Man found guilty of murdering missing Emory student

<p>Eleven years after an Emory University student disappeared, a jury on Monday convicted a former co-worker of murder charges in her death.</p><p>Colvin "Butch" Hinton had been accused of abducting Shannon Melendi, 19, an Emory sophomore from Miami, after a softball game at the complex where they both worked in March 1994. The verdict convicted Hinton of both charges he faced, murder and felony murder.</p><p>Superior Court Judge Anne Workman sentenced Hinton to life in prison.</p><p>Melendi's body has not been found.</p><p>Hinton _ who had been accused three times previously of abducting women in Illinois and Kentucky and served 15 months in prison for kidnapping a 14-year-old girl from Neponset, Ill., in 1982 _ had been considered a suspect since shortly after Melendi's disappearance, but was not officially charged until last year.</p><p>Hinton, now 44, had served prison time for kidnapping and enticing a minor in 1982. Earlier, he had been sent by a Juvenile Court to counseling after attacking a woman in 1977, when he was 17. Both victims testified before the DeKalb County Superior Court jury.</p><p>Hinton later went back to prison on a 1996 arson conviction, and fellow inmates testified he made statements to them about how to dispose of a body and his worries about being linked to the Melendi case.</p><p>The jury spent an hour and 15 minutes last week listening to court reporters read transcripts of the testimony by Adonis Cornwell and Ronson Westmoreland. Cornwell, who remains in federal prison for bank robbery, had testified Hinton once awoke crying and sweating and told Cornwell, "I didn't kill her. The demon inside of me killed her."</p><p>Other witnesses testified Hinton came back to the softball park for no apparent reason after Melendi vanished, which the prosecution says was an attempt to establish an alibi.</p><p>Prosecutors hung much of their case on circumstantial evidence. A phone call to an Emory clinic taking responsibility for Melendi's abduction was traced to a pay phone near a restaurant where employees said Hinton regularly ate.</p><p>A package left at the pay phone containing one of Melendi's rings was wrapped in tape similar to tape found in Hinton's car and in a bag bought from a company with only one customer in Georgia _ Delta Air Lines, where Hinton worked at the time. Prosecutors also had argued that metal particles found on the tape matched unusual alloys that were used in the shop where Hinton worked.</p><p>Melendi was working her first game as scorekeeper at the softball complex the day she disappeared. Hinton was the umpire for that game. Melendi was last seen shortly after the game, and her disappearance was reported when she didn't return to score a second ballgame that day.</p><p>The jury deliberated for three days before reaching its verdict.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/9/138978