Women Behind Bars - Season 2, Episode 5 - Dolly Mae and Shaniqua - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman pled guilty to the murder of a local prostitute
it was a torture killing she was bound she was gagged she was stomped kicked she finally was strangled to death
they took my best friend from me so that's a real big hole that i'm trying to like
close up damien prophet controlled his woman primarily through fear then shaniqua brown tells her story
she was allegedly involved in a robbery that ended in the murder of a chinese food delivery man
i saw the food i saw the menu i saw puddles and puddles of blood so footprints of blood
and then i saw him the victim only carries chains for 20. so how much money was really netted and
what is a human life worth one phone call can turn tragically wrong in a split second two
women two brutal crimes these are the stories of dolly mae clapp and shaniqua brown
[Music] on january 6 2006 in a vacant lot on the east side of buffalo new york police found the body of 35 year old
michelle hicks she was beaten pretty badly her eyes were swollen shut she was not only being
physically beaten punched and kicked she was being tortured with the use of these chemicals
detectives learned that michelle was a prostitute working for a pimp named harold bonner and a 47 year old woman
who they say was his second in command dolly may clap her obanner and dolly were evil people
clapp insists she knew nothing about the prostitution ring she consistently kept saying she was a
property manager and she denied helping bonner commit murder i didn't kill that girl that girl was
alive when i left but police believed otherwise she was there during the whole murder i
think dolly mcclap demonstrated herself to be a pathological liar and a sadist was dolly mae clapp falsely accused or
was she a willing partner in a sadistic torture killing dolly mae clapp was the only girl of
four children born to catherine and luther clapp i was born in lacawana um this little
town outside of buffalo my father passed away when i was small it was a really really big loss after
her father's death dolly and her three brothers were put in foster care for several years
i don't even know why they took us from my mother i didn't hate her she came to visit us when was in the
foster home my sister dowling she took care of me when i was younger she uh cooked for me made sure i stayed
out of trouble when dolly was 12 she went back to live with her mother i think i had a good childhood even when
i came home with my mother she's always been there for me i took her through some rough times was
to run away from home stay out all night dolly's mom enrolled her in a strict boarding school for troubled girls
it was run by nuns but they were really really nice you have to work your way up to
privileges and that's what i did the young teen finished high school a year early but struggled to find a
career she could stick with i wanted to run the streets to just a party and have a good time that's why i
never completed anything i went to just about every college i could think of i went to tailoring
school i went to cosmetology school at age 27 dolly had her first child and decided to raise him as a single mom
she then gave birth to three more children with a close friend over the next five years we had a good
friendship but we wasn't like boyfriend and girlfriend as she raised her children
dolly began to experiment with drugs i was smoking crack when you first done you know you think
you have a handle on it you do it on the weekends but you're becoming more addictive and
you're not aware of it when my sister jolly was going through her drug addiction that
was a negative part of her life and it affected her kids and her household i had my kids taken from me
dolly's children went to live with their paternal grandmother who tried to help dolly
she was good to her kids the best she knew how to be due to drugs it changed darling
i know that donna can do better in an effort to get her kids back dolly stayed clean for a year
but then relapsed it was awful i mean i wish i had more control well just it's hard it's really
it's really really hard to stop smoking crack i wasted a lot of time getting high i gotta spend with my kids
the time is gone you can't get it back dolly says she met 47 year old harold bonner in 2000.
