Article published March 06, 2004
HOMICIDE CASE
Man says he came to Toledo to confess
Detroit police didn’t have time, he says
By CHRISTINA HALL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Robert Franklin Matlock claimed he wanted to confess to Detroit police that he killed his live-in girlfriend with a hammer Wednesday morning.
But the man in a wheelchair told Toledo police that when he went to one of the Detroit police precincts yesterday morning to confess, they told him they were changing shifts and couldn’t do anything for him right then. He said he went back to Detroit police two more times, but Toledo police said they are uncertain whether he spoke to anyone.
Instead, Mr. Matlock, a 58-year-old double amputee with a speech impediment, boarded a Greyhound bus and came to Toledo. Once here, he went to the city’s police headquarters downtown to tell Toledo police he had killed his girlfriend, 54-year-old Nette Julius Smith.
"He felt he needed to tell someone about what happened," Toledo police Lt. Bill Moton said.
Toledo police notified Detroit police’s homicide unit of Mr. Matlock’s purported confession. Detectives with Detroit’s homicide unit then went to check on Ms. Smith’s safety at the couple’s home, where they found her body and a hammer.
But Detroit police said yesterday they could not confirm Mr. Matlock’s story about being turned away when he attempted to confess there, and only heard such reports from the media. "No one seems to know anything about that happening," Detroit police Officer Glen Woods said.
Authorities are looking into the claim, he said, and will investigate the matter fully if Mr. Matlock’s story turns out to be true.
Ms. Smith’s body was found between 9 and 10 a.m. yesterday. She suffered blunt-force trauma and was hit in the head with something, Officer Woods said, but he declined to confirm with what. Toledo police said Mr. Matlock admitted to hitting Ms. Smith in the head with a hammer, apparently because she didn’t mail a letter for him that was somehow connected to his disability. He was being held in the Lucas County jail last night at the request of Detroit police pending his return to the Motor City.
Detroit had 361 homicides last year, nearly one a day and one of the highest murder rates in the nation. By comparison, Toledo had 23 homicides in 2003.
Thirty-five homicides in Detroit during January and the shooting deaths of two police officers there in February resulted in an expansion of city police shifts from eight to 12 hours on Feb. 23. Michigan State Police, which had 56 troopers working three shifts in a permanent Detroit post, added eight troopers to afternoon shifts on Feb. 12 under an agreement between the city and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Permanent Link
|
|
 |
|
Search
advertisement
