Lisa Graham

Most of the cases, or I guess I should say quite a few, that I blog about are the scratching your head kind of cases. I would gander to guess that many of you readers are like myself. While I have not had the perfect life or childhood I cannot imagine the lengths some of these people will go for what seems to be mundane things. This is not going to be your average case, that is for sure. The Graham family is not your average family. They are not even your average dysfunctional family. No, I think the Graham family may be in a league of their own, well especially matriarch, Lisa.

On the night of July 5, 2007 the body of twenty year old Stephanie Shea Graham was found on the side of the road near Pittsview Alabama. It has been described that her body was found “half naked” and while I suppose technically that is true, it was her middle “half” that was naked. I mean that tends to happen when you are a female and you die while you are going to the bathroom. Now, whether she had been shot five or six times seems to in dispute but that is just a number anyway. Regardless of how many shots were fired into her body at least one of them was apparently fatal. Although it was not stated completely, unless the responding officers personally knew Stephanie, who went by her middle name, Shea, which to be fair is not completely out of the realm of possibility, her identification would not have been known right away. It was said that Shea had left her car, cell phone and drivers license with friends at a gas station. It did not take more than a day it seems to figure out who she was though.

Several witnesses had seen Shea leave with a man named Kenneth Walton on that Thursday night around 7:30, about three hours before her body had been found. While there were several references that Kenneth Walton worked for Lisa and Kevin Graham, Shea's parents, at their business but it was never really clear what that business was. There was also an indication that Kenneth Walton had another job also. It was also said that Kenneth Walton was an old family friend of the Graham family and knew Shea well. By Saturday morning investigators were talking to Walton.

It did not take long before Walton told investigators exactly what had occurred and why. According to Walton, although he had known the Graham family near all his life, he had only begun working for them in August of 2004 after he had been released from prison for dealing cocaine. He would say that Lisa Graham approached him soon after and began talking about wanting her daughter dead. He said he would finally tell Kevin Graham and Walton claims that Kevin all but told Lisa if she wanted it done she needed to do it herself. Then apparently Lisa had asked Walton again and this time said it was because he “owed” her. At some point it seems that Kevin Graham had an affair with one of Walton's cousins and Lisa had found out and also discovered that Walton had covered for the couple. In other interviews Walton would say that Lisa had asked him to do this “as a favor.” Regardless as to why Walton agreed, the fact remains that he did.

Shea Graham had her own demons it seems. There were allegations that she was involved in prostitution and was addicted to drugs and alcohol. In fairness much of this information was released by the media and while I do not give a lot of credence to the every day person commenting on article I do read them and there are those who claim to have known Shea that have disputed at least the alcohol and drug remarks. The media had also portrayed Shea as a very troubled person who was constantly being bailed out by her parents. Again, while it seems at the time of her death they may have recently and literally bailed her out, that has been disputed also prior to her last incident. Shea had gotten in major legal trouble recently. She was apparently involved in a drive by shooting in Columbus Georgia, just over the state line from their Phenix City Alabama home. There were not any details of what happened in that shooting because everything centered around Shea later being murdered. She was out on a $100,000 bond that was paid for by her parents and was due to court the morning after her murder.

Walton went on to tell the investigators that Lisa Graham had met him at the local library early in the day on Thursday and loaned him her 9 mm gun. According to Walton Graham told him she feared her daughter planned to skip on her bond and stick her with the lost money. To be fair, it seems to me if Shea was going to skip out on her bond she would have done it long before she had court the next morning. But that was the story. However, keep in mind that according to Walton, Lisa Graham had wanted to “get rid” of her daughter for a very long time. This may have just been the latest of her excuses. Walton also stated that Graham had told him to make sure her body was left out in the open so she would be found fairly easy. I suspect this is so there was no question at court the next day and the family did not lose their money. Walton said that later that night he met up with Shea at the gas station. He claimed that he lured her away with the prospect of getting a car for her to “run” in. He said they drove around and around while he gathered the courage to do what he had planned. At some point they stopped at another gas station and Walton pretended to make a call to the person with the alleged car. Finally at some point Shea had asked him to pull over so she could go outside the vehicle and use the bathroom. Walton says that as she opened the truck door she stood there, lowered her pants and as she began to squat to urinate he had pulled up the gun and shot her in the head. He then got out of the truck and walked around to her side and shot several more times into her body. He closed her door, got back in on his side and drove away. Investigators would say in his haste to leave he had even run over Shea's arm. Walton alleged that he went home and went to bed. The following day he worked a few hours and then headed over to the Graham home where he returned the gun to Lisa Graham. At no time did he mention that Kevin Graham knew anything about the plan or what had happened, beyond mentioning telling him about Lisa asking him to kill their daughter some years before.

