The CHAPMAN Children and their mother - 13 yo and 1 yo - Charlotte NC

Charlotte NC ---- Police say a 10-year-old kept the murders of her
mother and siblings a secret for two weeks because she feared that her
father might kill her and her 2-year-old brother.
Police didn't find out about the murders until Monday night, when a
relative called 911 and asked police to check on the Chapman family.
Police say 33-year-old Kenneth Chapman shot himself in the head after
firing gunshots at officers when they arrived at his apartment on
Providence Square Drive.
Once officers went inside, they found the bodies of Chapman's 1-year-old
daughter and 13-year-old stepdaughter inside a bedroom.
Police found the children's mother, 34-year-old Nateesha Chapman, at
another apartment on Via Romano Drive.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Mecklenburg County medical examiner said
that Nateesha Chapman and the 1-year-old had been suffocated. Kenneth
Chapman's 13-year-old stepdaughter was stabbed to death.
Chapman spared the lives of two children -- a 10-year-old girl and
2-year-old boy.
"At one point, he held a gun to her head, to the 10-year-old's head, and
she said, 'Don't kill me.' And he told her, 'I'm not going to kill you
because you're my firstborn daughter.' And the son, the 2-year-old, is
his firstborn son," said Capt. Paul Zinkann with the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Kenneth and Nateesha Chapman moved to Charlotte nine months ago from
West Virginia.
They were in between apartments when a neighbor said that he heard a
loud argument at the Via Romano Drive location two weeks ago. That's
when police think that Kenneth Chapman killed his wife and shortly
thereafter killed his stepdaughter and 1-year-old daughter.
"It's difficult for everyone. We all have children," Zinkann said.
The wife was left at the old apartment. The children were sealed up in
the bedroom of their Providence Square Drive apartment.
When they were killed, their 10-year-old sister heard gunshots and
suspected the worst, but kept it to herself to protect her 2-year-old
brother.
"Her bravery and composure was truly remarkable," Zinkann said. "She and
her little brother are with family members and are being cared for
now."
Police believe the family members were killed around March 15. On March
19, Chapman posted what appeared to be a suicide reference on his
Facebook page. A friend called 911 to get police to check on him.
"He called me Tuesday. He actually told me to check the news in a few
days -- that he was going to be famous," the 911 caller said. "I guess
he was talking about suicide. He told me on Facebook today, this
morning. He sent out personal goodbye messages."
Police stopped by the Via Romano Drive apartment to perform a welfare
check.
"They checked the residence. No one appeared to be inside," Zinkann
said. "It looked like a semi-vacant apartment to the officers that
responded on that afternoon."
Police say Chapman did not have a criminal record.
Carol Latimer, who lived next to the family on Via Romano Drive for five
months, said she never saw the couple fight. The Chapmans kept to
themselves, and Latimer's conversations with Nateesha Chapman never went
beyond making sure the kids got to the bus stop or other child care
issues.
"She was really closed as far as her personal life," Latimer said. "We
didn't talk much unless she needed help."
Latimer talked even more rarely with Kenneth Chapman. She knew he worked
the night shift, but never found out where. He only said a few words
when she asked him questions. The family member she got to know the best
was the 10-year-old girl. They sat outside and ate fruit snacks one day
after school when her dad and stepmom weren't home.
Latimer said the couple moved out of the home where Nateesha Chapman's
body was found weeks ago, and she never heard anything from the
apartment or saw anyone over there again until police arrived early
Tuesday morning.
Neighbors at the couple's other home said they only saw them move in and
couldn't remember seeing an adult woman at the home at all. Jerome
Sanders didn't even know they had dogs until he heard them barking as
police talked to him after discovering the bodies.
"They just seemed typical, what little I saw," Sanders said. "I heard a
baby crying once, but that was about it."
Court records show an eviction notice was served on the apartment where
Nateesha Chapman's body was found, but shed little other light on
whether they were having financial trouble.
Investigators are still trying to figure out not only why Kenneth
Chapman killed his family, but why he tried to hide it for weeks and
acted like nothing happened.
"What this man did was despicable and cowardly," Zinkann said.

For two weeks, police said, a 10-year-old girl went to school
terrified that her father would kill her and her 2-year-old brother if
she told anybody what had happened at home.


