Victim: Ange May Reed, 41
Murderers: Dolphy Jordan, 16, Lamonte Clayborne, 15, & another 15-year-old
Crime date: July 28, 1989
Crime location: Seattle, Washington
Weapon: Kitchen knife & stick
Murder method: Stabbing the face and throat
Murder motivation: Clayborne’s hatred for his mother
Convictions: Jordan-guilty plea to first-degree murder
Sentences: Jordan was sentenced to 27 years while the other assailants were tried as juveniles
Incarceration status: Released
Summary
Claybourne disliked his mother and wanted to kill her. His friend Jordan did just that. He attacked Ange in the hallway of her apartment after she got out of the shower. Jordan first hit Ange in the head with a stick and then proceeded to stab her repeatedly in the face and throat.
Jordan was released from prison after almost 22 years. He is now an activist with the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY). The other offenders were tried as juveniles.
Details
2 Young Suspects in ‘Weird’ Seattle Murder Case Held
By THOMAS BECHERAUG. 4, 1989
Fifteen-year-old Lamonte Clayborne of Seattle often complained about doing maintenance work around the apartment building his mother managed.
A neighbor in the building once heard him talking about having his mother killed, authorities said.
On Wednesday night, the boy turned himself in to Garden Grove police as one of two juveniles suspected in the fatal stabbing of his mother, Ange May Reed, 41. Her body was found in her apartment last Friday, Seattle detectives said Thursday.
Clayborne fled the low-income Seattle neighborhood in his mother’s car soon after the killing, along with two friends identified as Dolphy Blue Jordan, 16, and a 15-year-old, both of Seattle, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the King County, Washington, prosecutors office.
That night, after Reed was found with multiple stab wounds to her face and throat, Seattle police got a call from the 15-year-old, who had fled from Clayborne and Jordan during a rest stop near the Oregon-California border, Donohoe said.
Seattle police then issued a bulletin alerting Orange County authorities that the pair apparently were headed for their territory, Garden Grove Police Lt. Chuck Gibbs said.
About 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Clayborne called Garden Grove police from a telephone booth at Bolsa Grande High School.
“He just said he was wanted for murder,” Police Lt. John Wood said. Clayborne was arrested and taken to Orange County Juvenile Hall in Orange.
On Thursday, Jordan, who allegedly carried out the killing, surrendered to authorities in San Bernardino County, where he is in Juvenile Hall, Donohoe said.
Clayborne and Jordan, who claim to be gang members, have agreed to forgo extradition and return to Seattle with detectives sometime next week to face first-degree-murder charges, Donohoe said.
The third youth told investigators when he returned to Seattle that he had overheard Clayborne talking about killing his mother but didn’t take it seriously, Donohoe said.
No charges were filed against him because he had no direct role in the slaying, Seattle police spokesman Don Church said.
One week before Reed’s death, Clayborne told a neighbor that he wanted to find a gun to kill his mother, Donohoe said. A day before the slaying, he told the same neighbor that he wanted to hit the woman over the head with a baseball bat, throw her body out the window and toss it into a swamp in Everett, Wash., 30 miles north of Seattle, he said.
According to police reports, Jordan attacked Reed in the hallway of her apartment about 2 p.m., after she got out of the shower. She was first hit over the head with a stick, police said, and then stabbed repeatedly with a kitchen knife.
The 15-year-old told police that he and Clayborne waited in the victim’s car, Donohoe said. The murder weapon later was found on a Seattle freeway overpass, he said.
Jordan apparently has relatives in San Bernardino County, but it was unclear to investigators or Orange County authorities what brought Clayborne here, Donohoe said.
“It was believed they had some connections with California,” he said.
Mike Hogan, the King County deputy prosecutor who filed the charges, said the pair apparently gave away Reed’s car after they arrived in Southern California. Authorities recovered it at the U.S.-Mexican border.
Clayborne and Jordan each are being held on $500,000 bail. If convicted, they could be sentenced to jail until age 21. Then, if tried as adults, they could face from 20 years to life in prison, he said.
The youths have had some run-ins with the law, Hogan said, but have no history of violent behavior.
“It’s just a weird case,” he said.
Judge Sets Sentence For Youth Who Planned Relative’s Murder
Jan 24, 1990
A teen-ager has been sentenced to three to four years in a juvenile rehabilitation center in the murder of a relative he said he had wanted to kill since the sixth grade.
The 16-year-old sentenced yesterday was convicted of first-degree murder as an accomplice who planned the July 28 murder of Angie Mae Reed, 41, at the West Seattle apartments she managed.
(The Times usually does not identify juveniles in court cases, unless they are being tried as adults. Therefore, the specific relationship of the victim and teen-ager has been omitted.)
King County Juvenile Court Judge Anne Ellington sentenced the youth within the standard range of 180 to 224 weeks. The state Department of Juvenile Rehabilitation will decide his specific term. He will be under the jurisdiction of the court until he is 21.
Defense attorney John Austin noted that the youth was not present during the killing.
The judge said the murder was an extraordinarily brutal crime and said that while the youth did not directly participate in it, he took no steps to intervene. Ellington also said the boy had been physically and psychologically abused and had been in several foster homes in California.
Two other youths also were charged with first-degree murder in the killing. Dolphy Blue Jordan, 17, was convicted in adult court of stabbing Reed to death. He was sentenced to nearly 27 years in an adult prison. The third youth will be tried as a juvenile for the same crime.
Jordan spent nearly 22 years in prison for the murder. He is now an activist with the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY). See Dolphy Jordan.
