Pictured are serial killer Michael Madison (wearing brown) and Jalen Plummer, 18, a suspect in the murder on June 22, 2019 of Madison's mother, Diane Madison
Posted Saturday, June 22, 2019. Updated Monday, June 24, 2019
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com-CLEVELAND, Ohio –CLEVELAND, Ohio-The 67-year-old mother of serial killer Michael Madison of East Cleveland, who was convicted in 2016 of murdering three Cleveland women and wrapping their remains in garbage bags, was killed and three children injured at a home on Cleveland's east side early Saturday morning. (Editor's note: The 18 year-old suspect, Jalen Plummer, is in custody in the Cuyahoga County Jail in Cleveland on a $2 million bond after being indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on one count of aggravated murder of Diane Madison, and four counts of felonious assault for allegedly stabbing the older Madison and the three children at issue. His arraignment is pending. His is the victim's grandson, police said)
Madison's victims were Angela Deskins, 38 , Shetisha Sheeley, 28, and Shirellda Terry, 18.
The serial killer, who sits on death row as he appeals his convictions and death sentence, and his mother are Black, as were his murder victims.
East Cleveland is a largely Black and impoverished suburb of Cleveland,
Activists and women's rights groups of Cleveland were caught by surprise as to the news of the murder of the younger Madison's mother, including Kathy Wray Coleman, who has led rallies around the Madison serial killings, at least one of them covered by national mainstream cable television stations, including CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.
Coleman said Saturday after learning of the murder of Ms Madison that "we do not condone violence against women in any form or fashion, even the mother of serial killer Michael Madison whose killer we want brought to justice while we wait for the death penalty to be carried out against Mr Madison, whom we hope rots in hell for the senseless murders of three young Black women whose remains he wrapped in plastic bags and tossed like trash around the community,"
Coleman leads the Imperial Women Coalition, the women's rights organization founded in 2009 around the murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland by serial killer and death row inmate Anthony Sowell.
Alfred Porter Jr. of Black on Black Crime Inc echoed Coleman's sentiments on the tragic death of Madison's mother and Michael Madison himself.
"We offer our condolences to the Madison family regarding the murder of serial killer Michael Madison's mother as we continue our call for him to be put to death for his capital crimes as recommended by a jury and determined by a competent and respected judge," said Porter.
Coleman said that the murder of Diane Madison is just another reminder that violence against women and girls remains an epidemic locally, statewide and nationally, and as the 2020 election nears not one presidential candidate has put forth a proposal to address this growing problem.
At Madison's trial three-years ago his attorneys said he said his mother made him feel insecure and that nothing he did was right by her.
His attorneys said she allegedly abused him both emotionally and physically, including stuffing food down his mouth until he would vomit, beating him with extension cords, and tossing scolded hot water on him, claims not substantiated, prosecutors said at trial.
Cleveland police found Diane Madison dead when responding at the 19000 block of Chickasaw Avenue at about 12:am Saturday and three children injured, a 12-year-old boy and two 10-year-old girls, all of them allegedly stabbed, and all three of whom were taken to Rainbow Babies and Children Hospital for observation, police said.
Police say the 18-year-old suspect, Jalen Plummer, broke into the home, stabbed Diane Madison in her bedroom, and then attacked the three children in a bedroom while they were asleep, the two girls getting away and running to a neighbors house, and the boy hiding inside the home.
One of the wounded girls is purportedly the daughter of Michael Madison, police said,
The suspect was found hiding in the shower when police arrived at the scene, authorities said Saturday.
Police have said that to date there is not enough evidence to link Diane Madison's murder to her son's killing spree.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell handed a death sentence to the serial killer in 2016 after he was convicted of the gruesome triple murders.
A largely White 12-member jury found Madison, then 39, guilty on 13 counts on May 5, 2016 after nearly five weeks of trial, all but a gun specification charge, including rape, three counts of abuse of a corpse and three counts each of kidnapping and aggravated murder.
That same jury recommended the death penalty to the judge for consideration, the harshest penalty under state law for a capital murder conviction, and she obliged.
Cleveland community activists and local women's right groups said at the time of the sentence that they were pleased with the outcome.
Madison did not take the stand at trial and he and his appointed attorneys want his life spared.
The remains of the three women were found wrapped in trash bags in 2013 near the intersection of Shaw and Hayden Avenues in East Cleveland.
Madison has said that he does not want to be compared to serial killer and death row inmate Anthony Sowell, who murdered 11 Black women and raped several others at his since demolished home on Imperial Avenue on Cleveland's largely Black east side.
Sowell has lost all appeals, even to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear his case.
Prosecutors played an audiotape at trial of police interrogations of serial killer Madison where he admitted to killing Shetisha Sheeley, whom he knew, and Shirellda Terry, whom he met as she was coming home from a summer tutoring job. He said that he did not remember if he murdered Angela Deskins and, per the audiotape, that his mother's high expectations and his failure to meet them drove him to drink and spoke marijuana, which he sold to make ends meet.
Deskins and Sheeley were strangled to death.
The remains of Terry were too decomposed to access the extent of the damage, the Cuyahoga County medical examiner said.
Police found the first of the three bodies on July 19, 2013 after a foul smell was reported coming from a garage leased to Madison. The other two remains were discovered a day later, one in the backyard of an abandoned home and the other in the basement of a nearby vacant house.
Deskins was reported missing in June 2013, Sheeley in September 2012, and Terry was last seen leaving her summer job at Carver Elementary School in Cleveland on July 10, 2013.
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