[B]URLINGTON — Two suspects pleaded not guilty Thursday to second degree murder charges in the shooting death of a 23-year-old man in Burlington’s Old North End earlier this month.
Police say Johnny Ford, 32, shot and killed Benzel Hampton, 23, on North Willard Street April 16. Brandon Sanders, 18, is also being charged with second degree murder for assaulting Hampton as Ford allegedly shot him.
Sanders and Ford were arrested in Enfield, Connecticut, the day after the shooting.
Two other suspects are also facing second degree murder charges. James Felix, 36, is still being treated at the University of Vermont Medical Center and Lesine Woodson, 32, was charged with second degree murder for driving the men away from the murder scene.
The second degree murder charges carry a penalty of life in prison, with a presumptive minimum of 20 years in prison. Woodson plead not guilty last week, and Felix is expected to be arraigned tomorrow.
Sanders and Ford appeared via video before Judge Nancy Waples Thursday. Both were represented by public defenders, and are being held without bail, pending a bail hearing.
Sanders’ attorney, Robert Backus, challenged the findings of probable cause, arguing that the affidavit did not prove the Brandon Sanders being arraigned was the Brandon Sanders involved in the murder. He cited an incorrect birthdate for Sanders — which prosecutor Justin Jiron said was a typo — and statements from Woodson that her cousin had fled to Florida.
Jiron said that Woodson had not been truthful to investigators during the investigation, and Waples found probable cause.
Hampton’s girlfriend, Chelsey Russell, witnessed the shooting, according to the affidavit in the case. She told police that Hampton had received a threatening phone call between 7 and 7:30 the morning of the shooting from a voice he did not recognize.
“The person who called threatened Benzel that they would shoot him today,” the affidavit states. “Benzel passed it off as a joke.”
Russell drove Hampton to Jonette Somers’ house on North Willard Street that morning, which is where the shooting took place.
Russell, who knew Woodson, said that she saw Woodson’s nephew Brandon slam Hampton into the ground as a man she did not know who was wearing a tan coat began shooting at Hampton. She said that the man pointed the gun at her, so she put her car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.
Russell said that she saw Woodson standing in the road and yelling “He’s done, he’s done, stop, stop!”
“Chelsea (sic) said she fled in her car because she was afraid to get shot,” the affidavit states.
Woodson and Hampton had been threatening each other for a few months, Russell told police. She had never seen the man in the tan coat but described him to police.
Woodson told police that she had a fight with Felix, her romantic interest, and had been looking for him in Burlington when she happened to find him bleeding as he had apparently been shot.
After the shooting, Woodson drove toward the UVM Medical Center and flagged down an ambulance on Colchester Avenue, near the hospital. Sanders and Ford had left the scene by the time police arrived and later left the state.
Woodson claimed not to know Ford’s and Sanders’ names. She said Sanders was her cousin but that he had returned to Florida.
Police viewed video footage taken by a neighbor after the shooting occurred. The video showed two men helping a wounded man toward the car Woodson allegedly drove, including a man in a tan jacket holding a gun.
Police spoke to the owner of that car, Mandy Bushey, who said two men approached her car, one of whom she knew as “Sonny.”
“Bushey stated that she knew the two males from their association with a group out of Florida who sold ‘crack’ cocaine and heroin in the Chittenden County, VT area,” the affidavit states. “She advised that she had previously purchased ‘crack’ cocaine multiple times from this group.”
She said that man she didn’t know got into her car between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. and asked if they could borrow her car to give “Aunty” a ride to the hospital. She gave two men she knew as “Mike” and “Sonny” her car between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Bushey identified a photograph of Felix and said it was the man she knew as “Mike” and identified a photograph of Sanders as the man who originally got into her car earlier that day and had asked to borrow it.
“She again stated she did not know any name for Sanders, but stated she was 100% it was the male who she had seen walking with ‘Sonny’ earlier in the day,” according to the affidavit.
In Bushey’s car, police found a receipt from the Hannaford grocery store on North Avenue in Burlington from April 15 and a plane ticket in Felix’s name from an April 6 flight from Orlando to Burlington.
Surveillance footage from Hannaford’s shows Sanders and Felix together making a purchase, and video footage from the airport showed Felix getting off the plane wearing a large coat that appeared to be the same one from the witness’ video following the shooting.
Surveillance footage from the airport showed Felix getting into a car that was registered to Angelina Fitzpatrick-Pearson of Burlington. Police also believe that Woodson was trying to call Fitzpatrick-Pearson from memory after she was booked, as she dialed numbers similar to Fitzpatrick-Pearson’s.
Police could not locate Fitzpatrick-Pearson at her apartment on LaFountain Street in Burlington.
“There was enough concern for her safety based on her associations with the suspects that a ping request was made for her phone number,” the affidavit states. “The phone pings eventually led to the location of the van at a Motel 6 … in Enfield, Connecticut.”
Ford was arrested by a Connecticut SWAT team at a motel, where Enfield police found 100 grams of crack cocaine and $16,000 in cash. Sanders was arrested on Interstate 91 in Connecticut after authorities in Massachusetts spotted the vehicle he was driving.
Bushey was shown a photograph of Ford and identified him as “Sonny.”
Police say Fitzpatrick-Pearson and Takesha Thomas traveled with Ford and Sanders to Connecticut. Both were charged with being accessories after the murder, and faced up to seven years in prison or a fine of $1,000.
A witness who asked police to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation said that Ford and Sanders changed their clothes at Fitzpatrick-Pearson’s apartment, and that Fitzpatrick-Pearson and Thomas took a garbage bag of their clothes to dispose of.
Thomas told police that she and Fitzpatrick-Pearson had placed the bag in a dumpster behind a grocery store at a plaza, but that she did not know the area and could not say where they went. She drove with police to grocery stores throughout the region for two hours but did not identify a location.
“Takesha said she was just asked to take out the trash but she did not know what was in it,” the affidavit states. “Takesha acted like it was normal to drive the trash away. Her only explanation was that there was a lot of trash in the house.”
Thomas accepted a plea deal for an 11- to 12-month sentence on charges of providing false information to investigators, on the condition she testifies in the cases of the other individuals involved.
Fitzpatrick-Pearson’s bail was set at $10,000.
