MURDER IN THE BASEMENT

                                         By: Norman V. Kelly

 

On a warm April 23, 1983, Armanda Kay Burns was preparing to leave work over at Methodist Hospital in Peoria, Illinois. Armanda was the nightshift supervisor in the housekeeping department and a busy lady indeed. She stood talking to her relief person when she saw a familiar face. Kay walked over and spoke to Willie Enoch, brother of one of her employees. They talked a moment or two before Kay said good night and walked out with Willie. The time was a little after 11:30 p.m. when the two friends left the hospital for the short walk over to Kay’s basement apartment in a two-story apartment building. The two talked as they walked, and to the casual observer they appeared just to be another couple heading home.

 

Kay and Willie were not a couple. Police later learned that Willie had wanted to talk to Kay about his brother and complained that Kay was going to fire him. Willie had a different version of what the two talked about. They arrived at the apartment after Kay unlocked the door and the two entered. A few minutes after they arrived a violent scuffle broke out between Burns and Enoch resulting in a horrible death for Armanda Kay Burns.

 

                                   A  GRISLY DISCOVERY

 

Outside that basement apartment over at 109 NE Glen Oak, Kay’s boyfriend, Derrick Proctor was walking toward the building. He often met her there after work and it was now nearing midnight. Mr. Proctor knocked on the door and waited…he knocked again. Frustrated, Derrick walked over to Methodist to see if Kay had been detained for some reason. He saw by her time card that she had checked out so he walked back to Kay’s apartment. About 100 feet from the door he saw a figure coming out of the basement apartment.

 

             “I stopped to light a cigarette and then started walking

               To Kay’s apartment when I heard the door open. I was

               Pretty close now and I said, ‘damn, Kay what took you

               so long?’

               I seen a man comes out and I asked the guy if Kay was

               down there and he said, ‘yeah, she’s down there.’”

 

The guy took off running and Proctor ran after him, they crossed Main Street and the man, a small man with a beard ran into the medical college’s land and disappeared. Remember, that’s when Big John’s BBQ was there next to UICOMP, that’s the Illinois Medical School. Proctor recalled Willie Enoch, remembering that he had come to Kay’s apartment one night asking to use her telephone.

 

Back at the apartment, Proctor banged on the door trying to get Kay to answer. He went over to security at the hospital and together they returned to Kay’s apartment. Police were then called and Officer Ledbetter and the security guard finally gained access to the Burns’ apartment. What they saw stopped them in their tracks, burning an image on their brains that they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

 

                               THE  CORONER’S  PHYSICIAN

 

Let’s jump ahead and let the ever professional Dr. Immesoete describe for you in medical terms what the two officers saw that night that they had to force their way in to Armanda Kay Burns’ apartment. Keep in mind he was giving testimony at the inquest over the body of the victim and it is out of chronological sequence.

 

April 24, 1983.

 

The body is that of a black woman, five foot six, one hundred sixteen pounds. Multiple lacerations and stab wounds of the entire body, head to feet. There is a 2.6-inch laceration of the neck and a “Y” shaped slice across the trachea. The stab disrupts all the structures in the front of the neck.

 

There is a five-inch laceration of the neck and esophagus. A five-inch slash across the head and nares as well as multiple stab-wounds about the shoulder. There are fifteen slashes that just pierce the skin.

 

A large thirty (30) inch slash to the lower third of the sternum and

extending to the pubic bone. Multiple serrated wounds, done in a swaying motion or fashion. There are large lacerations to the chest and stomach, with cuts to the liver.

 

There are true wire marks encircling both wrists where the wrists were

tied behind her back. Swabs were taken no evidence of semen. The

abdominal cavity is exposed. This person died of exsanguination due to a ruptured superior vena cava due to stab wounds of the left back.

 

                                      THE  CALL  GOES  OUT

 

Like all crime scenes that are observed by the average person the activity seems to be chaotic and never-ending. In Kay’s apartment the investigators worked through the night. When the apartment was finally sealed off and a crime scene warning was in place the officers left. With them they took everything they could get their hands on from blood to fibers. All of the evidence was bagged and marked and recorded. Everything was then sent off to the forensic laboratory to be analyzed for future use as evidence in some future trial. The officers found evidence of a struggle in the apartment with blood scattered about the small apartment, but mainly in the bedroom. Kay had been gagged with a piece of torn sheet and bound by wire coat- hangers.

 

April 24, 1983 dawned as only early spring can, but by then, the case against Willie Enoch had grown substantially. Eyewitnesses came forward to tell police that they had seen Willie and Kay leave the hospital together. Other witnesses told the police that they had seen them walking together very near her apartment. Mr. Proctor’s statement to the police had Enoch coming out of Kay’s apartment. Later the lab results would match hairs and fingerprints to the only person the police considered a suspect at the time…Willie Enoch. Of course they checked out Proctor and other acquaintances of Ms. Burns, but the finger pointed at Enoch.

