Feds say drug ring killed Amherst County man over possible testimony

By Chris Dumond
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: February 25, 2008

A federal prosecutor contended Monday that a Madison Heights man found dead last year was murdered because members of a drug ring thought he would cooperate with the government against them.

Michael Kent Jamerson was found in May, shot to death, off Virginia 130 in western Amherst County.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthius said in U.S. District Court Monday that Jamerson’s son, Thomas Kent Jamerson, supplied methamphetamine to his father and two men: William Darryl Lee, 47, of Brookneal, and Christopher Stephen Goin, 27, address not listed on court records.

“An investigation has revealed that he was murdered in retaliation for the belief that Mr. Mike Jamerson was or would be cooperating with the government and had an unpaid drug debt,” Wolthius said.

Lee, Goin and three others pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Monday to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

None of the five have been charged in connection with Michael Jamerson’s death.

Robert Charles Gleason Jr., 37, was indicted by an Amherst County grand jury in December on charges of murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and the possession of a firearm by a convicted felony in the murder of the elder Jamerson.

Federal officials busted the drug ring after a 2006 traffic stop that caught Thomas Kent Jamerson smuggling a pound of methamphetamine to Georgia, Wolthius said.

Thomas Jamerson and another man, Dennis Lee Martin, pleaded guilty in late 2006 to conspiracy to sell methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Prosecutors say the men started bringing drugs up from Georgia together during the summer of 2005.

Wolthuis said the two were bringing the drugs in at the rate of about a pound a month for six months.

He told the court Monday that another man, Charles David Doss, 43, of Rustburg, was Martin’s partner in the drug shipments starting in January 2005 before the two split up that summer.

Doss pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine Monday.

The prosecutor said investigators became aware of his drug dealing in 2000 when a drug courier was caught at Lynchburg Regional Airport with a pound of methamphetamine.

Lee, one of the men Thomas Jamerson supplied with meth, received 3½ to 4½ pounds over the course of the conspiracy, Wolthius said, while Goin got more than two pounds.

Goin’s lawyer disagreed — he said Goin likely received less than a quarter of a pound.

Martin supplied Cheryl Lynn Hamilton, 48, and Dennis Blake Singleton, 50, of Gladys, with drugs, the prosecutor said. They were among the five pleading guilty to conspiracy Monday.

Wolthius said Hamilton got a little more than a pound during the conspiracy and Singleton got about a pound and a quarter.

Singleton also pleaded guilty to having a gun after being convicted of a felony.

All five who pleaded guilty Monday face mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years for conspiracy.

Singleton also faces a mandatory minimum five years in prison for possession of a firearm as a felon.