Investigators had their story and immediately headed over to the Graham home. They began asking Lisa Graham about the 9 mm. She would claim that she had no idea where the gun was at that moment. She allowed investigators to search the home but at some point Kevin Graham told investigators they should go talk to their neighbor, only known as “Papa.” Apparently Papa had come to the Graham home about the time Walton returned the gun and Lisa mentioned something about needing it cleaned. The elderly neighbor offered to do that for her. This was one of many clues to investigators that the story Walton had told just may be true. Why else would she send allow the search by officers knowing exactly where the gun was located? The gun was retrieved and a ballistics tests were run. When it was determined that Lisa Graham's gun matched the bullets retrieved from her daughter's body investigator went and arrested Lisa.

It took an extremely long time to get Lisa's case to trial. The prosecution had decided that they were seeking the death penalty. Kenneth Walton would plead guilty in June of 2012 seemingly to avoid the death penalty and received a life sentence. The first delay for taking Lisa to trial revolved around the fact that the courthouse was having renovations done and it was said it was “unsafe to hold a death penalty trial.” I can only assume that this was made on the assumption that a lot more traffic than normal would be going into the courthouse. Finally her trial would begin on September 17, 2012 but it would end some eight days later when the judge on the case declared a mistrial. It was not for your typical reasons, and in fact neither the prosecution nor the defense had asked for one. The Judge, George Greene, had been experiencing medical issues and felt that he could no longer preside over the trial. The prosecution would almost immediately announce they were obviously going for a second try. The defense made what I consider to be a most unreasonable charge and even filed it with the courts, delaying the second trial even longer. The defense argued that the prosecution did not have the right to re-try Lisa Graham because the judge, at least in their opinion, could have continued with the trial and was pushed to withdraw by his superiors and that to re-try her would constitute double jeopardy. But, because it was officially filed the courts had to hear it. In the meantime while they awaited the decision about a new trial the defense asked, and was able to get Lisa released from jail on certain conditions.

On January 3, 2013 Lisa Graham was released on a $250,000 bond. Things get a bit confusing here. By this time it appears that she and Kevin were no longer a couple, I mean who could blame him, she had murdered their daughter. My research says that she was released to her mother's home and along with wearing an ankle bracelet she was required to take random drug tests. In January of 2014 Kevin Graham would ask that her bond be revoked. His argument was that he and a man named Warren Thompson had been joint owners of property that had been put up to secure her bond but Thompson had died and being the sole owner of the property he did not want to be responsible for this any longer. He also claimed that part of the reason was that she was violating the conditions of her release by not living with a relative and alleged she had computers and cell phones (there was an indication that she was not to have these). Now, I had no idea who this Warren Thompson was. In some records Lisa was listed as Lisa Carpenter Graham so I assumed that was her maiden name. I did a search on Warren Thompson and found an obituary listed on findagrave.com that does list Lisa as a daughter. But, that did not necessarily clear things up. The obituary did not list a surviving spouse and stated that his wife, Christine had died in 2005. At any rate it does seem that Warren Thompson was a relative and had owned property with Kevin Graham before his death. However, despite his claims it seems that nothing was done at that time. It was later said that Lisa's bond was revoked on September 24, 2014 after “a sheriff was investigating a domestic dispute saw she was not wearing her ankle bracelet.”

Finally the courts would rule on the defense motion that re-trying Lisa for the murder of her daughter after the mistrial violated the double jeopardy rule. Not surprisingly the courts disagreed with them. There was sufficient evident that Judge Greene had many medical issues at the time. He would continue on the bench until he retired in December of 2013 but he would die on January 1, 2014. There was evidence that during the initial trial in which Judge Greene had presided that his medical issues had prevented him from adequately paying attention, let alone being awake. It was said that he had a tendency to fall asleep and sometimes he could even be heard snoring. The court ruled that removing himself from the case was a benefit to all parties involved. Without being able to sufficiently pay attention to the proceedings he may have made a decision that was detrimental to one of the parties. With that said the court ordered that the prosecution could proceed with a second trial.

