Kannapolis police dispute claims in murder

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009

By Beth Feeback
news@salisburypost.com
Kannapolis Police Chief Woody Chavis issued a statement Thursday evening regarding speculation on the details of the Nov. 29 death of Janet Winecoff.
Chavis addressed comments made by the victim’s family members in the Salisbury Post’s Dec. 2 report on the homicide, and reader comments on the Post’s Web site.
Winecoff was killed in what police are calling a domestic dispute two days after the suspect, Ernest Lamont Moody, was released from a three-week jail stint on drug paraphernalia and failure-to-appear charges.
Moody, of Concord, was charged with first-degree murder in the case.
The victim’s brother claimed the police took 45 minutes responding to the initial call for help and says the family has cell phone records to back the claim.
John Fischer, speaking on behalf of his and the victim’s mother, Jan Fischer, said the family will have no other comments on the case on advice from a lawyer who is looking into possible police mishandling of the situation.
Meanwhile, Chavis issued the following statement:
“The criminal investigation into the death of Janet Lee Winecoff remains active and many details of the investigation cannot yet be released. The following facts of the investigation should address some of the concerns and allegations detailed in recent news articles regarding the death of Ms. Winecoff:
“The Kannapolis Police Department received the initial call regarding a disturbance at 412 Central Ave. at 7:08 p.m. The call was received as a transfer 911 call from Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office. The Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office received the 911 call because it was placed from a cellular telephone. Due to a language barrier between the caller and 911 operators, the communicator utilized ‘Language Line,’ an emergency translation service.
“The call was dispatched to field officers as a domestic disturbance at 7:15 p.m. and the officers were on the scene at 7:20 p.m. The only name listed in the initial call was that of the caller; therefore the identity of the victim (Janet Winecoff) was not known to law enforcement until after their arrival.
“Since this investigation is on-going, the details of interviews with witnesses will not be released; however, investigators have determined Ms. Winecoff and Mr. Moody had been at the home together for over 10 hours prior to the 911 call and had been seen by many of the witnesses during the course of the day. These witnesses were friends and family members of Winecoff. At this point in the investigation, there is no indication from witnesses that Moody was angry with Ms. Winecoff or issued any threats toward her prior to the events immediately preceding her death.
“Investigators have no knowledge of Winecoff’s alleged cooperation with police to reveal the whereabouts of Mr. Moody prior to his arrest on Nov. 5, 2008, and had not been informed of any such allegation until reading it in local print media. It is apparent that many of the alleged facts being printed are without basis or factual information.
“One particular allegation that needs to be addressed was that there was a delayed response because it was ‘shift change’ at the department. This is untrue. Shift change occurred approximately 30 minutes prior to the initial call.
“Another allegation indicated that the officers delayed their response based on Ms. Winecoff being involved in the disturbance. As you can see from the information supplied above, the officers had no idea who was involved in the disturbance until they arrived on the scene.”
Chavis’ statement refers to claims made by the victim’s family and statements made by anonymous people posting comments on the Salisbury Post’s Web site.
John Fischer and his mother, Jan Fischer, said they’d heard that Janet Winecoff was killed in retaliation for giving police the whereabouts of the suspect prior to his most recent drug arrest.
“But all this is he-said, she-said,” Jan Fischer said Monday. She said she’d learned nothing from the Kannapolis Police Department at the time.
Regarding speculation that the motive for the killing was retaliation for Winecoff’s turning Moody in, Chavis said police had no record of the victim’s participation in locating Moody when he was wanted. But on Monday, Jan Fischer said police had come by her daughter’s mobile home and asked her if she had seen Moody lately.
Chavis’ comments denying that a shift change caused a delay in response and that police were slow to respond because Winecoff had a criminal record were in response to anonymous comments made on www.salisburypost. com.