The Eyewitness Who Wasn't, The Matthews Murder Trials; No. 1; Part 1

Well, this sounds kind of silly, but I saw all the cars and I knew that home being a very beautiful home really and a beautiful acreage and I thought it was a garage sale. A middle class suburban housewife. That is Judy Fox. And that morning, May 7th, nineteen seventy one, Mrs. Fox was driving to school to pick up one of her four children when she pulled to the side of the road in front of the Matthew's home. There were police cars. There were TV cameras all over. So I got out of the car and asked a car that had pulled up behind me. The woman had gotten out of her car and I asked her what had happened. And she told me that there had been a double murder. A doctor and his wife. As Mrs. Fox started walking back to her own automobile, a white station wagon pulled up beside her. There were four people in it. They were dirty and they were I would say he'd be lucky. People give me the happy looking people, long hair, dirty somebody with a male or female. And one was female.

See, the girl was seated in the passenger side of the front seat. In which direction was the station wagon? They were headed west and low. Erasmo Brown, he told Maria. Maria and the station wagon stopped. It stopped, and the girl rolled down a window. If it wasn't already open, the window was open, and she leaned her head out of the car and just sort of Howard out. What happened? Did you mean? I walked over to the car and I explained that there, as I understood it, there had been a double murder, a doctor and his wife that morning. What did she. Oh, other officers. Station wagon. The girl said, oh, that's too bad. And immediately put her hand over her mouth and turned towards the driver as if to mashallah, a laugh or a giggle.

And the other occupants began to laugh. In fact, one in particular in the back seat really cracked up laughing. He just rolled and saw the car. And then the driver, almost immediately, as I withdrew my head practically from the window, put his foot on the gas and just took off in a great hurry down the Erasmo around here. Judy Fox called the police the next day. May 8th, nineteen seventy one and told them about the incident. But there was no response. In fact, she would recall later, quote, They didn't even take my name or number. Dozens of other phone call leads were checked out. Suspicious cars seen in the area the night before. Persons walking near the Matthews home, a so-called hippie colony that had moved into an abandoned farmhouse just a few miles away. These observations and more were duly recorded and investigated. But Judy Fox, the incident somehow slipped by unnoticed.

Before moving on to the next chapter of what eventually became a very bizarre story. A few other details of the crime scene should be mentioned. Item one other than the basement garage area and the Alondra Utility ROOM, the interior of the house appeared undisturbed. Nothing was stolen. Many valuable furnishings and other items were left intact. Item two from the type and position of the blood samples collected. It appeared that one of the attackers had been wounded. Item three in the downstairs den, a large square door safe. A floor model was found. Its door was ajar. The papers within appeared undisturbed. Item for ballistics tests on the bullets and bullet fragments collected proved that three separate 38 caliber revolvers were used. Mrs. Mathews gun was not found. So the probable conclusion was that there were at least two assailants.

Item five, the motive was a mystery. On May 20th, 1971, only 13 days after the murder of doctors Warren and Rosina Matthews, another act of violence came to the attention of Atlanta area police. The scene was an apartment complex near the Atlanta airport. It was after midnight at the time, the second event, the second act of violence, seemed totally unrelated. Only later will it loom with irony for a man facing the electric chair. He was cleared. He was a well, he was a club owner. And that in the airport area of a Highway 75 in Atlanta waited outside of his club until the day the club closed and he came out and got in his

Cadillac. His name is James Edward Kramer, the son of a small town Texas sheriff. Kramer has many times found himself on the wrong side of the iron bars of a jail cell. In the early morning hours of May 20th, 1971, an armed robbery he had planned didn't work out very well. When he started out of his car, I said, hold it. Instead of holding it as usual, he waited. He whipped official as fast as I was saying, he started firing. And when he fired those more gunshots and then all I can remember saying, I'm hit. And I went down after the attempted armed robbery. Friends took James Cramer Jimmy to Savannah, Georgia, where on May 21st, nineteen seventy one at St. Joseph's Hospital, he was treated by Dr. D. W. Dickie Timbs. How long after that term was fully with the doc? Sometime. The next day.

I don't know exactly the hours or how long I've heard and got to be back in. Tim's left the bullet intact and Kramer carried it in the fleshy part of his right chest wall for more than 18 months. It would prove nearly fatal, not from the physical damage it had caused, but from the accusation it would bring upon him the accusation of murder and his trial in January of 1973. Jimmy Kramer would sit in rapt attention as his former lover testified that he Kramer was shot not during an attempted armed robbery near the Atlanta airport on May 20th, 1971, but instead during the Matthews murders on May 7th, 1971. They walked in and George and Charles and Hoyt and Jimmy Wang walked inside when the car was, and then all kind of shots were fired. It was just like, oh, no. It was awful. And in Georgia. And then tell me. So he said, Jimmy shot. Jimmy shot.

Tell him that Jimmy Graves is here to prove himself innocent of murder. James Cramer would ironically try to prove himself guilty of armed robbery, pointing the accusatory finger at him and claiming he was there at the murder scene would be a girl he hadn't even met until July. Nineteen seventy one, two months after the murders to prove either or both. He would unfortunately have to rely on his friends. The credibility of those friends would easily be devastated by the special prosecutor, Ben Smith, and no one would a name the street did. He may have known in South Carolina. That's right. And that's Greenville, South Carolina that day. City. State. Okay. Oh, that's correct. Yes. I mean, when you come down here to persons, I want you to tell me how many persons were in your room. Number three. How many were in or human? Say yes. How many fans there? Two to come down. Why? Three.

