- Publication: Athens Daily News
- Author: Joan Stroer, Staff Writer
- Original Publication Date: Friday, July 10, 1992
Fingerprints found in Jennifer Stone’s house after her April slaying don’t match the fingerprints of three new suspects in the case, Athens-Clarke police said Thursday.
“None of the prints have come back positive,” said David Camp, bureau chief of administration. “We have no matches at all.”
As of late Thursday, police had not received results from the State Crime Lab from fingerprints found on two stolen cameras, Camp said.
Police charged three Athens men with stealing the cameras from Ms. Stone and selling them four blocks from her house in the early morning hours after her slaying. All three currently face criminal charges other than the camera theft charges, records show.
Donald “Heavy” Wilson, 32, was serving time in jail for giving a police officer a false name and date of birth when police charged him with the camera theft July 2. He was also sentenced in 1979 on a burglary charge and served 18 months in prison and five years of probation.
Larry Darnell Brown, 34, was sentenced to five years in prison and ten years probation for an aggravated assault in Baldwin County, records show.
He faces a July 15 court date in Clarke County State Court on criminal trespass and misdemeanor theft charges. Police charged him with damaging a vehicle parked on Hill Street and stealing the battery while its owner was attending a Sunday church service May 13.
A University of Georgia employee charged in the camera theft faces a burglary charge, police said Thursday.
Earnest Brown Jr., 29, of Athens was charged July 1 with burglary and with the theft of the cameras. Brown remains free on a $6,500 bond, records show.
Police would not reveal Thursday the location Earnest Brown is charged with burglarizing. He has no record of convictions in Georgia.
Charges against the men followed the find of a Ms. Stone’s camera by the police’s Drug and Vice Squad in a northern section of Athens July 1. Investigators found the second camera in Oglethorpe County. After interviews, detectives traced the theft back to the three suspects and no further, Police Chief Ronald Chandler said.
Police listed both Wilson and Larry Brown as homeless. Earnest Brown lives in a basement apartment at 139 Newton Street, which faces the Ramada Inn on Broad Street. Neighbors said he was friendly, but kept to himself.
“He seemed to be all right with me,” said one neighbor, who asked to be anonymous. “He told me he worked at the university, that’s about all. When I’d see him late in the afternoon he’d be walking to work.”
A Salvation Army record show. Wilson worked at Springhouse Barbecue on Broad Street while he stayed at their Meigs Street shelter.
Management at the restaurant said a man called Donald Tate, not Donald Wilson, worked there.
Earnest Brown’s employers expect him to report back to work Saturday at University Network and Computing Services — where his employment status as a computer operator remains uncertain.
“The university is reviewing his employment status in light of the charges,” university spokesman Tom Jackson said. Felony charges against employees are reviewed on a case by case basis and could lead to termination, Jackson said.
Police sent the two cameras to the State Crime Lab along with blood, hair and fingerprints samples from the three men.
The men remain the only suspects charged in connection with the murder.
[Photos] Earnest Brown; Larry Brown; Donald Wilson (mug shots)