2. — a familiar situation for Kath-
leen.
Thirty-one years ago, Kath-
leen’s former husband went to
death row in Florida, where he
would die of natural causes a
few years before his scheduled
execution. While she watched,
he killed a man whom she said
had made sexual advances to
her. That was a lie, she later con-
fessed.
Now her son could face the
same fate.
In both cases, she played an
influential role.
Kathleen, 57, has been the con-
trolling force in her small family’s
life, according to several sources.
She has pushed her husband to
work two to three jobs at a time
while isolating him and their
children from his family.
Those close to the Chapin
investigation say she manipu-
lates anyone she needs to to
get what she wants. A former
spouse, law enforcement inves-
tigators, family members and
psychologists have called her
“irrational,” “domineering,”
“manipulative,” “controlling”
and a “sociopath.”
Two of her estranged daugh-
ters not involved in the current
criminal charges would not be
interviewed for this story and
have distanced themselves from
her. Her mother-in-law says her
son, 50-year-old Ray, tried to stop
the family from helping Jesse flee
from Colorado to Chattanooga,
where he is accused of gunning
down Chapin after an April 2 rob-
bery attempt at the U.S Money
Shop on Brainerd Road.
Jesse’s attorneys, Lee Davis
and Bryan Hoss, declined to com-
ment about the pending case.
Kathleen’s attorney, U.S. Pub-
lic Defender Anthony Martinez,
said he did not want his client
to speak with the media because
she is awaiting sentencing.
Following Kathleen’s guilty
plea last week, Chattanooga
Assistant Police Chief Tim Car-
roll said she and the other family
members may not have been at
the site of the botched robbery
and death of Chapin but “col-
lectively and constructively they
all might as well have had their
finger on the trigger the day it
happened.”
■■■
In 1979, Charles Marlin
Thornton was paroled from
prison after six years on a rob-
bery conviction. He immediately
reunited with Kathleen Frances
Crawford. They’d known each
other before he was sent away
and were involved off and on
for about eight years, according
to what she later told a courts
interviewer.
While Thornton was in pris-
on, Kathleen met, married and
divorced another man; served in
the Army and left honorably dis-
charged; and found a short-lived
job at Sawyer Air Conditioning
in Jacksonville, Fla.
She and Thornton married
Dec. 22, 1979, a few months after
he left prison. About that time,
she told Thornton why her job
at the air-conditioning company
lasted such a short time.
Her boss, Albert Carroll Saw-
yer, told her she’d have to have
sex with him to keep working
there. The news enraged Thorn-
ton, who wanted revenge, wanted
to beat Sawyer.
But the story should have had
a familiar sound to Thornton.
Five years before, while
Thornton languished in prison,
Kathleen told him she had been
raped by six black men outside
the enlisted men’s club at the
Jacksonville Naval Air Station.
Incensed at the thought, Thorn-
ton plotted his escape from pris-
on to avenge the act, to protect
this woman.
His escape failed, and he
received more time on his sen-
tence for the attempt.
Both of Kathleen’s stories
would be discounted later, the
first by her own court testimony,
the second by interviewers who
compiled information on her
background for a presentencing
report years later.
But Thornton, 35 at the time,
believed what his new bride
told him and began planning
revenge.
■■■
Almost a month later, on Jan.
21, 1980, Thornton and Kathleen
sat in her red 1970 MG outside a
home in St. Johns County, Fla.,
near St. Augustine.
Sometime between 9 p.m.
and 9:45 p.m. Albert Sawyer
and his wife, Robin, pulled into
their garage. As they stepped
out of the car, Thornton walked
in behind them, holding a .38-
caliber revolver in one hand and
a black mask handmade from a
sweater in the other.
“We have a problem to dis-
cuss,” Thornton said.
Once inside the house, Thorn-
ton had the pair lie on the floor
and began to tape their ankles
together. But the 47-year-old
Sawyer decided to fight back. He
jumped up and slammed Thorn-
ton against the wall. Thornton
dropped his pistol. The men
scrambled for it and struggled
over it.
Kathleen, standing outside the
living room door, heard the noise
inside, opened the door enough
to see the men wrestling and
fired her .25-caliber semiauto-
matic pistol into the room. She
later would say she didn’t aim
and just wanted to stop the fight.
Police recovered the slugs, which
didn’t hit anyone.
Thornton wrestled the .38-cal-
iber from Sawyer, then shot him
four times in the back as Robin
ran upstairs. Thornton fled with
Kathleen.
