COUPLE WHO ADOPTED 12 CHILDREN SLAIN

[Bailey]

Suspect Thornton details carnage that took place inside house

Kris Wernowsky • kwernowsky@pnj.com • October 21, 2009

Five days after Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot to death inside their Beulah home, Frederick Lee Thornton Jr. described to investigators a robbery that went horribly awry.

Thornton, 19, of Fort Walton Beach told officers that the ringleader, Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., said the Billingses' home contained a safe with $13 million in it.

For participating in the lucrative snatch-and-grab, Thornton's payday would be $100,000.

Thornton wanted that money for his family, he told investigators. He was a low-level player, he insisted.

The murders, he said, were unexpected.

"I know I'm going down for it, but I don't want to go down for something I didn't know that he was going to do," Thornton said in the hour-long interview on July 14.

"I didn't know that they were going to shoot him. I thought he was going to get the money and that was it."

The State Attorney's Office released 36 compact discs of evidence this week. The interview with Thornton is contained on one of the CDs.

In volumes of investigative paperwork, Gonzalez Jr. is described by friends and relatives as a teller of tall tales.

But Thornton believed Gonzalez Jr. when he claimed that the safe contained $13 million in cash.

In reality, it contained less than $200,000. And, as it turned out, the robbers grabbed a second safe that didn't contain any money at all.

Thornton is one of seven people charged with first-degree murder in the Billinges' deaths. Five are accused of entering the house while two stayed outside.

The state is seeking the death penalty against four of the five who went in, including Thornton. The fifth is a teenager, Rakeem Florence, who is ineligible for the death penalty because he is a minor.

Gonzalez Jr., 35, of Gulf Breeze was the sole shooter, according to several participants, including his co-defendant and father, Leonard Gonzalez Sr., 56, and co-defendants Wayne Coldiron, 41, and Thornton.

Gonzalez Jr. recruited several participants from a Fort Walton Beach car detailing shop called Fifth Dimension. Thornton got involved because he lived across the street from the shop.

(2 of 2)

'The whole truth' Thornton came to the July 14 interview with a different version of the story, something he and Florence concocted.

He first told homicide investigators Lee Tyree and Rusty Hoard that he and Florence waited in the van while the other men entered the house to buy marijuana.

But Tyree told Thornton that the Billingses' extensive security surveillance system captured him on video. The security system was installed to help track the couple's nine adopted children, most of them severely disabled.

"We see you on the video so we know that you didn't shoot those people," Tyree told Thornton. "Don't come halfway. If you're going to tell us the truth, let's tell the whole truth."

But Thornton was reluctant.

He told investigators that Gonzalez Jr. said after the shootings that, if anyone said anything about what happened, "he was going to kill us and our family."

In his own interviews with deputies, Gonzalez Jr. claimed that the slaying had been murder-for-hire with connections to the Mexican mafia.

Tyree sought to set Thornton at ease by calling those claims nothing but talk.

"I know he's told you this big old line of story about how they're going to come after you and your family and all of this," Tyree said., "Let me tell you, I don't believe it for a minute that he's connected like he's saying he's connected."

Gonzalez Jr. implicated

Thornton then opened up.

He described the rehearsal of the robbery inside Gonzalez Sr.'s trailer in the 300 block of Palm Court.

He described the surveillance photographs Gonzalez Jr. took of the Billingses' home.

He described entering the left-most door to the sprawling home and what happened inside.

Thornton said he saw Gonzalez Jr. fire a gunshot into the floor near a startled Byrd Billings.

The shot startled Thornton, too. He'd never heard a gun fired before.

Amid the commotion, Thornton returned to the van driven by Gonzalez Sr. to retrieve a camouflage bag meant to bring the money from the house to the van.

When he returned to the house, Thornton stumbled across Byrd Billings' body in the entrance of the couple's master bedroom.

He peered down the hallway and saw Gonzalez Jr. fire a 9mm pistol again.

The shot killed Melanie, investigators said.

