The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • 15

The News Obsekve Sunday March 20 1994 Carolina Serial Killings 15a Serial 'f IP I I I1' A if 1 i H- i 1 i -V 1 1 'a- "ilyk: Fiji' 4-sJ i i Vn" I Wallace saga is a rap on justice system THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COLUMBIA SC Almost every time Henry Louis Wallace entered the criminal justice system he was quickly spit out Now Wallace is charged with killing 11 women in North Caro- Una and South Carolina His arrest last Sunday in Charlotte brought to light a series of offens- es that police and prosecutors said they didn't know about Anyone who checked could have found Wallace's entire history State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Hugh Munn said last week But authorities apparently never considered Wallace threatening enough to pursue vigorous- One of Wallace's early offenses 1 was an attempted rape charge in Allendale County in April 1990 In that case Wallace was put in pretrial intervention a program usually for first-time nonviolent offenders that wipes their records clean if they complete it Prosecutor Randolph Murdaugh III said he would not have put Wallace in the program had he known of a 1988 Washington state burglary conviction When he lat- er found out about that conviction Murdaugh moved to reinstate the attempted rape charge Wallace never showed for a court hearing that October and an arrest war-' rant was issued In 1991 Wallace was arrested by Allendale sheriff's deputies on a burglary charge Somehow they never pressed the warrant from the 1990 case Wallace finally landed in prison in 1991 for about four months for burglary convictions in Allendale and neighboring Barnwell County where he lived He was released on probation for three years In February 1992 Rock Hill police arrested Wallace again this time for allegedly raping a 17-year-old girl at gunpoint Police said they did a background check but didn't find the outstanding 1990 Allendale warrant Wallace was freed on bond and a trial set for that April But he was never indicted and the case has lingered in judicial limbo Charlotte police apparently didn't find out about Wallace's background after they picked him up for shoplifting in early February He was released with a written promise to appear in court a month later When Wallace didn't show another warrant was issued When Wallace was finally picked up by police March 12 the shoplifting warrant was the last thing on their minds By then he was a murder suspect at the viewing of her daughter STAFF PHOTO Brandi Henderson She is consoled BY JIM BOUNDS by her father left and an usher shooting gunned down as he stepped onto his front porch Miller couldn't even finish her presentation at Mack's funeral She rushed to her car and headed back to Charlotte crying all the way home Sam Jordan Shawna Hawk's godfather is convinced he saw Wallace at her viewing one year before Mack was laid to rest As mourners filed by Hawk's open casket Wallace sat all alone at the back of the room with a strange look on his face just staring Jordan says Hawk was the fourth of Wallace's alleged victims Thinking of him at her wake makes Jordan shudder Jordan loved Shawna like a daughter "Oh man she was my heart" he says "She was my baby girl" It enrages him to think of how police let Wallace slip through their hands time after time There he was arrested in South Carolina on charges of raping a woman at gunpoint and the judge let him walk without bail "He's been falling through the cracks since day one" Jordan says "He's been falling through the cracks since the day he was born" 'No one listened' Yvonne Wallace says she had no inkling of the slayings until last Sunday when she returned home to a lawn filled with news reporters asking questions about her brother That night when Henry Wallace called home from a jail in Charlotte his family had only one question for him: "Why?" His answer was rambling and sometimes incoherent Yvonne remembers He talked about the break-up of his marriage and about "flashbacks" painful memories that would pop into his head and feed his rage He also spoke of drugs "He talked about hanging out with this guy he had met in Charlotte who had been using LSD and cocaine" Yvonne said "He said the drugs were taking over his mind He didn't know what he was doing" "Why didn't you talk to someone?" Henry was asked "I tried to but no one listened" came the reply That same night Yvonne herself faced tough questions from a friend whose sister had been one of Henry Wallace's alleged victims The woman wanted to know why her sister had been killed Then her voice breaking she demanded to know how Henry could have the audacity to play mourner at Valencia Jumper's funeral Yvonne who also went to the service had no answers "When Valencia died Henry sent flowers and called the parents to console them" Yvonne said "He even called me all upset and crying about Valencia's death Sally Miller is certain she saw Wallace at Vanessa Mack's funeral last month She realized it the minute she saw his mugshot on TV He had the same eyes the same hoop earring She'd had such a strange feeling the day of the funeral She felt so upset she left before