bonner was also known on the streets as damien prophet damian prophet was a pimp sort of an old
school pimp on the east side of buffalo he ran prostitutes he owned a number of properties as well
when i first met him he was nice he was talking about his houses and they were empty
he was trying to get him rented out i had a little money and he needed it and i gave it to him
darling is a good person if you needed something she'd help you with it he was telling me we're going to be
together and i believed him he was a good guy he's i thought he was bonner would would pass himself off as a
church-going man in buffalo i think he fancied himself more of a businessman who
tried to stay below the radar of the police in buffalo dawley says she and bonner had a
romantic relationship as well as a business partnership in managing bonner's properties
he was paying all my bills you know i was taking care of me he knew i got high he knew i used drugs
he didn't treat her right and he would buy drugs for her to keep her high he is a dog was a dog and always going
to be one people was telling me that he used to be a pill he said i'm going back to pepin
i didn't believe him harold bonnard obviously had delusions of grandeur he could convince
people especially the women he dealt with he preyed on the most desperate women a
lot of women who didn't have family didn't have friends didn't have a life he would control them
because they had nothing else in their life dolly denies knowing that bonner was
pimping women at the time he started doing it behind my back and they said that i knew about what he
was doing no i didn't but authorities contend she played a key role in his prostitution ring dolly maclab
was very important his business she managed his rental property she collected rent for him and she managed his human
property which in his mind were these women who prostituted for him i honestly only knew a four but
as i later found i was a lot more one of the women who worked for bonner as a prostitute was michelle hicks
she was beautiful not just on the outside but the inside she had a hard life and she didn't let that stop her
she was hooked on drugs for a while and there came a time when she got away from
that and she actually attended rehab sessions michelle was like um a second sister to me we were in a
12-step program together she had a lot of clean time and i don't know what happened she began to use
again michelle's friends noticed that she lost a lot of weight as a prostitute for
harold bonner aka damian prophet when she got back on the street i think she wasn't eating right she
didn't look good at all damien prophet controlled his woman primarily through fear he not only would
abuse them physically and psychologically he was also abusing them in front of his
other prostitutes to send a message to them that they needed to stay in line as well
and obey him the girls were completely afraid of him he you know ruled by terror
food deprivation sleep deprivation you know narcotics being provided to them to keep them
numb mentally and emotionally he was brutal he was known to punch and kick and beat girls he'd have bars
on the windows he'd keep dogs in the front and back hallways so they couldn't escape or get out i heard
evidence of stun gun use by him in the past he had a lot of ways of controlling those girls
i've never seen him beat those women whatever they asked where he gave it to him i think
a lot of girls they was using him to get high mrs girls they didn't have anywhere
to go so here he come along mr i'm going to take care of you and support your drug habit
from what i've seen they just like used him according to court testimony bonner often used dolly to help him control the
other women when he had problems with the girls she did some of the intimidation for him
she was referred to by damian prophet as the exterminator he would tell them that he had to call
the exterminator now in an effort to threaten them and she would talk to them on the phone
and ask them what they had done wrong and try to set them straight this girl owed him some money and i said
if you owe him give that man his money so you can go he had them thinking i was the
enforcer and that's not true these girls can never say i laid a hand on them i had nothing to do with that when women
behind bars continues she was not only being physically beaten punched and kicked but she was being
tortured with the use of these chemicals i seized the cowboys and that's when i seen the
top of her hair i looked down and i see this michelle wrapped in a blanket just after the new year in 2006 dolly
clapp says she was working as a property manager in buffalo new york for her boyfriend harold bonner
also known on the streets as damien prophet police say profit ran a prostitution ring
and had a violent reputation dolly claims he kept that part of his life hidden from her
i never seen that side of him never he was pimping these women i didn't know anything about
i didn't know any of this 35 year old michelle hicks was one of bonner's prostitutes
her goddaughter latoya remembers an encounter on the street that was one of the last times she saw
michelle she was with this older man in a bronco truck i'm like hi i'm like you okay she was like go go
like she was scared for me to stop and talk to her she was sitting in the passenger
