Jesse Scheuing was sentenced to death by the State of Alabama for the murder of Sean Cook
According to court documents Jesse Scheuing would rob a store and in the process murder clerk Sean Cook
Jesse Scheuing would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Jesse Scheuing is incarcerated at Holman Prison
Jesse Scheuing Case
The evidence at trial tended to demonstrate the following. In August 2008, Jesse Scheuing was released on parole in the State of Georgia. He had been convicted of thefts of automobiles, breaking and entering into automobiles, escape, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. James Potts, a friend of Scheuing who lived in Alabama, went to Georgia and brought Scheuing to Alabama to stay with Potts and his wife, Tifani Kulp. On November 20, 2008, Scheuing failed to report to his parole officer as required by the terms of his parole.
A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Jesse Scheuing stole a Kia Sportage automobile from Dean Jakiel’s driveway. Jakiel had borrowed the Sportage from Lani Harrison, his daughter, and had parked it in his driveway, leaving the keys in the ignition. Also left in the Sportage was Jakiel’s loaded, .38 caliber, five-shot, hammerless Smith and Wesson revolver and a box of ammunition for the gun. Within a day or two after stealing the Sportage, Scheuing abandoned the vehicle, but he kept the gun and ammunition that was in the vehicle.
On November 26, 2008, the day before Thanksgiving, Potts took Jesse Scheuing to the home of Sean Cook, who was a friend of Potts. While there the three men smoked marijuana, and Cook sold a small amount of marijuana to Potts and Scheuing. That night, Potts, Kulp, and Scheuing gave Jeanette Rutledge, a friend of Potts and Kulp, a ride to her home. During the ride, Potts told her that he had a .38 caliber pistol in the car.
Shortly after midnight on November 28, 2008, Jesse Scheuing decided to rob a store to get money to buy Potts an Xbox 360 video-game console and to get transportation to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Scheuing wanted to meet a woman he had communicated with in an Internet chat room. Scheuing, Potts, and Kulp got into Potts’s car, with Potts driving and Scheuing sitting in the back seat behind him. Sometime during the ride, Scheuing twice test fired the gun he had stolen from the Sportage by shooting it out the car window; he did this to learn the gun’s characteristics when fired. Also at some point during the night, Scheuing decided that he was going to kill whomever he robbed. The three drove around trying to find a place that would be easy to rob. They rejected most of the stores they saw because the clerks were enclosed in bullet-proof glass; they also rejected a Waffle House restaurant because it had too many customers. Scheuing finally decided that the target would be the Pak–a–Sak1 convenience store in Oxford. Although Potts and Kulp knew that Cook worked at the store as a cashier, they did not recognize him as the cashier when they drove by the store that morning.
Potts parked the car a couple of blocks behind the Pak–a–Sak store. Jesse Scheuing walked to the store; he had the .38 caliber pistol in the back pocket of his pants. When Scheuing walked up to the store, Cook, who had to push a button to allow someone to enter the store, recognized Scheuing and allowed him in. Scheuing briefly spoke with Cook before asking where the restroom was. Scheuing had planned to put on a hockey mask he had with him while in the restroom, but, because Cook had recognized him, Scheuing decided not to use the mask. There were three customers in the store when Scheuing first entered, so he went into the restroom and waited until he heard them leave. After leaving the restroom, Scheuing walked to the counter where he talked with Cook about various topics. As they spoke about marijuana and the “munchies”2 (State’s Exhibit 96), Scheuing said that he was hungry and walked to the candy aisle. There, where Cook was unable to see what Scheuing was doing, Scheuing moved the .38 caliber pistol from his pants pocket to his coat pocket. With his hand in the coat pocket containing the pistol, Scheuing then walked back to the counter and continued speaking with Cook. Cook turned his head, looking out the window at a passing car; Scheuing pulled out the gun, and, when Cook turned back toward Scheuing, Scheuing shot him in the head. Scheuing then took the cash-register drawer and ran out the door. He went back to the car and told Potts and Kulp that he had shot Cook. The three returned to Potts’s home where Scheuing and Potts took the money from the cash-register drawer. The two men then took the cash-register drawer to a remote road where they cleaned their fingerprints from the cash-register drawer and then abandoned it.
A short time after Jesse Scheuing left the store, Mary De La Zerda, a regular customer of the Pak–a–Sak store and an acquaintance of Cook’s, arrived there. When she first entered the store, De La Zerda called for Cook because she did not see him. After getting no response from him, she noticed that the counter area was in disarray. De La Zerda again called for Cook and, receiving no response, walked behind the counter where she found him lying on floor. She then went outside and telephoned emergency 911.
