UPDATE: Lee Evans & Philander Hampton Charged With Murder & Arson In The 1978 Deaths Of 5 NJ Teens~Philander Hampton Accepts Plea Deal Sentenced To Years In Prison

NEWARK, N.J. – On an August night 32 years ago, authorities say, three men who believed five teenage boys had stolen their drugs herded them into an abandoned house at gunpoint, tied them up and set the building on fire, burning them alive and leaving no trace.
Those details on one of the coldest and strangest missing-persons cases New Jersey has ever seen became known Tuesday as prosecutors announced that two of the men had been arrested on a recent tip from a witness. A third suspect died in 2008.
The teens, ages 16 and 17, had not been seen since they disappeared, and the five bodies were never found in the rubble of the destroyed house. The suspects believed the boys had stolen a pound of marijuana from one of them, the Essex County prosecutor's office said.
One of the suspects, 56-year-old Lee Evans, routinely hired teenagers to help with odd jobs, officials said. He was interviewed in the months after the disappearances but was cleared as a suspect.
Evans, of nearby Irvington, and Philander Hampton, 53, of Jersey City, were charged with murder and arson and are being held on $5 million bail each, prosecutor's office said.
The boys, Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor, both 17, and Alvin Turner, Randy Johnson and Michael McDowell, all 16, were last seen on a busy street near a park where they had played basketball on Aug. 20, 1978.
Evans told police at the time that he dropped off the boys on a street corner near an ice cream parlor. Later that night, Michael McDowell returned home and changed clothes, then returned to a waiting pickup truck with at least one other boy inside. That was the last confirmed sighting of any of the teens.
McDowell's uncle, William McDowell, said Tuesday that the family always felt Evans was responsible.
"It's been very frustrating for Michael's family and for myself," McDowell said.
Investigators said Tuesday they believe that two of the boys were taken to the house first, and that three more were taken later. They said the tip came 18 months ago.
Four of the boys were from Newark. McDowell had recently moved to East Orange.

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I wonder if they can get a conviction on the word of one witness...Don't know if they have any forensics...Why didn't they find the remains of the bodies in the burned-down building? Teeth, bones, etc.? This sounds to me like there wasn't a very good investigation done.

This is an interesting article about the case that was published on the 30th anniversary of the disappearance in Aug. 2008.

30 Years Later -- 5 New Jersey Teens Still Missing

Posted: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Updated: August 19th, 2008 09:24 AM EDT

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Story by wnbc.com

NEW YORK --

Thirty years ago, five teenage boys vanished after playing basketball in Newark, N.J. They were never heard from again.

Their remains were never found, Social Security numbers never used -- and no arrests have ever been made. But the community has never forgotten its tragic loss.

Melvin Pittman, 17, Randy Johnson, 16, Ernest Taylor, 17, Alvin Turner, 16, and Michael McDowell, 16, who have become known as "The Clinton Avenue Five," vanished Aug. 20, 1978. Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of their disappearance.

The case, which is New Jersey's oldest cold case, remains open. But after 30 years without any solid leads, it's unclear what, if anything, is left to find.

And although most of the boys' family members are dead, the community remembers.

An annual memorial service is held at Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church. On Sunday, the Rev. Alfred Johnson led an 11 a.m. service at the church on 16th Street.

News 4 New York talked to family members of Michael McDowell, one of the missing boys.

"You can't make five people disappear by yourself," said Michael's aunt Helen Simmons. "So there are other people involved and when there are other people involved ... somebody would talk ...but nobody has."

Facts Of The Case

The teens were last seen entering the pickup truck of a man who reportedly offered them summer part-time work -- and they were never seen again. Police questioned the contractor, Lee Anthony Evans, and cleared him of suspicion after he passed polygraph tests.

"He had a conversation with my mom, and I came back outside and saw my brother get in a truck with Lee Evans -- a green pick up truck -- and drive off," said Terry Lawson, Michael's sister. "We never saw him again."

Several days after the boys disappeared, one of their mothers got a phone call from a man who said he would tell her where the boys were for $750. Police traced the call to a payphone at Union Station in Washington, D.C., but by the time they arrived, whoever had made the call apparently had fled.

The investigation has taken detectives all over the country.

Detectives checked military records, religious cults, the bodies from Jim Jones' 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, according to Reuters, and the victims of Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and men -- to no avail.

In 1996, police followed a lead from a psychic who had previously helped detectives find the body of a missing boy in a drainpipe. The psychic had a vision the boys' burned remains were buried in a five-acre field near Newark International Airport. Searchers came up empty-handed.

