Teen accused of savagely beating elderly woman will not go to trial, daughter outraged at prosecutors
CLARKSDALE, Miss. — A teen accused of savagely beating a frail and elderly Mississippi woman will not go to trial for the crime reported WREG-TV.
That’s because the elderly woman, Shirley Gordon, has died and she was the only known witness to the attack.
Gordon’s death is not believed linked to the attack, which happened in 2012.
Gordon told investigators 14-year-old Edward Malane severely beat and then robbed her at her home.
“I was praying and doing everything I knew I could do,” Gordon told WREG-TV shortly after the attack. “That’s why I fought him back with what I could do. I was popping him when I could.”
Without their star witness the state has no case.
Gordon’ s daughter Tina Wilbanks told WREG she blames the county Prosecutor office for not move quickly enough.
Wilbank’s is relieved Malane will serve twenty years for an unrelated crime, the kidnapping and assaulting a 4-year-old boy.