"We realized we got ourselves into something we didn't want to be in," Thornton said.

As the interview concluded, Hoard asked Thornton one more question: "Don't you feel better that you talked about this?"

Thornton paused.

"I haven't been able to sleep. Period," he said.

"You just got messed up into something that's bigger than you and bigger than me," Hoard said.


http://www.pnj.com/article/20091021/NEWS01/910210338

[Bailey]

Kris Wernowsky • kwernowsky@pnj.com • November 13, 2009

All James Maulden wanted was his motorcycle and a divorce.

He got both.

A deputy led Maulden’s estranged wife, Pamela Long Wiggins, into the courtroom this morning. Dressed in a lime-green jumpsuit issued to her at the Escambia County Jail, Long Wiggins appeared unaffected when a judge granted her a divorce from one of her two husbands during a hearing at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building.

Long Wiggins, 47, is one of eight people arrested in connection with the July 9 murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings in their Beulah home. She and Maulden married in May 2007 in Baldwin County, Ala. The couple separated in October of that same year.

As is the standard procedure in a divorce proceeding, Maulden’s attorney Edward Seitz asked his client if his marriage was “irretrievably broken.”

“Oh, yes,” said the 57-year-old Bay Minette, Ala., man.

Long Wiggins only answered a few simple, routine questions Allen asked.

In addition to her charge of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, a charge that carries a potential 30-year prison sentence, Long Wiggins faces a single count of bigamy. If convicted, the third-degree felony carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

She married Hugh Wiggins on Dec. 31, 2008, in Okaloosa County. He became a key witness in the early part of the investigation into the Billings killings. Authorities say Wiggins helped his wife take guns linked to the shootings to Mississippi, but he has not been charged with a crime to date. The State Attorney’s Office gave him limited immunity for his statements.

Wiggins and her attorney Bruce Miller are scheduled to appear at a pretrial conference Dec. 4 before Circuit Judge John Brown in Okaloosa County. The bigamy charges originated from Okaloosa County; that is where Hugh and Pam Wiggins filed a marriage certificate with the Clerk of Courts office.


http://www.pnj.com/article/20091113/NEWS01/91113005

Related
http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DP&Dato=20091113&Kategori=BILLINGSCAS E&Lopenr=911130802&Ref=PH
Long Wiggins Divorce

[Bailey]

Children mark first Christmas without parents

Travis Griggs • tgriggs@pnj.com • December 23, 2009

A framed copy of a newspaper story dated Christmas Day, 2005, hangs on the wall near the kitchen inside the Billings' Beulah house.

The front page photo depicts a grinning family sprawled across the house's playroom floor. In the middle, surrounded by a swarm of smiling kids, Byrd and Melanie Billings beam with pride.

It is a snapshot of a life many people didn't understand. A life with a dozen adopted children, many with special needs. A life of challenges, to be sure, but also happiness.

A life that on July 9, tragically was cut short.

Related

* Billings Children
http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DP&Dato=20091222&Kategori=NEWS01&Lope nr=912220802&Ref=PH&Profile=1006

"Christmas was my mom's favorite holiday," said Ashley Markham, 27, as she sat at the kitchen table in her parents' Beulah home Monday.

Her mom loved to shop, she said, and relished in the annual opportunity to shower the kids with gifts.

It's a role that, this year, Markham is doing her best to fill.

In the living room, a dozen stockings hang from the mantel over the fireplace. A Christmas tree draped with flashy decorations towers overhead. The house is light and cheery, and, for the moment, surprisingly quiet. The dull drone of cartoons on the living room TV is the only noise. Sunlight pours in through broad picture windows, illuminating walls covered with wedding portraits and framed photos of happy family memories.

Moving forward

There's no sense that something terrible happened here.

"On the normal day, it's more of a distant memory," Ashley said.

(2 of 3)

Always the kids.

The grisly details of what happened to Byrd and Melanie Billings in their home on July 9 played out in the national news. Five masked men wielding guns burst through the doors as some of the children slept upstairs. In the chaos that followed, Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot and killed.

