Monday, July 17, 2000
Victim's family wants to know why justice system failed
Lebanon woman killed by furloughed prisoner
By Sheila McLaughlin
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Colombe and Yvon Desfosses with a collage of photos of their daughter, Suzie Thompson.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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LEBANON — Months after Suzie Thompson was gunned down by a furloughed inmate who was her former boyfriend, her family struggles with emotional wounds.
Ms. Thompson's 41-year-old brother, Rene, refuses to glance at her picture because it is still too painful.
Ms. Thompson's middle son, 19-year-old Yvon Baudendistal, sometimes speaks to her in the fog of restless sleep, a family friend said. He discovered the bodies of his mother and William Chapman on Dec. 1.
For Ms. Thompson's parents, Yvon and Colombe Desfosses, even a routine task such as paying the mortgage on the house where their daughter was shot to death, flips an emotional switch.
“For us, it will never be OK. It will always be there,” said Mr. Desfosses, 67, a retired pipe fitter. “For us, there is no life.”
Thompson
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Chapman
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This is a story of how the criminal justice system failed a 42-year-old Warren County woman on many levels, Enquirer research shows. From the judge who released Mr. Chapman — a convicted felon — for a one-day holiday furlough; to the jail, which didn't realize soon enough he never returned; to county authorities, who misfiled a warrant for his arrest until it was too late.
On Tuesday, faced with the threat of a wrongful-death lawsuit by Ms. Thompson's family, Warren County commissioners are to consider a settlement in her death.
A probate judge also will review the proposed settlement to protect Ms. Thompson's youngest son's interests.
Mr. Desfosses says he isn't interested only in the money.
Family photo shows Thompson with her sons, Yvon and Theo Baudendistal, a few days before she was killed.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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Neither he nor county officials would disclose the sum, which people close to the case said could be about $600,000.Much of it will go to Ms. Thompson's sons, Yvon, Theo and William Baudendistal, Mr. Desfosses said.
William, 15, is being raised by Theo, a 20-year-old soldier at Fort Bragg, N.C.
In addition, the agreement would include a memorial in Ms. Thompson's name to be dedicated to victims of domestic violence.
The Desfosses also want to be involved in reviewing potential problems in the jail system, which in the past year also has had trouble apprehending at least a half a dozen inmates who were released to go to work, but never returned.
The family wants the memorial built in front of the Warren County Justice Center in Lebanon as a reminder to County Judge Dallas Powers and Sheriff Tom Ariss, whom Mr. Desfosses blames for his daughter's death.
“To me, it will be something that is going to be right in front of them,” Mr. Desfosses said.
The system failed
Recent interviews with Ms. Thompson's friends and family, as well as offense reports, court records and statements from authorities, paint a picture of a botched criminal justice system that failed a single mother frantically trying to protect herself from a violent former boyfriend.
After the killing, Judge Powers said he didn't know that Mr. Chapman, 43 — jailed since Oct. 20 and charged with making telephone threats to Ms. Thompson — also was to be held on a parole violation.
Instead, the judge ordered Mr. Chapman to be released on a one-day pass at 6:06 p.m. Nov. 24 to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.
Mr. Chapman, a twice-convicted felon who had been imprisoned for holding a gun to the head of an ex-girlfriend, quickly began threatening Ms. Thompson.
Before, he had said he would “get even with her,” and he made threats to burn her house down, Ms. Thompson told deputies before Mr. Chapman's initial arrest in October.
This time, in repeated calls, Mr. Chapman told Ms. Thompson: “You will remember my name.”
Unaware that he had been released, Ms. Thompson was shocked and frightened to hear from him again, said Daun McLane, who called Ms. Thompson her best friend.
Ms. Thompson tape-recorded the calls and reported it to deputies. She did the same the following day when the threats continued.
Deputies advised her to file charges and suggested finding another place to stay temporarily.
“We tried to talk her into coming here,” said Mrs. McLane, who lives at the edge of Salem Township, about 15 miles from Ms. Thompson's East Forest Avenue residence in South Lebanon.