 

Willie Enoch was arrested without incident, read his rights, and incarcerated in the Peoria County jail for safekeeping. The SA was now in the picture and charges were brought against the suspect and a public defender was assigned. Bail was denied, not that he could have raised it anyway.

 

During all this, Armanda Kay Burns, born July 22, 1958, murdered 4-23-83 was buried. As I mentioned before, except for the people that loved her, Kay was soon forgotten. The spotlight was now on her killer, Willie Enoch, and it would stay there for some time to come.

 

The detectives were still working on the case tying up loose ends. It is always a break when the murder weapon is found and police concentrated on that very clue. The knife that the killer had used was found where he dropped it on the road leading up to the medical School. The blood and fingerprints found at the crime scene were analyzed by the crime lab with positive results. Police had their killer as far as they were concerned and the state’s attorney agreed. The case would now be put on the criminal trial schedule, with the SA seeking the death penalty. It would be the first death penalty case since the State of Illinois revised the death penalty in 1977.

 

                                A  CAPITAL  MURDER  TRIAL

                                   

Mark Rose was the court-appointed attorney for Willie Enoch as the parties met at the Peoria County Courthouse on November 11, 1983. This was a ‘hot ticket’ trial, as popular trials are referred to. The sheer brutality of the murder is enough to incite interest, and it did.

 

Seventy-nine prospective jurors were called and both sides knew exactly the type juror they were looking for. The defense rejected 30 prospects and the State refused 18. Finally, the jurors were in their seats, the alternates chosen, and the case against Willie Enoch, alleged killer of Armanda Kay Burns was about to start. There was a man’s life at stake here and both sides wanted to get it right.

 

                                    READY  YOUR  HONOR

 

Willie Enoch was a small man, strongly built, and known by police as an ex convict. He came to Peoria a few months before the death of Ms. Burns, coming down from Chicago, Illinois. His birth date was listed as 2-11-24 on the police report, and as far as was known he was not employed. Willie’s mother and grandmother painted him as a ‘religious and caring person.’ Enoch’s mother told the jury that Willie was the oldest of ten children and that he had been without a father from the time he was two years of age.

 

Louise, Willie’s girlfriend was a key witness at the trial, and on Friday she entered the courtroom. She spoke in a low, almost inaudible voice as the jury leaned forward to hear. Her head down, her hands in front of her eyes, she struggled to answer.

                  “He told me he murdered Amanda Kay Burns.”

She shared her Warner Homes apartment with Willie Enoch and told the jury that she had a young son.

 

                 “Willie told me that he had just killed Kay Burns, then

                  told me that he cut her throat out.”

 

That got everyone’s attention and as Louise struggled with what she was saying the courtroom was still and all eyes were on the witness.

 

                  “Willie told me that she was crazy about cocaine

                    and that he was pretending he had some. Once inside

                    he walked up behind her and cut her throat. I asked

                    him did anybody see him. He said ‘her boyfriend was

                    coming in but he didn’t recognize me.’”

 

Haltingly she carried on as the prosecutor continued to bring out this devastating evidence against the defendant

 

                    “Why did he kill her?”

 

“He said it had something to do with the Disciple Gang and his

brother, Bobby. He said Kay was trying to get his brother fired.”

 

She then testified that Willie handed her $l43.00 which she assumed he had taken from Armanda Burns. She told the jury that Willie often carried one of her kitchen knives in a paper sheath. In tears she admitted that after she heard Willie confess the murder that she felt like killing herself.

 

                                THE  TRIAL  CONTINUES

 

Witness by witness the case against Enoch grew, including the lab people who with their exhibits tightened the noose against the defendant. Dozens of photographs were submitted as exhibits and ordered into evidence by the judge. By the time the coroner’s physician testified the horror of the crime had unfolded before the stunned jurors and spectators alike. During the doctor’s testimony, Mrs. Burns gasped, causing a stir. The judge

looked out to where the poor lady was sitting.

 

           “I clearly understand why this is upsetting you but a capital

             murder case must be done without emotion.”

 

The lab evidence convinced most jurors rather quickly that the man they had before them was the man that had killed Amanda Burns. Hairs that were similar to Willie Enoch’s hair were found in the sheets, socks and scattered around the apartment of the victim. Evidence from two other women that Enoch had attacked them with knives was also allowed to be heard by the jury.

 

From the opening argument until the closing argument, the trial continued to go against Willie Enoch. There was little doubt which way the jury was thinking, and no surprise that they took little time deciding his fate.

