GUILTY TN - Howard Hawk Willis, convicted in murders of Adam Ray Chrismer and Samantha Leming Chrismer, teen newlyweds, in 2010 *new trial sought 2023*

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babydust2004

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I don't know if anyone else has heard about this case but the murder victims are from this area where I live.My son goes to school at the High School where Adam and Samantha went.This man is playing the system and winning.My DH's cousins were very good friends with Adam when they were children.Adam and Samantha's parents are starting to think the justice system does not work because this man has gotten away with murder and it doesn't look he may ever go to trial.I will try and post everything I can find.
This link has a lot of the news about this case
http://s2.excoboard.com/Courthouse_Steps_Mavens/150223/2140061


these 2 links are the newest info on the case
http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/howard_hawk_willis_sues_judge/41975/

http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/..._himself_from_howard_hawk_willis_trial/42542/
 
What utter frustration! 8 years and still no trial. Maybe someone in GP can help this guy out of his manipulative misery?

At least he is behind bars!

Salem
 
[...]
He was convicted two years ago and sentenced to death in the 2002 slayings of 17-year-old Adam Chrismer and his 16-year-old wife, Samantha. The couple were from Chickamauga, Ga.
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-06-09/howard-hawk-willis-denied-retrial-ga-teens-deaths

Read more: Howard Hawk Willis demands new trial, claims new evidence would have helped defense
January 5th, 2015 11:17 am by Becky Campbell

[...]
Howard Hawk Willis, 63, is on death row at Riverbend Correctional Complex in Nashville, where he has been since his conviction and sentencing for the deaths of Adam and Samantha Chrismer, 17 and 16 years old, respectively. He knew the young couple through his daughter, Kelli Chancey. Willis said the evidence that state prosecutors withheld pertains to the murder of Willis' stepfather, Sam Thomas, in Georgia around the same time the Chrismers were killed.
 
At first I thought that the two (sets of) murder weren't related and that withholding any evidence in one trial wouldn't affect the other.

But upon re-re-reading the "timesnews.net" story....
Killing the young couple was a bit much, but it looks like he'd have a pretty damned good reason to at least want to kill them.
In the documents filed Dec. 8, Willis said the evidence in Thomas' murder case included a letter that Samantha Chrismer wrote stating Adam Chrismer and her brother, Daniel Foster, robbed and killed Thomas and set Willis up for the crime.
Click to expand...

Am I wrong?
It clearly shows why he would want to kill the two "kids."
...Vengeance for him being falsely blamed for his stepfather's murder, if what she said was true.
 
Even as he sits on death row, convicted double murderer Howard Hawk Willis continues to insist he did not kill teenage newlyweds Samantha and Adam Chrismer in 2002 and he says newly discovered evidence will secure him a new trial.

“You need, just once, to give me a chance to show you that I’m innocent, to prove I’m not guilty of this,” Willis said during one of many phone calls he made from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville to the WJHL newsroom.

(...)

Back in January, attorney Stephen Ross Johnson told the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals the newly discovered evidence includes a statement from Willis’ now-deceased mother who said she’d set Willis up for any crime she could and a recorded statement from his ex-wife that revealed Willis wasn’t with the victims at the time they disappeared. During the trial, Willis suggested his mother could have killed the teens.
Click to expand...

http://wjhl.com/2016/05/11/double-m...s-says-new-evidence-will-result-in-new-trial/
 
The Supreme Court has affirmed the convictions and sentences of death for Howard Hawk Willis for killing two East Tennessee teenagers and dismembering one of them.

(...)

After a full review of the record and all of the evidence, the Court concluded that the proof fully supported the convictions and the sentences of death.

Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee filed a separate concurring opinion, in which she agreed that Mr. Willis’s death sentence is proportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases but reiterated her disagreement with the manner in which the Court conducts proportionality review.

http://tncourts.gov/press/2016/07/0...ntence-man-guilty-2002-east-tennessee-murders

Courts opinion (State of TN vs Howard Hawk Willis): http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/willishowardhawk.opn_and_appendix.pdf

State of TN vs Howard Hawk Willis - Concurring: http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/willishoward.sep_.opn_.pdf
 
I just saw a broadcast on Investigation Discovery Channel about this case. Season 8 episode 9 which originally aired 10 25-20. The name of the episode was evil lives here - they found them in storage.
 
abcnews.go.com

Death row inmate who acted as own attorney seeks new trial

A Tennessee man on death row who was forced to act as his own lawyer is seeking a new trial, claiming multiple violations of his constitutional rights
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com

The multiday hearing on Willis' petition for post-conviction relief is scheduled to begin Monday in Washington County Criminal Court in Jonesborough.
 
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