The attackers escaped with a safe that contained only heirloom jewelry, children's medication and family paperwork — not the stack of cash law enforcement investigators say they were seeking.

Eight people have since been arrested in connection with the crime. Seven face charges of first-degree murder.

The following months have passed in a blur, Ashley said. Meetings with lawyers. Talks with investigators. News conferences. Courtrooms. And the kids.

It hasn't left anyone in the family with much time to think about what happened.

"In quiet times, I think about it more," she said.

She pauses, lost for a second in thought. But the moment doesn't last long.

n a flash, a swarm of kids, dogs and commotion arrives, flooding the room with chatter about toys, adventures and a newly built fort in the woods behind the house.

Ashley smiles.

"Normally it's pretty calm. They're really good kids. They're very well-mannered," she said. "They talk a lot, but what kids don't?"

Daily routine helps

At first, the kids stayed in the couple's home in Perdido and with family friends. But after a few days, the kids wanted to go home.

Ashley said she and Blue had no real choice but to go along for the ride.

"I've heard people say, 'How can they stay in the house?' But where else are we going to go?" Ashley said. "It's not every house that can be a home for nine kids."

The upside is that life for the kids has stayed, more or less, the same.

There are still birthday parties, bedtimes and the 5 a.m. chaos of getting nine kids dressed and out the door in time to catch the school bus.

"I've got it mastered to where I can get it down to an hour," Ashley said. "No one can do it as good as my mother, but I'm going to give it a shot."

The kids still talk about the "bad men" every once in a while, she said.

The four youngest kids, ages 4 to 7, don't really understand what happened. The five most severely disabled children may never fully understand.

But the older kids, ages 8 to 11, live normal lives. They know what happened. They know their mom and dad are dead. But why?

It's a question even the adults struggle to answer.

"How do you explain death to a child when you don't really understand it yourself?" Ashley said. "I know there's a heaven. I know everything happens for a reason. ... I don't know how to explain it to them."

(3 of 3)

The future

As months have passed, the questions have tapered off. For the most part, the kids are doing well — in some ways, they're doing better than Ashley.

"I think if I didn't have them, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed for three months," she said.

Ashley said the family was also aided by an outpouring of support from the community in the weeks after the murders.

As the story made national news, they received a wave of donations from people across the country, which have been used to establish a trust fund for the children.

"It was really an overwhelming thing to see," Ashley said.

Friends and families have stepped up, donating their time and providing emotional support.

"We really want to thank everyone in the community who has done so much for us. With the support we have, and the friends and family we have, I know it'll be OK."

The couple are trying to decide the best option to care for the children in the future. They have met with family counselors and experts, but for the moment, it's difficult to find time to think much past Christmas.

After a time of relative quiet in the house on Monday, Adrianna, 11, the oldest of the kids, began doing the holiday math in her head.

After a moment, she proclaimed "We've got three days left!"

Ashley thought about it for a second, then said "No, we've got four."

Adrianna groaned as her expression drooped.

But her disappointment didn't last long. About that time, Blue returned home from work and was greeted by an eruption of cheers, hugs and high fives.

That's how things are in the Billings home.

The chaos has a way of forcing things forward, drowning out thoughts that would otherwise linger on the bad.

For a second, everything feels OK. And in that second, everything is.

In the weeks after the attacks, Ashley and her husband, Blue Markham, scrambled to take over care of nine children who lived in Byrd and Melanie's house.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20091223/...mily-moving-on

[Bailey]

Travis Griggs • tgriggs@pnj.com • January 27, 2010

Frederick Thornton Jr., 19, one of seven people charged with first-degree murder in the death of Byrd and Melanie Billings, is expected to enter a plea Thursday morning in circuit court.

State Attorney Bill Eddins announced Wednesday that Circuit Judge Nick Geeker had scheduled a 9:30 a.m. hearing Thursday with Thornton. Eddins declined to make specific comments on the case, but said Thornton may enter a plea during the hearing.

