Longtime Suspect on Trial in 11-Year-Old Missing Student Case
Aug. 23, 2005 — -- A man long suspected in the disappearance of an Emory University student, last seen more than 10 years ago, is now on trial for her alleged murder.
Shannon Melendi's body has never been found, but Georgia prosecutors believe they have enough evidence to convict Colvin C. "Butch" Hinton III of murder charges. Melendi was a 19-year-old sophomore in Emory's pre-law program when she was last seen on March 26, 1994, leaving the Softball Country Club where she worked as a scorekeeper. Hinton, 44, also worked at the Softball Country Club, as an umpire.
In opening arguments Monday, prosecutors conceded their case was lacking in physical evidence, but they said Hinton's alleged confession to other prisoners while serving time on unrelated charges, along with other physical evidence linking him to the crime, is enough to convict him of murder.
"I didn't kill her. The demon inside me killed that girl," prosecutor Mike McDaniel quoted Hinton as saying in his alleged confession.
Hinton has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer, B.J. Bernstein, stressed the prosecution's lack of physical evidence in her opening statements. She acknowledged to jurors that they may find Hinton easy to convict because of his criminal past, but said that no one knows what reallyhappened to Melendi.
"The only certainty is that we haven't seen Shannon Melendi,"she said.
Before Melendi's disappearance, Hinton served 15 months in prison for kidnapping a 14-year-old Illinois girl in 1982. He also was previously accused three times of abducting women in Illinois and Kentucky. Hinton was almost immediately considered a suspect in Melendi's disappearance, but was never charged until new evidence in the case surfaced in 2004.
According to court documents, part of that new evidence focuses on the allegations of several prison inmates who said that Hinton spoke of killing Melendi when they served time together.
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