Wells v. Lumpkin
| Docket Number | Civil Action 4:21-CV-01384-O |
| Decision Date | 02 November 2023 |
| Parties | AMOS J. WELLS III, Petitioner, v. BOBBY LUMPKIN, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Before the Court are Petitioner Amos J. Wells III's Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF No. 58), filed March 20, 2023; Petitioner Amos J. Wells III's Motion to Stay Proceedings (ECF No. 60), filed March 20, 2023; Respondent Bobby Lumpkin's Answer to the Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF No. 69), filed July 19, 2023 Respondent Bobby Lumpkin's Opposition to the Motion to Stay Proceedings (ECF No. 70), filed July 19, 2023 Petitioner Amos J. Wells III's Reply in Support of the Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF Nos. 80, 81) filed September 18, 2023; and Petitioner Amos J. Wells III's Reply in Support of the Motion to Stay Proceedings (ECF No. 79), filed September 18, 2023.
For the reasons set forth herein, the Court DENIES the Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, the Motion to Stay Proceedings, and the Certificate of Appealability.
On July 1, 2013, Petitioner became infuriated at Chanice Reed, his eight-month-pregnant girlfriend, for not answering his calls. So, Petitioner drove to Chanice's Fort Worth home where she resided with her grandmother, mother, and two younger brothers. When Petitioner arrived at the Reed household, Chanice was home with Annette Reed, her mother, and E.M., her ten-year-old little brother. K.S., Chanice's seventeen-year-old brother, was not at home at the time. However, while on the phone with his mother to seek her permission to go swimming, K.S. overheard Chanice and Petitioner verbally quarreling. Specifically, K.S. overheard Chanice utter: “Stop, Amos, you're scaring me.” K.S. was also able to hear Annette raising her voice at Petitioner before hanging up on the mother-and-son phone call.
Not long afterward, Annette placed a phone call asking Joylene Parsons, her aunt, to come over to the Reed home. According to Parsons, Annette sounded extraordinarily troubled. Parsons also described overhearing a man unleashing a “bone-chilling scream” at the top of his lungs in the background of the call. After hearing Annette say, “You not going in there,” Parsons asked who else was at the Reed home. Annette replied with “Chanice's boyfriend.” Parsons understood that Annette was referring to Petitioner. Annette subsequently stated that “[Chanice] got to be the stupidest bitch to open the door to let that fool in,” and to “Come on, come on.” Parsons immediately called nearby family members and 9-1-1 for help. While the 9-1-1 operator was in the middle of asking questions, Annette reported “He's going to his truck,” before her line on the call suddenly went dead.
A bystander was working on a driveway down the street from the Reed household. He heard the commotion and watched as a man and a woman argued loudly in the Reed's front yard. The bystander testified that the argument began to escalate in intensity. He saw the man retrieve a handgun from a Chevrolet Tahoe parked in front of the Reed home, return back to the front yard, and proceed to aim and fire the handgun directly at the woman multiple times from point-blank range as she cried out in desperation: “No, no, no.” According to the bystander, another woman approached, urgently attempting to deflect or disarm the man of his handgun. Without hesitation, the man proceeded to aim and fire the handgun directly at the second woman multiple times from point-blank range as well. Hearing the blaze of yet even more gunshots, the bystander remained hidden by his house until the perpetrator drove off in the Tahoe. He subsequently went into the Reed home and observed a woman, later identified as Chanice, lying outside the front door with her eyes open. Chanice was profusely bleeding and completely unresponsive.
First responders arrived within minutes of the first 9-1-1 report of the shootings. They discovered that Chanice with four gunshots to her pregnant body. One round pierced her skull right in between her eyes and cut its way through the right side of her brain. A second round punctured her lower chest. A third round burst into Chanice's pregnancy-stretched left abdomen, inflicting irreversible damage by tearing through her lungs, stomach, aorta, and thoracic spine. The fourth round penetrated Chanice's back through her left side, ripping open a superficial gunshot wound. First responders at the scene, including emergency paramedics, were unable to save or revive Chanice's life. Chanice's unborn baby was also unable to be saved and perished along with his mother. Post-mortem testing revealed that Petitioner was the biological father of the slain child.