A Florida Times-Union news-
paper clipping from 1980 shows
a younger, thinner, blonde Kath-
leen in a flower-print blouse and
dark pants getting out of the
back of a police car in handcuffs
on her way to jail shortly after
police arrested her and Thornton
on murder charges in Sawyer’s
death.
While in jail awaiting trial,
Kathleen convinced a cellmate
on weekend incarceration that
she and her husband needed to
escape. The cellmate offered to
smuggle them a handgun she had
found.
On May 15, 1980, jail staff
charged Kathleen, Thornton
and a trusty named Jimmy Rog-
ers with conspiring to escape the
jail. Kathleen had bribed Rogers
with a $50 money order to have
him pass messages between her
and Thornton and arrange for a
car to be outside the jail fence
when they fled.
A St. Johns County jury found
Thornton guilty of murder on
Aug. 27, 1980, after 80 minutes
of deliberation following a three-
day trial.
While awaiting his sentencing
and her next court appearance,
Kathleen had Thornton send a
copy of his presentencing report
to her through another inmate.
The report details his personal
background and past armed rob-
beries.
In her reply to him, intercept-
ed by jailers, she tells Thornton
how proud she is of his past.
“I don’t think it was bad, I
think it was sexy and terrific
and you had a good time,” she
wrote. “It is nice to be able to
have what you have when you
want it. The only bad thing is the
price you have to pay when you
get caught.
“We will have our chance
again,” she wrote. “I am serious
Charles, if we have to work some-
thing out with the devil himself,
that’s what we need to do!”
Prosecutors used this letter
against Kathleen in later court
hearings. She wrote a letter of
apology to the judge in the case,
excusing the letter as something
she wrote to encourage her hus-
band as he faced the death pen-
alty.
Thornton and two of his rela-
tives testified during the sentenc-
ing phase of his trial that he had
only gone to the Sawyer house
because of “tremendous pressure
put on him by his irrational and
domineering wife.”
“I couldn’t live at home if I
didn’t do something,” Thornton
said about Kathleen’s allegations
that Sawyer had sexually assault-
ed her.
Kathleen told a different story.
She wrote the judge and blamed
Thornton for what she termed a
robbery-turned-killing. She said
she only went along with him to
try to prevent the crime.
On Oct. 20, 1980, the judge
sentenced Thornton to death.
Three weeks later, Kathleen
pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The judge sentenced her to 15
years in state prison. She would
be eligible for parole in eight
years.
During her sentencing, Kath-
leen told the judge that “Mr. Saw-
yer never had sexual relations
with me, and I wanted Mrs. Saw-
yer to know that and I wanted
the court to know that.”
In December 1982, Kathleen
was back in court, this time for
Thornton’s attempt to use undis-
closed evidence of her letters
and involvement in the crime to
reduce his death sentence.
An attorney questioned Kath-
leen about her relationship with
Thornton.
Q: Were you domineering
of Charles?
A: Always have been.
Q: Was it your idea to stop
at the Sawyers’ house?
A: Yes, it was.
Q: Did you show him where
the house was?
A: Yes, I was the one who
found the address.
Q: Isn’t it true that the
entire story concerning the
prior forced sex between you
and Mr. Sawyer was a made-
up tale, made up after this
event had occurred?
A: No, sir. I just told the Court
that the man did not rape me and
he did not, in fact, rape me. I did
not ever deny that we had sex.
Thornton died on death row
of natural causes on June 4,
1983.
Kathleen served four years in
a Florida prison, where she took
courses in astrology, horticulture
and philosophy of the mind. She
told an interviewer during her
presentencing evaluation that
her best subject at Jacksonville
(Fla.) Central High School was
psychology, in which she earned
a B.
She was freed in 1984 on a
work-release program. Within
months she met Ray Vance
Mathews and shortly afterward
they married.
The Florida Times-Union File Photo/Roger Mullis
Charles Marlin Thornton appears in a St. Augustine, Fla., courtroom in August 1980 during jury selection for his murder trial in the slaying of businessman Albert Sawyer.
The Florida Times-Union File Photo/Phillip Whitley
Kathleen Frances Thornton, left, is escorted by St. Johns County investigator Shirley Carpenter, center, in February 1980 as she
was being taken to the county jail in St. Augustine, Fla., as a suspect in the slaying of businessman Albert Sawyer. Investigator
Jim Cannon, right, traced an initialed cigarette lighter that helped break the case. Thornton later married Ray Vance Mathews
and gave birth to Jesse Ray Mathews.
