50 years ago – February 3, 1976: Dessie Woods, Cheryl Todd convicted in killing, robbery case

Dublin Courier-Herald

     By Doug Hall

Dessie Woods was found guilty this morning of voluntary manslaughter and armed robbery by Pulaski County Superior Court Jury.

Cheryl Todd was found guilty of  theft by taking, but innocent of voluntary manslaughter.

Appeals are planned for both defendants.

As the verdict was read. Mrs. Woods jumped from her chair and ran to the jury box 20 feet away. Pointing her finger at the jury, she lashed out, “You let them trick you to send us to prison for something we didn’t do. You stinking devils – you devils.”

As she was dragged from the courtroom by bailiffs, she angrily threatened the judge, “We are going to get you, you old stinky bulldog mouth.”

Later she said, “You know we didn’t kill nobody. We never received no justice.”

Mrs. Todd broke into tears, but made no remarks.

Her attorneys pointed to Mrs. Woods’ behavior and asked for a mistrial on the basis that her outburst extremely prejudiced Mrs. Todd in whatever legal  proceedings may come later.

The judge denied the mistrial motion for the present time, but said he would give the motion additional consideration later in a more detached atmosphere.

Ronnie Horne’s widow sat quietly and unemotionally as the verdicts were read. She would make no comment on the convictions of the women who were accused of the death of her husband last June 16.

Sentencing has not been set.

The sentences will be handed down later by the judge. A sentencing hearing was set for February 12.

The armed robbery charge could carry a maximum life sentence. The manslaughter charge carries a 20 year maximum, and the maximum sentence for theft by taking is 10 years. 

Mrs. Woods was released in the custody of her attorneys until sentencing is set.

Mrs. Todd was also released on bond.

The two women were charged with murder and robbery but the jury found Mrs. Woods guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter which indicates a lack of malice and forethought, but suggests that the crime was committed as a result of sudden and serious passion.

This morning the jury was instructed by the judge that it could reach a verdict on one or more of the charges against the two women and not on other charges.

Defense attorneys objected to the judge’s additional charges, saying it could be “misconstrued” as urging them to reach a verdict and that it was “totally prejudicial” to the defendants. However,the judge went ahead with the charge. 

Prior to resuming their deliberations, the jury again heard Mrs. Todd’s statement, which was taped on the day she was arrested.

Friday before she said the jury was firmly deadlocked, Jury forelady Gail S. Nelson asked Judge James B. O’Commor should the jury find a defendant guilty if they felt she was an “accessory.”

Her inquiry generally, seen as an indication that the jury was heading toward conviction, caused defendant Cheryl Todd to break into tears, and defendant Dessie Woods to become visibly shaken also. 

Since they retired to consider the fate of the two Atlanta women, the jury has appeared emotionally moved by their burden. The eyes of four women jurors were watery as the jury left the Pulaski County Courts House Saturday night at 8:30 without a decision.

Mrs. Nelson, a teacher at Hawkinsville’s private Baker Academy, was on the brink of tears when she told the judge. her voice trembling, “we cannot reach a decision. We don’t feel like more time will help.”

But the judge, above objections of the defense attorneys, refused to grant a mistrial, and sent the jury back to Stuckey’s Carriage Inn in Eastman to spend the remainder of the weekend before returning  this morning.

Mrs. Todd’s attorney, Millard Farmer, called further jury attempts to wrestle a decision a “badgering and compromise of a true verdict.”

The prosecution disagreed. District attorney Phil West reasoned that after as lengthy and physically demanding trial as this one, the jury should have  more time.

The judge did not elaborate in deciding to order the jury to deliberate longer.

Under a blanket of bailiffs and policemen, the jury was taken to their Eastman motel. No one was allowed to leave the courtroom until the jury was driven away from the courthouse. Sixteen state troopers and sheriff deputies were in he courtroom when the jury was carried away.

Before they left, the jury spent five and a half hours in the tiny jury room discussing each of                                                                                                                                               the charges against Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Woods.

In his charge to the jury, Judge O’Connor said that they could return guilty verdicts for murder or the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter and robbery, or the lesser offense of larceny.

Or the jury could find the women innocent of any or all charges, the judge explained.

During the deliberations, the jury asked to hear Mrs. Todd’s two-hour testimony from Friday. In the courtroom with attorneys, the judge and spectators present, the official court room tape recording of the testimony was re-played.                                             In closing arguments on Saturday morning, the district attorney asked the jury to consider the “improbabilities” in the defense case.

Splattered blood on Ronnie Horne’s arm, Dr. Larry Howard of the State Crime Lab, testified, indicated that the man’s arm was parallel “in a position relative to driving,” not out-stretched as in a struggle when he was shot.

Mrs. Woods had testified that she stopped the rolling car after shooting Horne, so West said that the “man was only slowing down to let the women out, not stopping to rape and shoot them when he was shot.

“If he were a “hit man,” why didn’t he kill them, the first time they were together down the first dark, desolate road? West asked.

“Consider getting a pistol that close to a grown man’s face (three inches) without his knocking it away.”

The pistol holster was found wedged between the front seat, not “flung away as if the crime had been committed on a sudden struggle,” the district attorney said.