side he was in the driver's seat and it's like she didn't say the words help but the look on her face was helped
on the evening of january 3rd michelle hicks was at bonner's house with three other prostitutes
also at the home was dolly clap i'd never seen one of these girls a day in my life until that night me and mr
bonner was in the back cleaning up cleaning out a bedroom he told me get ready for bed he had to
lock him in the house he had gates to his doors dolly says that bonner drove her home
just before 4 am when i left mr bond's house michelle hicks was alive mr bonder calls me on the phone he tells
me that he catches her trying to get out of his house michelle tried to steal something out of
prophet's house which were just cds and a bottle of liquor i was like well take it and
let her go put her out he called me back and he was telling me he was torturing the girl and i didn't believe him
mr beiner called me from 10 to 4 in the morning until 6 30 that morning basically telling me
what the girls what they was doing to michelle i didn't i just didn't believe it i said don't be
calling me with this police have a different view of what occurred in those early morning hours
according to witness testimony dolly clapp was not hearing the torture of michelle hicks over the phone
but was actually at bonner's home participating there were a number of women present as
well as dolly make lab candy diamond millie those were the prostitutes involved in
beating and strangling michelle to death prophet orders them to beat her and to kick her and to stop her
michelle was saying to prophet daddy let me give you another chance daddy daddy prophet asked the girls to get boots on
and the boots were stiletto boots with very sharp heels and they were stepping on her face but
according to dolly's own statements to police it was damian prophet himself who committed the most disturbing acts of
torture he poured liquid heat in her mouth i took a douche bottle filled it with ammonia and he inserted
it in her nose she was not only being physically beaten punched and kicked but she was being
tortured with the use of these chemicals dolly claimed in her statement that one of the other prostitutes named
diamond had said we can't just let her go she'll go to the police diamond suggested killing her and dolly
clap's response was yeah i guess so she's handing them the plastic bags to put over her head then she gets a
third bag rips it open so they can tie it around the base of the neck to cut off the air supply
they kept going and going until they killed it totally killed dolly insists she was at home on drugs
while listening to the murder over the phone i had no problem killing michelle hicks
i was getting high my thinking was they knew him they knew how vicious that mean they
was they put themselves in that position then dolly says she went back to bonner's house
the next morning and heard the details of the murder from millie one of the prostitutes millie
is the one who told me what happened to her harold bonner then ordered dolly and
the others to clean up the house they cleaned the floor as thoroughly as they could and then damien prophet
sprayed oven cleaner on the floor and had them scrub that off profit took a plastic trash bag and
gathered the uh the panties that had been stuffed in michelex's mouth the rope that she'd been bound with some
of the cleaning supplies the rags put it all in a trash bag and that that trash bag i don't believe was ever
recovered michelle hicks had been stuffed in a trash bin and put in bonner's vehicle
around 2 a.m the next night bonner called dolly he says i'm coming to pick you up so we
can dump this so having his friend comes dolly claims she did not know what was in the trash bin
at that time i didn't know that girl's body was in the garbage can in the truck the three drove to an abandoned lot on
rapen street dolly says she stayed in the truck while bonner and the other man dumped the body
out of the trash bin and covered it with cardboard after they dropped dolly back
off at home her phone rang he calls me we got to go back to get the cardboard prophet sent dolly
clap back to where they had dumped the body on rapen street so that she could recover that piece of
cardboard because he was afraid his fingerprints were on it i seized the cardboard and that's when i
seen the top of her hair i looked down and i see is michelle wrapped in a blanket
so i'm like you know you didn't involve me in the murder what happened and that's
when he was saying that he was trying to teach her a lesson about stealing from him he said you know
how many people i didn't kill rolled up in rugs and and got rid of the next day on
january 6 the body of michelle hicks was discovered i was wrapped in the blankets
and sheets towards the back of the field her face was exposed and you can see that she was beaten pretty badly her
eyes were swollen shut the medical examiner found wounds consistent with having been
stomped with a stiletto heel puncture type wounds it's like a little square holes in her
head and other parts were bad news of michelle's murder spread quickly through the neighborhood
oh my god oh my god that hit me hard like my sister died police knew they were looking for
someone vicious enough to torture their victim but with few leads to go on the case
remain unsolved for two months it was almost getting to be a cold case to a point
