Chapter Six-The Mike Chapel Interview-Part Two

This six-part series 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. I would also like an opportunity to speak with anyone who served on the Chapel jury.

The following are the actual verbatim questions and answers with Mike Chapel. Please see the other chapters in this series for more information. Links to the other chapters are found below the interview text.

Have you taken a polygraph in this case, and, if so, what were the results? If not, why have you not and would you agree to take one now?

I have not taken a polygraph in this case at all. At the onset, when I was first arrested, I screamed for one, and was told by my then attorney Walt Britt, that Porter was bad mouthing me, saying that “Of course I wanted a polygraph test because I knew how to beat one.”, which is fundamentally not true, because I had never beat one. I was told by Britt that this was in the media that the attorney was trashing me. I never took one at the onset and it wasn’t until the late 90’s that the lawyer, Mott, came to me and said that Fox TV wanted to give me a polygraph test, and I agreed to it. I was told eventually, when they worked through the, getting OK for it, I was told it wasn’t gonna be able to be done. I would later learn that, in a legal sense, polygraphs are not allowed, because if they allow one person to take a polygraph test, everybody that’s ever been arrested and in prison would scream for a polygraph test. Lawyers don’t do it, they just don’t do it, even today. If it was possible to take one, I would. If they can figure out a way to do it, I will, but it’s gonna take somebody smarter than me to figure out how to make these people do it

What do you think the defense could have presented that would have changed the verdict in your case, and why was it not presented?

Let’s start with the statements of the next-door neighbor, Amy Parker, and her boyfriend, then-boyfriend, Keith Seay. Their conflict of testimony of who was where and when, and when Mike Thompson left them, totally was contrary to. Ike Thompson’s statement, where he was, turned on whet the state’s window of the killing was. That was never presented. That could have been crucial. Dennis Shelton, the first suspect, Porter’s suspect, the ones he sought affidavits for arrest on the 21^st of April, he was never presented in trial, to answer where he was during the time, even though he was admitted by Thompson of being present when they stole some of her money. Sherry King, Sheldon’s girlfriend, gave a statement to police just hours after the body was found, her statement was contrary to Shelton’s statement about his whereabouts. All those witnesses right there could have been presented in trial. The firemen on the scene, I guess they could have been presented. I understand that they had some good information about when Thompson arrived at the scene, unsummoned by the police. If we had presented Amy Parker at trial, there’s so much she could have answered to. Like, you know, her boyfriend said she went next door to use the phone, but the phone records show that no calls came from that house. But yet he says she walked out of the trailer with him.

The spare unit. Why it disappeared a month after the murder. Police don’t lose police cars, especially one from a scene.

Reviewing the evidence that was available only at trial, that was not presented by defense. Another one was I wish we had hammered home about the property sheets. There was something fundamentally wrong with the way they were handled, the evidence form the victim’s vehicle was handled, and that was, we had those property sheets where the items were listed in detail, minute detail, like one piece of tissue, one piece of white paper, etc. You got none of the control signatures and times at the bottom, were filled out properly on any page, six pages, except for one page. That one page would be the items from the front passenger seat area. At the time, it was odd that this was the only one that seemed to be filled out correctly. It seemed then that the signatures, at the bottom, that were spread over a two-and-a-half-year period were suspect, because you can tell, obviously, that Jack Burnette, had signed these things, these entries that were supposed to be spread out over two and a half years, he’s signed them all at one time. In fact, a handwriting expert said as much, looked at it and said they was signed by Jack Burnette, using the same pen with the same pressure, yet they were supposed to be entries, like I said, for over two and a half years. We now know why but then we questioned why, we could have presented that, that would have been real ugly.

