Finding Daddy by Katie Vecchio & Katie Clark Vecchio

Author:Katie Vecchio & Katie Clark Vecchio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titletown Publishing, LLC
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

LISTENING POST

AT ANDERSON COUNTY courthouse, shuffling in with his legs shackled, inmate Paul may have scanned the grey cell, checking out the other inmates who were waiting for yet another sentence to be handed down to them. Then Paul saw a familiar face he knew from growing up. Otis Compton.

I understand that convicts often discuss their charges, sentences, convictions. It’s like the “So, what did you do?” conversation.

Paul reached out toward Otis’s hand and they shook, pulling together for a quick neck hug. He told Otis some of his details and mentioned that he was doing his time at McCormick Correctional Institute. They settled in on the cold concrete bench and caught up, the stories of their unfortunate lives mostly relating to drugs and crimes.

Otis surprised Paul with his situation. He told him he was serving a fifteen-year sentence, taking the fall for some burglaries that his girlfriend, Angel, had committed. He told Paul that he needed Angel to keep quiet about a murder charge he was trying to avoid. According to Paul, Otis said was a burglary that “went bad” and he “did what had to be done.”

Paul returned to McCormick and Otis returned to Kershaw, and they served their time.

In March officers on another, unrelated case questioned Paul to find out what he knew about their investigation. Paul let them know that he had more to share. While meeting with a SLED arson investigator, Paul mentioned that he had some information about the Johnny Hanna murder. He asked the investigator to have the sheriff call him. Sheriff Goodwin gathered the officers involved in the investigation, and they drove down to McCormick Correctional Institute.

Sheriff Goodwin, Detective Alford, Chief Johnson, and Lieutenant Templeton met with Paul around a sterile conference table at McCormick. Paul described his conversation with Otis. He told them that Otis said he was taking the fall on a burglary for his girlfriend because he wanted her to keep quiet about a murder. He told them that Otis had said that he had done what had to be done when a burglary went bad. Paul had an idea for the investigators. He proposed that they place him at Kershaw, with Otis, so he could listen and report back anything that Otis might say about the murder. It’s my feeling that Paul opted to do this because he knew me and Johnny, and his mother went to our church.

The officers told him that they could not promise anything but that, if Paul did happen to end up at Kershaw, he should just listen. He should not ask any questions.

“You don’t do a thing,” Goodwin cautioned Paul. “Just be a listening post.”

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