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Gazette
October 7, 2014
A reluctant witness claiming to forget a murder confession left Maryln Dunlap weeping and in tears last week, scared that her son’s alleged killer would walk free.
Her eyes grew moist once more Tuesday as she texted her younger son the verdict: He’s guilty.
After deliberating only 31/2 hours, a jury found that Macyo Joelle January murdered Staff Sgt. David Dunlap and his pregnant wife, Whitney Butler, as the newlyweds checked on their home burglary alarm in early 2013.
January – charged as an adult despite being 17 at the time of the killings – showed no emotion after the 12 jurors replied “yes” in affirming their decision to 4th Judicial District Court Judge Deborah Grohs and a packed courtroom.
In the gallery, the parents of Dunlap and Butler sent text messages to relatives and later said they wanted the maximum sentence against January, who is 19 and faces life in prison with the possibility of parole.
“He is an adult, and that’s the end of it,” said Maryln Dunlap. “He knew what he was doing.”
The conviction ended a 12-day trial that overlapped what would have been the couple’s second wedding anniversary. Weighing into the guilty verdict was testimony Sept. 24 from one of January’s childhood friends in Stratmoor Valley, Tamara Gary.
Reluctantly taking the stand last week, Gary either denied hearing January confess to killing the couple or repeated the phrase “I don’t remember.”
January flashed a smile and hugged his attorneys after the testimony, while 15 feet away, Maryln Dunlap wept inconsolably.
“I’m just maybe old and naive – I was raised to tell the truth,” said Maryln Dunlap on Tuesday outside the courthouse. “And you don’t lie. That’s the way I tried to raise my kids . it was just tearing me apart.”
Mention of that testimony marked a turning point in deliberations, juror Cornelia Sistrunk said. Some jurors found her words compelling, but in the end, “she was not a credible witness,” Sistrunk said.
Sistrunk also said she felt confident the jury considered all of the evidence and testimony.
“As far as I am concerned as a juror, it came down to five things for me: the gun, the bullet, the fingerprint, the DNA and the confessions.”
A few days after Gary took the stand, investigators played an audio recording of her recalling the confession to detectives that January “got caught up in some mess” and “shot somebody.”
They also played another recording of a different person who told investigators he heard January confess, despite suggesting otherwise while on the stand.
Prosecutor Jeff Lindsey called one witness out of about 50 – a hearing-impaired man named Frankie Meyer who testified about giving chase to January and later picking him out of a photo lineup – the prosecution’s hero.
“He is a brave person,” Lindsey said. “He is, I think, the person that got this case to the point where Macyo January was arrested.”
The jury also convicted January of burglary, theft and aggravated motor vehicle theft.
But there was no murder charge for the 13-week-old fetus Butler carried the day she died – a result of state statutes that kept prosecutors from pressing charges for that death, prosecutor Reggy Short said.
He credited the case as helping build momentum to lawmakers’ passage of legislation revising that statute.
“It’s unfortunate that that’s not something Mr. January could be held accountable for,” Short said.
The couple’s parents, from California and Virginia, and a few other relatives sat through the entire trial, save graphic testimony on the couple’s autopsies. Over and over, Whitney Butler’s father, Kevin Butler, scribbled notes and passed them to paralegals and prosecutors – questions that he wanted asked of stubborn witnesses.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family mostly sat in silence.
“We got dragged through hell initially, whether we were willing or not,” said Butler’s mother, Marie Butler, of the killings. “This time, we walked into it with our eyes open. It was voluntary.”
Kevin Butler praised investigators’ plan for having a contingency to Gary’s forgetfulness on the stand: The audio recording of her recalling the confession.
Despite the relief that came with Tuesday’s verdict, Kevin Butler lamented never meeting his first granddaughter.
He showed off a picture of the couple’s Arlington National Cemetery grave – Dunlap’s name on one side of the tombstone, Butler’s on the other.
And he gave thanks.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better verdict,” he said.