• Continued from Page A1
Blood
See BLOOD, Page A9
Here is the sequence of events in
Kathleen Mathews’ life and allegations
involving her son, Jesse, and others
according to FBI affidavits, Florida,
Colorado and Tennessee state court
documents, school records, Florida
Times-Union and Times Free Press
newspaper archives:
■ Dec. 31, 1953: Kathleen is born in
Havre de Grace, Md. Given up to foster
care along with sister.
■ 1972: She lies that she was sexually
assaulted by six black males. Later tells
boyfriend Charles Marlin Thornton the
tale, inciting him to attempt escape from
prison to exact revenge. He fails and
receives more time.
■ June 1979: She works for a short time
at Sawyer Air Conditioning Co., owned by
Albert Sawyer, in Jacksonville, Fla.
■ Dec. 22, 1979: She marries Charles
Thornton shortly after his release from
prison. It is her third marriage. She tells
him of an alleged sexual assault by
Albert Sawyer, a story she later admits
is false.
■ Jan. 21, 1980: She drives with
Thornton to the Sawyers’ home in St.
Johns County, Fla., where Thornton
shoots Sawyer to death.
■ Feb. 25, 1980: She is arrested with
husband on murder charges. (On Aug.
27, 1980, Thornton is found guilty of
murder and sentenced to death.)
■ Nov. 14, 1980: Kathleen pleads guilty
to manslaughter and is sentenced to 15
years. She serves less than eight, half
of that on a work-release program.
■ Dec. 1, 1982: She admits in a hearing
she has control over Charles and that
she had sexual relations with Albert
Sawyer but was not raped.
■ June 4, 1983: Charles dies of natural
causes while awaiting execution.
■ 1984: Kathleen put in prison work-
release program, meets and marries
Ray Vance Mathews, her fourth
husband.
■ May 10, 1985: Jesse Ray Mathews
born in Jacksonville, Fla.
■ 1997-98: Mathews family moves to
Colorado.
■ Sept. 6-16, 2002: Jesse, 17, commits
armed robberies in Colorado Springs,
Colo. Pleads guilty to armed robbery
and is sentenced to 20 years. He is
eligible for parole in 2010.
■ 2008-09: Kathleen, Ray and daughter,
Rachel Mathews, move from Colorado
to Tennessee, then to Asheville, N.C.
■ June 11, 2010: Jesse transferred
to a minimum security prison; shortly
afterward he is paroled and transferred
to halfway house.
■ Feb. 12, 2011: Jesse suspected of
robbing the Cash American pawnshop
in Colorado Springs, taking 16 firearms,
about $10,000 and jewelry while still in
custody at halfway house.
■ Shortly after: Mathews wires money
to Rachel to buy a plane ticket and
fly to Colorado. For the next several
days, Rachel and Mathews’ girlfriend,
Amber Vlasak-Hudson, move him from
hotel room to hotel room. Eventually,
Jesse and Rachel buy bus tickets
from Colorado to Nashville. Rachel’s
boyfriend, James Poteete, picks them
up and, for $1,000, drives them to
Asheville, where their parents live.
■ March 27: Jesse and a new,
unnamed girlfriend, an employee at
Microtel Inn, attend the R.K. Shows gun
show at the National Guard Armory
in Chattanooga. Jesse calls Ray,
who brings 10 to 12 firearms to the
girlfriend’s home. She and Mathews
return to the show, where he trades
three firearms for an M-4 assault rifle.
■ April 2: Police say Mathews attempts
to rob U.S. Money Shops on Brainerd
and fatally shoots Chattanooga Police
Sgt. Tim Chapin using weapons stolen
from the Colorado pawnshop.
■ April 4-6: Poteete, Rachel and
Kathleen try to hide guns, including four
stolen in Colorado, from investigators.
Poteete, Rachel, Kathleen and Ray
confess to police that they knew Jesse
escaped from the halfway house and
robbed businesses in Colorado; that
they assisted him as he ran from law
officers; that they hid information from
investigators; and they gave Mathews
firearms even though he is a convicted
felon.
■ April 8: Ray, Kathleen, Rachel and
Poteete are arrested.
■ Aug. 10-Sept. 21: Rachel and
Poteete plead guilty to three counts and
Kathleen and Ray plead guilty to four
counts. Federal prosecutors in Colorado
indict Vlasak-Hudson.
■ Oct. 11: Jesse’s next scheduled court
appearance.
■ Nov. 14: Rachel and Poteete
scheduled for sentencing.
■ Dec. 19: Kathleen and Ray scheduled
for sentencing.
