Brandon Leon Basham and Chadrick Evan Fulks abducted and murdered two women, Alice Donovan and Samantha Burns. Burns was a 19-year-old college student who had just left her job at JC Penneys in a mall, and Donovan, 44, was carjacked at a Walmart store, court records and old newspaper articles say. Both victims were abducted randomly, court records say.
Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks had met in jail in Kentucky and escaped together, going on a 17-day crime rampage.
Joe Biden just saved the killers’ lives by commuting their death sentences to life in prison. They are among 37 people whose death row sentences were commuted by the president two days before Christmas 2024.
We are telling the stories of each of the 37.
Commutations #4, #15
The Victims: Alice Donovan and Samantha Burns
The Killers Biden Saved: Brandon Leon Basham and Chadrick Evan Fulks
According to Myrtle Beach Online, Basham was “sentenced to death in December 2004 for the kidnapping and killing of Galivants Ferry resident Alice Donovan. Donovan was taken from a Walmart parking lot in Conway in November 2002, with Fulks aiding police in finding her remains in 2009.”
Basham was also convicted of “abducting and killing 19-year-old Samantha Burns, a Marshall University student last seen in November 2002,” the article states.
“In November 2002, Brandon Leon Basham and Chadrick Evan Fulks engaged in a seventeen-day multistate crime spree, for which they were both prosecuted,” court records say. Basham was already a felon forger who met Fulks in prison.
The two men were both convicted of raping and killing the two women.
“Samantha Burns, a nineteen-year-old Marshall University student, worked at the J.C. Penney’s store in the Huntington Mall. In addition, Burns also participated in a school fundraiser by selling candy boxes, which she kept in her car. On November 11, Burns met her aunt at Penney’s to purchase clothing for one of Burns’s nieces; they parked in separate locations at the mall. At 9:46 p.m. that evening, Burns called her mother to say she was staying at a friend’s house that night. Burns has never been seen since,” court records say, adding that Burns’ burned vehicle was later recovered. “Basham began wearing a heart-shaped ring around his neck that belonged to Samantha Burns,” court records say.
A few days later, they went to a Walmart, where “Basham approached a blue BMW sedan driven by forty-four year old Alice Donovan. Basham entered the car and forced Donovan to drive to the back of the parking lot, where Fulks waited. There, Fulks entered the driver’s side of the car and drove away; at 4:03 p.m., Fulks used Donovan’s ATM card to purchase gas from a service station in Shallote, North Carolina. At 4:30 p.m., Donovan called her daughter to say she was shopping and would be home late. Later that day, several men at the Bee Tree Farms Hunt Club in Winnabow, North Carolina, saw two men and a woman in a blue BMW drive to the end of a road by the lodge, turn around, and leave the area. Donovan, like Burns, was never seen again.”
“Basham informed investigators that Samantha Burns was dead and that he and Fulks had rolled her body down an embankment and into the Guyandotte River near Huntington.” Donovan was raped, court records say.
“At some point, they crossed into North Carolina and stopped at a cemetery, where first Basham and then Fulks raped Donovan.” Fulks claimed Basham then led Donovan into the woods and killed her, court records say.
In 2020, the Facebook page “Samantha Burns: We will never give up, nor ever forget” wrote, “As you may or may not have heard, the federal prison system has executed 2 inmates in the last 17 days. With the federal wheels of justice turning in full motion, this means forward motion on all federal motions and appeals. Slowly but surely, justice for the victims of the two men convicted in Samantha’s murder is moving forward.”
The page reads, “Samantha Burns went missing from the Huntington Mall in Ona, WV in late 2002. Samantha’s body has never been recovered.” She was leaving work from a JC Penney store.
As for Fulks, court records say Fulks, “who grew up in the tri-state area around Huntington, West Virginia, began dating an exotic dancer named Veronica Evans in April 2002. Shortly thereafter, Fulks, who was then twenty-five years old, began living with Evans and her three-year-old son Miles in the eastern Kentucky community of Lewisburg. On June 11, 2002, Fulks and Evans were married. Fulks supported his new family in the same way he had supported himself for years-by breaking into cars and stealing. And as he had with other women, Fulks often became violent with Evans, sometimes beating her severely and assaulting her sexually.”
He ended up charged with credit card fraud and was imprisoned with Basham. “They had escaped from the HCDC through the ceiling of the recreation area by using a makeshift rope made of blankets and sheets.”
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Other Biden Death Row Commutations
Killer #1: Shannon Agofsky. Victims: Dan Short, Luther Plant
Killers #2, #20: Norris Holder, Billie Jerome Allen. Victim: Richard Heflin
Killer #3: Aquilia Barnette. Victims: Robin Williams, Donald Lee Allen.
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