She is the state's star witness, the woman who claims to be Geralyn Graham's jailhouse confessor – and Robin Lunceford spoke like a woman hardened by years in prison.
"At first I thought she was crazy and then I wanted to beat the crap out of her,” she said in court on Wednesday.
Asked why, Lunceford explained, “Well, I don't like baby killers and I don’t like child molesters. I don't like any children crimes."
Graham faces life in prison if convicted of the first-degree murder of foster child Rilya Wilson, whose body was never found. She is also charged with kidnapping and child abuse.
Graham listened intently to her former jail podmate, as Lunceford told the jury that Graham confessed to murdering Rilya.
"She kind of whispered to me that she killed it, and I asked her how, and she said she smothered it with a pillow,” Lunceford said.
Lunceford took notes on their conversation, and read them to jurors.
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"She said the story she is sticking with is that some lady came and said she was from DCF and that they were taking it to run some tests,” Lunceford said.
Graham insists she is innocent, maintaining that a state child welfare worker took Rilya away for mental tests in January 2001 and never returned her. Investigators have testified they found no evidence to support Graham's claim.
Mistrial Denied in Rilya Wilson Murder Case
According to Lunceford, Graham was convinced that Rilya, a chubby 4-year-old girl, was possessed by demons and had to be put out of her misery.
"She said it was suffering and that she couldn't allow it to grow up and suffer like that,” Lunceford said.
She told the jury that she was disgusted, but determined to get more information out of Graham.
“And I said so what’d you do, just throw the body in the backyard and bury it?” Lunceford testified. “And she said no, that she gave it a proper burial, that she took it to a ravine – first she said ravine, then she said private lake and then she said a canal – but it was in an area that was familiar to her that Pam used to go fishing.”
Graham’s former lover, Pamela Graham, testified in the case earlier this week.
