Pumpkin’s plea
Second of two prostitutes pleads guilty to triple-murder. Could pimp face charges next?
The second plea was very different from the one five months ago, during which a young woman named Falicia Blakely took the stand to apologize for robbing and gunning down three men when she was 19.
This time around, on June 9, the apology for the murders was shorter, the details more sparse.
In a last-minute plea (the trial was scheduled to start June 14), Blakely’s co-defendant, Ameshia “Pumpkin” Ervin, admitted her role in the murders and armed robberies. She told the court she was sorry. But there was little explanation as to why she joined Blakely in the killing spree, which was described earlier this year in a two-part CL series, “Learning to hit a lick.”
In court, the only person to mention the alleged involvement of a pimp named Michael Berry was DeKalb Assistant District Attorney Tom Clegg, who’s considering bringing charges against him. Neither Ervin, 22, nor her attorney claimed during the plea hearing, as Blakely’s attorney did during hers, that the two young prostitutes were under orders from Berry when they robbed and killed three men in the summer of 2002.
But after the hearing ended, the name “Michael Berry” kept cropping up throughout the DeKalb County Courthouse. From families of the deceased to the courtroom deputy to the representative from the county’s victims’ assistance office to the prosecutor himself, people wanted to know what would happen to the man accused by Blakely of calling for the murders.
As he stepped into the lobby’s elevator, Clegg turned to Ervin’s attorney, Maurice Kenner, who was walking out the courthouse door. “Next up,” he called out, “Michael Berry.”
But Clegg had acknowledged earlier that the case against Berry — if it ever happens — could be tricky, because Berry wasn’t present during the murders.
In August 2002, a 34-year-old photographer named Ray Goodwin called Blakely, who was his friend, and asked her to come by his apartment with some Ecstasy, according to police records and testimony given during Blakely’s hearing. Ervin tagged along. Blakely said in court and to CL that she’d been told by her and Ervin’s pimp, Berry, to rob Goodwin and kill him — or be killed herself.
Blakely later admitted to police that she was the one who pulled the trigger on Goodwin and his friend, Claudell Christmas, who’d stopped by the apartment.
That same night, again on alleged orders from Berry, the two women went to Buckhead to rob and kill a third victim. Both girls wound up picking up a man named Lemetrice Twitty and going with him to his Clarkston apartment. There, Blakely shot and killed him.
Under Georgia law, Ervin is equally responsible for the murders — even though she wasn’t the trigger person. The question is: If Berry in fact ordered the killings, and if that can be proved, will he too be found responsible?
Earlier this year, Clegg told CL that he didn’t yet have the necessary cooperation from witnesses to launch a case against Berry. While Blakely’s attorneys said she’d be willing to testify against Berry, Clegg said her testimony wouldn’t be enough.
“We’ll keep an open mind on it,” he said at the time. Clegg left town shortly after Ervin’s plea and hasn’t been available for comment.
Clegg also said in February that Ervin wasn’t yet willing to talk, because her case hadn’t been resolved. “It would be nice to know what she had to say if she has anything to say on the topic,” he said. “That would certainly shed a lot of light on whether or not there is a prosecutable case against Mr. Berry.”
Now that Ervin has pleaded guilty, her lawyer says he’ll soon give Clegg an answer as to whether she’ll cooperate. “A final decision has not been made,” Kenner says, “but we’re discussing that.”
Meanwhile, an arrest warrant has been issued for Berry — though it’s unrelated to any role he might have played in the murders. Berry was arrested by Atlanta police in February after he sold crack cocaine to an undercover officer, according to police reports. He was indicted in March but failed to appear at his May 3 arraignment, says Fulton County District Attorney spokeswoman Lyn Vaughn. Vaughn says Berry’s bond has been revoked, but he’s not yet been picked up by Fulton deputies.
If a murder case were to proceed against Berry, it would hinge strongly on whether Blakely, Ervin and other women who worked for him could paint a compelling picture of his control over them. Both Blakely’s and Ervin’s attorneys have indicated the women could.
“Michael Berry had a powerful influence over her,” Ervin’s attorney, Kenner, says. “She allowed herself to get sucked into this situation as a way to get quick money — as a prostitute, not as a murderer.”
For pleading guilty to the men’s murders and robberies, Ervin received three life sentences and three 20-year sentences. The earliest she’ll be eligible for parole is 2024. Blakely, against whom Clegg planned to seek the death penalty, was sentenced in January to life without parole.
Shortly after Ervin’s plea, the victims’ families — Twitty’s mother and Christmas’ wife and sisters — sat down for lunch in a Decatur diner and pieced together their collective reaction to the plea. When the discussion came around to Ervin’s sentence, the family members said they were disappointed that she’ll be eligible for parole in 20 years.
“She got a good deal,” Gloria Twitty said.
Later, Twitty said it’s her hope that Ervin will cooperate in a case against Berry.
“I guess he got his victims with weak minds that he picked out,” Twitty says. “I hope they get him. This man is still going around, free.”