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Detroit Police Department via AP
This photo provided by the Detroit Police Department via the Detroit News shows James Brown, who authorities say killed four women in December 2011.
Phone records emerged Monday as key evidence in a murder case against a suburban man charged with killing four suspected escorts and hiding their bodies in car trunks in Detroit last year, events that reinforced the city's unflattering image as a dumping ground for victims.
James Brown, 24, was charged with first-degree murder Monday, six months after he was arrested on lesser charges. The women were killed in pairs last December after visiting Brown's Macomb County home, and their bodies were stashed that way, too, police said.
Chikita Madison, whose daughter Renisha Landers, 23, was a victim, said she fought back tears during a brief court hearing in Sterling Heights, a Detroit suburb.
"Our daughters are in heaven," Madison said outside of court. "We'll see them when it's our time."
The bodies of Landers and Demesha Hunt, 24, were found Dec. 19. Six days later, on Christmas, police found the bodies of two other women in their 20s, Natasha Curtis and Vernithea McCrary, in the trunk of a burning car.
Brown said little in court and let his attorney enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Minutes earlier, attorney Jeff Cojocar told reporters that his client maintains his innocence "100 percent."
At least three of the four victims promoted themselves as escorts-for-hire on Backpage.com, which carries classified and personal ads. Investigators believe that's how Brown made contact with them. Phone records show the victims' last calls were transmitted through wireless towers near Brown's home in Sterling Heights, police Det. Mary Whiting told a judge.
Brown has been in custody since May on charges of mutilation of a dead body and arson in connection to the bodies found in cars. Prosecutors didn't charge him with murder at the time but said he was the chief suspect.
Cojocar suggested Brown may have incriminated himself during a 3½-hour recorded interview with Detroit police, and said he would try to get the statements suppressed.
"There are some things that are not favorable that we'll need to attack," Cojocar said.
4 women found dead in car trunks; Detroit police tie 3 to escort services
Detroit police led the investigation for months until determining the women were killed elsewhere. Then-Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. said he was angered that the city's dark, desolate neighborhoods were becoming a place to drop bodies.
Detroit police turned evidence over to Sterling Heights, including an interview with Brown.
The causes of death still are listed as unknown by the Wayne County medical examiner, said Sterling Heights Lt. Kevin Reese.
Before the court hearing, prosecutors met privately with victims' relatives in a small room.
"The parents and relatives of these women have suffered so greatly. We will work to bring closure to these grieving families," Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said in a statement.
Hunt's mother, Denise Reid, said she didn't know anything about her daughter's connection to Backpage.com.
"I'm hearing it like you are," she said. "It's not important to me. It's not relevant. It still doesn't justify taking my daughter's life."
David Runk / AP file
Clayton Carter, owner of Can You Picture This, holds a T-shirt made in memory of Demesha Hunt, 24, left, and Renisha Landers, 23, right, on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, in Detroit.
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Leave a Comment:
What did they keep that picture folded up in someones back pocket? I want to know more about the body charges
This poster angelica is an advertising scam. Don't patronize. Report to site administrator.
King:
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Do not give out your secret. You are on way to be the richest man in USA.
Keep quiet and do your thang.
May be poster guy and criminal are one and the same guy
Look at the picture. Now wonder he's f**ded up. No body would date him. He could at least wash his hair.
Absolutely a sick degenerate if this is the suspect. But we really shouldn't be shocked at all. Tomorrow, god forbid, they will discover more monsters running around that are even sicker than this one. I read an article that stated, within the United States, they're an estimated 4500 serial killers out there. That is an awful lot a psychos running lose. If you're gonna date someone, make sure he/she is someone you feel safe to be alone with. Stop the stranger dating and never let them know where you live.
What really sucks is the parets finding out this way (national news) that their daughters were hookers. How humiliating for them.
WorkerBee,
I think that they are more concerned about losing their daughters than the prostitution thing.
If he's guilty, he either should get death, or be locked away for life. I dont know if Michigan has the death penalty.
Women don't place dating ads on the Backpage - they place escort ads. Just another cyber stalker case that is becoming all too common. Sickos everywhere...
Actually the article reads "Dating service ads", I'm pretty sure everyone knows the difference.
@ WilliamOfRites - When you think about it, a date between acquaintances isn't really a "service", but emulating such an event might often be considered such.
good money being a hooker they say but it also comes with possible violence...all involved blacks so no need for jesse and al to show up..they just don't care
and your piont is?.................
@ Mike-679507 - In female terms, perhaps being a hooker is similar to being a Blue Angel or a stunt man.
@Mike679507 -- Phucked up people come in all colors! (I.e., Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Eileen Wournos, the Colombine shooters, the Aurora shooter, the Phoenix shooter, the Temple shooter, Jerry Sandusky, Bernie Madoff.)