TIMELINE
....A8 • Sunday, September 25, 2011 • • • Breaking News: 423-757-News timesfreepress.com
3. Jesse Ray Mathews was
born on May 10, 1985.
■■■
Verona Mathews, 89,
met Kathleen shortly after
Ray did and was surprised
when the couple suddenly
married. She learned of the
manslaughter conviction
and prison time only after
the couple had wed.
Interviewed by telephone
from her Florida home, Vero-
na said that, from the begin-
ning, her daughter-in-law
was very jealous of others
and possessive of Ray and
her children. Kathleen rare-
ly brought them to visit or
allowed them to spend much
time with her, Verona said.
“There was just some-
thing about her I didn’t like,”
Verona said. “She’s very, very,
very manipulative. She had
to be in control or else.”
Verona said her son Ray
worked two or three jobs at a
time to please Kathleen.
“[Kathleen] just ran the
whole show,” she said. “What-
ever she said, they did.”
Ray and Kathleen filed
for bankruptcy in 1990 while
living in Jacksonville. Seven
years later they moved to
Colorado Springs, Colo.
■■■
During hearings in Chat-
tanooga federal court this
spring, prosecutors shared
information about Jesse’s
stealing a pickup truck when
he was 12 or 13 years old.
When he brought the truck
home, his parents hid the act
from police.
In 2002, when he was 17,
Jesse robbed at least two
stores, was arrested and
pleaded guilty. A judge sen-
tenced him to 20 years for
armed robbery. While he
sat in prison, Kathleen and
Ray again filed bankruptcy
in 2004.
Sometime between 2008
and 2009, Kathleen, Ray and
Rachel moved to Tennessee,
staying briefly before settling
in Asheville, N.C., where Ray
got work as a grocery store
meat cutter.
Jesse moved to a minimum
security prison the summer of
2010, then to a halfway house
on parole that fall. Verona
said when she talked with
Jesse, he seemed to enjoy his
work and was doing well at
the halfway house.
A Facebook profile photo-
graph Jesse took with a cell
phone camera in front of a
mirror shows a full-chest tat-
too of pistols below his neck,
surrounded by flames and the
words “Tools of the Trade.”
On the condition of ano-
nymity, sources close to the
Chapin investigation said
that either Kathleen called
Jesse or had Rachel call and
tell him that the family was
having money problems and
he needed to take care of it
in any way he could.
Colorado police investi-
gators believe Jesse robbed
three businesses in Colorado
Springs between Jan. 22 and
Feb. 12 this year — a Carl’s
Junior fast-food restaurant,
a Walgreens pharmacy and
a Cash America pawnshop.
Police think he was still liv-
ing in the halfway house at
the time of all three robber-
ies.
A federal indictment
and police affidavit state
that Jesse’s girlfriend in
Colorado, Amber Vlasak-
Hudson, helped him book
hotel rooms throughout the
city during the robberies
and drove him to a Denver
bus depot to
flee the state
after the last
one.
He took a
bus to Nash-
ville and, at
the city’s bus
depot, Rachel
met him and
traveled with
him to Ashe-
ville. Once
there, the
family picked up stakes and
moved to Chattanooga. Wit-
nesses saw Jesse, Ray and
Kathleen moving into the
Microtel Inn on McCutcheon
Road on March 6.
On March 16, Ray and
Kathleen moved into a house
on Webb Oakes Court off
Bonny Oaks Drive. Jesse was
staying with an unnamed girl-
friend in Chattanooga. When
contacted for this story, she
declined to comment. She
has not been charged in the
criminal case.
Jesse and the unnamed girl-
friend went to the R.K. Shows
gun show on March 27 at the
Chattanooga National Guard
Armory. After talking with
someone at the show, Jesse
called Ray and told him to
“bring the family collection”
— 10 to 12 of the firearms
police say Jesse stole in the
Colorado pawnshop robbery.
Jesse traded three of those
weapons for an M-4 assault
rifle.
During this time, police
say Kathleen sold some of
the stolen jewelry at local
pawnshops and scouted
which ones would be good
targets for a robbery. Inves-
tigators found two of those
jewelry pieces at the U.S.
Money Shops on Brainerd
Road a few weeks later.
Police say Jesse walked
into the U.S. Money Shops on
April 2 armed with two pis-
tols and wearing a bulletproof
vest. He ordered employees
to the back and took the man-
ager to open a safe.
During the robbery, police
say, Jesse shot and wounded
Chattanooga police Officer
Lorin Johnston, one of the
first officers to respond to
a silent alarm tripped by a
store employee.