Officer Jake Durham of the Oxford Police Department was dispatched to the Pak–a–Sak store in response to the 911 call and was the first officer to arrive on the scene. After speaking with De La Zerda, Officer Durham entered the store with Officer Eric Hood and Officer Jamie Clark. Once inside, Officer Durham noticed that the cash-register drawer was missing and that “items were out in the floor and strewn all over the place.” (R. 542.) After seeing Cook lying on the floor, Officer Durham alerted the other officers of the situation and had them separate. Officer Durham went “straight through the building back toward the cooler and the bathroom areas” (R. 543) while Officer Hood went down the aisles and Officer Clark went behind the counter. Officer Clark saw Cook on the floor and noticed that “[h]e had some vomit around his mouth,” “had a very gray complexion,” and “appeared to be deceased.” (R. 635.) After not finding anyone else in the building, the officers went back outside, put up crime-scene tape, and secured the scene until someone from the investigation division of the police department arrived.
Justin Edwards, a paramedic, also responded to the 911 call. When he arrived at the Pak–a–Sak store, he was informed by a police officer of what had been found in the store. When Edwards went into the store, he noticed that Cook was blue, was not moving, and that “his brain matter was on the floor next to him,” and Edwards determined that Cook was dead. (R. 564.)
After Jesse Scheuing and Potts disposed of the cash-register drawer, they went to a Walmart retail store where they purchased an Xbox 360, an Oblivion video-game cartridge for the video-game console, and a Playstation 2 video-game cartridge. The Playstation 2 cartridge was purchased so Scheuing would have something to play while Potts was playing Oblivion. While they were playing the games at Potts’s house, Cook’s teenage brother called Potts and threatened him, Kulp, and their son. Cook’s brother made the threats because he believed that Potts had shot Cook.
Due to the telephone call, Potts decided that they needed to get rid of the gun Jesse Scheuing had used to kill Cook. Scheuing, Potts, and Kulp got back into Potts’s vehicle. While they were driving over a bridge, Scheuing threw the gun and the ammunition out of the passenger-side window and into a lake.
At the Pak–a–Sak store, investigators contacted a manager who came in and retrieved video from the recording equipment at the store. The video revealed that an individual wearing a black and red coat and a black hat with a skull on top came into the store and, after walking around the store and speaking with Cook, pulled a gun out of his coat pocket and fired one shot at Cook. The man then picked up the cash-register drawer and ran out the door. Investigators were also able to obtain a video of a parking lot from another local business. That video showed the man who shot Cook getting out of the back seat of a car and then returning to the back seat of the same car a few minutes later.
After dropping Kulp off at work, Jesse Scheuing and Potts went to the Greyhound bus station to purchase a ticket to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Because they had spent so much money on the video-game console and cartridges, Scheuing did not have enough money left to buy the bus ticket. Scheuing and Potts decided to stay away from Potts’s home for the day and that, in the evening, Potts would drop Scheuing off somewhere so Scheuing could steal a car to drive to Grand Rapids.
Jesse Scheuing and Potts spent the day together, smoking marijuana and selling game cartridges and memory cards. After picking Kulp up from work, Potts and Kulp dropped Scheuing off at an abandoned mobile-home park. Scheuing stashed his belongings at the mobile-home park, then stole a GMC Yukon sport-utility vehicle that belonged to Jackie Williams. After returning to the mobile-home park, Scheuing retrieved his belongings and began his drive to Grand Rapids.
Investigators were able to lift fingerprints from the counter of the Pak–a–Sak store, and one of those fingerprints belonged to Jesse Scheuing. After the story of the robbery-murder was televised during the local news, investigators received a tip informing them that Scheuing had been with Potts and of type of vehicle Potts drove. Based on that information, investigators went to Potts’s mobile home and received permission from him to search his vehicle and mobile home. While searching Potts’s car, investigators located a black and red jacket that matched the one worn by Scheuing when he shot Cook. Inside Potts’s mobile home, investigators found a hat matching the one Scheuing had worn while he was inside the Pak–a–Sak store. They also located a receipt from Walmart store that was generated shortly after the robbery and murder. The investigators went to the Walmart store and were able to secure a video showing Potts and Scheuing in the store purchasing the Xbox 360 and video-game cartridges. The cash-register drawer was recovered when a citizen, who lived on a dead-end road, reported that he had found it near his driveway.