until investigators got a break when another terrified prostitute escaped from harold bonner's home
she was beaten up real bad she was held against her will and she had a hard time
getting out of the house and when she did she fled from the house and across the street into a police precinct
the frightened girl told police that bonner aka profit had brutally abused her profit was on
our radar but it was another lead that would link harold bonner with dolly may clap
an informant came forward from the jail the informant was the man who helped bonner and clap dispose of michelle's
body he said she was involved in it and she was with them when they dumped the body
and that led us to dolly clap to bring her in and interview her regarding the murders
when women behind bars continues her obama and dolly were evil people even in the
interview you could tell that she had an evil streak that girl was alive when i left and
later a robbery gone wrong so amsterdam was like we want to rob the chinese man i said okay
in buffalo new york the first murder of 2006 was 35 year old michelle hicks investigators had two informants who
pointed to a local pimp harold bonner as the killer but they also told police about a woman named
dolly mae clapp who they said was an accomplice to the murder police called dolly in for
questioning in the beginning she was telling us how how harold bonner prophet had called her
and was explaining to her step by step on what they were doing to michelle it seemed to us that she knew just a
little bit too much from her phone conversation you could tell by the way she was
answering that she was fudging the stories they asked me well how many times did
you kick the girl i told him no because i wasn't there i've been trying to tell you this for the past 11 hours
dolly stuck to her story about hearing the murder on the phone detectives decided to send two
colleagues in to interrogate dolly we told her we can see right we know you want to tell us something that you're
you're not being truthful you give us all the details okay i wasn't telling the truth
i'm going to tell you the truth once they break it just seems to flow she gave us the play-by-play of exactly
what happened in michelle's hicks murder you know what color the bags were what color the rope
was she told us the color the panties they were putting her mouth and what exactly
they used to shove ammonia up her nose it's one of the most graphic confessions i've heard
dolly now claims she made up the details of her confession i'm like okay i hit her one time i just
went to make it up after 14 hours two o'clock in the morning i was tired she says her confession was also an
attempt to get back at harold bonner because he had asked her to prostitute for him i was trying to hurt him
and get back and for you're going to make me be a prostitute i lied i lied i lied i was never there
but detectives assert that dolly's statements were too detailed and concrete to be fiction
she described how another one of the females had wrapped bags around her neck trying to strangle her and it wasn't
working so they twisted it another way and who would know this unless you're there
we went back and we asked her questions about to her response and they were exactly the same
the truth never changes she described like some sounds that the victim made as she lay dying on
that floor she was so visual when she was talking to us saying how how michelle was making this guttural
noise how she was starting up was starting to shake if you're not there you don't know these
details after her confession dolly was arrested and held at the erie county jail
they told me that my sister had been arrested for murder i knew that wasn't my sister
because she's not that kind of person police were now on the search for harold bonner aka
damien prophet damien profit ended up being arrested in boston massachusetts in a bizarre twist while investigating
the murder of michelle hicks police uncovered evidence of a second murder that bonner committed
witnesses told detectives about another prostitute kimberly warren who had worked for
bonner and was found murdered 11 years earlier in 1995. both of the murders were committed in
the presence of other prostitutes with the participation of his other prostitutes
both of them were severely beaten both of them were tortured police were shocked to learn that
michelle hicks bonner's 2006 victim had been one of the prostitutes that helped kill kimberly warren
the 1995 victim 11.5 years before that she had participated in the disciplining of kimberly warren for having run away
harold bonner was charged with two counts of murder and held over for trial prosecutors
offered clapp a plea deal in exchange for her testimony against bonner oftentimes you're making a deal with the
devil but you're choosing the lesser of two evils they were both wicked people my attorney tells me to plead guilty to
five years i didn't want to take fives i said i'm not taken for something i didn't do
i didn't kill that show andrew latimpio was dolly's defense attorney and knew the prosecution had witnesses
to say dolly was aware of the prostitution ring and was involved in michelle's murder
these women were describing dolly as not just the den mother they were they were
making it sound like she was himmler over there ordering executions and beatings
that she was the henchman for harold bonner i never saw that side of her and nor did
