Landon Durham was a sixteen year old living in Alabama when he would murder his mother and twin siblings
According to court documents Landon Durham would attack and murder his mother, Holli Swafford Pierce, 36, and his twin brothers Branson and Baron Durham in their Munford home. Each of the victims was found in a different room
Landon Durham would then walk to school to attend the first day of class
Landon Durham would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole
Where Is Landon Durham Today
Landon Durham is currently incarcerated at Holman Prison
Landon Durham Current Information
| Inmate: | DURHAM, LANDON HUDSON |
| AIS: | 00339739 |
| Institution: | HOLMAN PRISON |
Landon Durham Case
A Munford man charged with murdering his mother and twin brothers when he was 16, in 2020, has pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder and one count of promoting prison contraband, according to Talladega County District Attorney Steve Giddens.
Landon Hudson Durham, now 21, pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge Will Hollingsworth Monday afternoon, Giddens said. All three pleas were open, meaning that there were no prior agreements in place.
Because he was 16 when the murders were committed, in early 2020, Durham is not legally eligible for the death penalty. Giddens said his range of punishment in the capital cases is life, with parole possible after serving 30 years, day for day, to life without the possibility of parole.
The punishment for promoting prison contraband is one year and one day to 10 years in prison.
Durham will be formally sentenced by Hollingsworth Nov. 14.
A capital murder charge involves an intentional killing with one or more aggravating circumstances. In this case, Giddens said, those circumstances would be that Durham killed two or more people during the same course of action, and that two of the victims, his twin brothers Branson and Baron, were only 13 years old when they died.
All three victims were killed with knives or bladed weapons. Each victim’s body was found in a different room.
The promoting prison contraband charges stems from the discovery of a makeshift knife in Durham’s cell at the Talladega County Metro Jail while he was awaiting trial.
Durham is accused of stabbing his mother, Holli Swafford Pierce, 36, and his twin brothers on Jan. 20 or 21 in the mobile home they all lived in at 150 Roy Lackey Lane in Munford. At his initial court appearance, there was testimony that one of Durham’s classmates at Munford High School told investigators that Durham had said a few days earlier that if he were going to kill his family, he would use a knife, drive far away and then hitchhike even farther away. Other classmates said he made similar statements, although none of them knew why he would want to kill his family.
Other witnesses told investigators that the defendant had gone to school all day the day after the killings, and had then gone to the mall in Oxford before fleeing.
At the time of her death, Pierce suffered from multiple sclerosis and was disabled. In all three obituaries, the victims asked for donations to the National MS Society and the Munford High School Band Boosters.
When Talladega County Sheriff’s Deputies arrived at the scene, they found a symbol resembling a letter “S,” the word “Toga” and several arrows had been spray painted onto the walls inside the mobile home, and the letters “C,” “P” and “B” were spray painted onto the cabinets. Durham and a white SUV were missing from the scene, resulting in a statewide “Be On the LookOut.”
Both were located the next morning in Cherokee County near the Etowah County line. Durham appeared to have small amounts of blood on his shoes and glasses, although he appeared to have changed clothes. There was also blood on some of the clothing in the vehicle, as well as a hatchet and fixed blade knives with blood on them. A backpack containing a spray paint can matching the color of the graffiti on the walls was also recovered inside the vehicle.
During an interview with investigators back in Talladega, in which he had waived his rights, Durham admitted killing his mother and brothers by stabbing them with knives. He explained that the “S” was just a symbol that he liked, “Toga” was an animated character that he also liked, and that the letters “C, P” and “B” on the cabinets stood for cups, plates and bowls. The arrows indicated where the bodies were, he said.
“Toga” specifically seems to refer to Himiko Toga, one of the villains in the Japanese manga/anime series “My Hero Academia.” According to fan sites, she is portrayed as a 16- or 17-year-old female who is believed to have drained several people of their blood. She often attacks with knives.
Not long after the capital cases against Durham were referred to a grand jury, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down or significantly slowed the judicial process, which would have been somewhat lengthy in this case under any circumstance. After he was finally indicted in 2021, Durham’s attorneys asked that he be granted youthful offender status based on his age at the time of the offense. Hollingsworth denied this request, which then went to the state court of criminal appeals, which upheld Hollingsworth’s ruling, as did the state supreme court.
In the meantime, Durham’s competence to stand trial and mental state were evaluated by the staff at Taylor-Hardin and by a private psychiatrist, who both found that Durham understood the charges against him and would be able to participate in his own defense. According to their reports, Durham did not dispute this.
The documents finding him competent to stand trial were added to the case file last month.
Young man pleads guilty to family murders as a teenager | News | annistonstar.com
