Episode Four - The Son

On the night Emogene Thompson was murdered, her son Michael was one of the last people known to have seen her alive.

Episode 4 takes a closer look at the questions surrounding that night: conflicting timelines, a car that may not have been where Michael Thompson said it was, an unexplained late-night phone call, a missing purse, and witnesses whose accounts would not surface until after Michael Chapel was convicted.

What was known that night? What was overlooked? And what would emerge years later?

Nearly thirty years after Emogene’s murder, one of the people at the center of that night told a very different story.

The question is no longer simply what investigators found.

It is what they chose not to investigate.

Michael Thompson — Trial Testimony

Michael Keith Thompson testified for the State on August 24, 1995. He told jurors that he knew his mother had withdrawn $14,000 in cash and knew where she initially hid it. He denied stealing the money, although on cross-examination he acknowledged previously taking approximately $400. Thompson testified that after the April 3 theft, Emogene kept the remaining money in her purse and kept the purse with her “at all times.” 

Testimony Combined.pdf

Q. After the report of the theft, do you know where your mother kept the remainder of the money?

A. Yes.

Q. Where did she keep it?

A. “In her purse.”

Q. And where did she keep her purse?

A. “With her at all times.”

— Trial Transcript, Combined p. 420

Regarding the night of the murder, Thompson testified that he and his mother ate at Waffle House and returned home between approximately 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. He said he left afterward and did not see Emogene leave for work.

On cross-examination, after reviewing his original police statement, Thompson recalled going to Pat’s house, then stopping at Amy Parker’s before returning home. 

Testimony Combined.pdf

Q. Mr. Thompson, you never saw your mother leave for work the night she was killed?

A. “Uh-uh. No. Excuse me.”

Q. Okay. So you don't know for certain that she had her purse with her that night?

A. “Not for certain, but she -- it went everywhere she did.”

Q. But you don't -- you didn't see it with her that night?

A. “No.”

— Trial Transcript, Combined p. 452

Evidence Files:

Michael Thompson was suspected in the initial theft of approximately $6,000/7,000 dollars from his mother Emogene Thompson. He admitted to Michael Chapel on April 3rd that he and Dennis Shelton had stolen from the stash previously, a fact that was later testified to in court.

On April 4th Michael Thompson’s friend Barry Graham hid near Amy Parker’s residence and took a planned photograph of Michael Chapel’s patrol car as evidence to be used later to claim that Chapel was stalking Emogene.

On or about April 7th Michael Thompson was confronted by Michael Chapel outside the Subway sandwich shop at the Old Buford Mall - DeeDee Stephens witnessed the encounter and later tried to come forward to GCPD with her account that Thompson returned to the sandwich shop and threatened to kill his mother. GCPD was not interested in DeeDee's eyewitness account.

On April 12, 1993, Michael Thompson was served with a summons for an April 20 show-cause hearing. He owed over $4,000 in child support and was facing jail time. 

Multiple individuals have stated that Emogene was at the American Inn on April 15 to hide from her son. Lead Detective Jack Burnette's handwritten notes and two independent witnesses placed Emogene Thompson at the motel that night in room 103. 

The guest in the next room, a traveling sales rep from South Carolina with no ties to Buford or any of the people involved reports that someone started banging on his door in the early evening demanding to be let in, then a rock was smashed through the window of his room.

Mr. Koochagian reports that there was police activity and he was moved to another room. The motel clerk remembered that there was a big car that came and went, potentially connected to that incident and verified the police activity and seeing the victim with her umbrella before the police departed, followed by a small car.

At "a little before 10pm" Ron Flashner witnessed a vehicle uniquely matching Michael Thompson’s vehicle backed up trunk to trunk with Emogene Thompson’s car at the Gwinnco Muffler Shop, creating a large amount of smoke, with three or four individuals around the victim's car.

Michael Thompson's alibi for the murder window was that he walked down to a friend's house for a job interview between 8:45 and 10:00 p.m., then spoke to Amy Parker before going home and watching a movie until he went to sleep at 11:30.

A phone call was placed from Emogene Thompson’s home at approximately 11:00 to a known drug dealer in Hiawassee, Georgia.

The records reviewed for this episode do not show that GCPD followed up with the friend or the Hiawassee connection to corroborate Thompson’s job-interview alibi or determine what he may have been doing approximately one hour after his mother was robbed and murdered.

Amy Parker — 1993 vs. 2022

Amy Parker lived next door to Emogene and Michael Thompson and was a longtime friend of Michael Thompson. In a handwritten statement dated September 16, 1993, Parker described Michael Thompson moving in and out during the evening of April 15—returning from dinner (8:30 thru 9:30 p.m.) at Subway with "a Subway cup of ice and some brownies," watching television, leaving again for a job interview at 10:00 p.m., and later returning at 11:00 p.m. Her statement therefore placed Thompson away from her during significant portions of the night.