she ever agree that that was part of her role but that's the portrait that was going to be painted for a jury
so that certainly played a role in my decision to tell her to cooperate dolly accepted the plea deal and agreed
to testify against harold bonner but the district attorney's office soon discovered clapp and bonner were writing
to each other in jail letters she had written reassuring him that she wasn't going to cooperate
against him telling him that she loved him i thought i was writing letters that was proposing
marriage in jail mr bonner wrote me he said dolly why would you lie on me like this and i told him i was
mad at him i was upset with you that she was leaving me for some prostitutes after
all these years of all the money and time i put in with you i was hurt i said uh you know dolly you're pretty
much cooking your own goose here she not only seemed to be in love with him but revering and and fearful of him dolly's
lawyer was very emphatic to the judge that he feared she was still somehow under the control
psychologically of harold bonner it was kind of an odd mentality she had towards him
her role seemed to be consistent with the prostitutes somebody who was kind of brainwashed and in fear of
him the prosecutor frank siddita ultimately chose not to risk it he convicted bonner without dolly's
cooperation and dolly lost her chance for a lesser prison term [Music] i believe he's a serial killer and i
believe he has other bodies in his past harold bonner and dolly were evil people
even in the interview you could tell that she had an evil streak and she was a follower of him she knew
how he was he always did have her and then she said she didn't know how he was yes ms clapp did i think she was a lot
like him he thought they were garbage so they were disposable she thought the people would never look into that and
it would be fine because the girls were prostitutes the bottom of society no one
cared i never saw any remorse in her i was railroaded they used me to get to helm and they gave me 15 years
because i take responsibility for that driving that truck with that girl's body and if i was a
murderer i didn't kill that girl i didn't donna didn't do no wrong with that girl
she did not kill the girl she was not there when it happened that's my sister dolly and nobody can
know her the way i know she never go out her way to hurt anybody that is a complete injustice for her to
be locked up the wounds are still fresh for friends and family of michelle hicks
they took my best friend from me so that's a real big hole that i'm trying to like
close up but i don't think it'll ever be closed the house she got killed and i walked
past it every day walking from work michelle she's at peace now it was uh a sad irony that michelle hex
had participated in the murder of kimberly warren i'm sure the thought uh was always in
the back of her mind that what happened to kimberly warren could happen to her as well
and it did dolly is serving her sentence at the women's prison in bedford hills i talk to my kids on a regular basis we
write we stay in touch and my kids know i didn't kill that girl authorities believe having clap in jail
takes a murderer off the streets in my view she was sadistic a sadistic person and she was a pathological liar but
dolly says her only crime was not calling the authorities when she should have so many times i wanted to call the
police off and i was scared that's something i had to live with every day if i would have been smoking crack i
wouldn't have been incarcerated because i would have had a better judgment i would have did the right
thing next up on women behind bars that's my first time ever seen anyone that much blood in my
life seeing someone with a bullet in them period and just sitting there moaning and dying for more information
about women behind bars go to www.wetv.com [Music] on the evening of october 15 2002
a chinese food delivery man was accosted in the stairwell of a brooklyn apartment
building and shot to death mr lynn was found on the first floor curled up in a fetal position there was
a bag of chinese food laying on the second set of steps police traced the call for
takeout to the apartment of a 19-year-old single mom shaniqua brown that's my first time
seeing that much blood shaniqua confessed that two male friends asked her to call in the food order
but claimed she had no idea it would lead to murder three people prey upon an innocent
victim and probably one of the more vicious crimes i had seen it was belton who did the actual robbery while
ernest carraway stood by as a lookout a violent senseless act it should have never happened
was shaniqua brown an unwitting accomplice to a robbery scheme or did she purposely lure an innocent
victim into a deadly trap shaniqua brown was born in queens new york and raised by a single mom
she grew up with two older siblings michael and tyleshia my mom spoils her life we tease her as
much as we possibly can my brother he would say yeah you was adopted you found you in a box outside
but at the end of the day i still loved them we were so close when shaniqua was 11 years old her
mother moved the family to brooklyn new york in a neighborhood called brownsville
we love the apartment but the gang members over there you can easily get affiliated with them
my building is at on union sutter is right there in between black territory and crypt territory it's
