Vincent Prowell



I have stated before that when I am working my way down the list that I have created I often come across clusters of cases that are similar in nature. This has proven true once again. Just this morning I finished a blog in which the crime was in Evansville, Indiana and now I have this one. In fact, I have another one researched to be composed later. This case, like the other one from the area I recent did touches on the subject of mental illness but it also left some other questions to ponder. And, despite so many convicted criminals appealing on grounds of ineffective counsel, this is one of the few cases in which it seems to be a legitimate complaint.

In November of 1992 Vincent Prowell moved to Evansville from Chicago. It is unclear if his mother, Karen Johnson was already here with her boyfriend Edward Cooper and Vincent moved in with them or they all moved together. Although Vincent was twenty-eight years old at the time of his move it was stated later that he had never lived on his own.

In April of 1993 Johnson and Cooper were arrested on drug charges. They would eventually be convicted on charges of dealing in cocaine or another narcotic and serve prison time. It seems that likely while they were awaiting their trials they helped set Vincent up in an apartment of his own.

On the night of May 27, 1993 twenty-two year old Denis Powers, who happened to be Vincent's neighbor was sitting in the parking lot of the apartment complex in her car waiting on her friend, twenty-two year old Chris Fillbright. When Fillbright got to the car and opened the door Vincent came up behind him and shot him in the back of the head. Vincent then shot into the car hitting Powers. She was shot shot in the face and in the back. Vincent then left the scene apparently in his own car, even running over Fillbright in the process.

Another person in the complex had been a witness to the shooting and identified Vincent as the shooting. According to the witness, Joann Rose, no words were exchanged between Vincent or the victims and he had just taken off. Vincent was captured a few hours later in Benton County Indiana. While it was not said in the research that I found I would gander to guess that Vincent was likely on his way back to the Chicago area as this would be the quickest way to go from Evansville. Inside his car the weapon that was used and matching ammunition was found.

For the most part Vincent admitted to the murders. He would claim however that he had seen Fillbright near the mailbox area of the complex earlier in the day and they had a confrontation. He would claim that Fillbright had used racial slurs towards him and he had felt threatened when Fillbright had given him a “military look” early in the day. Fillbright was in fact a military veteran but this claims were never substantiated, nor did they seem plausible.

It was reported that Vincent had never been treated for any mental illness but those around him said that he had something “seriously wrong” with him. They would claim that he talked to himself quite often, even talking to the television after it had been turned off, that he responded strangely to questions and often expressed fear and felt threatened, unreasonably, by others. Now, I know this sounds like a cop-out from a family that wants to get their family member the lightest sentence possible. And, maybe that is true. However, I can tell you from experience that is not always the case. My husband comes from a family in which mental health issue flow as easily as water it seems at times. Some are worse than others and sometimes you may seen signs with someone but either you are too busy working with or worrying about the “sicker” one in the family or they do not seem as serious so you pass things off. Then when they do something criminal you really were not expecting it. As my husband told the police once about his brother, “We knew he was crazy but we never knew it would go this far.” So in defense to the family, and knowing I have been there myself I cannot say that what they were claiming after he had committed murder is not true. It does not lessen what he did or absolve him from any responsibility for his actions. But, as I stated in an earlier blog this is a reason, not an excuse.

At any rate, so here Vincent is arrested and charged with the murders of Powers and Fillbright. A week later the court appointed two attorneys, Dennis Vowels and Michael Danks, who worked part time for the public defenders office to represent Vincent. Two weeks after that the prosecutor announced the state planned to seek the death penalty. A trial was set to begin January 31, 1994.
On January 14, 1994 Vincent pleaded guilty, but he did so without any sort of plea bargain agreed to. On May 5, 1994 Vincent Prowell was sentenced to death.

When I research a case I simply put some key words in a search engine and work my way down. For this case the first thing that came up was Murderpedia, which if you search true crimes on a regular basis as I do then you are familiar with the site. Vincent's profile was a bit different on that site as there really was very little information on it belong the normal statistics available. It did say that in January of 2001 his sentence had been commuted to life. To be fair while the information that his sentence was commuted is accurate, in January of 2001 he was actually ordered a new trial by the courts. According to the Indiana Department of Corrections website he was resentenced in March of 2002 and he received two fifty year sentences, to run consecutively, meaning one after the other. The next thing that I came across in my research was one of the things that I like best when researching a case.... an appeal.

In 2001 Vincent had filed an appeal with the state. It appears this had not been his first one, as his others had been denied, but this was the important one. Appeals almost always lay out the history of the crime, the testimony in court and much more accurate details then you will find even in a blog such as mine, or newspaper articles. I rely on them as often as I can to get accurate information and this was one that did not fail me. It appears that prior to the appeal being heard, great detail was given into the claims and hearings were held with the court. The main complaint in the 2001 appeal centered around the claim of ineffective counsel during the guilty and penalty phases in this case.

