Suspect in 2009 slaying receives bond amount
A 23-year-old woman charged in a 2009 murder that she allegedly participated in as a teenager received a bond Thursday.
Though he could have denied bond altogether, Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Rob Philyaw set Angel Bumpass’ bail at $300,000, meaning she could get out of Silverdale Detention Center while her felony murder and especially aggravated robbery charges are pending.
Bumpass next appears before Philyaw on Aug. 9 for a scheduled hearing to determine whether she will be tried as an adult in the Jan. 16, 2009, slaying of 68-year-old Franklin Bonner.
Nearly a decade ago, Chattanooga police found Bonner tied to a kitchen table and a chair inside his ransacked house in the 4000 block of Enterprise Lane with duct tape around his feet, arms, head, nose and mouth. A medical examiner concluded the former Chattanooga Department of Public Works employee had died from suffocation. Though authorities investigated Bonner’s death at the time, they never made an arrest until earlier this month.
After reopening the case in January and using developments from new and old interviews, Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston said he’d secured a criminal indictment against Mallory Vaughn, a 36-yearold man who was questioned during the initial investigation in 2009. According to a news release from Pinkston’s office, Vaughn lived around the same area as Bonner, who was known to sell marijuana and have cash on hand.
Vaughn’s girlfriend previously told the Times Free Press that Vaughn gave his fingerprints in 2009, cleared a criminal investigation and is innocent.
Pinkston said a second person also was involved. According to a petition filed in Juvenile Court, that person is Bumpass, who was 13 at the time of her alleged crime. The petition says her fingerprints match a pair of prints lifted from the crime scene in 2009.
Bumpass, who is represented by Chattanooga attorney Jonathan Turner, otherwise has no other charges or cases in Hamilton County Criminal Court. She was living in Kentucky when authorities arrested her in June.
Last week, Vaughn received a public defender and pleaded not guilty to his charges, also felony murder and especially aggravated robbery. A defendant is charged with felony murder when somebody dies during the commission of a felony. Here, the underlying felony would be robbing Bonner.
According to a motion filed Monday, Vaughn’s public defender, Kevin Loper, wants prosecutors to produce any fingerprint evidence, files from the first and second criminal investigation, confessions that may exist and other relevant information.
In criminal cases, prosecutors have an obligation to turn over any potentially helpful evidence to defendants. Felony murder carries a life sentence upon conviction.