Lisa Graham's second trial would begin in February of 2015. The prosecution not only had Kenneth Walton, who had agreed to testify they had plenty of other witnesses to present to the jury. A neighbor named Steve Himmelberger testified that he often saw Lisa and Shea fighting and in at least one incident had seen Lisa slap Shea. He would claim that one month before the murder he had seen Shea and her boyfriend outside fighting. He thought it was getting out of hand and had gone to the house and all but told Kevin and Lisa they needed to go outside. While Kevin did just that Lisa had stayed inside and according to Himmelberger she offered him $5,000 to kill Shea. Kevin Graham would testify and agree that the two women argued often but he also said that he saw Lisa point a gun at Shea on at least one occasion. He also admitted that Kenneth Walton had told him previously that Lisa had attempted to get him to kill Shea. As I said earlier it appears that Kevin Graham knew nothing of the plans to kill Shea but it also appears that after her death he knew exactly who to look at. It was said that he heard and recorded (although unsure it was played in court) a conversation between Lisa and Kenneth Walton just after the murder in which she promised Walton to pay for his attorney, admitting that she had asked him to do this for her.

It appears that four inmates at the county jail also testified that after her arrest Lisa had approached them about passing a note to Walton asking him if he would accept $10,000 to “take me out of the equation.” The prosecution had other witnesses who would testify that Lisa Graham had repeatedly said that her daughter was ruining her life and she would kill her if she could. It was also claimed that around the same time that she was allegedly fearful that Shea would run out on her bond Lisa had decided that Shea and Kevin were having some sort of “incestuous affair.”

Just what the defense offered the court is unclear. I found little that really gave their side of things so it is not surprising to know that the jury found Lisa Graham guilty in the murder of her daughter on March 5, 2015. The only real thing I found was that they were attempting to determine what Kenneth Walton "received" for committing the murder.  They argued that for this to be a murder for hire case and to prove so the prosecution needed to prove that Kenneth Walton benefited in some way.  The jury went back to deliberate her sentence and after one hour they recommended death. For their part the defense asked that sentencing be delayed longer than normal so that they had a change to have her evaluated mentally. At some point it had been alleged that Lisa had been diagnosed with suffering from PTSD and was “taking medications often prescribed for schizophrenia.” It appears that their goal of course was to say that she was mentally ill and because so could not be sentenced to death. After several months the sentencing hearing was held on November 18, 2015.

A psychologist evaluated Lisa and presented the evidence to the court. In his opinion she did have any “mental deficiencies.” He had also conducted an IQ test saying she scored a 77. He claimed that while this level of intelligence did not render her as mentally retarded (the standard courts use to determine fitness for the death penalty), it could have prevented her from fully thinking through her actions before they were acted on. So basically he said she was impulsive. The psychologist was asked if he believed she had faked anything in the evaluation and while he stated no to the IQ test, he did stated he thought she exaggerated mental issues and embellished to imply that they were worse than they were. This is something that I am on the fence with. I have a relative by marriage that is in prison currently. He committed the crime of arson. There is significant mental illness in his family and he had long sense showed signs that he too suffered with the illness. When being evaluated by a medical professional he thought it would be wise to go into the evaluation acting like what he thought “crazy” people acted like. The doctors saw through this and as a result of that stated that he was not mentally ill. Now, had this person gone in and acted like himself I am unsure the results would be the same. For me however, there is something to be said about someone who thinks it is a “smart” thing to do in the first place. In the end it seems that this psychologist did not address anything about the alleged PTSD or the medications she had been described. To the defense's dismay technically the psychologist found nothing that could or should have prevented her from being sentenced to death.

In the end that is exactly what the judge did on November 18, 2015. Today both Lisa Graham and Kenneth Walton are in the Alabama prison system. I am certain we have a lot of years left of appeals in this case, especially with Lisa Graham. I am a bit confused about Walton though. The Alabama Department of Corrections website says that he can be considered for parole in the year 2022. However, under “minimum release date” it shows “12-31-9999.” I did a search recently on another case in Alabama and determined that if someone is sentenced to life without parole that means they will remain in prison throughout their natural life. It is unclear with this information just exactly what Kenneth Walton received.