The Billingses were killed July 9 in their Beulah home during a home invasion and robbery. Five people reportedly rushed into the couple’s home and took a safe as two other men waited in separate getaway vehicles.

Six men and a teenager are charged with first-degree murder in the the couple’s deaths. An eighth person — a woman — is charged as an accessory after the fact.

So far, none of the people charged in the case have entered pleas.

Robert Beasley,the Billings family’s attorney, said the hearing is most likely the result of a deal Thornton had made with prosecutors.

“Clearly, the prosecution believes that Thornton has something to offer that will help them convict the others,” Beasley said. “If the prosecution has made a deal with Thornton so they can firm up their case with (Gonzalez Jr.), then we can’t second guess their strategy.”

Five days after the murders, Thornton, of Fort Walton Beach, told investigators that Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., 35, the accused ringleader, recruited him for the attacks, and described the murders as a robbery gone awry.

Gonzalez Jr. said the Billings home contained a safe with $13 million in it, and he promised Thornton a $100,000 cut if he participated, Thornton told investigators.

Thornton said Gonzalez Jr. was the only shooter in the attacks.

“I know I’m going down for it, but I don’t want to go down for something I didn’t know that he was going to do,” Thornton said in the hour-long interview on July 14.

“I didn’t know that they were going to shoot him. I thought he was going to get the money and that was it,” Thornton said.

The State Attorney’s Office previously announced it was seeking the death penalty against the four men accused of entering the family’s home.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100127/NEWS01/100127023

[Bailey]

Thornton could agree to testify

Travis Griggs • tgriggs@pnj.com • January 28, 2010




One of seven people charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the death of Byrd and Melanie Billings pleaded no contest this morning to second-degree murder.

Frederick Thornton Jr., 19, entered the plea before Circuit Judge Nick Geeker.

He was initially charged with two counts of premeditated first-degree murder.

State Attorney Bill Eddins said prosecutors accepted the no-contest plea to the lesser charge of second-degree murder after Thornton agreed to testify against the other defendants in the case.

“It allows me to have a person who’s been honest, that was in the house with them, that knows what happened in the house, to explain it,” Eddins said.

Six men and a teenager are charged with first-degree murder in the Billingses’ deaths. An eighth person — a woman — is charged as an accessory after the fact.

Eddins said prosecutors are no longer seeking the death penalty against Thornton, but the 19-year-old Fort Walton Beach man still faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

The Billingses were killed July 9 in their Beulah home, authorities say, when four men, including Thornton, and a teenage boy invaded their home and stole a safe.
Two suspects waited outside in getaway vehicles.

The state is still seeking the death penalty against three of the men they say entered the home.

Eddins said prosecutors met with the Billingses’ daughter, Ashley Markham, and her family to discuss the case before going forward with the plea agreement.

“We met with the family, we laid out the overall circumstances involving the case ... and we explained our rationale,” Eddins said. “And they were in agreement with it. I, in all probability, would not have taken this position without agreement from the family.”

Attorney Robert Beasley, the Billings’ family attorney, said it was difficult for the family to see the potential punishment reduced for one of the suspects, but they understand the prosecution’s position.

“I think our perception is that these people are guilty and they should all pay, but the prosecution feels that obviously this is an issue of strategy,” Beasley said.

Five days after the murders, Thornton, a Fort Walton Beach resident, told investigators that Patrick Gonzalez Jr., 35, recruited him for the attacks. Thornton described the murders as a robbery gone awry.

Gonzalez Jr. said the Billings home contained a safe with $13 million in it, and promised Thornton a $100,000 cut if he participated, Thornton told investigators.
Thornton said Gonzalez Jr. was the only shooter in the attacks.

“I know I’m going down for it, but I don’t want to go down for something I didn’t know that he was going to do,” Thornton said in the hour-long interview on July 14.

“I didn’t know that they were going to shoot him. I thought he was going to get the
money and that was it.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100128/...ads-no-contest