Vanessa Mack's wake was over and before her funeral had even started Mack was the eighth of Wallace's alleged victims "I'm sure it was him" Miller says "And it's because of that feeling I had It was an eerie feeling It was really spooky" Miller a member of the support group Mothers of Murdered Offspring had gone to the wake to lead a candlelight vigil and decry the violence that has cut short so many young lives Her 13-year-old son was killed in a drive-by Continued from page 14A police officer recalled "He was the first male cheerleader Barnwell ever had and we haven't had another one since" In school he was popular enough to win election to the student council and brainy enough to take college-prep courses Friends say he was also an exceptionally smooth talker a gift that later made him successful as the teen radio disc jockey "Night Rider" on Barnwell station WBAW-FM It also made him popular with women "He was a lover" said Janice a counter worker at an Allendale fast-food store who Wallace frequently asked out on dates "He was very sweet the kind of guy you'd want to date" said the woman who declined to give her last name "He was always offering to take you places or to show you around the radio station" A The smooth Casanova with the sexy voice and disarming that's how she would remember Henry Wallace right up to the day she saw his face on TV next to the long list of his alleged victims "I was shocked" she said Managing to find trouble If there were warning signs along the way Henry Wallace's own sister didn't see them The only thing Yvonne Wallace" knew was that her brother's luck seemed to run out shortly after graduation from high school Henry Wallace had tried college but dropped out alter two semesters He joined the Navy in hopes of becoming a pilot but he flunked an altitude test and ended up working on ships He married high school sweetheart Maretta Brabham in 1987 only to see the relationship crumble two years later Then in January 1988 while stationed in Washington state he' had his first scrape with the law: a second-degree burglary charge for stealing electronic equipment from a hardware store He spent 38 days in prison and was discharged from the Navy After that Wallace never could seem to hold on to a job very long But he always managed to find trouble He regained his old radio job in Barnwell only to be dismissed on suspicion of stealing Later he would be arrested for breaking into another radio station in nearby Allendale and again for stealing video equipment from his old high school The two burglaries landed him in jail for Vk months and left his family shocked and bewildered "We don't know why he started stealing" his sister would later say "It was just something he did" But what family members didn't know was that Wallace might be hip-deep in something far worse In March 1990 18-year-old Tas-handa Bethea was slain in a wooded area outside Barnwell Police say Wallace confessed to the crime last week after being charged with the Charlotte killings They say he raped Bethea at gunpoint then killed her because she threatened to tell Wallace then 24 had a crush on the younger girl and became angry when his affections weren't returned police say The slaying was badly botched Police say he first attempted to strangle his victim then tried again when she revived in the back seat of his car They say he slashed the girl's wrists and throat and threw her into a pond And even then he worried that she wasn't quite dead "For a long time he stood beside the pond and watched her sink" said Zorn "The next few days he cringed in fear thinking she was going to come out of that lake i i- i i aiive cut wnen ume passeu auu no one said anything he figured it must be OK" Less than two weeks later Wallace was arrested for a sex crime He pleaded guilty to luring a 16-year-old girl into a motel room in Allendale and trying to rape her at gunpoint This time the victim's screams brought a stranger to the rescue and Wallace was slapped with a charge of attempted sexual assault The next day as Wallace sat in a jail cell awaiting arraignment some teens on a fishing trip discovered Bethea's nude badly decomposed body floating in a spillway Someone remembered seeing Bethea and Wallace together weeks earlier and suddenly Wallace was being linked to two sex crimes one of them deadly Zorn was never able to charge Wallace with Bethea's slaying despite his strong suspicions And in the other case Wallace's plea bargain drew him only a sentence of probation and an order to participate in a program for nonviolent sex offenders Wallace never completed the program An arrest warrant was drawn up but it was never served Two years later while living with his sister in Rock Hill he would again be charged with a ELIZABETH ARDEN Debora Childers center grieves In high school Henry Wallace 'stood out' He was a smooth talker and popular THE ASSOCIATED PRESS sex crime this time the rape and kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl Local authorities ran a background check but somehow missed the outstanding warrant from 1990 Wallace was released on his own recognizance Weeks later he packed 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