In 1993, fifty-three-year-old Emogene Thompson was found dead in Buford, GA. Evidence at the scene immediately showed that she had been murdered. A Gwinnett County Police officer, Michael Chapel, who had worked with her on a theft case, was accused of the crime, and the trial made headlines, locally and nationally. Now, a new podcast from the producers of the popular In the Red Clay and Fox Hunter takes a look at the case in a multi-part series, which is scheduled to be released this summer.
Chapel was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to two life terms. Media coverage of the case continued after the jury’s verdict. An alternate juror in the trial felt the evidence did not support the conviction and made proving Chapel’s innocence his life’s work. In the late 1990s, the case was featured on Dateline NBC, 20/20, Court TV, and other crime-oriented shows.
While there has always been a loyal group that believed Chapel to be innocent, the case eventually faded from the limelight. Then, a new book, released in 2021 by author Henry Ball brought fresh attention to the case. A career executive in the construction industry, Ball knew the Chapel family from a childhood connection with Chapel’s wife, Eren. Ball had begun writing some years back, writing trade articles and a column for a publication covering his beloved LSU Tigers that has grown to one of the largest of its type in the world. He published his first book, Sister of Sorrows, in 2020.
Ball’s deep dive into the Chapel case began around 2008 when he was channel surfing and ran across a forensics television episode analyzing the Chapel case. Having originally accepted the narrative of the state’s version of events and Chapel’s guilt, his connection to the family piqued his curiosity and he watched the entire program. At the conclusion, he felt he saw holes in the prosecution’s theory of the crime.
He began to look further into the case, but his investigation was interrupted by the details of day-to-day life and relocations for work, so it somewhat stalled in its tracks.
In 2020, having moved back to the Atlanta area, Henry took an interest in the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s race. Danny Porter, the seven-term District Attorney who prosecuted Chapel, lost to Patsy Austin-Gatson. In an exit interview with WSB Radio, shortly after his defeat, Porter claimed that the Chapel case was a career-defining case of which he was most proud.
Henry decided that day to renew his investigation in earnest and tell Chapel’s story. He soon found many like-thinking supporters, which led to the formation of the Mike Chapel is Innocent Project. Ball’s book, entitled “Mike Chapel; Why a Decorated Veteran and Former Police Officer Remains in Prison Decades After A Crime he Did Not Commit,” was released in 2021.
The publicity from the book’s release and several awareness rallies shined a bright light on the case. All the new buzz caught the attention of podcast producers Imperative Entertainment and Sean Kipe, who were responsible for the hit podcasts “In the Red Clay,” about the Dixie Mafia, and Fox Hunter, which delves into a three-decades-old unsolved murder. They decided to develop a new podcast series on the Chapel case called “In the Land of Lies.”
Kipe says, “Anytime someone tells you they have proof that a convicted murderer is, in fact, innocent, your interest is piqued. I wanted to know why, over the last several decades, numerous people with no relation or ties to the Chapel family have made it their mission to prove that. That’s where my curiosity started, and it grew into a podcast from there. As someone looking at this story with a completely unbiased perspective, I do have a lot of questions.”
The Mike Chapel is Innocent Project calls much of the case’s evidence into question. While they feel the entirety of the evidence concludes that the perpetrator was someone other than Chapel, they make four primary points to argue Chapel’s innocence.
One of the main items in evidence that they feel could exonerate Chapel is the rain jacket that the prosecution alleges he was wearing at the time of the shooting. It was determined by a state’s expert witness to have high-velocity blood spatter from the victim, Emogene Thompson, that was detectable, yet the garment was never submitted for DNA testing.
Chapel’s alibi and his whereabouts at the time of the shooting are also facts that they call into dispute. Chapel supporters claim that a Gwinnett County Police dispatcher tape proved Chapel to be at a nearby fire station at 9:56 PM. They say that witness statements from firefighters on duty further collaborate this claim. From there, witnesses place him at the gym he owned just a few minutes past 10 PM, then dispatch shows him arrived to respond to a dispatch call at 10:11 PM. They assert that his presence at these locations precludes the possibility of him being at the crime scene at the time of the murder.
Another significant component of the argument against Chapel’s guilt involves a pistol found shortly after the murder. It matched the caliber that ballistics had determined for the murder weapon and had evidence of two shots fired, the same as at the murder scene. Employees discovered it at a hotel where the victim’s son had stayed not long after the crime, and he had initially been considered a person of interest.
Chapel supporters claim there were parallel investigations with the D.A.’s office and the Gwinnett County Police. The D.A. was preparing to arrest another suspect when the Police investigation shifted toward Chapel. Supporters cite a document from the D.A.’s lead investigator detailing the evidence that tied this individual to the crime. In a 2021 interview with this writer, the D.A. at the time, Danny Porter, denied the dual investigations and the potential arrest of another suspect.
With Mike’s application for parole recently being denied, supporters hope that his story can get in front of the right people holding the appropriate offices. They feel a review of their case will lead to a new trial for Mike, and all of the evidence that they think exonerates him will have a chance to be seen.
Former D.A. Danny Porter, in multiple interviews about the Chapel case, has steadfastly stood by the evidence, his prosecution of the case, and Chapel’s conviction.