The boys' Social Security numbers were never used. Only one of the five had dental records; none had fingerprints, Reuters reported.

"You have to wonder what transpired,'' Sgt. Derek Glenn, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department, told Reuters on the week of the 20th anniversary of the disappearance. "Even one of them alive, having made contact in some fashion or form, even through a third person, hasn't happened.''

Police initially believed the boys had run away, but the family said they weren't the type to do that. Just one of the boys, McDowell, of East Orange, got into trouble once for a fistfight, but the others -- sophomores and juniors at Weequahic High School -- never got into trouble at all, according to The New York Times.

"For sure we know they haven't run away," said Lawson. "Something happened to them, and 30 years later we know it's not good ... else we would know something."

But despite the disturbing, painful facts of their disappearance, there was precious little media coverage at the time. It was 1978 -- a decade after the Newark riots -- and many speculated that the reason local papers -- even The Star-Ledger -- and media outlets failed to cover the story at the time was because it was about five black boys.

On the 25th anniversary of the disappearance, a New York Times article read, "The five black youths never entered the public consciousness the way some white, middle-class missing children do."

The advent of the Internet might have made it a different story today, but there was no World Wide Web when the boys disappeared. Today, Web surfers would be hard-pressed to find any information apart from one or two articles marking the 20th and 25th anniversaries of the boys' disappearance.

"They just weren't considered important enough to go after," said Simmons. "I just want to know what happened."

Only two of the original detectives who worked on the missing persons case remain involved. One died and one retired to Florida. A new detective, Rasheed Sabur, is involved.

No arrests have ever been made in the decades-old case, which some investigators call one of the most baffling missing persons cases in history.

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Wow lisette they made two arrest after all these years. I enjoyed the story very much. Thanks for posting it.

30+ years later....JUSTICE begins

NEWARK, N.J. (March 23, 2010)--Two men have been charged with the murders of five teenage boys in New Jersey who disappeared more than 30 years ago.

The Essex County, N.J. prosecutor's office said the men were arrested Monday night.

They’re also charged with arson.

Their names weren’t immediately released.

The boys, who were all 16 or 17, were last on Aug. 20, 1978 on a busy Newark street.

Police said they were with a local carpenter who routinely hired teens to help him with odd jobs.

He was repeatedly interviewed, passed a polygraph examination, and was cleared as a suspect months after the disappearances.

The prosecutor's office did not immediately say how the case was solved.

Helen Simmons the aunt of one of the boys, called the arrests "a bittersweet victory" and said, "finally someone will be accountable."

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(March 23) -- Nearly 32 years ago, five teen-agers disappeared in northern New Jersey after playing basketball. Detectives had even thought they may have been among the victims of the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, or the Atlanta child slayings in the late '70s and early '80s.

Late Monday, police arrested two men and said the five boys had been forced into an abandoned Newark house, restrained at gunpoint and burned to death after the house was set on fire.

A tip from a witness 18 months ago led to the arrests, prosecutors said today.

Lee Anthony Evans, 56, an Irvington carpenter who was considered a suspect at the time of the boys' disappearance, and Philander Hampton, 53, of Jersey City, were charged with five counts of murder and arson, the Essex County prosecutor's office said. Each is being held on $5 million bail.

A third man believed to have been involved, Maurice Woody-Olds, 48, died two years ago, authorities said. All three men were cousins.

"With these arrests today we hope to bring closure to a 31-year-old mystery involving five teenage boys who vanished from Newark on Aug. 20, 1978,'' Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino said. "For years their families wondered what happened on that August day. Today, we believe, that question has been answered.''

Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor, both 17, and three 16-year-olds -- Alvin Turner, Randy Johnson and Michael McDowell -- were last seen on a busy Newark street loading boxes into a pickup truck owned by Evans, who offered them part-time work after they played a basketball game together, authorities said.

The suspects allegedly forced the five into an abandoned house where Hampton rented an apartment, restrained them at gunpoint and burned the house to the ground. The teens' bodies were never found, and police said tests to determine whether any human remains were buried there proved negative.

Evans was eliminated as a suspect three decades ago after passing at least one lie detector test.

Officials said they believe one of the boys broke into one of the defendant's homes and stole marijuana.

Monday's arrests came after three decades of investigating the teens' disappearance, with detectives looking as far as Atlanta, where a serial killer murdered more than 20 children in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Jonestown, where more than 900 people died in a mass suicide in 1978.

The five teens left behind no evidence and were considered unlikely runaways.