But, again, staying with what we had to work with at trial, another one, exhibits 17 and 18,le the false presentation of the photographs of the victim’s vehicle, when ADA Smeal presented the photographs of the car, car door, he said they were the driver’s side door. 17 and 18. Remember, these were the state’s photographs, and they were presenting them to the court, the clerk and everybody, the jury and everybody, defense. If you look at them today there’s just, looks to me, what the experts call cast off, minor cast off drops of blood. Not spray, but cast off, like it just, somebody just turned suddenly, or flopped, and it flew. Now, he’s presenting these photographs to be the driver’s side door, because that’s what they say, exterior shooter, they needed blood on that driver’s side door. Somebody would be standing outside to shoot and have what they call blow back. Defense made a grave error, the state made an even bigger error, the court made a great error, because nobody caught that 17 and 18 were actually photographs of the passenger door, not the driver’s door, because the driver’s door are pristine, there’s no blood whatsoever seen on the door or the window. Remember, the window was a quarter of the way up. No blood seen whatsoever. Now, whether he did it on purpose, or mistake, it was a huge error. The defense didn’t catch it. The only person who caught it was a female juror, who as Smeal walked by, showing the photographs, she said, in a soft voice, “passenger side” door. Such that it was related as a question mark in the transcript. The judge interjected, said Mr. Smeal, you’re just posting the photographs, meaning just showing the jury. That was it. There was no correction. There was no nothing.

That was a big mistake by everybody, especially the defense for not catching that. Had they caught that, it would have made state look totally foolish, and the jury would have questioned even more. I think that was the reason why Porter had their ballistics expert go back and remark that raincoat, after that mistake. They caught that mistake later on. I’m speculating here, I don’t have any proof. I’m speculating they caught that mistake. Somebody showed them, we screwed up. They can’t come back and say we made a mistake. Remember, this is being televised nationally. They would look stupid, very stupid. What he did is, he went back and had his firearm’s expert remark that coat. This time he put three hundred little arrows and stuff to create a scenario. Of course, we cried foul to that but the judge allowed it. All that came because of exhibit 17 and 18. That was a big time defense mistake, by not jumping all over that.

Witnesses not called. I wish we had called a man, Parker and his girlfriend that was at the gym that night at ten o’clock when I came by, to pick up the day’s receipts. That was a mistake, not putting him on the stand and her on the stand, saying yeah, this is what happened. He came by as he did every night at ten o’clock, picked up the night’s receipts. He was there only seconds and left. That would have put my position, more than we know now. The firemen testified then that I was with them up until ten o’clock. Why the defense couldn’t jump all over Porter, manipulating the time was a loss to me.

Marcos, the one who found what I believe to be the murder weapon at the American Inn motel. The maintenance man found the same caliber, same make, same two rounds fired out of it, three rounds intact. The maintenance man realized it was possibly involved in this case, and the two other employees there, they should have been brought in. They should have told what happened and what they found, especially when we know for a fact that weapon was destroyed twelve days later, by an unknown entity, inside GCPD, absolutely contrary to both state and federal law. That was a huge mistake.

What do you think happened at Gwinnco Muffler on the night of April 15, 1993, and why did it happen? Who was involved that was there, and who was involved that wasn’t at the scene? Why there?

Again, I’ve gotta give you my disclaimer. My investigation didn’t begin in earnest until a week after when I was arrested, and by that time I was a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed caca. At the time, up until my arrest, what I was hearing and what I was seeing, the 16^th of April, when I came into work, I came in early because Sgt. Stone came to the gym where Reddy and I were. He was the one that told us about the body being found on Peachtree Industrial. He gave me the name and I told him then that’s related to the case a couple of weeks ago that I told him, that he knew about. It was decided that I should go tell somebody.

I went and told, I went to headquarters and gave a report to Jack Burnette. That same day, that night, it’s common, when you have a major case on a thoroughfare like that, we do what they call a roadblock at the same time, to try and catch people that often drive through there regularly and see if they know something. We were told at roll call that, if you’re not busy, all hands report over there and assist with the roadblock investigation. This is the limit of my real investigation with that.

