Danny Hembree, a man from York County, South Carolina has admitted to killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009 so she wouldn’t sleep with Black men in exchange for crack cocaine.
Hembree admitted to giving Catterton crack cocaine in exchange for sex himself, and says he also dated her sister and mother. He is also charged with two other murders.
On Monday, a jury in the trial of a 49-year-old man named Danny Hembree watched a taped confession of Hembree saying he committed murder over interracial dating. Hembree, who is being tried in York County, South Carolina, is accused of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009, a crime he told police he committed after he gave crack to Catterton in exchange for sex. Yet despite the fact that he had sex with her after giving her drugs, Hembree says he killed Catterton to keep her from having sex with Black men in order to afford crack. “I just released her from that,” he said in the video. “I wasn’t mad or nothing. She was just better off.”
He'd rather see her dead then think about her having sex with a black man. Who else has this guy killed?
Hembree claims nights of sex and drugs killed two women
Seventeen-year-old Heather Catterton died from a wild night of smoking crack, according to her accused killer, Danny Hembree.
Thirty-year-old Randi Saldana also died while partying with Hembree.
The defendant in a capital murder trial, Hembree said he accidentally killed Saldana while having sex.
Hembree took the witness stand Friday and admitted to hiding and dumping both the women’s bodies in York County, S.C., in 2009.
Jurors have listened to the state’s evidence for nearly two weeks. The defense took over Thursday afternoon, first calling Catterton’s mother, Stella Funderburk, to the stand.
Funderburk wept Friday as Hembree testified about the night that led to her daughter’s death.
According to Hembree, he and Catterton had sex and smoked crack with another couple for hours before going back to his mother’s house just outside of Gastonia.
Hembree testified that he and Catterton went to sleep around 2 or 3 a.m. and when he woke up, the girl was dead.
“I touched her and she was cold,” he said. “I knew she was dead.”
Hembree said he panicked, hid Catterton’s body in a basement closet and later dumped her in a culvert on Robinson Yelton Road in York County, S.C.
“I weighed my options and made a selfish decision,” said Hembree. “I decided to hide her body and not tell anybody she died in my bed.”
Hembree also admitted to being with Saldana the night she died. He testified that the two were smoking crack and having sex for three to four hours when things when awry.
Hembree said that the couple was engaged in autoerotic asphyxiation, and he accidentally strangled Saldana to death.
He wept on the witness stand when he told how he stored Saldana’s body in the same closet where he had placed Catterton just weeks before.
Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell aims to convince the jury that Hembree suffocated Catterton.
Hembree confessed to killing Catterton and 30-year-old Randi Saldana in 2009. Jurors watched three police interrogation videos in which Hembree gave details of the slayings and showed investigators where the violent acts occurred.
Hembree told the jury Friday morning that he was playing the system when he confessed to the killings.
The habitual felon said he was initially arrested in Mecklenburg County for a string of armed robberies. While in custody, he began telling investigators that he killed Catterton and Saldana. He said confessing to bigger crimes gave him leverage with police for the robberies.
Once he started telling the lies to police, Hembree said the stories just kept growing. He said the confessions he gave to Gaston County Police Detective M.S. Hensley snowballed and were completely false.
“It was part of the performance,” he testified. “I was selling Hensley a car with enough to share with Locke Bell.”
According to Hembree, he executed eight to 10 robberies in two weeks in 2009 using a toy gunso that he could financially support his drug habit. He was convinced he would be sentenced to more than 90 years in prison if he didn’t negotiate. Hembree has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 1979.
Confessing to the killings seemed to be the best choice, he said on the witness stand.
But when it all comes down to it, Hembree said, he’s grown accustomed to life in prison.
“I’ve been in prison approximately 20 years,” he testified. “I can’t live on the street.”
Hembree is on trial for the death of Catterton, but evidence in Saldana’s death was also presented by the state. He faces a third murder charge for the 1992 killing of Deborah Ratchford.
Deborah Ratchford