When interviewed in 2022, Parker gave a substantially different account. She said she and Michael Thompson were together essentially the entire evening, left for a club around 9:30 p.m., and did not return until approximately 3:00 a.m. When confronted with her 1993 statement describing Thompson leaving and returning, Parker said she did not remember any of it and insisted, “whoever took that report, that's incorrect.” She also claimed that she and Thompson were with Emogene before leaving and that she personally heard the telephone call she believed led Emogene to Gwinnco Muffler. 

That nearly thirty-year seismic shift in Parker’s account is one of the central questions examined in Episode Four.

Keith Seay — Another Different Account

Keith Seay was Amy Parker’s boyfriend and lived with her in the trailer next door to Emogene Thompson. His account of the night of April 15 differs from Amy Parker’s original statement in an important way.

Amy told police that she and Keith were together next door and, about ten minutes before 10:00 p.m., looked out and saw Emogene leaving for work. Keith’s later statement instead placed Amy Parker at Emogene Thompson’s trailer around the time Emogene was preparing to leave.

That account is also consistent with what Keith’s father, Weldon Seay, later reported: Amy told him she had gone next door to Emogene’s home shortly before 10:00 p.m. to use the telephone. 

If Keith and Weldon’s accounts are accurate, Amy Parker may have been one of the last people to have been with Emogene Thompson before she left home that night.

Becky Seay - Brand New Stories

Nearly thirty years after Emogene Thompson’s murder, both Amy Parker and Becky Seay provided new information that appeared to further implicate Michael Chapel—information that does not appear in the contemporaneous 1993 investigative record.

In her later interview, Amy Parker gave a substantially different account of the night of the murder, including claims about being with Michael Thompson, hearing the telephone call that supposedly sent Emogene to Gwinnco Muffler, and other details not contained in her original statement. Notably, Michael Thompson denied those claims one day after she made them.

Becky Seay likewise offered information decades later that had not surfaced in 1993. Becky said Emogene told others that a police officer had asked about the combination to the locks on her car and about her work route and schedule. Becky later changed her account and said Emogene told her those things directly. Becky also said she was in the area on the night of the murder and saw blue police lights.

Neither woman provided a clear explanation for why this potentially significant information was not given to law enforcement during the original investigation. When Becky was specifically asked why none of it had been reported in 1993, she replied:

“That is my question?”

“I do plan on asking Amy.”

The significance of these later accounts is not simply what Parker and Seay now say happened. It is that details appearing to implicate Michael Chapel emerged decades after the murder—while the statements made closest in time to April 15, 1993 tell a materially different story.

Weldon Seay — A Curious Neighbor 

Weldon Seay owned property surrounding Emogene Thompson’s trailer, and his son Keith lived next door with Amy Parker. After the murder, Weldon became suspicious of activity involving Amy and others in her circle and began gathering information himself. He reported suspected drug activity, burglaries and safe-cracking to lead investigator Jack Burnette, and told investigators he was willing to follow the evidence even if it implicated his own son. 

Weldon also provided information that conflicted with Amy Parker’s original account of the night of the murder. He said Amy told him she had gone next door to Emogene Thompson’s home shortly before 10:00 p.m. to use the telephone—potentially placing Amy with Emogene shortly before she left home. 

Years later, Weldon remained involved. He said he discovered what appeared to be a spent .38-caliber projectile behind Emogene’s trailer and turned it over to GCPD, but was later told it could not be located. After Emogene’s missing purse was recovered following Michael Chapel’s trial, Weldon photographed the location where it had been found. His photograph shows a wooded area, and he specifically noted: “Location of where purse was found — no stream or creek.” This appears to refute public statements made by Danny Porter that the purse had been found in a creek or stream which must have washed away the blood.

Weldon said he repeatedly brought his concerns to investigators but never became convinced that Michael Chapel was responsible. According to Weldon, after he raised questions about the people surrounding Emogene, Jack Burnette and District Attorney Danny Porter took him to lunch and spent more than an hour and a half trying to convince him that Chapel—and Chapel alone—was responsible.

Weldon’s response was simple:

“I just never really believed it.”

Dennis Shelton - "Suspect"

Dennis Shelton was a friend of Michael Thompson and had been at the Thompson residence before the murder. Michael Thompson told investigators that he believed Shelton may have been involved in the earlier theft of his mother’s money, and GCPD brought Shelton in for questioning.

A police supplemental report dated April 21, 1993 still identified Dennis Shelton as the suspect in the murder and armed robbery investigation. At Michael Chapel’s trial, however, an investigator testified only that Shelton had later been “eliminated as a suspect in the murder.”

The testimony did not explain how Shelton was eliminated, what evidence cleared him, or what part of his account investigators independently corroborated.