a pretty violent area it has a lot of shootings because of the low income that's in that
community as a teenager shaniqua made friends easily in the neighborhood my problem was always wanting just to
fit in everything she did was always have the kindness of her art she never say no to anybody at 15 years
old shaniqua met a fellow high school student damian manley he was going to school together he
became my best friend until i realized i did have a crush on him he introduced me to marijuana he introduced
me to gangbanging he was crap i started seeing changes in my sister when she started
hanging out with him i started smoking weed cutting school gang banging and all that but he was unseparable
that's who her group of friends was him and whoever he knew i tried to persuade her to stay on the
right track anything that had to do with running the streets or doing something illegal
to me back then when i was young and dumb it was like it's the thing to do i used
to start fighting my sister over it she always used to say you're being a follower you're being stupid i didn't
want to listen to her at 16 years old shaniqua discovered she was pregnant by her boyfriend damian
she dropped out of school and broke the news to her mother she was like whatever you choose to do
i'm by your side and that's what i'm keeping my baby and she's been there since day one she
was very happy to be pregnant she couldn't wait to go buy the baby clothes buy the stroller paint
the room shaniqua gave birth to damien charmaine manly in 2000 she continued to live with her mom who
helped with the baby shaniqua says having a child gave her a new purpose in life
once i had my son i wanted to stop running the streets she always had somewhere they had a very close bond but
shaniqua admits she continued living the gang life to please her friends and especially her
baby's father he beat me plenty of times he came very controlling one of shaniqua's friends in the neighborhood
was 22 year old antoine belton i met him to my very father they called him bubba in the street
antoine was recently released from prison in july of 2002. he was known for robbing people just
like my big father was known for riding people they used raw people together antoine hung out with another
neighborhood boy 16-year-old ernest carraway known as manny man he's a troublemaker he would throw
things off the roof at the crips that was standing on the corner manny is crazy manny was a very angry
person he was very unpredictable on the evening of october 15 2002 shaniqua was home with her sister
and baby at the apartment building on union street their mom was working a night shift at
her job shaniqua says antoine and manny knocked on her door around 8pm i was just chilling ahoy with antoine
smoking whatever smoking weed they was drinking and manny asked me to go call the chinese
restaurant so at first i'm like no so amsterdam was like can you just cause chinese restaurant
we want to rob the chinese man i said okay the agreement between shaniqua brown and
antoine belton was that the two guys would get the money and that she would get the food in
exchange for making the phone call shaniqua went into her apartment to put in the delivery order
she just picked up the phone and dialed the chinese restaurant like that and she left back out at the time that
they planned this uh robbery happy house was the only place that delivered i ordered jesus to the chicken
with pork fried rice four chicken rivers french fries and stripping broccoli with pork fried rice
i told bubba they'd be here in 15-20 minutes i ordered it so they could go to another apartment
and i stayed upstairs after that thirty-six-year-old jean chun lin was working as the delivery man for the
happy house restaurant that night he was a recent immigrant his english i remember was minimal
very minimal he had a wife that lived in china i believe he had two children also mr lynn uh left the restaurant
which is only a block and a half away he rode his bike here and he parked it just outside the
the apartment building here he walked into the building mr belton and mr cowaway were already in
the hallway so they seen mr lynn walk by them he was sent to a phony apartment address went to the
fourth floor knocked on the door we didn't want to find chinese food mr lin proceeded back downstairs when he
got to the second floor landing mr belton was there waiting for him it was belton who possessed a gun
and did the actual robbery while ernest carraway stood by as a lookout he ambushed mr lin
and pointed a gun at him and said give it up give it up mr lin smiled at uh mr bell
not understanding what he was saying at the same time he was reaching into his pocket
according to antoine belton the delivery man recognized him the victim began to say you you and he
realized that the victim was someone that he had recognized mr belton then uh fired one single shot
a striking mr lin in the stomach antoine fountain kept telling ernest cowan grabbed the money grabbed the money but
mr coway was so frightened about the whole thing he just ran out of the building
and mr belton just followed behind him upstairs in their third floor apartment shaniqua and her sister heard the loud
bang out of the blue is a gunshot i'm like oh my god what was that so my sister she run out the house when
i heard that gunshot it was like i was like stuck like what the hell is that and i came