It would be nice if everyone who commits a crime openly admitted it and pleaded guilty. It saves time and money and resources. But, the reality of it is that every case and defendant is different and if we started cookie cutting cases then justice would be lost both to the victims and the defendants. I realize there are those who feel that murderers and other convicted criminals do not deserve much of anything but we cannot allow that to be the norm in our justice system. The first thing that I had found odd before I had gotten very far in this case was the fact that Vincent had pleaded guilty in a death penalty case and still received the death penalty. I am unsure I have ever heard of such a case. Sure, murderers plead guilty quite often in death penalty cases but in general it is done to get death “off the table.” I questioned why someone would plead guilty and accept the death penalty when if the case had gone to trial there was at least a chance that they would not get the death penalty and there would be more of an opportunity to present mitigating factors. Also, this was not a guilty, but mentally ill plea or a guilty, but insane plea. This was simply a guilty plea.

The 2001 appeal ruled that the argument against ineffective counsel was valid and they laid out their reasons. According to the appeal prior to Vincent's plea in January of 1994 his attorney, Dennis Vowels had approached the prosecutors attempting to make a deal. He had attempted to offer a guilty plea in exchange for two consecutive sentences of sixty years. The prosecutor declined. This occurred on December 22, 1993. Three weeks later Vincent would enter his guilty plea without any sort of agreement. Sentencing was set to be in March.

A week after pleading guilty Vowels reached out to a mitigation investigator for the first time. They then asked the court for a continuation of the sentencing hearing as so the investigator would have time to basically do his job. They were granted a six week continuance until April 20th. It was not until March 20, 1994, some five weeks after getting the continuance that the defense first met with a psychologist and asked for an evaluation of their client. Keep in mind that this is now three weeks from sentencing some ten months since they had begun to represent him. The psychologist, Joel Dill, did testify at the sentencing hearing that Vincent suffered from paranoid personality disorder, but in the realm of things it was considered to be a “minor disorder.”

The courts ruled that although the attorneys that had represented him indicated or believed that he did suffer from some sort of mental disorder they not only had not contacted anyone to have him evaluated for nearly a year, and over two months after they had allowed him to plead guilty. The courts pointed out that the plea had not even included anything about his mental ability. The court was not arguing whether Vincent did in fact have a mental illness, that was not their job. They did believe, and I believe accurately, that his attorneys had not fulfilled their jobs in providing him an adequate defense.

After the appeals court ruled that Vincent was entitled to a new trial it appears that instead another plea agreement was made of some sort. In the new agreement Vincent pleaded guilty but mentally ill and prior to seeing the judge the agreement stated there was a cap of 100 years to be given, meaning he could get no more than that. Well, in essence that is what he got as the new sentence gave him two fifty year sentences. According to the Department of Corrections his first sentence ends in July of 2018 to which he begins the second. His first chance at parole is in July of 2043.


But, the case does not necessarily end there. Another appeal was filed in 2003 and while it was denied and the conviction and sentence were affirmed I still mention it here due to comments made by the court. The appeal stated that although he had pleaded guilty but mentally ill and the agreement had allowed up to 100 years, which he received that his mental illness was not only not considered to be a mitigating factor but an aggravating one. Basically what that means is that through his attorneys he was arguing that the fact that he had a mental illness had not worked to help him but to harm him and that it was because of the, at least possibility that he had a mental illness that got him more time, not less. The court ruled that this was not an area in which they dealt with as the sentencing judge had the discretion to treat any factors in the way that they saw fit and impose a sentence to their liking as long as it was within the realm of the law.  

Comments

  1. As the daughter of Mr. Cooper, I can attest to the fact that He and Karen Johnson-Prowell were already co-habitating by the time that Vincent moved to Evansville from Chicago. I’m the one who testified regarding his mental illness within my scope of being a nurse and witnessed the mental illness before as well as rapid decline of Vincent after his mother was jailed. 1st off Vincent had displayed many bizarre behaviors prior to his mom being jailed which included accusations that my aunt of “raping”him after they had slept together and he began to stare at her in an hateful manner every since then. Upon My initial meeting of Vincent, my father told me to ask him for a ride to my home, Which he accepted but as he was driving me home, he became very accusatory saying “you’re always doing this!!” I informed him that this was my FIRST TIME MEETING HIM, so how could that be? But there was no rationalization with him,so I remained quiet and slipped the car lock up in case I needed to jump out, and vowed to never be left alone with him again! Later on I noticed that Vincent had a girlfriend named Angie who he later accused her of “raping” him as well once they became intimate, and to hear him speaking regarding their relationship, it was a love/hate once! Vincent also had voodoo dolls (with pins stabbing the ones that represented me and my dad, but he also burned half his head off)inside a shoebox underneath his bed, with dolls of everyone in his small orbit. The voodoo dolls were discovered by the police during the time of my Dad’s raid. Karen testified that she raised her 2 sons in a extremely dysfunctional manner. Her sons were relentlessly teased at church,school and in the community that their dad was actually a woman named Toni(Karen was in a same sex relationship unknown to her family or children) Toni beat them mercilessly, as well as several men that later entered her life. Vincent said that as he grew, he noticed that Toni never shaved and one day he walked in the bathroom on her binding up her breast, so this partly explains probably why he was so suspicious of females.