Her mother was missing, and her two sisters, ages 13 and 1, had
already been killed. Their bodies were locked in an upstairs bedroom of
the family's south Charlotte, N.C. apartment, police said.
So
the little girl said nothing until Monday, when police began to unravel a
grisly series of crimes they say were committed by a package handler
who hinted at family troubles on his Facebook page.
"What this
man did was despicable and cowardly," police Capt. Paul Zinkann told
reporters, fighting tears at one point.
"She continued to go to
school. ... She felt that she needed to maintain some composure," he
said. "She did not ask any questions because she didn't want her little
brother killed."
The killings began about two weeks ago, police
said, with the slaying of 35-year-old Nateesha Ward Chapman. Police say
her husband, Kenneth Jermaine Chapman, suffocated her in an apartment,
from which the family had recently moved.
Within a day of her killing, police say, two of Nateesha
Chapman's daughters were also slain, in the family's new apartment
around the corner. Nakyiah Jael Chapman, 1, was suffocated and Na'Jhae
Parker, 13, was stabbed.
Late Monday, a family member asked
police to check on Nateesha because he hadn't heard from her. When
officers knocked on the family's door, police said, two children ran out
and Chapman fired a shot at the officers. Chapman then fatally shot
himself.
Investigators gleaned most of their information from the
10-year-old girl who escaped with her 2-year-old brother Monday. Police
have not released her name. The children are with relatives.
The
girl told police she knew her mother was dead in mid-March, after her
parents had a fight one night. The next day after school, "She came home
and she never saw her mother again," Zinkann said.
Later that
day, the girl heard her sisters screaming upstairs. Then silence.
After
that, the door to an upstairs bedroom remained locked.
Over the
next two weeks, the girl's father didn't talk about her missing family
members, she told police. He only asked her occasionally if she smelled
anything. The girl tried to protect her little brother by acting as if
she suspected nothing.
Playmates would come to the door asking
for her older sister, and the girl was instructed by her father to lie
about her sister's whereabouts, police said.
Worried family
members would call the house, police said, and Kenneth Chapman would say
his wife was busy or at work or not available by cell phone.
Officials
at McClintock Middle School called the home twice after eighth grader
Na'Jhae Parker began accumulating absences. They spoke to the father,
who said she had health problems.
Principal Pamela Espinosa said
Tuesday the killings baffled and devastated the faculty. Both parents
were involved in the school, she said.
"We take care of our
children," Espinosa said. "It grieves me that we were not able to take
care of her."
"Na'Jhae was just a wonderful, outgoing, bright
child," she said. "It's hit the school so hard. It's just a horrendous
tragedy for that family and our community."
Na'Jhae was not
Kenneth Chapman's biological daughter, police said, but the other
children were. The girl told police that played a role in why he spared
her and her brother.
At one point, Zinkann said, Chapman held a
gun to the 10-year-old girl's head while she begged for her life. "He
said, 'I'm not going to kill you, basically because you're my first-born
daughter, and he's my first-born son.""
The family moved to
Charlotte less than a year ago. Public records show they moved from
Martinsburg, W.Va., last year and resided in
New York and New Jersey before that.
Chapman family members
declined to comment Tuesday. Neighbors said they barely knew the family
of six, who had moved into their new apartment less than a month ago.
The
family struggled with money problems.
Nateesha Chapman declared
bankruptcy in New York in 1998. The family was sued by creditors in at
least three states. In 2008, a pediatric practice took her to court in
Virginia for a debt of $855. She paid that debt last July.
Landlords
at the apartment complex where Nateesha Chapman was found dead began
eviction proceedings against the couple three times since last
September.
But neighbors never saw troubling signs the children
seemed well cared for, the couple never had public arguments.
Over
the last two weeks, family and friends twice called police about the
Chapmans.
On March 19, a friend called 911, saying he feared
Kenneth Chapman might be suicidal.
"He called me Tuesday and told
me to check the news in a few days, he was gonna be famous," the man
told 911 operators.
The caller said Chapman had also sent
personal goodbye messages on Facebook. The Web page shows Chapman
recently changed his marital status from "married" to "single."
The
911 caller also told police that Chapman had a .45 caliber pistol and a
rifle.
In response, an officer went to the family's old
apartment and found the door locked. Nobody answered the door. Police
would find Nateesha Chapman dead there 10 days later.
A second
call to 911 came about 11:15 p.m. Monday, when an uncle reported that he
hadn't been able to reach Nateesha for two weeks.
Police went to
check on the Chapmans late Monday, and found the door open.
They
saw Kenneth Chapman standing inside and asked if they could speak with
his wife.
He called upstairs for her, police said, then invited
them in. Officers were suspicious and stayed outside.
Then, the
two children came running outside.
Chapman fired shots toward the
officers.
When the shooting stopped, they went inside and found
Chapman dead on the stairs.