 

On Tuesday, November 23, 1983, the jury was given the case. Four hours later the jury found Enoch guilty of three counts of murder and guilty on the charge of rape. He was acquitted on armed robbery and a murder count that was tied to the armed robbery charge.

 

                               AND  THE  SENTENCE  IS

 

A rousing post-trial sentencing hearing was heard, Judge Courson said

that Willie Enoch had “a willful wanton disregard for life.” After both sides had their say, Judge Courson pronounced sentence on the defendant, Willie Enoch. Enoch would die by lethal injection on February 7, 1984.

 

We all know that there is an automatic appeal on capital cases, so Willlie certainly would not die on that date, but the sentence was in the books.

Willie made a few statements of his own during the hearing.

                         

                    “The jury conviction doesn’t prove that I

                      am guilty. I don’t fear death the Lord is my

                      salvation. Who should I fear?”

 

                    “What is it you want to gain by imposing

                      the death penalty? You are not going to gain

                      anything.”

 

                    “I don’t have any hatred in my heart but if you

                      think taking my life helps you I don’t have no

                      fear of nobody. I don’t have a fear of death

                      because my father has prepared a place for me.

 

                      Before the death penalty was imposed, Enoch’s

                      attorney said “destroying Enoch’s life will in

                      no way resurrect Armanda Burns.”

 

                      Enoch added “if you grant me a death penalty

                      I would like State’s Attorney John Barra to

                      shoot the injection.”

                                    

                                 THAT  SHOULD  END  IT

 

We all know better than to think that a death sentence ends anything.

Our legal system is set up to protect the innocent and of course the guilty have a right to take advantage of the system. History has shown that innocent men have ended up on death row, so the appeal process continues.

 

Willie popped up in the Journal Star a few times and each time another appeal of some kind was either filed or granted. As the horror of a murder fades, the personality of the killer seems to drive the publicity. In Willie’s case a well-known lawyer from Chicago who was active in anti-death penalty cases got interested in Willie Enoch. Not Armanda Kay Burns, the victim, but Willie Enoch the convicted killer. The movement to save Willie from the lethal injection grew, and off they went.

 

DNA, DNA the chant went up, and a new appeal was filed stating that the wrong man was on death row. All the defense needed was to get its own DNA test of that bloody T-shirt and they would prove Willie did not kill Kay Burns.                  

 

I doubt if anyone in town knew as much about this case as the Journal Star’s Phil Luciano. Old murder cases fade away rapidly, but he reported the results of appeals and followed the antics of the Chicago lawyers.

 

“DNA testing called for by the defense will point to the real killer. They

think it was the boyfriend, Proctor. Startling new evidence that never saw the light of day will be revealed.”

 

State’s Attorney Lyons, who was not in office at the time of the trial had a different idea about the DNA push.

 

“Much ado…desperate ado about nothing. They’re banging pots and pans that’s all.”

 

Mr. Lyons went on to remind us that these Chicago people have been Enoch’s lawyer since 1989 but did not use the DNA ploy until 1998.

 

1-19-2000: Willie is still alive, Armanda is still in her grave, and the DNA results came back, pointing the guilty finger at… you guessed it, Willie Enoch.

So Enoch’s demand for genetic testing DNA backfired. So now what?

The Attorney General of Illinois handled the DNA demand and now that the results are in one would think that all avenues have been sealed as far as appeals go.

 

“If the courts worked half as hard to oppose sentences as they do to prevent them the public would have more faith in the legal system”. That’s our favorite SA speaking again.

 

“The view I take is from Armanda Burns. I stand at her grave in the proverbial sense because she could not speak then and she cannot speak now. The clock ticks slowly.”

 

About the results of the DNA, Lyons said, “well the results are in,

Willie was there, no one else, just him. The results showed that Enoch was there so what does that tell you about his innocence?”

 

                       CLOSE  THE  BOOKS  ON  WILLIE ENOCH

 

A new date was set for the execution of the killer of Armanda Burns.

Willie told guards that he was looking forward to flying in the helicopter that would take him down to Southern Illinois for his lethal injection. But that would never be. He would not only never get his ride in a helicopter, he would never feel the needle from the injection.

 

On June 11, 2003 Willie Enoch suffered an apparent heart attack and died on a stretcher on the way to the prison infirmary.

 

                “The Lord is going to take me if that is his wish.

                  This prison life is nothing but misery”.

 

I wonder what the people who loved Armanda Kay Burns would say to that?

 

Jed Stone the activist lawyer for Willie Enoch said ‘I guess Willie cheated                                               

the hangman this morning. More importantly he cheated us out of the chance to provide compelling evidence for a court somewhere that Enoch was innocent.’

 

With that comment I think it is time to close the book on Willie Enoch.

 

                                                END