When he got to Michigan, Jesse Scheuing went to meet the woman with whom he had communicated in the Internet chat room. She told him that because officers had contacted her and told her what he had done, she did not want anything to do with him. Thereafter, Jesse Scheuing left. While still in Michigan, Scheuing swapped the license plate on the Yukon with one on a truck parked at a Days Inn hotel. He then drove west into Iowa.
In Iowa, Jesse Scheuing stole a Glenda Palmer’s purse at a Walmart store but, before Scheuing was able to leave the parking lot, another person opened the passenger door of the Yukon and took back the purse. Scheuing ran out of gas on an interstate highway and began walking. While doing so, Scheuing convinced people to give him money on three separate occasions. On December 4, 2008, Scheuing used the money to buy a bus ticket to St. Louis, Missouri, which was as far as he could afford to travel with the money the people had given him, and he rented a room at the Red Carpet Inn motel in Knoxville, Iowa. The employee of the motel who rented the room to Scheuing had seen a story about him on the evening news and telephoned law enforcement. Scheuing was apprehended that afternoon.
The next day, Special Agent Adam DeCamp and Special Agent Don Schnitker of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations interviewed Scheuing after he waived his Miranda3 rights. During the first part of the interview, Jesse Scheuing told Agent DeCamp and Agent Schnitker that he alone decided to rob a store to get money to buy Potts an Xbox 360 and to get money he could use to go to Michigan. He told the agents that he had taken Potts’s vehicle without Potts’s knowledge and had driven to the store. Scheuing detailed his time inside the Pak–a–Sak store, including how he had shot Cook, and told them that after he had disposed of the gun, ammunition, and cash-register drawer, he went back to Potts’s house where he woke up Potts and told him that he was giving the money to him as a gift without telling him its source. The two of them, Scheuing said, then went to a Walmart store where they bought the video-game console and video-game cartridges. Scheuing further stated that he told Potts what he had done to get the money only after Cook’s brother had threatened Potts.
During a break in the interview, the agents contacted investigators in Alabama and relayed to them the story Scheuing had given. When the interview resumed, the agents confronted Jesse Scheuing with the fact that they knew he was not telling the truth. Scheuing then told the truth about Potts’s involvement in the crime.
Following his extradition back to Alabama, Officer Michael Kane of the Weaver Police Department spoke with Jesse Scheuing about the theft of the Yukon. After he had executed a waiver-of-rights form, Scheuing wrote a statement for Officer Kane. In his statement Scheuing wrote that, around 8:00 p.m. on an “unknown date,” he stole a silver Yukon and drove to Grand Rapids, Michigan. (State’s Exhibit 34.) He further wrote that he then drove to Iowa where he “eventually ran out of gas and left the vehicle on the entry ramp to the interstate.” (State’s Exhibit 34.) Scheuing also wrote that, before he had left Calhoun County, Alabama, he had taken the Yukon to an abandoned mobile-home park to get clothes he had left. In the mobile-home park, he left “most of the personal effects” that had been in the Yukon. (State’s Exhibit 34.) Jesse Scheuing concluded the statement by writing that he had “donated the clothes in the vehicle to Mel Trotters (sic) ministries.”4 (State’s Exhibit 34 .)
Officer Kane informed Lieutenant Charles Plitt of the Weaver Police Department of the information Jesse Scheuing had provided. Lt. Plitt went to a vacant mobile-home park in Weaver where the remains of an abandoned mobile home still stood. This place was known to him as a place where people hid and disposed of stolen property. At the driveway of that mobile home, he found Williams’s purse and other items.
Based on information supplied by Jesse Scheuing and Potts, investigators attempted to locate the gun by making multiple dives into the lake where the gun had been thrown. Despite those efforts, the gun was never located.
The autopsy of Cook’s body was performed by Dr. Valerie Green, a state medical examiner with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Dr. Green determined that Cook had a gunshot entrance wound “right in the center of the forehead.” (R. 596.) She also detected that there was stippling around the wound, which indicated that the gun was about three feet from Cook when he was shot. Dr. Green was able to trace the path of the bullet, which went “front to back and left to right and slightly downward,” and was able to retrieve and clean the bullet. (R. 598.) She concluded that the cause of death was the “gunshot wound to the head” and that the manner of death was homicide. (R. 620.)
The bullet was examined by Dancy Sullivan, a forensic scientist with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Based on her examination of the bullet, Sullivan concluded that the “bullet was a .38 caliber class bullet loaded in [a] .38 Special caliber cartridge[ ].” (R. 816.) Sullivan expected that the bullet would have been fired by a “Smith & Wesson or similar .38 Special caliber firearm[ ] or Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Taurus, or similar caliber .357 caliber firearm[ ].” (R. 816.)
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