Crime of Passion

While going thru boxes of packed up stuff in Memphis, I ran across a newspaper clipping from 1987 about one of our East High teachers, Linda Clements, who later became a lawyer & Public Defender. Seems she was so moved by the case of one of her clients, an inmate booked as Lee David Austin (aka Bruce Corrall Tillman), that she fell in love and was helping him plan an escape. The article states that she was first assigned to his case in 1984.

The title of the article reads: "She Cared, She Trusted". I love how the old Commercial Appeal article was written with a slant towards compassion. In the South, crimes of passion have historically been treated somewhat differently than your plain ole out-and-out unlawfulness. In many cases of 'crimes of passion' the explanation 'she just snapped' has long been acceptably clear and logical.

From the East Alumuni pages:
Linda Richmond ('70) remembers:
Getting drunk and Linda Clements locking me up with Tom in the back room until we could sober up! Krystal, East High, Sororities, Fraternitites,,,it was all fun!
In 2002 she attended a class reunion:
Special guests of the class were former faculty members, Buddy Morton (band), Elizabeth Reagan (English), Lilliburn Volmer (business technology, typing), and Linda Clements (speech). Classmates were obviously delighted to visit with their teachers.

Now, what I want to know is what was the outcome of her case ????? I have done some web searching, but since this was pre-Internet days, I have not come up with anything. Can any of you help find out ?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for the clippings. I talked to Linda and her husband Richard in the fall of 1996. Of course this little episode wasn't mentioned, but they sounded fine. Richard was teaching music but I don;t remember what Linda was doing. I seem to remember that they were still living in the same old apartment on Poplar as they were in 1970. Nothing since.
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