Josh Griffin serving a life sentence for murder in the 1997 death of a cocktail waitress he'd pulled over in his police cruiser inn 1997

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Ex-Monroe Officer Claimed Innocence, Then Admitted To 1997 Murder

AP North Carolina News
July 21, 2005
WRAL.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A former Monroe police officer, serving a life sentence for murder in the 1997 death of a cocktail waitress he'd pulled over in his police cruiser, confessed four years ago to killing the woman after years of vehement denials.

Josh Griffin told an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation in 2001 that he killed Kim Medlin, former Union County District Attorney Ken Honeycutt and former Monroe Police Chief Bobby Haulk told The Charlotte Observer.

"The statement was essentially a confession to the murder. He just minimized his actions," said Honeycutt, who has a transcript of what Griffin told the agent.

Medlin, 26, disappeared while driving to her Union County home about 3 a.m. on March 29, 1997, from her job at a Charlotte strip club. Her red Jeep was found about 4 a.m. at the side of a road with the engine idling and the lights burning. Her purse and cash were on the seat, but she and her driver's license were missing.

Medlin's body was found the next day in a field at the end of a deserted cul-de-sac. She had been strangled and her neck was broken. Prosecutors said Griffin was a stalker who had seen Medlin months earlier and commented on her good looks. Griffin, then 23, was off-duty but was wearing a uniform and used the blue lights on his cruiser to stop Medlin, prosecutors said.

Griffin drove Medlin to the deserted industrial road, prosecutors said. When she tried to flee, they said, he hit, stomped, and strangled her. Investigators found shoeprints on the back of her sweat shirt.

In the confession, Griffin admitted the shoeprints were his, Honeycutt said. He said he threw his boots in a retail store's trash bin and cut up Medlin's license and flushed it down a toilet.

Griffin claimed he owed drug dealers money for steroids and was told he could pay the debt by stopping Medlin and turning her over to them, Honeycutt said. Griffin said he killed Medlin while the drug dealers were holding them at gunpoint.

Griffin was unable to describe the drug dealers to investigators. "He basically said one was kind of average looking and the other sort of ordinary looking," Honeycutt said. "Not too tall, not too short, kind of average. That's not the way police officers are trained to describe people."

Haulk and Honeycutt said the police officer Griffin claimed took part in Medlin's killing had an alibi. The SBI again interviewed him, they said, and he passed a polygraph test.

Retired Sgt. Sonny Rogers told the newspaper on Wednesday he was the one Griffin fingered. The SBI on Wednesday would only say its agents conducted interviews based on statements made by Griffin after he was convicted. Bridger Medlin, Kim Medlin's widower, said he has known about Griffin's confession for several years.

"I'm glad for his conscience that he can finally admit to it. But we - the family of Kim Medlin - knew it," he said. "The only ones this may help are those who lack rational thought and question whether he is guilty. There will be no doubt now."

Haulk, who retired last fall, said Honeycutt told him and others about the SBI investigation and confession but swore them to secrecy. Officials were afraid going public would hurt their case if it had to be retried. Griffin's defense attorney Kevin Barnett said in 2000 that appeals of the murder conviction had been exhausted.

Griffin, 32, is serving his sentence at the Hoke Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison near Raeford. He declined to talk to the newspaper.

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OMG, what a despicable "man". And, an officer. It does NOT surprise me, unfortunately. I wish it did.

There are some rotten apples in the police force. And when I say rotten, I mean down to the core. Fortunately, they are few and far between.

Thanks for this thread and link, Critter!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks critter for contributing to the convicted forum. This gave me an idea for a new category. "Bad Cops" :crazy :

Love the new category, we can move this there if you want to.

:moved: Thanks critter.