Graham murder suspect confesses to Fort Worth triple homicide, police say

A 42-year-old man accused of killing and burying a woman in a clandestine grave near Graham has confessed to committing a triple homicide in Fort Worth last year, officials say.

Billy Ray “Tank” Minkley Jr. has been in the Young County Jail in Graham, 80 miles northwest of Fort Worth, since his Aug. 19 arrest on warrants for tampering with evidence, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and possessing a prohibited weapon.

He was initially accused of renting a backhoe and using it to bury the body of Leah Martin, a 22-year-old mother who vanished after driving to her workplace, an auto repair shop in Graham, on the night of May 29.

On Tuesday, Graham police announced they will seek capital murder charges against Minkley and two other men — including the paternal grandfather of Martin’s child — in connection with the high-profile case. Graham police said that in addition to admitting his involvement in Martin’s slaying, Minkley confessed to a 2014 homicide in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth homicide Sgt. Joe Loughman confirmed to the Star-Telegram that the 2014 case involved the fatal shooting of Ronney Jackson, Jackson’s common-law wife, Elizabeth Bernard Sessums, and a visiting friend, David Adams.

The trio were found dead June 2, 2014 inside a house that Jackson and Sessums shared in the 200 block of Sunset Lane in west Fort Worth. Investigators believe they were slain on May 28, 2014, almost exactly a year before Martin vanished.

Loughman said investigators obtained a capital warrant for Minkley’s arrest in the triple homicide, which was formally served Tuesday.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Minkley used to live with Jackson and Sessums. The shootings allegedly occurred after he had gone over to their house to retrieve some of his property.

An informant’s tip

Fort Worth homicide Detective Kyle Sullivan had begun investigating Minkley as a possible suspect in late August after learning that an informant might have information on the case.

Sullivan and Detective Tom O’Brien met with the informant the next day. The informant told the investigators that Minkley, a former friend who was jailed in Young County, used to live with Jackson and Sessums on Sunset and had allegedly had a property dispute with the couple.

The informant told investigators that Minkley and his girlfriend left town shortly after the triple homicide.

Sullivan and Detective M.D. Green met with Minkley’s girlfriend on Sept. 1.

She told the detectives she and Minkley had gone to the house on Sunset to obtain some property they had been storing there. She said she stayed in the car while Minkely went inside.

The girlfriend told investigators she soon heard what sounded like a car backfiring twice before Minkley emerged from the house. She told police Minkley told her that Ronney Jackson had pulled a gun on him so he shot Jackson.

He told her he then shot an unknown man inside the house and later Sessums after she tried to call police, according to the affidavit.

The girlfriend told investigators Minkley then told her to come inside the house, where she saw the three victims. She said she and Minkley then retrieved items from the house that belonged to them.

Minkley also took Jackson and Sessums’ cellphones, as well as a laptop, from the home, the girlfriend told investigators.

Loughman said it is still undecided whether the girlfriend will be charged in the case.

“Our investigation into this offense is still ongoing,” he said. “That will be determined at a later date.”

Sullivan also later interviewed Minkley’s father, who told the detective that his son had confessed to him in a Sept. 1 phone call from the Young County Jail that he had killed three people in self-defense.

Minkley told his father that a man had pulled a gun on him but he was able to take the gun away and shoot the man. Minkley told his father he shot the other two people in the house after they began to grab at him, the affidavit states.

The Young County case

Arrest warrant affidavits show that investigators got their break in the Martin case after a man told them that Ross Earl Hellams had come to his home the day after Martin vanished, carrying a paper bag with clothing and a sawed-off shotgun.

Hellams is an employee at the auto shop where Martin worked and was last seen alive, Graham police Chief Tony Widner said Tuesday.

Hellams, who has been in the Young County Jail since Aug. 10, told the man he intended to throw the items away in a trash bin but the man persuaded Hellams to give him the gun so that a child would not accidentally find it. That man then gave the shotgun to police.

When interviewed, Hellams claimed he had gotten the shotgun from Minkley.

Authorities searched Hellams’ property off Farm Road 209 near Graham on Aug. 5, where they found a grave containing Martin’s remains.

An autopsy by the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office determined that Martin died from “homicidal violence with asphyxiation.”

According to news reports, a plastic bag and plastic wrappings were discovered around Martin’s face and neck, and a rock inside her mouth.

Minkley’s role

Martin’s father, Billy Martin, had told investigators that his daughter had been receiving threatening phone calls from a blocked number before her disappearance in late May.

Arrest warrant affidavits released in the case Tuesday show investigators had identified the woman who had been making those calls and learned that Hellams had paid her to do so.

The woman told a Texas Ranger assisting in the investigation that Hellams had been at the auto shop around 9:30 p.m., the time surveillance cameras showed Martin pulling up to the business on the night she disappeared.

She told the Ranger that Hellams and a second man, whom investigators later identified as Minkley, showed up at Hellams’ house early the next morning and that an excavator was on the property that weekend.

Investigators determined that Minkley had rented a backhoe the morning after Martin went missing.

Hellams and his wife told investigators that they had seen Minkley operating the backhoe near where Martin’s grave was later found.

Hellams, 42, was also arrested last month for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and possessing a prohibited weapon.

On Tuesday, Graham police said Hellams will also be charged with capital murder in the Martin case, as well as a third man, Elton Carroll Blair Jr., 43, of Graham.

Blair, who was arrested Tuesday morning, is the owner of the auto shop where Martin worked and also the paternal grandfather of the dead woman’s 2-year-old daughter, Widner said.

Blair and Hellams will also be charged with tampering with evidence (a human corpse), Graham police said.

The affidavits state that Minkley confessed his involvement in Martin’s slaying and to burying her body. He also implicated Hellams and Blair in the slaying, the affidavits states.

Though investigators had previously searched the auto shop, Widner said they were back at the location Tuesday morning, looking for additional evidence.

Minkley has previous convictions for felony escape from Palo Pinto County and burglary of a building out of Wilbarger and Young counties. In Tarrant County, he has misdemeanor convictions for attempting to possess a controlled substance (methamphetamine) and theft of property, court records show.

Families have some closure

Joe Adams, David Adam’s brother, said his elderly parents and entire family are “overjoyed” by the arrest.

“Especially my mom,” Joe Adams said. “She was hoping something would materialize before their deaths came — someone being held responsible for this act of violence.”

Joe Adams said he hopes prosecutors seek the death penalty against Minkley.

Donna Lott, Sessums’ sister, thanked Fort Worth police and Sullivan for their diligence on working her sister’s case.

“We may never know his reason, but it’s good to be able to have some closure,” Lott said of Minkley’s arrest.

That Minkley has confessed that he was involved in Martin’s slaying almost exactly a year after the triple homicide, only adds to the grief, she said.

“I’m just upset that he had an opportunity where he killed someone else,” Lott said. “There’s no telling, he may have more bodies too.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 10:17 AM with the headline "Graham murder suspect confesses to Fort Worth triple homicide, police say."