Chanice's mother Annette suffered two fatal gunshots to her head. One large-caliber bullet drilled right into her mid-forehead, severing her anterior cerebral artery supplying blood to the brain and eventually depositing at the base of her ruptured brain. The second bullet scalped Annette from above her right ear, shredding more of her brain and crumbling down her left eye socket and eyeball with it. Early responders to the scene found Annette still alive as she was on the ground and helplessly shrieking. Chanice's mother would suffer the same fate as Chanice shortly thereafter at the hospital.
Chanice's little brother E.M. suffered four gunshot wounds to his ten-year-old body. The child's slain body had been found in a hallway inside of the actual residence. One shot blistered through his right ear, rattled down his neck on the right side, lacerated his left subclavian vein and lung, and then ejected out through his back. A second shot was lodged into the front of his chest, puncturing the lower pericardial sac of E.M.'s heart and slashing through his diaphragm, liver, and interior vena cava carrying blood to his heart, cutting further through his lung and rib thereafter, and finally bursting back out of the juvenile's body through his back. A third shot again perforated the front of his chest-this time blazing through E.M.'s stomach, colon, mesentery, and left iliopsoas muscle before erupting back out from the child's back. The fourth gunshot scorched through E.M.'s left forearm from back to front.
All the cartridge casings recovered at the scene were of the same .9-millimeter caliber and brand. It was later confirmed that they had all been fired from the same weapon. Based on statements from witnesses and family members collected at the scene of this killing spree, law enforcement focused their investigation on Petitioner as the main suspect. In the meantime, Petitioner called Valricia Brooks, a former girlfriend who shared a daughter with Petitioner, and told her what transpired. He confessed to her that he had shot and killed Chanice, Annette, and E.M. and that he was considering fleeing. Petitioner's brother, Amron Wells, eventually joined the call with Petitioner and Brooks. Petitioner also informed his brother of the killings. Petitioner indicated his intent to drive off somewhere to commit suicide and asked Amron to care for his daughter for him. Brooks arranged a phone call between Petitioner and his daughter and subsequently advised Petitioner to turn himself in to the authorities.
Later that evening, Petitioner walked into the Forest Hills Police Department lobby and, in a rambling and incoherent manner, blurted, “Put me in jail; kill me.” Sergeant Christopher Hebert noted that Petitioner was a “sweaty, big guy, muscular, [and] had a dazed kind of spacey look on him.” Sergeant Hebert handcuffed Petitioner as a safety precaution. He further described Petitioner's demeanor as being “like a calm storm . . . calm demeanor but aggressive,” and “look[ing] like he could [] explode any second.” Fort Worth officers then transported Petitioner to a Fort Worth police station, where Detectives Matthew Barron and Tim O'Brien attempted to interview Petitioner that night. Without reading Miranda warnings, Detective Barron began by asking Petitioner routine intake questions, i.e., name, date of birth, and address. Petitioner voluntarily answered these questions. Detective Barron followed up by inquiring: what Petitioner had done that day; why Petitioner showed up at the Forest Hills police station; whether Petitioner had been on the street where the Reed family resided; and what had happened on the street where the Reed family resided. Petitioner denied being present on that street that day. When Detective Barron asked Petitioner to tell him what had happened on that street, Petitioner repeatedly answered, “You tell me what happened.”
Having not acquired useful information after forty or so minutes of questioning and an eight-minute break, the detectives ceased their interview of Petitioner and shifted gears toward interviewing others who were asked to give statements at the station. Slightly past midnight, Detective Barron made a determination that the authorities had probable cause to arrest Petitioner and search Petitioner's residence. Detective Barron obtained and executed a search warrant at Petitioner's residence during the early morning hours of July 2, 2013. The search turned up an undegraded empty cardboard .9 millimeter ammunition box; an opened .9 millimeter ammunition box containing 38/50 unspent cartridges matching the casings found at the crime scene; a gun magazine loaded with thirteen .9 millimeter rounds; an otherwise empty plastic handgun case that contained a single unspent .9 millimeter round; and a home security...
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