Eyewitness versus deny-witness

AJC podcast examines a mask and suspect’s identity in murder case.

ADEL — Virginia Tatem waited in the darkness for bundles of the Valdosta newspaper that she would then distribute in Adel. It was September 1998.

She heard what sounded like a gunshot. Later, Tatem would describe in extraordinary detail a man who she said drove by her in a black Monte Carlo. The car belonged to the woman who had just been shot. She described the man’s race, the ribbing of his shirt, his facial hair, the stud in his ear, even his trousers. She said she would never forget the face of Devonia Inman.

Lee Grimes said he was standing next to Tatem awaiting his own delivery of newspapers. Grimes says it was dark: he saw nothing like what Tatem described and insists that she didn’t either.

The third episode of the AJC’s new podcast season, “Breakdown: Murder Below the Gnat Line,” will go up on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast platform early Monday — or stream it directly from the AJC at ajcbreakdown.com.

On that September night, Taco Bell night manager Donna Brown was carrying the evening’s receipts to her car. She was robbed and killed in the parking lot, and the killer drove off in her car. A mask was later recovered from the car, and the prosecution made much of it at Devonia Inman’s trial. Since the killer was wearing a mask, the state said, Donna Brown couldn’t have identified him. But he shot her in the face anyway — “like stepping on an insect,” the DA said.

Many years later, with Devonia Inman in prison for the murder, that same mask would figure in a stunning revelation about the case.

VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES Virginia Tatem Gilbert positively ID’d Devonia Inman, saying he drove past her in a car belonging to a woman who had just been shot to death.

This is the mask, made from the leg of a pair of sweatpants, that police say was used in the Taco Bell robbery. It would become a key piece of evidence.