Ms. Thompson refused, saying she didn't know how her sons would get to school. She also was worried about leaving her dog, ferret, and other pets behind, Mrs. McLane said.
Time for action
By Monday, Nov. 29, Ms. Thompson decided to act. She spent hours at the Warren County Court Clerk's Office, filing more charges and seeking a temporary restraining order.
But deputies told clerks Mr. Chapman was in jail because he was on their list of prisoners. Later that day, they discovered he had not returned from Thanksgiving furlough.
With promises that a restraining order was granted and assurances that Mr. Chapman would be arrested, Ms. Thompson went home to the house she had worked three jobs to buy, and to sons Yvon and William.
Ms. Thompson trusted county authorities, her mother said. “She was so sure they would get him.”
But jail mix-ups continued.
A corrections sergeant put the arrest warrant in a bin at the jail to be delivered to Mr. Chapman there. He returned a copy to the court, erroneously noting the warrant was personally served.
On Nov. 30, jail personnel realized the mistake and a warrant was reissued to apprehend Mr. Chapman on additional charges of telephone harassment and aggravated menacing.
By the time deputies began searching for Mr. Chapman, he and Ms. Thompson were dead.
Preparing to kill
As Ms. Thompson lay sleeping in her bedroom, trying to soothe a migraine headache before she headed to work that afternoon as a billing clerk at a West Chester company, Mr. Chapman slipped into her house.
Mrs. McLane, who helped clean Ms. Thompson's house after police finished their investigation, said Mr. Chapman apparently locked Ms. Thompson's 4-year-old dog, Doc, a Labrador Retriever-Great Dane mix, in a back room.
He dropped his keys, ballcap and bandanna on the kitchen table and stripped off his overalls, flannel shirt, socks and shoes as he made his way to Ms. Thompson's first-floor bedroom.
Dressed in shorts, he shot Ms. Thompson five times and himself three with a small-caliber handgun after barricading the door with a dresser.
Yvon, who had been sleeping upstairs, found both bodies about 2:30 p.m. when he went in to wake his mother to get ready for work.
Like Mr. Desfosses, Mrs. McLane says authorities abandoned her friend. “To me, the judge and the sheriff ... they should be on a permanent furlough. They should lose their jobs.”
Procedures changed
A report by a lawyer for the countythat will place blame in Ms. Thompson's death also could be issued Tuesday.
The settlement also is to spell out what will be done to keep the foul-ups from happening again, but some changes have been made.
Most county judges, except for one in Franklin, have stopped granting holiday furloughs. They say they will consider it only in extreme emergencies, such as a death in an inmate's family.
Jail officers also are checking a national crime computer for outstanding warrants on all new inmates. They also are red-flagging files if inmates are to be held for other agencies, Sheriff Ariss said.
Regardless of a judge's order, no one will be released if they have such a holder, he said. Jail officials say they also have devised a better system of tracking inmates, hoping to avoid the confusion of the Thompson case.
“Overall, the bottom line is everybody is more aware,” Sheriff Ariss said. “With the release mechanism, regardless if one court says he goes, and there is a holder, Johnny is not going to be released from court until everybody says he goes.”
Judge Powers could not be reached to talk about the case. He had ordered Mr. Chapman released after reviewing a computer printout of the case instead of reviewing the court file, his bailiff said.
Earlier, the judge refused to take blame, pointing the finger, instead, at the sheriff's staff.
No one disciplined
Sheriff Ariss said no disciplinary action was taken against his employees. He wouldn't discuss why, saying that if the settlement were rejected, employee actions could become an issue in a lawsuit.
As part of the settlement, Mr. Desfosses wants quarterly meetings with Sheriff Ariss to discuss possible problems with jail procedures.
They met for the first time last month, when Mr. Desfosses requested and obtained a tour of the jail in the midst of settlement negotiations.
The two shook hands and Sheriff Ariss apologized.
“You work hard, you try hard, and you hope mistakes don't happen,” Sheriff Ariss said in an interview last week. “We have some accountability in this.”
But Mr. Desfosses isn't interested in an apology.
“An apology doesn't mean anything to me. You can say 20 times you apologize,” he said. “An apology is proved by your actions.”
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