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Old 11-23-2004, 04:45 PM
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Sword Killing STILL Haunts Workers

Sword Death Haunts Workers

Witnesses describe frenzied attack, shock that followed

The metal worker stood over a circular metal grinder, sharpening a 3-foot-long, silver-colored rod.

His coworkers paid him no mind.

"We had gotten off early that night," recalled laborer Henry Tabb. "I went to punch out and I heard a grinding noise. I started to go back there and saw his back turned to me. He was wearing a green hoodie. He was back there grinding something. I didn't know what it was."

The next night was Oct. 27. A lunar eclipse blotted out the moon.

The workers at the Peerless Metal Powders & Abrasives plant in southwest Detroit would soon learn exactly what their coworker James Flemons had fashioned 24 hours earlier.

It was a sword.

They say Flemons, 30, attacked a 43-year-old colleague, Anthony Williams of Detroit, with the weapon, killing him.

That night, Tabb recalls standing mesmerized as Flemons chased Williams through the plant, striking him repeatedly.

"James was hitting him in the back of the neck with that sword," he said. "He just kept doing it and doing it. Then he reached down and rolled him over on his back and again started hitting on his neck."

At one point, Tabb tried to intervene with a shovel.

"Man, what are you doing?" Tabb screamed to Flemons.

Flemons turned around and calmly uttered: "Stay out of my business."

Police said by the time Flemons finished, Williams was nearly decapitated.

The vision of the attack keeps Tabb, 45, up at night. When he recounts it, he cries.

Tabb is seeking counseling to cope with his shock. But there's still one detail that puzzles him.

"The strangest thing is that I wasn't afraid for me," he said recently from his apartment on Fort Street in southwest Detroit. "It was like James was just focused on Anthony. I just don't know why."

Candles and crossbones
How Flemons got to the point of a first-degree murder charge for allegedly hacking to death a coworker on the shop floor in front of at least three other witnesses remains a mystery.

But he was strange, his coworkers said.

They said he painted his nails black. He burned candles at work. He talked about occult and fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons.

"But I really thought it was all an act," said Keith Odom, 45, of Detroit, who quit after the slaying because he didn't feel he could continue there. "James said a lot of strange things, satanic foolishness. I brushed it off."

Benedict Aguilar runs a ramshackle religious supplies store near the plant named Benedict's Gift Shop. Flemons visited the store weekly, perusing the colored candles, statues, incense and semiprecious stones. He lived just across an I-75 bridge, at the Hotel Yorba, on West Lafayette.

"He said he knew all about different religions and was pretty advanced, so he created his own religion," Aguilar said. "He knew what he was buying. He said he took what he wanted out of different religions and put into one."

Flemons purchased one item regularly for his home altar: a large black candle in glass. It cost $1.79 and was emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. Its slogan read: "Death Unto My Enemies."

"He said his relatives were doing evil things to him," Aguilar said. "He said he needed protection. I meet a lot of people in here, so that wasn't very shocking to me."

The dynamic between Flemons and his family remains unclear. Family members refused to comment after a recent court hearing at which he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before a Jan. 19 hearing. He is being evaluated at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti.

Flemons was convicted in 1999 for attacking his uncle, Charles Flemons, now deceased, at a home on Lexington in Detroit. He was also charged with attacking an arresting Detroit police officer in the incident.

Flemons' weapon: a 4-foot long, chrome-plated samurai sword. He kept it in his bedroom.

Neither victim was seriously injured, but Flemons spent six months on a home tether and served two years of probation.

"His family has some fairly strongly held and traditional Christian beliefs, so they didn't know what to make of him," said Flemons' attorney, David Roby of Southgate. "It's not that they aren't supportive of him. I just don't know if they understand him. They are more toward the power of prayer than psychiatric intervention."

Roby said he's considering an insanity defense. He is not aware of any previous psychiatric care.

"Once you scratch the surface with him, the depth of his psychosis is obvious," Roby said.

Harassment allegations
In Flemons' two statements to police, he said a barrage of bullying and harassment by his coworkers caused him to snap.

He said workers referred to him as Crazy Mother expletive, instead of by his name.

Roby said workers constantly pelted him with metal that was lying around the plant, which manufactures the metal dust in brakes.

"He would get beaned with metal, and the other guys would just smirk at him," Roby said. "He was subjected to an awful lot of abuse."

Coworkers Odom and Tabb have different versions.