■■■
In court testimony dur-
ing preliminary hearings,
witnesses said that, as Jesse
traded gunshots with police
through the front of the store,
store employees escaped
through a side entrance.
Jesse followed and jogged
around the back of the build-
ing, witnesses said. Chapin
arrived in his patrol car,
which he used to bump into
Jesse, causing him to drop
his pistol.
Chapin got out of the car
and fired a Taser at Jesse,
which knocked him down
briefly. He rose, pulled a con-
cealed pistol from his waist-
band and began shooting
at Chapin.
Chapin drew
his weapon
and the two
traded gun-
fire until one
of Jesse’s bul-
lets struck
and killed
the police
officer.
A f e w
m o m e n t s
later, police
subdued Jesse after he turned
and walked away from Chap-
in’s body.
On April 8, police arrested
Kathleen, Ray, Rachel and
her boyfriend, James Poteete,
on federal charges that they
aided Jesse when he fled
Colorado, helped him while
he was in Chattanooga and
lied to police about evidence
after his arrest.
On Aug. 10, Rachel and
Poteete pleaded guilty to
conspiring to obstruct justice
and two counts of accessory
after the fact. They await
sentencing by U.S. District
Judge Harry “Sandy” Mattice
on Nov. 14.
Kathleen and Ray pleaded
guilty Wednesday to the same
three counts as Rachel and an
additional count of transfer-
ring firearms to a felon. They
are scheduled to be sentenced
on Dec. 19. The maximum
sentence on the most severe
charge is 20 years.
Jesse faces the possibility
of the death penalty if con-
victed in state court. His next
appearance before Criminal
Court Judge Barry Steelman
is scheduled for Oct. 11.
He’s been charged with
first-degree murder, three
counts of attempted first-
degree murder for firing
at police and one count of
aggravated robbery.
■■■
Local psychologist Dr.
David Solovey has testi-
fied in death penalty cases
as an expert witness but is
not involved in any of the
Mathewses’ cases. Solovey
said that if Jesse is found
guilty of killing Chapin, he
is ultimately responsible.
But he could have been
influenced by his mother’s
personality, which shows
signs of a classic sociopath
— someone who is totally
manipulative, has very little
feeling of guilt or anxiety
and will do or say almost
anything to get what he or
she wants.
“[Sociopaths] feel bad
usually when they get caught,
but the feeling bad is not
too deep,” Solovey said in a
recent interview.
A sociopath is a predator
on the prowl for victims and
that includes family mem-
bers, who would be seen as
pawns to be used to accom-
plish the sociopath’s goals,
even if it meant the relatives
would suffer the consequenc-
es, he said.
Kathleen’s involvement in
the 1980 murder and her rela-
tionship with her son, per-
haps influencing him to leave
the Colorado halfway house
to help her with financial
problems, are sociopathic
traits, Solovey said.
Kathleen’s past behavior
shows she has “no regard
for anything other than self-
interest” and is someone
who can influence people to
do things against their best
interests.
Dr. Jay Corzine, president
of the Homicide Research
Working Group and a soci-
ology professor at the Uni-
versity of Central Florida,
said parents naturally have
a “really strong impact” on
their children.
“In most families, parents
don’t try to guide their chil-
dren into crime, but in some
cases that happens,” said
Corzine, who has no involve-
ment in the Mathewses’
cases. “That has a tremen-
dous impact.”
Based on a cursory review
of the case, Corzine said it
looks as though Kathleen
was pulling the strings on
other family members just
as she did with Jesse while
he was in Colorado.
“A classic sociopath per-
sonality,” he said. “Most
sociopaths are careful about
breaking the law, and it seems
like when it gets to the serious
stuffshe,inessence,influences
somebody else to do it.”
Verona said that, by talk-
ing with Rachel and other
family members, she believes
Ray tried to stop them from
continuing to help Jesse and
arm him, but ultimately Kath-
leen decided they would.
His grandmother said if
Jesse is convicted of killing
Chapin, he should be pun-
ished.
“I believe you do the
crime, you do the time,” she
said. “But I pray that they give
him life instead of death. I
pray for the fallen policeman
and his family all the time. I
know they’re hurting.”
Contact staff writer Todd
South at 423-757-6347 or
tsouth@timesfreepress.com.
• Continued from Page A8
Blood
....timesfreepress.com Breaking News: news@timesfreepress.com • • • Sunday, September 25, 2011 • A9
“[Sociopaths] feel
bad usually when they get
caught,but the feeling bad
is not too deep.
”— Dr. David Solovey,
psychologist
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