March 3 – A Morgan County woman charged with murder in 2020 pleaded guilty this week to the lesser-known crime of manslaughter, according to court documents filed Thursday.
Mary Evelyn Hamm, 62, was sentenced Monday by Morgan County Circuit Judge Jennifer Howell to 15 years in prison, minus approximately two years and four months in prison for the time she was sentenced. at the Morgan County Jail.
Hamm was charged by the Decatur Police Department with the fatal shooting of Bruce Everett Cox at her residence in the Flint community on October 16, 2020. Cox, a Decatur resident, was 54 years old.
In an affidavit at the time of Hamm’s arrest, Decatur Police Detective Sean Mukaddam wrote that “Hamm made candid statements to responding officers that she shot Cox because she was tired of him attacking her. Hamm was taken for an interview transported to the Decatur Police Department Before the Miranda warning was read, Hamm voluntarily told Detective Mukaddam that she shot Cox because he was moving towards her and she was tired of him beating her.
Mukaddam “saw no injuries to Hamm and there were no visible injuries to Cox other than the gunshot wound to the head,” he wrote in the affidavit. “…At this time, there is no evidence that Cox attacked Hamm prior to the shooting.”
Morgan County coroner Jeff Chunn said Cox died in a hospital from a single gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at 6:49 PM on October 16, 2020.
In a search warrant affidavit filed the day of the shooting, Decatur Detective Timothy Jackson said Hamm called 911 at 5:10 p.m. that day “and reported shooting her boyfriend in the head” in her mobile home at 93 Sage PrivateDrive. “Hamm told 911 that she no longer had the firearm, but had put it somewhere and she didn’t know where it was.”
Jackson said responding police officers found Hamm in a back bedroom and found the firearm outside the residence.
“Officers found the boyfriend, Bruce Cox, in the living room with a gunshot wound to the head,” Jackson wrote. “Cox was transported to Decatur Morgan Hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.”
In the search warrant that followed Hamm’s search, police said they seized two 9mm handguns, a .22-caliber revolver, several bags of a “green leaf substance” and two cell phones.
Hamm’s bond was initially set at $100,000 and was later reduced to $50,000, but she never posted a bond. A grand jury indicted her for murder on March 1, 2022.
Howell’s verdict prohibits Hamm from contacting the victim’s family during her incarceration. It also says she will be ordered to pay an amount to be determined at a hearing on April 20.
Manslaughter is a Class B felony. Sentencing guidelines state that the minimum sentence for a Class B felony committed with a firearm is 10 years in prison. If a jury had found Hamm guilty of the class A felony of murder, her minimum sentence under the guidelines would have been 20 years, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
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