"That's all bull, man," Odom said. "There wasn't anyone harassing him."

Tabb said: "There was no animosity between James and any of us. I never saw Anthony saying anything wrong to him. That Tuesday night, the night before, we were all just kicking it, talking and stuff."

Odom acknowledged some workers called Flemons "Fingers" because of the black fingernail polish he wore.

The victim's cousin, Allen Williams, 34, said Anthony Williams had been working at the plant for about a year. Anthony Williams was an ex-convict who served 10 years in prison on a larceny conviction, which violated an earlier probation sentence on a drug charge. He got out in 2002 and looked up his cousin Allen, a Detroit cop.

"He was getting his life together and staying out of trouble," Allen Williams said. "That's all we talked about. He just wanted to make the best of the rest of his life. He was clean. He came over once or twice a week. We'd sit down and watch the Lions. He was settled down, just living and not bothering anybody. I just don't believe that bullying part."

Anthony Williams' mother, Lela Singleton, who lives in Cleveland, visited the plant after the slaying.

"There's got to be more to this story," she said. "A supervisor told me Anthony had only been working with the suspect for a short period of time. But my other question is, how did that place let him carry a weapon around like that?"

Peerless officials and owner Paul Tousley declined comment for this story.

Tabb has a theory about the harassment allegations.

"Maybe it was in James' mind," he said. "Or he made it up after he realized what he'd done."

Minutes before Flemons allegedly took a sword to Williams' head, he grabbed a hunk of metal from the shop floor and handed it to Williams, who tossed it to the floor and asked, "What's this for?"

Flemons walked away, Tabb said.

"Then he came back swinging this piece of metal, like a sword," Tabb said.

After the attack, workers ran across the street to a coney island and called police.

They watched Flemons walk out of the shop onto Livernois and down Fort Street to a convenience store. He bought a 32-ounce bottle of Budweiser and a cigar. He had the sword in his hand.

While Flemons was at the store, a coney island employee ran to the plant to check on Williams. He was dead.

Flemons returned and set the sword down on a window ledge, Odom said. Flemons went back inside. Odom said the other workers stood on Livernois and peered inside a large door that opens onto a dark chamber containing machinery, a furnace with a visible flame and a large pile of metal filings. They watched as Flemons spread Williams' arms out, almost in a crucifixion-like pose.

Then Flemons went outside and sat down next to his car, waiting for the police, sipping the beer and smoking the cigar. When they arrived, he lifted his shirt to show that he had no weapon and put his hands behind his back.

The aftermath
Odom quit his $8-an-hour job at Peerless shortly after the slaying.

Tabb still works there. But it's tough.

"I can't even walk near the spot where Anthony's body was," he said. "I can't drive a Hi-Lo over there. I'll drive all the way around the building just to avoid that area."

Tabb said grief counselors visited the plant Nov. 11 and recommended that he see a psychiatrist.

"I struggle to talk about it because it brings it all back to me," Tabb said, crying. "I can't sleep, man. I still can't believe that it happened right in front of my face."

Odom, who saw Williams' bloodied body, said he's having trouble sleeping, too.

"When I lay down, I think about things, and wonder whether it could have been me," he said. "I don't know why he chose Anthony. I don't know of any reason why he killed that man. It just seems like a complete waste of two lives."
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If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance...Baffle 'em with bullshit

My Karma ran over my Dogma

God WAS my co-pilot...But, we crashed in the mountains and...I had to eat him

I'm suffocating in what's become of me...
The rancid remains of what I used to be
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  #2  
Old 11-23-2004, 04:47 PM
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bloodrayne bloodrayne is offline
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Yeah...I know this one is really long...But, it's a GOOD story, dammit...

You should read it:cool:
__________________
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If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance...Baffle 'em with bullshit

My Karma ran over my Dogma

God WAS my co-pilot...But, we crashed in the mountains and...I had to eat him

I'm suffocating in what's become of me...
The rancid remains of what I used to be
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  #3  
Old 11-24-2004, 02:49 PM
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horror_master horror_master is offline
The horror of the minds
 
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Whooa, it's is a good story intresting also. I mean the guy was propberly insane, to do this. I fell sorry for the victim's faimly. But you don't really hear this kind of story every day.
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Fear is in the mind of the beholder. If that mind is strong engough fear can be defated. If the minds is weak, and the fear is storng, the fear will control the life. THe fear couldn't be defeated the life would be controled by it forevere.
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