Memphis Murders Remain A Mystery

Gunfire happens enough around Lester Street that neighbors often don't bother to call police. Now residents are wondering whether the shots they heard last weekend killed six people and critically wounded three other children.

Police did not offer a motive in the slayings on Wednesday, two days after the grisly scene was found inside a small brick house in the community known as Binghampton, where low-income homes sit near cheap motels and junkyards.

"I did hear shooting, but I didn't know where it was. Sometimes guys get crazy and just shoot up in the air," said Marie Mackey, 33, who was visiting her mother's house a couple of blocks away Saturday night. "If I had known, I would have called."

Lt. Joe Scott, a top homicide detective, said the surviving children are witnesses and under police protection.

"Nobody will see those children," Scott said. "This is a sensitive investigation. We're keeping everything under the wraps right now."

Authorities identified the adult victims on Wednesday as Cecil Dotson, 30, who was renting the home; Hollis Seals, 33; Shindri Roberson, 20; and Marissa Rene Williams, 26. They declined to identify the children.

Police say that the attack happened between Saturday night and Monday evening and that five of those who died were shot and one child was stabbed. Investigators have ruled out a murder-suicide.

Some details trickled out from family and neighbors, who hope the extreme violence will push those with any tips to talk to police.

"We have dead children. We have dead individuals right now. We need information right now," Scott told CBS News affiliate WREG-TV.

Nicole Dotson said her brother lived in the rental house with Williams, his girlfriend, their four children and a child of his from a previous relationship. The children were ages 9, 5, 4, 2 and 2 months, she said.

Police have not told the family which children survived, she said.

"We don't know who's in the hospital. We don't know who's alive. It's depressing," she said.

"He ain't got nothing," Dotson, told WMC-TV. "Why would you go to somebody's house and rob them and they ain't got nothing but some groceries? No money, no drugs."

Police have refused to say whether the slayings could have been connected to Dotson, who had a violent criminal past.

Court and criminal records reviewed by The Associated Press showed Dotson was "known to have gang affiliations" when he joined in an attack on a jail inmate in 1995 while serving a four-year sentence for aggravated assault.

At the time Dotson died, a charge of aggravated robbery was pending against him. An affidavit filed by police accused him of driving a van that nearly struck a pedestrian on Jan. 9. When the pedestrian approached the van and yelled, Dotson pulled out a handgun and demanded the man's wallet. Dotson was arrested shortly afterward and identified by the victim.

Relatives say they know of no activity by Dotson or others in the home that could have led to the violence.

The owner of the small brick home, Rob Robinson said Dotson and his girlfriend were good tenants. "They kept the property and they called me when there were problems. They paid their rent on time. They were always very courteous and polite. Not that this would ever be expected, but there wasn't a history there I had experienced that indicated this kind of activity or crazy things going on."

Robinson said the man had problems with a former girlfriend. "When I was over there, there were a lot of heated conversations over the phone," he said.

Neighbors said there had been a disturbance over the weekend, and a woman was outside the home, blowing her car horn.

In a neighborhood where residents say drugs, prostitution and gang-related violence have been problems for years, people tend to keep to themselves.

"We have neighbors, but we don't get involved," Mackey said.

"They (neighbors) may be afraid to go to police," she said.

So police have gone door to door in the neighborhood looking for leads.

Billy E. Gunn, whose house is behind the home where the bodies were found, said police questioned him.

Gunn said he heard five rapid gunshots and then three slow ones around 9 p.m. Sunday. He didn't feel the need to call police because it's such a common sound.

"It wouldn't have mattered; it takes the police so long to get out here," he said.

Other neighbors have said that they recall hearing gunshots in the area of crime scene on Saturday night, which would fall within the two-day window that police have set for the crimes, between Saturday night and Monday evening, when a relative finally called police to have them check the home.

Just down the street stand three cinderblock motels, one called the Pleasure Inn, all surrounded by privacy fences. Tough-looking dogs chained in the backyards of numerous residences sent up a stream of barks and howls.

The nearest major intersection boasts automobile salvage yards on all four corners, surrounded by chain-linked fences and razor wire.

Last fall, the FBI ranked Memphis eighth in the country for reports of serious crimes per capita, though local law enforcers questioned the FBI's methodology.

Ricky Hall, 52, who lives near the home were the bodies were found, says the neighborhood has grown more unkempt and dangerous in the past few years, with many rental homes sitting empty.

He said he had no information about the case but, like his neighbors, hopes someone can provide clues to police.

"Somebody must have seen or heard something," he said.

About 30 residents gathered to pray for the victims Tuesday morning at the neighborhood's First Baptist Church - Broad Street, and about 200 attended an evening prayer service for the victims and the community.

"This is a breach in our community, and we as a church are the repairers of that breach," church member Cheri Wells said. "I feel a sense of vulnerability. I feel pain and hurt. I feel we have been robbed. Our peace has been snatched from us."

Worshippers identified by Pastor Keith Norman as relatives of some of the victims attended the evening prayer service but would not talk with reporters. Norman declined to identify them by name.

Wayne Bolden, who lives across the street from the crime scene, said the family kept to themselves but the apparent man of the house occasionally fired gunshots in the yard.

"He'd shoot on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve," Bolden said. "He'd have company over and I'd hear the shots."

"It's a shocking situation. You don't really know how to handle it."

The weekend attack appeared to be the worst single shooting in Memphis in at least 33 years. In May 1973, a man with a history of mental illness randomly shot and killed five people, including a police officer, before he was killed by police.

More recently, a firefighter killed four people in 2000, including two other firefighters and a sheriff's deputy.