Detectives said they received the break about 18 months ago, when a witness contacted them and cooperated in one of the state's oldest investigations. Prosecutors said the arrests came "after intense efforts to corroborate the witness's account, tying the missing boys to the arson."

The families of the victims, who were high school students at the time of their disappearance, were contacted about the arrests late Monday.

McDowell's sister, Terry Lawson, who was 11 when her brother vanished, told The Star-Ledger of Newark she was stunned.


Essex County Prosecutor
Booking photos show Lee Anthony Evans, 56, left, and Philander Hampton, 53. Both were charged with five counts of murder and arson.
"We really want to make sure this is actually happening after all this time," she said. "We've been waiting for this phone call for 30 years. To receive it is shocking."

McDowell's aunt, Helen Simmons, called the news "a bittersweet victory."

Evans and Hampton are being held at the Essex County Correctional Facility.

"The arrest and charging of the two suspects in this case represents the beginning of the final chapter in the most heinous crime ever perpetrated not only in the city of Newark, but the state of New Jersey,'' State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said.

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NEWARK -- It has been solved, authorities say. The case that defied hard police work, psychic investigation and prayers: Five teenagers disappeared from the city’s streets more than 30 years ago, without a clue, without a trace.

It was a case that left the city panicked and angry and demanding answers. Had the police done all they could? Did they wait too long to take the disappearance of five black kids seriously?

Detective Sgt. Darnell Henry, head of the Newark police department’s cold case homicide squad, remembers how much the mystery affected the city. He was about 9 years old when the five disappeared and remembers being told children were not safe, that a van was roaming the streets, snatching up young boys.

The cold case squad — Henry and Detectives Joseph Hadley Jr. and Murad Muhammad — working with State Police and Essex County detectives, put “new eyes” on the old file. Their investigation led to the arrests of Lee Anthony Evans and Philander Hampton. A third suspect died of natural causes before the reinvestigation started.

The young victims had done some work for Evans, a contractor, just before they disappeared. Evans was an early suspect in an investigation that seemed to lead nowhere for years.

There are a few different stories swirling about just how the case was cracked. In fact, everything needed to solve it was in the file the cold case investigators inherited: the names of those who are now in custody, a still unnamed witness — even references to a fire. Previous investigators assigned to the case worked alone. It took the group effort to connect the dots.

Their conclusion: The suspects thought the five boys had taken a quantity of marijuana from the home of one of the suspects. The men took the boys to a house on Camden Street, where Hampton once rented an apartment, locked them in and burned the house down.

Were the boys killed first? Were they alive when the blaze was set? There are things the authorities either don’t know or aren’t saying because they are concerned about hindering a prosecution that will be hard enough, given the time that has passed and the fact that the bodies were never recovered.

The fire was hot and horrible enough to implode the house and set adjacent structures ablaze.

Three decades ago it was a time of fire in Newark. Homes went up regularly, often because landlords were looking to collect the insurance and run from Newark.

Was a good arson investigation done after the fire in this case? Did someone miss evidence of five bodies? Were the bodies relocated by the killers? Was somebody dealing drugs? Could such a horrible crime possibly be about a personal stash of weed?

Ed Murray/The Star-LedgerJack Eustey, a retired Newark police, Joseph Hadley, Jr. Newark homicide detective cold case squad, William Tietjen, New Jersey State Police, Lt. Louis Carrega, Essex County Prosecutor's Office, Murad Muhammad, homicide detective cold case squad, Detective Sergeant Darnell Henry, Newark homicide cold case squad, at the Camden Street location of the fire in Newark. The Camden Street house was demolished fairly soon after the fire. In 2002, New Community Corp. built a development of townhomes there and sold them to private buyers. The new Newark stands over the secrets of the old one. Have other secrets been carted away with bricks and debris?

Talk to people in Newark and you will often hear skepticism about whether justice follows murder. For instance, in 1983 it was discovered that the Essex County Medical Examiner Office failed to conduct thorough autopsies on five corpses and labeled what were homicides as “death by natural causes.” There are reasons for the erosion of trust between those affected by violence and those sworn to protect them.

If the case of the missing boys, which some said could never be solved, has been solved, will that act help restore some of the lost trust? Will it persuade more witnesses to come forward with information to help solve crimes, old ones and new ones?

On Tuesday, the cold case detectives, who also work on new homicide cases, said they would spend the afternoon visiting the relatives of the five victims. Three mothers, one father and a list of siblings are still alive. They deserve to hear as much as can be told from someone who looks them in the eye, the detectives said as they left the squad room.