Then West suggested that robbery was the motive. “If you had just shot a man who was trying to rape you and kill you, would you then go through his pockets and look for money?”

And, if they intended to notify authorities in  Atlanta, why did they throw away Horne’s wallet which contained his identification, West asked.

Defense Attorney Mary Johnson for Mrs. Todd, said the issue was fear.

Ronnie Horne had been drinking liquor, she said, “He had a car, and gun, and friend with whom he kept in contact on a Citizens Band Radio. The roads were dark, and he was talking rape and sex,” she said.

“What more do you have to fear?” she asked the jury.

She said she too, as a woman, would be afraid if “I were in a car with a man who had a gun, who had been drinking, and he was saying to me he wanted to go in the woods and have sex.”

Farmer called the case one of “great philosophical issues” and differences.

He said by defending Mrs. Todd that he has learned what it is like to be black and female in America.

He said, “It was close as to whom came out of the car.”

And he suggested that Horne’s drinking was the reason Dessie Woods and Cheryl Todd are alive.

“Thank the Lord for liquor. She’s here today because that man’s abilities were impaired.”

Mrs. Woods’ attorney, Randy Bacote, said that Horne and his boss, Royce Yawn, were planning a “rendezvous to carry on with the women.

“That’s why Horne took the ‘wrong road’ that night, Bacote said. The road he took did not lead to Atlanta, but did lead toward Yawn’s hometown, Hazelhurst, the attorney said.

Bacote said that the jury should consider the “consistencies” in the women’s accounts of the night.

From the first person they met, they told what happened,” he said. “Does that sound like a criminal?”

He suggested that the state did not call possible witnesses because they had a weak case.

EAST DUBLIN COUNCIL HEARS CITIZENS

A crowd, variously estimated at 100 to 200 people sent a joint meeting of the East Dublin City Council and citizens into the fire truck area last night. The meeting culminated with a petition presented to the Mayor and Council by Willie Clements, signed, as he stated, by one-half of the voters in East Dublin.

The petition asked the Mayor and Council to return a pickup truck recently bought, rescind the garbage fee ordinance passed at the last meeting, reduce firemen’s pay to the original  amount, and reduce city spending.

During the more than two hour meeting in the cold of a Friday night, citizens voiced their objections to a number of things in addition to the four asked in the petition. Among the things cited by various citizens, that often brought laughter to the crowd as well as applause, were what was the need for the pickup truck, use of septic tanks at rental hoses n the city, failure o processes to stop usage of condemned houses, outhouses, need for traffic lights, marking city vehicles, and zoning. 

Mayor E.A. Page had the meeting opened with prayer by former Councilman John Shepherd and then outlined the grants the city had applied for, for paving, recreation, etc., all not to cost the taxpayers anything. He outlined the efforts that had been made to effect savings in the city’s operations and said he had hoped to balance the city’s budget by July if no raises were given. 

He stated that the garbage fee came too soon. With raises, he insisted, additional funds had to be secured because more raises would have to follow. He compared salaries, according to a survey he said had been made, for firemen in other cities, saying that the East Dublin pay was among the highest.

He did say, after the meeting, that the firemen were not to blame for any of the controversy. They refused to take over the janitor’s tasks at the City Hall, he explained, and they refused the additional pay that was authorized. One of the firemen stated that they were in no way involved in the controversy and did not like the criticism that had been erroneously directed at them.

Mayor Page told the group that he had endorsed his first city check as Mayor back to the city. “I ran to serve people of East Dublin,” he said, “not for money.”

After he answered a number of questions, he turned the microphone over to Councilman Kenny Martin, who challenged the firemen salary information that had been presented, and pointed out the time the East Dublin Firemen were on duty.

Councilman Jack Barwick explained that taxes had been raised from 6 to 8 mills, and bond payments for the city’s sewer and water system took all the funds. “We had to have garbage fee to operate the city,” he said, adding he saw no way around garbage fees. He said that the Mayor had used them to get the garbage fee ordinance and added that the Mayor knows the city had to have them. Barwick painted a rather gloomy picture of the city’s finances ahead.

Some asked if the garbage fees would be increased in the months ahead. Councilman Don Bradshaw, who was one of two who opposed the garbage fee ordinance, said that with business license increases he was hoping there would be no need for garbage fees – and I still feel that way” he added.

Councilman Jimmy Davis said they have to pay water and sewer bonds and may not have enough money to pay them. He even suggested that increases on the city’s obligations might be necessary to keep up the payments on the city’s obligations. 

In presenting the petition, Clements had said that the citizens felt that the city had acted hastily and that people of the city needed explanations of what and why of the city’s need for more revenue.

There was no lack of questions thrown at the Mayor and Council last night, but many voiced their idea that their questions had not been answered. Obviously they had expected immediate action that would undo the actions of the last two council meetings and cause the specter of garbage fees and additional city taxes to fade away.

Councilman Jack Tanner, who attended the meeting last night and was the second one to vote against the garbage fee proposal, did not have anything to say publicly at the meeting.

While the crowd was very vocal in objections of what the city had done, the meeting was very orderly and for the most part was conducted in the best Roberts’ Rules of Parliamentary Procedure.