Michael Laney and the Godfrey-Hancock murders

My second home
I’m going to be spending a lot of time in a courtroom over the next couple of weeks. If you don’t see a lot of posts, that’s why.
Below is a synopsis of what I’ll be doing.

---

THE CRIME

Summer had waned in the weeks before and by nine o’clock it was dark at the corner of Bennett and Montclair. Inside a house on the corner, 86 year-old Dorothy “Dot” Hancock and her neighbor 82 year-old Thelma Godfrey were visiting.

Everybody in the neighborhood knew Dot Hancock.

“She was in Sunday school class with my wife, a circle class with my wife, a community club with my wife,” her neighbor Paul Dunn said.

Every Sunday and Wednesday, parishioners found Hancock in the fifth row back, sitting at the end of her pew at Northgate Baptist Church. Just the day before, on September 24, Hancock sat in her spot and listened to Dr. Robert Whaley preach.

“I remember she went out the door on Sunday morning. She had one of her Sunday school class members by the arm, helping her down the steps,” Whaley said.

Godfrey was a widow. Her husband, a retired police detective, had died years before. Her son, Larry, worked as Greenville’s Fire Marshal.

Both ladies lived in Greenville’s historic North Main neighborhood, home to elderly people who have lived there for years and young professionals looking for an escape from prefabricated homes.

In the weeks before that night, a lot of neighbors had seen a man with fiery red hair walking the streets. He was looking for work.

Neighbor Penny Miller said, “He approached me and said ‘I’m looking for work. I need work. I need food.’”

A few neighbors—including Hancock—hired the man who told people he was trying to escape his past.
“He told me the very first day that he had been in trouble, been in jail.” Miller said. “He was trying to lead a new life.”

Hancock and her neighbors helped. They hired the man. Hancock even asked people at Northgate Baptist for some extra clothes for the man to wear to church.

Around nine one of Hancock’s neighbors heard a crash. He looked out his window and saw a hole where Hancock’s garage door used to be. When he ran across the street, he realized Hancock’s car was gone and the garage was on fire. The neighbor called 911. Firefighters showed up in a few minutes. The fire had almost put itself out, but firefighters still had a job to do.

They had to call Greenville’s homicide unit.

Dot Hancock was dead in her garage. Someone had raped her, tied her up, and killed her. Thelma Godfrey was in an upstairs bedroom.

“(She was) bound by her arms. Her legs were bound to a footstool and she also had her throat cut,” Greenville Police Detective Collis Flavel said.

Detectives found an empty gas can in an upstairs bathroom. They decided someone had killed the two elderly women, took some things from the home, set the house on fire, stole Hancock’s car and escaped.

It wasn’t long before neighbors pointed them in the direction of the yard man with fiery red hair. Neighbors said, they thought the transient had been breaking into homes and garages.

His name was Michael Laney.

THE ACC– USED KILLER
Michael Laney was the product of a 1968 drunken one-night stand.

Psychiatrists who interviewed Laney and his family say his father was an alcoholic. When Laney’s mother discovered she was pregnant, she told her one-time lover that she he was too drunk to marry.

When Laney was born, psychologists think he likely suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The same doctors say the infant also had a prolapsed umbilical cord that wrapped around his neck and cut off his oxygen.

In the months before he turned two years old Laney went to the hospital twice. Once he had chemical burns inside his mouth. The next time, doctors said the toddler had overdosed on Phenobarbital, a sedative sometimes used to treat patients with seizures.

Social workers said Laney was abused by a female caregiver as a young child. When his mother discovered the abuse, she took her child back.

Once back in his mother’s home, social workers said Laney’s older brothers and stepfather abused him and a neighbor sexually abused Laney and his sister.

Laney told doctors he started using drugs in the third grade after a friend’s father died. By the time Laney was in his teens he had graduated to harder drugs. He told his doctors that he huffed (inhaled) the fumes of glue and a product called Gob. He said he used marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and LSD.

Psychologist started testing Laney’s intelligence when he was in his teens. Over the years, his IQ consistently registered in the low 70’s.

Psychiatrist Dr. Donna Watts said of Laney’s IQ, “Basically it’s a bit smarter than mental retardation, but certainly below average.”

At some point, a jury in Winston-Salem, NC convicted Michael Laney of manslaughter. While in prison, Laney got his GED and started making physical complaints that would become quite common.

A North Carolina Department of Corrections doctor once wrote in Laney’s file, “Laney is overly concerned about his body and convinced he’s had a heart attack.”

Laney’s doctors say he has a long list of mental illnesses including psychotic problems. Laney’s attorneys say he complains of a chronic headache and other problems that are impossible to diagnose.

Dr. Mark Cunningham, a psychologist who interviewed Laney said, “(He thinks) he’s about to have a heart attack, or that he had kidney disease, or that his insides are rotting out.”

The closest doctors have come to diagnoses over the years has been to say that Laney has peptic ulcer disease in remission and diverticulitis, a stomach illness that includes stomach cramps.

Sometime in January 2000, after getting out of the North Carolina prison, Laney moved to Greenville, SC. He moved between a flophouse motel and a Salvation Army shelter and started looking for work.

Around the same time, Greenville police started looking for a red-haired burglary suspect named Michael.

THE ARREST

In the hours after firefighters found Hancock and Godfrey’s bodies, detectives started looking for Michael Laney. They knew his mother and stepfather lived in Rowan County, NC and alerted deputies there to start looking for Hancock’s 1982 gold Buick Regal.

Less than 24 hours later, Rowan County deputies found Michael Laney. Greenville Police Chief Willie Johnson—appointed to the office just two months
before—made a quick announcement to his city.

“Michael Laney was arrested driving one of the victims’ car, a knife was found in the car. There was blood on the car. We have identified the killer in this case,” he said.

That Wednesday night the congregation at Northgate Baptist heard a sermon the preacher called “Why Bad Things Happen to God’s People.”

Pastor Whaley told the people in the pews, “We must keep in mind that bad things do happen to good and godly people.”

Within a few weeks, 13th Circuit Solicitor Bob Ariail announced he would seek the death penalty in the double murder case.

Laney has no money. A judge appointed two attorneys for him. Since his arrest, Laney has not cooperated with his attorneys and does little more than complain about his headache.

Doctors at the state hospital say he told them his body hurts so bad, he’d rather die than live and he doesn’t see any reason to cooperate with his attorneys.

“What’s the use? I’ll get death or life in prison. I think it’s too late for any chance.” Laney said, according to doctors. “Whenever I go in there (the courtroom), I just want to crawl up under the world and hide.”

Labels: Crime