In other words, everything is true except for two of the three. Is that right? You know where. Snowblowers wrapped in blond walked up to Tovah, where I was certain derald and made the remark remarked due to slow down, you could have a model in July nineteen seventy one around the 10th. The scene of our story shifts from Atlanta to Greenville, South Carolina. Jimmy Kramer is sharing an apartment with Harold Star Taylor and Hoyt Powell, both reputed gamblers and probably like Kramer thieves as well at a good fellowship club, one of several gambling joints then operating rather openly in Greenville. Kramer notices barely a girl he describes as Moseley have warm water, flukey grub. Later in the early morning hours, Scarr Taylor returns to the apartment with that same

flippy blonde. Her name is Deborah and Kid. Actually, her name is Deborah and Kid Rambler, but her husband, Jerry Rambler, is in jail and their marriage has been over for several months. So naturally, we start a rift in the core Argentina's terrible Blair-Brown. He would admit to having entered stable. So she said, Are you a cop? I said, yes. Jimmy Kramer gets into a game of knock poker with Debbie Kid and some friends who have also dropped in following the poker game. There is an argument between Kramer and SCAA Taylor. At the center of the argument is Debbie Kidd. She went on back in the bedroom, was born and was a writer while she was back here. She hollered something for Judy. Judy went back, came out. Me, Jimmy, the girl's crying. She wants to get her out of there. It is none of my business. Yeah, I do. Dave Brand came a lot of them in a few minutes.

And Scott and I get into an argument over this thing because every day they swapped girls starring Jamie. They swapped girls scar. I got Judy and Jimmy. Kramer got Debbie. Debbie later told the confidante what that moment meant to her. That's all that was written. Al Capone. It really was never found. I thought I was getting rescued by Al Capone. You know, when I met Jimmy Cramer, really, he was my big hero, the strongest man in the world. Those the recorded thoughts of Debra and Kid recorded at a much later date. Apparently, Jimmy Cramer in July 1971 also found something irresistible. And Debbie Kid. The next day, he moved his belongings, including a color television set into the apartment. Debbie was sharing with another girl, Peggy Channeler.

Jimmy Cramer and his frequent visitors, however, were more than Peggy Channeler could handle. I came home. Jimmy had moved on, his friends now over there, and it just became too much of a hassle. And I stayed here. She wouldn't be back. And she did. The apartment above scarred Taylor's place at the Hampton Arms complex had become vacant. So Jimmy and Debbie moved in. They used the names Mrs. Debbie Ramla and Mr. Jerry grumbler. Debbie signed the application and the lease on July 24th, 1971. Kramer didn't know it at the time that he'd later need that application form an apartment lease. Debbie Kidd and Kramer's Eyes was just a, quote, checkup. He didn't know that he'd later depend very heavily on the testimony of his friends to try to prove that he never met her until two months after May 7, 1971.

I ask you, you know, where were you? Where was anyone listening to this? Oh, my. Salit, 1971. It's 6:30 in the morning, six o'clock in the morning. I would submit that you were either with your wife, your family, your mother in law, or your girlfriend. You were somebody that's close to you. Hilton, Dupri, Jimmy Kramer's lawyer, a man we'll hear at length later. The point he makes is worth repeating. Where were you on May 7th, 1971? In Cobb County, Georgia, in August 1971, the investigation into the deaths of doctors Warren and Rosina Matthews had slowed down from the frenzied pitch of those first few weeks, only a few officers remained

officially assigned to the case. Among them was Wayne Ellis, Cobb County detective, and Roy Jones, investigative agent with the state police force known officially as the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Most of the leads in the Matthews case, says Ellis, at this time and August 1971 were going nowhere. Everything was going to. In August 1971, with signed statements from two informants in hand. Cobb County police arrested Lloyd Golding and accused him of the Matthews murders. Gauldin protested and claimed his innocence. Would you be willing to undergo hypnosis to prove it? The police asked Gauldin. Yes. Anything, he replied. GBI agent Roy Jones escorted Goldin to the office of psychologist hypnotist Edwin P. Hall p_h_d_ after signing a waiver form granting hall the right to pass on the results of a hypnosis to the police.

Gauldin was placed under hypnosis. Hall's hypnotic interrogation apparently cleared like Gauldin of a Mathew's murders accusation, charges were not filed against him. As the investigation moved on, however, the hypnotists psychologist Edwin B Hall would play a much larger role. So what GBI agent Roy Jones and the technique of using hypnosis as a tool of the investigation would move to center stage. Also, in August of 1971, a federal prisoner came forth with information about the Matthews case that looked promising. Doyle Ray Henderson was his name. Ben Smith's Cobb County district attorney spoke with a federal judge and the U.S. attorney on Henderson's behalf. And Henderson's bond was reduced to $50000 and he was released in the custody of Cobb County.

A few days later, Henderson was wired for sound, secretly recording his conversation with a man called Billy Wayne. Davis will need a central bank robbery charge. And during a conversation with the first, he told me he was not mad at me without a ride. It didn't matter anyway that he knew what he was, that he brought up the man indicating that there was not anything shady. Now the success of the taping is in dispute. Henderson says it was successful that Billy Wayne Davis not only implicated himself in the Matthews murders in the conversation, but a local police officer as well. Henderson says the tape was heard by Ben.