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  2. I also went to knock on his bedroom door to tell him to come out and join us for dinner, as I approached his door, I heard the voices of a man and woman talking and Vincent laughing and clapping his hands, so I knocked but he didn’t answer, so I opened his door and saw that it was him still laughing and clapping but the tv was off and the remote was next to it. Vincent retrieved his plate but ate inside of his room, like always because he was EXTREMELY ANTISOCIAL PERIOD!! Yes,he would address us for the most part only upon arrival or departure. Karen was in the process of helping him with his apartment with the money that she $10,000 stole from my dad(claimed she was beaten and robbed, yet the robber refused to take her fur coat nor the jewelry that she had on, plus the money later appeared in a joint account for Vincent and Karen)Karen’s other son currently lives with her as well as my Dad. Vincent experienced a rapid decline upon Karen’s incarceration, he was once a well-kept man in appearance but now unshaven and disheveled in appearance began showing up to my house unannounced speaking to me in jumbled Word Salads(uncorrelated words without sentence structure nor meaning)as a Psych nurse being full of fear I’d simply step outside with a knife in my pocket and sit on the steps to talk to him and nod my head and say things like “oh wow!”” Really?” and “hmm, u don’t say” My understanding though testimony is that Vincent had developed an romantic fixation on Denise that was unrequited, and his apartment was next door to her’s. He would place a chair in between their doors but he knew it blocked her door and it “forced her to have to speak” to him, but she simply said “excuse me” each time and nothing more, but that day she was accompanied by a man and as she said said “excuse me” he moved away but then the guy Chris turned and “looked back at me with a militant look!” Which made him instantly paranoid and he ran into his house to retrieve his gun)why he didn’t simply stay inside,I’m guessing we’ll never know)but it’s was stated by witnesses in the apt complex said that he walked up to Chris and shot him 1st killing him, while this was happening Denise began blaring the horn trying to get help/attention from the neighbors as he then turned the gun on her. Then as he was fleeing the scene he drove over Chris, and Vincent was apprehended due to his License plates that read “Vinco” in the town of Kentland,Ind right before reaching of Chicago. Vincent is still incarcerated and has only received 2 visits from his mother(she states that he’s refusing visitation and corespondence thru letters, but family members have told me that it’s ACTUALLY HER that’s refusing it and that she’s said”he’s the one that made this mess now he’s got to stew in it!!” Vincent also had an extremely domineering maternal grandmother who hated Karen due to her lifestyle and ruled over her and her grandsons with cruelty an iron fist and was allowed to do so due to her wealth, which Karen inherited in the end.. Thanks for being non-biased and objective by bringing real awareness to mental illness within the criminal justice system, I appreciate u for writing it.

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  3. It has been a while since I “googled” Vincent Prowell so I am just now seeing this blog. I lived this scenario up close and personal as I was Chris Fillbright’s girlfriend at the time of his murder. His death, to this day, was the most traumatic event I have experienced. I found out about a month after his death that I was pregnant. I prayed for a boy to carry on his name and was blessed with twin boys. I raised them as a single mom but for a brief marriage. It was difficult and heart breaking. I have kept them connected to Chris’ family and we all have remained close to this day. Now, Chris is a grandpa with the birth of his his first grand baby boy whom also is carrying on the Fillbright name. I would give anything to have him here with his family and myself! Even to this day, tears flow when these life events occur and he is not here. Vincent Prowell not only took his life but eternally scarred a whole family who misses him greatly.

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  4. My best friend was the fiancé of Chris Fillbright. She found out she was pregnant with twins right before the trial started. She had to raise her and Chris’ twins by herself and without their dad! To this day, she continues to mourn him. His boys are a testament to the amazing man Chris was. There was no mental illness where that deplorable thing was, he was evil, pure and simple. He made the decision to kill two innocent people with absolutely no regard to their lives nor the lives of the people who loved them. If you want my opinion, he should have gotten the needle, or the firing squad.

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