It would be appropriate at this point to comment on the whereabouts of the victim’s son, Michael Thompson on the night of April 15^th, 1993. Michael Thompson testified that he spent most of the day at the trailer of his next-door neighbor, Amy Parker. His mother worked nights at Ciba Vision in Norcross, and his presence in the home often disturbed her rest.

When his mother arose, Michael went with her to a Waffle House restaurant nearby. On returning, Michael returned to the Parker trailer and remained there until 9:30 PM. At that time, he left the Parker trailer, telling Amy that he was to meet two people named Pat and John several trailers away in the same trailer park. The police or the district attorney’s office never checked this story. These two people would have been effectively Thompson’s alibi.

Michael Thompson’s personal automobile was supposed at this time to be inoperable; however, when the Thompson’s neighbor across the street, James Craig left for work just before 10:30 PM that evening, he noticed that the vehicle was not in its parking place in front of the Thompson trailer. Additionally, Thompson would use that vehicle the next morning to drive to the Gwinnco Muffler Shop after being notified that his mother’s automobile was in the driveway of the shop with a flat tire.

The Thompson telephone records obtained by the police during the investigation show that Michael returned to his trailer at 10:30 PM and made a call to a number in Norcross belonging to a female friend he had known from his short employment with Ciba Optical. The number ending in “4224” is a pager belonging to the man who lived with that friend.

After that Thompson returned to Amy Parker’s trailer until 11:00 PM when he returned to his own trailer and made another call to a telephone pager belonging to the man who was living with his Norcross friend. Thompson’s whereabouts after 11:00 PM are unknown.

Amy Parker would make a statement attesting to Thompson’s time with her that day and evening. She would also state that she saw the victim, Emogene Thompson, leave for work at 9:50 PM that night. Such testimony should have been important in determining the time that Emogene Thompson’s vehicle arrived in the muffler shop driveway, and the information she gave in her statement was used in Michael Chapel’s preliminary hearing. Strangely though, Amy Parker was never called as a witness for either the defense or the prosecution in Chapel’s trial.

During the period April 1, 1993 through April 16, 1993, the time covering the availability of these telephone records, Thompson had made a number of calls to these numbers, especially to the telephone pager. He also stayed with that Norcross couple during the weekend preceding the murder of his mother.