I went to the roadblock as told to, Sgt. Stone and I, and commenced to questioning people they were stopping. I remember myself, I sent four witnesses over there to detectives. What’s odd is one person didn’t show up to that investigation and Stone got kinda perturbed, because he wasn’t doing anything, he just refused to come. I’ve always wondered why he didn’t want to come. That would be Brian Reddy. He never came to the crime scene. I never got an answer on that. Of course, I never got a lot of answers from him anyway and probably never will. On that night, the 15th, remember, I’m with Reddy, I’m with Stone, and I’m with the firemen. What’s going on over there, I can only speculate, somebody was definitely seen in a patrol unit, somebody was definitely seen in a law enforcement vehicle. The only two options that I see, that were common to that area, one was our spare unit, which I believe was there, and one was the Sugar Hill Marshall’s car, which was there. Both of them were boxy style, white. Ours had a big yellow stripe, his did not. But, that was one of his favorite haunts, where he sat, where he liked to watch traffic and run radar. His usual habit was to work PM shift with us. So he was out there. One thing I have a question, on that same night, before we went to the fire station, we got an alarm call, at his office, in Sugar Hill, just before we went to the fire station. I remember telling radio, where’s the Marshall at, that’s his office. He’s supposed to be out and about. They said they couldn’t raise him. Me and Gene Knight, we go over there and respond to the alarm. It’s just the weather shaking the windows and doors, there’s nothing to it. Then we parted ways. He went his way and I went to the fire station, Main Street, and met with the other guys. The Marshall would show up the next morning, before GCPD, at the crime scene. That’s another question I have. What was he doing at work so early when he usually worked PM. I never got an answer to that. I think he was at least seen at that scene sometime during that night by one of the witnesses.

Remember, I’m basing everything on what I experienced up until my arrest, so everything I’m telling you is what I know happened. I am Reddy’s alibi, and Stone’s alibi. Stone’s and my alibi is the firemen, Reddy is the only one who said I was never at the fire station with Stone the firemen. To this day, we don’t know the reason he lied then and is lying now. In the face of the truth from so many people. At ten o’clock, when I left, Stone was sitting at the fire station and Reddy was sitting at the fire station, with us, so they could not have been the vehicles seen at the scene prior. We had been there almost an hour and a half. What happened there, looking at the evidence I see now, I think that the Ronald Flashner witness statement, he should have testified, because he says he saw a car, backed up to the victim’s car, trunk to trunk, and lots of smoke and people around the car. We now know Mike Thompson’s vehicle had a blown head gasket and was smoking badly. Phone records show him calling around to auto parts and junkyards trying to find parts to repair it in the weeks before the murder, the phone records that were destroyed by Porter.

That makes me think you’re looking at a body placement. Trunk to trunk. That would explain the strange running bloodlines, on the victim that go against gravity, in the photograph. They seem to run uphill, away from the wounds, but they are dried. Also, the fact that a condition called lividity, where blood pools in the body, you can tell the position they was in when a person died, lividity was left off the autopsy report. I’m speculating here that the lividity, had it been noticed or if was deliberately left off, would show that she was lying on one of her sides, in a position that the blood ran down and dried. She was taken out of the trunk of a car and place in the car at the scene.

An investigative group from Ohio believed that Mrs. Thompson was bludgeoned to death. I can’t tell from the photo. The problem is the Medical Examiner was Dr. Frist, and we learned that he was under such, duplicity by the crimes he was committing. He was under probation from the state coroner’s office for lying on autopsy reports. The Crider case, a lawsuit where he testified by his assistant to be willing to say anything the police needed to be said, just to cover their bad shoot. It’s hard to get the truth out of there.

What is the one thing that you wish the public knew about this case that they currently don’t?

The truth, mainly. This is bigger. The true victim, of course, is Mrs. Thompson. She was the ultimate victim. There’s so many victims in this case, all the families, my family, even Morgan’s family. He was taken from his family as well. This case has reached out and touched so many people, in so many ways, and not all of them good. But people need to remember if this was done this easily to me, what has already been done to others and will be in the future. There’s got to be an accounting for this kind of behavior. We don’t know how many, I know of a handful, but I know there’s more, of how many cases Daniel J. Porter, has crucified at all cost. That’s the accounting. That’s what people are gonna have to find out. Not just what’s happened to me, but what’s happened to everybody, and what could happen.

As this story develops further, I will provide updates.

The Michael Chapel is Innocent Project is holding an online rally on Saturday, October 23rd at 4 PM. Click here for the Facebook page with more information.

Links to the other chapters.

Chapter Six-The Mike Chapel Interview-Part One

Chapter Five; Questions That Need to Be Answered

Chapter Four; Questionable Acts by Investigators and Prosecutors

Chapter Three; Alibi and Timeline

Chapter Two; The Prosecution’s Evidence

Chapter One; The Witnesses