downstairs and i saw blood on the steps i saw the food i saw the menu i saw puddles and puddles of blood i saw
footprints of blood and then i saw him he was holding his chest area with his knife in his hand and just like
uh and i'm just standing there staring at him like i cannot believe this happened
this wasn't supposed to happen when women behind bars continues i told him yes i knew about the robbery
but i didn't know nothing about no murder she's just as responsible as the guy who pulled the trigger
because she lured him there and now this man is dead in october 2002 19 year old shaniqua
brown ordered takeout from a chinese restaurant at the request of two friends the three conspired to rob the delivery
man when he arrived with the food jian chun lin was ambushed by 22 year old antoine belton
and 16 year old ernest manny carraway in the stairwell he was shot with a 22 caliber gun
shaniqua heard the gunfire from her apartment and knew something had gone terribly wrong
i came downstairs and i saw his blood and i started panicking like crying that's my first time ever seen
anyone that much blood in my life seeing someone with with a bullet in them period and just
sitting there moaning and dying as a crowd gathered in the hallway and police sirens approached shaniqua
ran i left that's my big father house crying so i'm going to jail i can't believe
they did that the first officers would respond with uniform officers from the nypd the 73rd
precinct mr lynn was then found on the first floor curled up in a fetal position
clutching a knife he had been robbed one previous time he had that knife for his protection the
gunshot perforated his aorta when ems arrived at the scene to assist him i don't think he was
speaking anymore paramedics rushed mr lin to brookdale hospital but it was too late to save him there were a lot of
homicides in that neighborhood but when somebody is an innocent delivery man like this
victim was all the newspapers sent representatives to this crime scene i knew right away it was a robbery
gone wrong the blood drops that we observed inside the vestibule started from the second floor landing
stairwell and then they came down into the main lobby it indicated that either mr lin was
chasing his assailants or he was trying to get some aid and even make it out the
front door it's a particularly dastardly crime because the victim only carries chains
for 20. so how much money was really netted and what is a human life worth the owner
of happy house and the co-workers were very upset to learn that mr lin had been shot
the victim was only in the united states for approximately a year he was hoping to bring his family over
to new york soon police quickly pinpointed which apartment made the phony takeout
order we were able to obtain the telephone number from happy house restaurants caller id and we
tracked that telephone number back to 2069 union street apartment three eddie detectives questioned shaniqua's sister
at the apartment and then soon caught up with shaniqua at damian's home one block away
you could tell that she was very scared and upset about what happened and didn't realize that she was so
responsible for this incident uh at at her building when we got to the precinct i told him
yes i knew about the robbery i didn't know nothing about no murder i didn't know nothing about
no gun mr belton was flashing the gun earlier in the day to everybody showing that he had the gun she was aware that
he had a gun she admitted in the videotape that she knew him to carry a gun all the time
when was the last time you saw the gun three four days ago sometimes she had it in his pocket
his pants possible sometimes he had in his jacket pocket when he showed it but he's like i always
had this on me baby after shaniqua confessed to her part in the crime she was charged with murder and held at
rikers island she thought that after they know the truth they would let her go because she
knows she didn't actually pull the trigger i didn't know i was getting charged with
murdering the first degree i kept thinking i was my son i can't go home to my son the next day
police apprehended ernest carraway who had acted as the lookout two days later they cornered antoine
belton the shooter at his aunt's apartment the murder weapon had been tossed out the window of
her apartment but police recovered it and matched ballistics to the bullet that killed mr lin
antoine knew he was caught and he cooperated with us fully he also seemed very concerned
to take the blame off of shaniqua she didn't know what he was going to do or nothing
you know that's why i don't know why y'all holding her she don't know nothing antoine was
remorseful he was sorry for his actions it was a scare shot i going to turn myself in i ain't i ain't
i ain't mean to do that to that man this case was solved very quickly the detectives had done a pretty phenomenal
job so i considered it with regards to each of those defendants a pretty airtight case for the
prosecution shaniqua remained at rikers island pending trial while there she learned she was pregnant with her
second child she found out she was having destiny her daughter after she got incarcerated so destiny
was born there in prison on november 6 2003 shaniqua brown pled guilty to second-degree murder
the judge sentenced her to 15 years to life in prison she'll be eligible for parole in 2017.
