his cousin Eric Williams and half-brother Bamberg Manns lived in an apartment. Michelle Robson, their neighbor, was a 26 year old Iowa native and was employed as an Army medic at Fort Hood with the 21st Combat Support Hospital.On November 18, 1998, Robson was home alone as her husband Clayton Wellenstein was visiting family in New York for the Thanksgiving weekend. They had only been married eight months. The next morning the apartment maintenance man entered to find her dead in the bathtub, clad in nothing but a brassiere. Robson had died of five .22 caliber gunshot wounds to the head and chest and her credit cards, money, and car were stolen. The apartment had no signs of forced entry so she appeared to have let the killer inside willingly.
A short time later, Eric Williams, who owned a .22 pistol, found a bullet on the floor in front of his dresser. He asked Bamberg what was up with that, but he had no idea how it got there. Manns then came back and said he'd been over at Michelle Robson's apartment. After Williams heard that the victim had been killed with a .22 weapon, he immediately went to police.As it turned out, connecting Manns to the murder was not hard as he had made absolutely no effort to clean up the crime scene and left a mountain of physical evidence behind. Robson's brassiere had his semen on it and one of the five bullets retrieved from her body was matched through ballistics testing to his gun--the others were deformed from impact and could not be positively matched, but were all of the same caliber. Manns and Williams's fingerprints were found on the gun, although not Bamberg's. On the 19th, Manns went to the residence of a female acquaintance named Barbara Feazell and left a jacket behind, which she later gave to police. In one pocket was a cigarette butt with saliva matching Manns's DNA. A friend of Robson's said that it was her jacket. Also when he was at Feazell's apartment, he dropped a couple of rings out his pants pocket. Feazell gave one to police and it was linked to Robson via a department store receipt found in her apartment.
Manns was arrested on December 8 and charged with first degree murder with a deadly weapon, rape, robbery, and larceny. Booked into the Bell County Jail, he made a confession of sorts to fellow inmate Richard Broome, who was known as a "jailhouse lawyer" who assisted other inmates with legal details (Broome had convictions for car theft and drug possession--he was currently in jail for parole violation). Manns told Broome that the police had a gun with his prints on it and that it was a .22. He added that they had the gun that had killed a woman but couldn't prove it because the bullets would be deformed on impact with bone. The news media had not publicly stated the type of gun used in the crime. Later Manns showed Broome a letter from Bamberg and said "This is the man that handed me to them on a silver platter after I shot the woman."He was not formally indicted for over a year. Manns then pled not guilty in January 2000, but it took him two more years to finally go to trial. The trial, in February 2002, only lasted four days before a jury found him guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to death. Manns maintained his innocence and insisted his half-brother did the crime. While in jail awaiting trial, he attempted to punch a guard who was searching inmates for contraband. The guard moved to block his punch after which Manns threatened to kill him and other staff at the jail. He was also written up for keeping a shank under his mattress.
Manns filed his first appeal in May 2003. The state court of criminal appeals took seven months to hear the appeal and rejected it. He appealed to the Federal courts and was also rejected. The Supreme Court then ruled in Baze v. Kentucky that lethal injection did not violate the 8th Amendment and refused to hear Manns's case. He was executed on time on November 13, 2008, still maintaining his innocence. As a final statement, Manns said "From Allah he came and from Allah he shall return."
>>18480784>>18480791Thank you, OP. This is a crime story we can really dig. (^:
>>18480827^This.
