‘Tell them you were on meth.’ Did alleged Macon killer offer witnesses $1,500 to lie?
A bizarre and possibly fateful twist emerged Monday in the case against a young Macon man accused of murder.
Early in the day, the young man’s lawyer, in a court filing on the eve of trial, informed prosecutors that he would be calling to testify on his client’s behalf a woman whose mother is said to be a witness against the young man.
Dequavious Jamal “D.J.” Howard Sr., who turns 21 next month, is accused of killing Michael A. Chapman in a 2018 shooting outside a house on Burke Street in southeast Macon.
Monday morning’s court filing included the telephone number of the defense’s last-minute witness, and upon receiving it prosecutors began their due diligence to see what she might have to say.
Shortly after midday, jury selection began. But as evening approached and potential jurors were sent home for the night, presiding Judge Howard Z. Simms in open court asked prosecutor Sandra G. Matson about information she had learned that called into question the legitimacy of the defense’s surprise witness.
As the hearing unfolded, Matson said she had spoken to the prosecution’s witness about the defense’s revelation that the witness’s own daughter might be called to impugn the mother’s testimony.
That testimony, according to defense attorney Stanley W. Schoolcraft III’s court filing, would involve the daughter deeming the mother an unreliable witness because she was an intravenous-methamphetamine user who was high at the time of the killing and that her “perception of events was distorted.”
Matson, however, said in the hearing that after talking to the mother “it became clear to me that there had been influence out of the jail over the weekend” in the form of telephone conversations aimed at manipulating the testimony of the mother and the daughter.
Matson said she had entered the daughter’s phone number into a computer system that logs calls made from the Bibb County jail, where Howard has been incarcerated since his arrest in November 2018.
“Sure enough,” Matson said, “several calls (from the jail) over the weekend popped up to that number.”
Such calls are recorded and Matson began listening to them.
Recorded jail calls
The prosecutor said that Howard can be heard telling the daughter to “make sure” her mother “did not see me” at the shooting scene, adding that “I don’t want to sit down here (in jail) for the rest of my life. I really need you.”
Matson said Howard went on to offer to retain a lawyer for one of the daughter’s close relatives who is in jail and also offered to pay the daughter and the mother $1,500 each.
Matson said she intends to to call the daughter to testify about the telephone calls.
“(The) jury could determine that it’s almost an admission of guilt,” Matson said.
“I mean, he is basically telling one of my witnesses, ‘You need to change your story and make sure you tell them you did not see me there. ... You need to change your story and tell them you were high on meth. ... Which is a direct contradiction to what she told law enforcement on an audio statement within hours after the crime.”
The judge ruled that the defense would not, as it had intended, be allowed to call the daughter as a witness.
Prosecutors, though, may well put her on the stand and ask about the weekend’s phone calls.
Jury selection was completed Tuesday and opening statements were set to begin Wednesday morning.
This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 3:15 PM.