There is a big board in the squad room listing recent murder cases. If the case is unsolved, the victim’s name is written in red, just like on TV. There is a lot of red.

Thanks for this story lisette! I'm so happy after all these years someone is going to pay for killing the teenage boys. Thank God for the detectives that work on cold cases! :clapping:

You would have thought that we would have heard more about this story down through the years... A sad statement about that era, but you have to wonder: What if five white teenagers had vanished into thin air?

Lee Evans, left, and Philander Hampton pleaded not guilty to five counts of murder and arson. Roderick Royster, a Newark man, recalls being with the 5 teens the night they were killed. His father had yanked Royster and his brother from the back of the truck, just before the other teens disappeared forever.

Lee Evans pulled up to Fabyan Place in his green pick-up that night and motioned to a group of teenagers, Roderick Royster included.
It was Aug. 20, 1978, and Evans — everyone called him "Big Man" — was a familiar presence in that part of Newark, Royster recalled. The 25-year-old contractor had a job for the boys, help him move boxes and furniture.
Quick work and easy money, they thought.
"We all knew him," said Royster, who was 16 at the time. "We all thought we knew him."
But as the teens climbed into the pick-up, Royster recalled, his father approached. "If you don't get out of the truck, you're gonna wake up and find yourself dead," he told Roderick and his 19-year-old brother, Gregory.
Call it a parent's intuition.
The truck drove off without Roderick and his brother. Their five friends who did get in were never heard from again.

• Full coverage of 1978 murder case of five Newark teensLast week, authorities charged Evans and his cousin, Philander Hampton, with killing the five that night. The men stand accused of driving the teens to a vacant house on Camden Street, forcing them inside then torching the building.
The bodies of Melvin Pittman, 17, Randy Johnson, 16, Ernest Taylor, 17, Alvin Turner, 16, and Michael McDowell, 16, were never found.
"I think about it every day," Royster, now 48, said in a phone interview today from his home in Essex County. "If my father hadn't shown up, that could have been me."
Royster said that when he heard a few days later that his friends had disappeared, he immediately suspected the worst. He said he spoke with the police and his family about the incident, but few others. He said he told authorities he didn't know where Evans was taking them that night.
Until Evans and Hampton were charged, Royster said, he had not heard about the vacant house at 256 Camden St.
Royster agreed to discuss the events of that night in 1978, but did not want to be photographed out of fear of retribution. He claimed that several years ago, Evans threatened him in a brief encounter. "I have something for you. I haven't forgotten about you," Royster says Evans told him.
Jack Eutsey, a former Newark police detective who worked on the case when he was with the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, confirmed Royster's account of the night the boys disappeared as did another law enforcement official who isn't authorized to discuss the investigation.
Eutsey also said Royster reported his alleged encounter with Evans to law enforcement soon after it happened.
Royster's account has been well documented, though law enforcement officials are less certain about whether his brother was there. Gregory Royster could not be reached for comment. Their father, Joseph, died 13 years ago.
Evans, now 56, and Hampton, 53, have pleaded not guilty to five counts each of murder and are being held on $5 million bail each. Evans, whom police suspected soon after the five disappeared, had told authorities he picked up the boys that night to do some work for him, but that he dropped them off later.
Evans' attorney, Michael Robbins, discounted Royster's claim about the threat.
"I would gauge Mr. Royster's credulity on the subject of any alleged threat somewhere between that of the first psychic detective employed by the state in this case and the second psychic detective employed by the state, and just about as useful," Robbins said.
Royster said he has nothing to gain by coming forward.
"Melvin was one of my best friends. He lived next door. He used to holler out the kitchen window to me," Royster said. " ... Melvin and Randy were big boys. They could beat up three people apiece."
He described "Ernie" and Alvin as quiet kids, and said Michael would visit his house often.
Royster, who attended Weequahic High School with four of the teens, later joined the Air Force. He returned to Newark, where he became a truck driver. He is married with three adult children, and is on work disability.
Royster said his father was never afraid to speak his mind. That night in 1978 was no different, he said.
"When he asked us, 'where y'all going?' and I told him that Big Man had a job for us, I could see he wasn't having any of it," Royster said. After his two sons got out of the truck, the father advised the other boys to do the same. "They didn't listen," Royster said. "I wish they had."

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October 03, 2011

 
Terry Lawson remembers the night her big brother, Michael McDowell, vanished from a Newark street. And she remembers her mother’s despair.

Janet Lawson didn’t have a driver’s license, so when her 16-year-old son went missing on Aug. 20, 1978, relatives began shuttling her around the city every day, searching for the boy.

