This narrative describes information brought forth from supporters of the “Michael Chapel is Innocent Project.” No one from the prosecution or investigative process has reached out or responded to offer their story, but they are encouraged to contact me and share their version of events.
Chapel supporters cite several omissions and missteps on the part of the prosecutors and investigators. If accurate, the examples they cite certainly call the integrity of the verdict against Chapel into question.
Gwinnett County Police Department calls its officers through a dispatch center. All communications are recorded and can be a valuable tool in establishing whereabouts and timelines. In the Thompson murder case, suspect Michael Chapel received two calls in the middle of the estimated time of the crime. Investigators or prosecutors mysteriously lost the tape of those calls. The recordings were found in the DA’s files around 2010 when an amateur investigator, Pamela Holcombe, was allowed to examine the evidence files.
Employees at the American Inn in Buford found a pistol near the dumpster. Registration records showed that an early suspect in the investigation had stayed there near the time of the crime. The gun was the same caliber as the murder weapon and showed having two shots fired, the same number of gunshots at the murder scene. When the Inn called the police to report finding the gun, officers showed up, took it into their custody, then wiped it clean in the presence of hotel employees. GCPD left the premises with the pistol. GCPD later destroyed the weapon without proper ballistics testing in defiance of department policy.
Soon after his arrest, prosecutors began referring to Chapel as a steroid abuser, probably to fit the public image of that contributing to being a person prone to rage, also working Chapel into a profile matching a notorious gang of criminal killer cops. After his arrest, Chapel did receive blood tests and tested negative for steroids, blockers, any steroid-related substance, or illegal drugs and was cleared by a joint-FBI task force of any involvement with the killer cops.
Being in financial difficulty was the motivation given by the prosecution for Chapel supposedly committing the murder. However, a Gwinnett County Police financial audit showed zero change in Chapel’s spending after the crime versus before. In other words, no additional expenditures. Prosecutors never shared that report with the jury in Chapel’s trial.
When Officer J.P. Morgan committed suicide just days after Chapel’s arrest, all of the top leadership of GCPD was on the scene, including the Chief of Police. These top officers allowed former Gwinnett officer Bodie Hurst to enter the crime scene. Hurst had been fired early in the year for stealing $10,000 from an evidence room. He was given access to Morgan’s computer. This desktop allegedly contained Morgan’s case files, which could have been incriminating evidence against Morgan and several other officers, as well as his suicide note. Instead of this evidence being recovered for investigative use, Hurst erased the content of the drives.
A warrant was about to be issued for the arrest of an individual for the Thompson murder. The DA and the GCPD had each been operating independent investigations. When the District Attorney’s Lead Investigator, Dave Baker, called Lt. John Latty to advise him of the impending arrest, the District Attorney, Danny Porter, was summoned to Police Headquarters on Hi-Hope Road in Lawrenceville. Soon after that meeting, Authorities dropped the warrant against the initial suspect, and Chapel became the only focus.
Fingerprints (latent) were discovered on the dash of the victim’s car. Police determined that they were likely from a child or small adult. They were never run against any database and were destroyed.
The blood spatters found on Thompson’s rain slicker were never tested for DNA, even though it was supposedly Mrs. Thompson’s blood. Porter reasoned that he wanted to save the county the $900 cost. This stands out in a trial where the prosecution spent almost a half-million dollars in investigation and prosecution costs.
The blood that belonged to Emogene Thompson found on the armrest of Chapel’s police car was supposedly transferred from her purse when he threw it into his front passenger seat after the murder. Mrs. Thompson’s property was grid searched after her murder, and searchers found no bag. Years later, it was turned into police by an individual who discovered it on her former property. Gwinnett County had it tested in the crime lab but found no prints or blood traces.
The prosecution focused intently on Chapel never filing a report about his initial visit with Mrs. Thompson. The investigators were aware that Chapel had reported the visit to his supervisor immediately after it occurred on April 3, 1993. Another allegation was that Chapel was stalking Mrs. Thompson by visiting her home. There was a further attempt to establish this stalking narrative when a polaroid picture anonymously showed up at GCPD headquarters. The polaroid was taken on April 4, 1993, around 3 PM and showed Officer Chapel’s Patrol Car in front of Mrs. Thompson’s home on Craig Drive.
This narrative also fell apart when investigators located a note that Chapel’s supervisor passed along to him from the Day Sergeant, Winderweedle, asking Chapel to follow up with Mrs. Thompson, per her request, received around noon on April 4, 1993. Chapel’s defense team learned the photographer’s identity and named him a defense witness for the upcoming trial. Before the trial began, he was the suspect in a hostage situation near Lilburn handled by Sergeant Steve Cline and the GCPD SWAT. Although the alleged hostage left the premises unharmed on her own volition, the twenty-five SWAT members “rushed in to save” the hostage taker after setting off a flash-bang grenade. Sergeant Cline reported to the AJC that the hostage-taker (defense witness) was deceased from a self-inflicted shotgun blast. No witness or officer at the scene reported hearing the shot.
GCPD or the prosecutor’s office “lost,” suppressed, discarded, and even destroyed numerous pieces of critical evidence in this case, and as reported in chapter one of this series. According to the Lead Investigator’s handwritten notes, a plan to manufacture evidence against Chapel appears to have existed.
There are a couple of facts that readers should know about this case. First, an alternate juror, who did not vote in the verdict, Phillip Sullivan, felt very strongly that the case against Chapel was “flimsy and circumstantial.” He felt so passionately about his position that he dedicated the rest of his life to professing Chapel’s innocence and working to overturn the conviction.
Danny Porter was the Gwinnett County District Attorney who prosecuted Chapel. First elected to office in 1992, his bid for re-election to an eighth term in 2020 was unsuccessful, losing to Patsy Austin-Gatson. One of Austin-Gatson’s first actions in her new position was establishing a Conviction Integrity Unit to examine convictions under Porter’s administration.
I had attempted to contact Johnny Moore, the attorney that represented Chapel in his trial, through a mutual friend. Sadly, Moore, who had retired to Florida, had passed away just days before.
In the next chapter, we’ll detail the questions that Chapel’s supporters say were left unanswered in this case.
Chapter Three; Alibi and Timeline
Chapter Two; The Prosecution’s Evidence
Chapter One; The Witnesses