i believe my my actions deserve some punishment but not 15 years to life just making that
phone call made her very culpable she conspired with two others to um to participate in a robbery one
phone call can turn tragically wrong in a split second and i think that's what happened with fishing
equal maybe she did know that he was going to take a bullet maybe she didn't but the bottom line is the guy did take
a bullet and she's just as responsible as the guy who pulled the trigger people do things like
this all the time for 13 worth of food i don't think you ever get used to to the senselessness of some of the
crimes that occur i don't think you ever do shaniqua was allowed to raise her daughter for eight months in the prison
nursery before an altercation with another inmate forced her to turn her baby over
to her mother to raise i still didn't cry until time for me to pass my baby to my mother
i was devastated six years into her sentence shaniqua harbors many regrets about her actions that got her here
i regret dropping out of school i regret living the gang life i regret saying yes
when i should have said no i regret not listening to my mother all these years the only thing i don't regret is having
my kids shaniqua makes the best of her time while incarcerated by filling her days
with school and work programs but it is the time with her kids that she lives for
that's the beautiful part of it all even though we rather her here she writes them letters every time she
gets they go on trailer visits up there to see her they barbecue they do all kinds of arts and crafts
together it's very hard when they come on a visit and they see that i can't walk out with
them and now my son's at the age where mommy why are you here mommy what did you do why you can't come home with me
he's a constant reminder of her and i wish she had that same opportunity i have to raise her child like i'm raising mine
we could have been doing it together you know i missed that i missed a whole lot of stuff about my sister
i think it was extremely important for each of them to take responsibility for what they had done
for them and also for honestly our community while someone might look at it and go wow she only made the phone
call when you look at it in the big picture it was a domino effect and a series of events happened that would
never have happened but for her you can never bring back mr lin i can't ever make his family whole again you
always hear people coming to america to have the american dream and it just seems so incredibly tragic
that this is the experience that ended his life my heart does go out to his family and
if they don't forgive me now i hope they would one day downline because at the end of the day i
had to live with that too and it's killing me every day i just want them to know that i was only 19
and young and dumb i am not that person anymore i'm totally different you

Brief Summary

Dolly Mae Clapp and Shaniqua Brown recount their roles in brutal murders tied to exploitation and peer pressure.

Key points

The Murder of Michelle Hicks. Michelle Hicks was brutally murdered, leading to a chilling investigation.
Dolly Mae Clapp's Confession. Dolly's detailed confession raises questions about her involvement in the murder.
Dolly's Arrest and Confession. Dolly was arrested after her confession, leading to a shocking twist in the case.
The Bizarre Twist. Police uncovered evidence of a second murder linked to Harold Bonner, revealing a dark past.
Shaniqua's Role in the Crime. Shaniqua Brown ordered takeout, unknowingly setting off a deadly robbery scheme.
Shaniqua's Guilty Plea. Shaniqua Brown pled guilty to second-degree murder, receiving a sentence of 15 years to life.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What is a human life worth?

Provocative question about the value of life.

0:51WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.