You forgot the Craig's List Killer!
Same exact type of crimes, and the dude was a white college boy!!!!
He didnt say all murderers are black, just that Jesse and Al only come out if its a white on black murder. If its blacks killing other blacks, happens way more often, they are silent on the matter. He's simply pointing out that they just want to use race to make money.
When they closed down the Craigslist escort ads they just moved over.
You have to address the money/client.
As long as there's money there will be a market.
Hey, Just legalize prostitution. Open up red light districts
We are nation of sluts any way. There are very few who have had sex only with one person unless one is too young or just one of those who never have sex throught life.
Face the truth. If we cannot fight it at least make it safer and practical
We're a nation of greedy violent people as well. So I guess we should legalize that as well.
There's a fine example of a false equivalency. By the way greed has always been legal.
Both greed and violence are legal. You can invest as much money as you want, and UFC is quite legal. Two adults choosing to engage in sex for money should be no one's business but theirs. Same as two men (or two women) can choose to fight in the UFC, or Boxing, or any other fight legally.
That is some potpurri of names there.God rest em
Can anyone answer me why we are keeping an ANIMAL, (this alleged person is not human), like this alive????
Wizard:
Because there are few millions little more and little less like him.
At any time we have two million in prison (highet per captial in the world..talk abotu human rights) and we may have as many as 10-20 millions with prison record and several times more than that with crime record.
Um... because he has not been proved guilty yet. He maintains his innocence as the article states. We live in a civil society. If they do find him guilty, then he will serve his punishment.
And no matter how you may judge this man from a photo, he is a human and he does deserve a fair trial.
Because we like our animals behind zoo cages..................Just saying.
Due process.
You Taliban?
libs.............
Its called a fair trial. You know, that little thing that makes it so our government cant just throw anyone in jail... oops.
this guy is sick. He should not be allowed to see the light of day
So Vicki are you sentencing him in the comfort or your chair because he is black or because he is a male? The man has not been to court on the charges, but yet you are condemning him to a life of imprisonment. What if it was actually a white make who has done this? Oh just to let you know, I am so white I have to tan to be considered albino.
FYI.Update on a saying.My version-"opinions are like a**holes,everybody elses stink"
WeAllHaveOpinions
Before you go crying racism, take a second and realize you were the first one to bring up race here.
@Anthony, exactly, well put. Just love how the liberal/left inject racism into every possible scenario. There are people out there who, quite literally, believe having a disagreement with someone of a different race (meaning a light skin person disagreeing with a dark skin person, it's never the other way around) makes them a racist. The idiocy is mind-numbing.
Liberals are mind numbing.
I knew someone would have to comment on the names of the dead women. Like it matters at all.
Oh, I forgot: to stinking racists, any difference spells "subhuman."
Just so you know, not everyone who disagrees with a "person of color" is a racist. Yes, I did notice and did laugh at those names....because they are meaningless, made up gobbley gook that sounds "ethnic". In my family, and most that I know, names mean something. Either handed down from generations as an honor to dearly departed or they have genuine meanings. Names are important, and it isn't a coincidence (least not to me) that crimes such as these happen to people who have no sense of self-importance because they were never raised with any.
heyba youba get offa ma cloudba
Welcome to D'troit. At least it's not LaTroit. But it might as well be Mogadishu North.
Real unusual for a black person to do this kind of crime. Usually its reserved for whitey.
I submit his close set eyes are the key to knowing all about him. You have to watch those people with close set eyes.
is that an eastern or western? i cant tell the height from the mugshot. usually westerns are smaller.
He looks like one of those voo doo carribean negroes
or "if a had a son"..........
"He had previously been charged with disinterment and mutilation of a dead body and arson, but not murder."
Seriously... How the f*ck is this guy not already locked up.. The mutilatating of a dead body should be a pretty good indication that a guy needs to be put in a cage at the very least...
detriot.....go figure
oh and BTW .....Welcome to lib-land
I just thought-he might've had a perfectly good explanation for those bodies.
agreed ... no money? what ya mean no money...i show ya no money.....
MIKE-679507, why do you find it necessary to bring race into this matter? The issue is about females who were killed because they were the targets of a serial killer. Everything is not about race and the only reason that Rev. Al or Rev. Jackson would get involved is if the police were deliberately not investigating the case. They step in because of perceived injustices or because of racial profiling not only to get media attention. There is strength in numbers and sometimes, addressing the media and getting the citizens involved to pressure law enforcement is the only way to get justice in this country.
Detroit...nuff said,
yes we can, yes we can. yes we can.
Again, embarrassing for the parents to find out this way that their daughters were hookers.
Demesha, Renisha. James Brown. "I feel good dah dah dah dah, and I kill in the hood. Ha!