Tremayne Durham: Killer Confesses for Life Sentence and Junk Food

Now He's Called the "Fried Chicken Killer"

Once in awhile, life mysteriously makes sense to me. Take the case of Tremayne Durham. Durham's story is highlighted in Crime Scene KC. He admitted to killing one Adam Calbreath. It was the terms of his confession that drew attention. He took the life sentence but also wanted "junk food" for a couple of days.

As the article goes on to report, Durham was fed Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeye's mashed potatoes, pizza, carrot cake and ice cream among other things.

Moving to an article by Erin Hoover Barnett, a staff writer for The Oregonian: As a result of the deal, Durham has become known as the "fried chicken killer." The food is being paid for by his attorneys and of course prosecutors are happy to get the confession without a lengthy trial.

As the article goes on to report, the case is somewhat bizarre. Durham had purchased an ice cream truck for $18,000 from an Oregon-based company. At some point he changed his mind and when the company would not refund his money went looking for the company's owner, but encountered Calbreath first and shot him in the head.

Once the trial was complete, Calbreath's father thanked the court and then, as reported in The Oregonian, addressed the killer in a solemn voice: "You hear that?" he asked Durham, 33, who sat passively in his prison blues and ankle chains. "I called you an animal." He completed his comments with, "You put a bullet in his head, man -- over $18,000. Life was worth that, huh? We want you to just go into your little cage and just rot there."

I recall in the army we had a captain who would give unusual punishments for military charges called "Article 15s". They are the military equivalent of civilian misdemeanors. Instead of taking a lot of money in fines and putting soldiers on meaningless work tasks, he would have them get involved in the community where we were stationed.

If you think this is the oddest court situation there has ever been, however, you would be wrong. There is always the case of the Canadian 12-year-old who took her dad to court because he had grounded her from the internet: she won the case.