In bungled murder case, settlement outpaces criminal courts

Buncombe County officials have agreed to an undisclosed cash payout to two men who remain guilty in a 15-year-old botched murder case, and are in settlement negotiations with a third defendant.

The county has reached a tentative settlement with Damian Mills and Teddy Isbell Sr. and is negotiating with Larry Williams Jr., Buncombe County attorney Curt Euler said Wednesday.

Mills, Isbell and Williams were among five men who had pleaded guilty in the murder of Walter Bowman, a Fairview man who was shot to death in his home by masked intruders in 2000.

The deals with Mills and Isbell, however, are unusual in that those men have not been cleared of their criminal charges. Legally, they remain guilty of Bowman's murder, though they have appealed to a Superior Court judge to overturn their convictions.

The other two defendants, Robert Wilcoxson and Kenneth Kagonyera, received 15-year sentences, but were exonerated by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission after spending 11 years behind bars.

Earlier this month, the county settled the civil federal lawsuit brought by Wilcoxson for an undisclosed sum, and had earlier agreed to pay Kagonyera $515,000 for his wrongful conviction.

Mills, Isbell and Williams have not filed federal lawsuits, and unlike Wilcoxson and Kagonyera have not had their criminal convictions overturned.

But the county opted to move forward with civil settlement negotiations ahead of any determination by the criminal courts based on the similarity of the cases, Euler said.

"To ignore and settle with some plaintiffs and not settle with others is sending a mixed message when the facts of these cases are similar, if not identical, to those of the Wilcoxson and the Kagonyera cases," Euler said.

Mills, Isbell and Williams are appealing to a Superior Court judge, asking that he find they are not culpable for Bowman's murder, through motions for appropriate relief. Those motions are used to ask the court to correct potential errors made in criminal proceedings.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday morning.

DNA evidence — which the Innocence Commission found was never handed over to defense attorneys — was critical in overturning their convictions of Kagonyera and Wilcoxson. While the panel did not exonerate Mills, Isbell and Williams, that body did publicly name another group of men it believed were responsible for Bowman's death.

Isbell, now 49, served about six years after pleading guilty to robbery with a dangerous weapon. Mills, 35, and Williams, 31, were both convicted of second-degree murder and served about 10 years each.

The men have said in court filings that they offered false confessions and agreed to plea deals for a variety of reasons, including fear of long prison sentences amid a faulty Buncombe County Sheriff's Office investigation under then-Sheriff Bobby Medford.

Williams, who was only 16 when he was arrested, said he confessed to a crime he did not commit because he feared Medford and other law officers.

The Bowman case was initially prosecuted under former District Attorney Ron Moore, and shortly before Moore left office, his staff continued to argue in court filings that the convictions were merited, despite the DNA evidence that the Innocence Commission determined implicated other suspects.

Moore's successor, Todd Williams, has declined to discuss his theory of the case, saying that his office was conducting a full review of the matter.

"The district attorney has no duty or obligation pertaining to any civil litigation pending in the court system," Williams wrote in an email. "As such we are not a party to any civil litigation and it would not be appropriate for us to have substantive conversations about these matters with county attorneys."

Euler said he had spoken briefly with Williams about the cases, but did not know how the prosecutor intended to respond to the pending motions for appropriate relief.

The settlement amounts are expected to be made public early next month, after they are approved by county commissioners.

Mills' attorney, Frank Goldsmith, declined to comment on the pending settlement in his client's case, but said he is doing well.

"Damian is working steadily at his job," Goldsmith wrote in an email. "He has been continuously employed since shortly after his release. He is enjoying his freedom and the ability to live with his family, including a very cute little daughter upon whom he dotes."