Vigilante neighbors in court for branding molester

BY L.L. BRASIER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER


Three Pontiac men took the law -- and a blistering hot metal spatula -- into their hands when they learned a neighbor had been regularly sodomizing his 7- and 10-year-old nephews.

Two of the men held down the uncle while the third pressed the smoking spatula on his genitals, buttocks, stomach and legs. They paused only long enough to reheat the spatula on the kitchen stove for repeated branding before tossing the uncle out onto the sidewalk, breaking his arm.

The three men -- Billy Hatten, Dewon Williams and Randolph Evans -- were calm and coolly matter-of-fact Monday in Oakland County Circuit Court as they described their deeds in pleading guilty to the attack.

As their statements continued, several courtroom spectators started nodding their heads in seeming approval.

Criminal justice experts are not surprised by the reaction. Citizens, frightened and angered by recent high-profile crimes against children, are more likely to give tacit approval to the rough justice dealt outside a courthouse, they say. --