With the car windows rolled down, Janet Lawson would call out: "‘Michael! Michael!,’" Terry Lawson said today in court.

Janet Lawson died long before anyone found out what happened to her son, who disappeared with four friends that night. The boys were officially classified as missing until March 2010, when authorities charged two cousins with their murder.

Today, standing in for her mother, Terry Lawson was in court to see one of the defendants, Philander Hampton, get sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the killing.

"The pain, anguish and helplessness she was forced to endure are indescribable," Lawson said of her mother, who died of leukemia in 1979, but never gave up hope that Michael would walk back through the door and give her a hug.

Hampton, 54, who admitted to five counts of felony murder, will testify against his cousin, Lee Anthony Evans, at his murder trial later this month. In exchange for the plea, Hampton received a reduced prison term, which under guidelines from the time of the killing make him eligible for parole in February.

The alleged mastermind of the killing, Evans, 58, stands charged with five counts of murder and intends to represent himself at trial. Authorities say the cousins lured the teenagers into an abandoned house that night 33 years ago, then locked them inside. A third cousin, who is also believed to be involved, has since died.

Evans is accused of pouring gasoline throughout the house then setting it on fire.

The bodies of McDowell, Randy Johnson and Alvin Turner, all 16; and Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor, both 17, were never found.
Clad in a tan prison jumper, Hampton entered the Newark courtroom in handcuffs, his back hunched and looking frail. Flanked by his two attorneys, Hampton remained silent and gave no reaction as Superior Court Judge Patricia Costello imposed sentence. Hampton, who has been incarcerated since his arrest for murder, will begin serving his prison term immediately.

Evans, who is free on bail, was not in court today but has loudly maintained his innocence, accusing Essex County officials of corruption in their effort to prosecute him. Last month, Evans turned down a similar plea deal to the one Hampton received, though prosecutors later said the offer merely represented a start to negotiations.

In a phone interview after sentencing, Evans called Hampton’s plea deal "an insult to the families. If, hypothetically, someone would do something like that, how are you going to let somebody out in two years?" he said. "That means Michael Vick went to jail for two years for a dog," referring to the N.F.L. quarterback who pleaded guilty for his role in a dogfighting ring in 2007.

In fact, the half-dozen victims’ relatives who sat through today’s sentencing expressed anger at what they view a lenient sentence. But they have their sights set on Evans — Terry Lawson has called him the "big fish" — who prosecutors contend orchestrated the killing as payback for the boys having stolen a pound of marijuana.

Authorities have built their case against Evans largely on Hampton’s November 2008 confession to police, which also implicated his older cousin in the killing. In her own remarks, Costello noted how Hampton’s confession has given authorities "the only evidence they have."

While no physical piece of evidence has tied either cousin to the crime, prosecutors contend witnesses will testify to seeing Evans, a carpenter at the time of the killing, drive the boys in his truck that night, after promising them work moving boxes. They were never seen again.

Evans may be the alleged brains behind the killing, but Hampton’s sentence did not sit well with one victim’s relative. Booker Murray, whose brother was Melvin Pittman, told the court, "you’re talking about the murder of five boys. It’s just not reasonable."
Terry Lawson, meanwhile, could barely contain her rage. Reading from a prepared statement, but addressing Hampton directly, she said at one point, "May your soul never experience a day’s rest or peace, and when you die, I pray you go straight to hell where you belong."

But in asking the judge to impose a 10-year term, lead prosecutor Peter Guarino said Hampton had been influenced "by a much older and much more dominant individual." Hampton, who will remain bound by the terms of the plea deal when he testifies at trial, "has nowhere to go but forward," Guarino said. "Today begins the freest period of Mr. Hampton’s life that he has had in 30 years. He has freed himself of Lee Evans."

In the three decades following the killing, Hampton had a string of arrests and convictions for robbery, theft, public drinking, drug possession and shoplifting, Costello said in reviewing his case file. He had a "long-term heroin addiction," which he kicked, she said, earned a high school equivalency in prison and has fathered two children, whom he does not see. Costello, who will preside over Evans’ trial, said the fact that the killing involved "five children was especially depraved."

But for Terry Lawson, now 45, the pain of Michael’s memory will endure.

"Thirty-three years ago I was a child who watched her big brother disappear into the night," she said. "Today, I stand here a woman, a mother myself. I can’t imagine not knowing what happened to one of my children. I can’t imagine the pain my mother endured not knowing what happened to her only son."

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Lee Anthony Evens
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