Day 2: Winding, contradictory tale told by crack-addicted woman leads police to suspect

Adrian Moore wandered a stretch of Church Street in Conway police know as a place to get drugs. Someone called 911 to report a man’s “bizarre” behavior.

I'll kill myself, he was yelling.

Emergency officials picked Moore up near the corner of Racepath Avenue and Wright Boulevard and took him to Conway Medical Center. He would spend the next few weeks there, mostly under suicide watch.

He was admitted about a week before Angela and Mariah Eckler stared down the barrel of a small black gun while the man holding it screamed, “Where's he at? Where's the [expletive] money?”

As part of his investigation into the Eckler home invasion, Horry County Police Detective Jonathan Martin visited Moore in the hospital.

The conversation was recorded and it included this exchange:

“Your fiance … [was] the victim of a home invasion,” he told Moore. “Some guys broke in, looking for you … beat her up a little bit.”

“What?” Moore returned. “When was this?”

“She's a little shook up, you can imagine,” Martin said. “They haven't stayed in the house since; their Christmas has pretty much been ruined.”

“Did they hit her?”

“They held the 12-year-old at gunpoint asking where the money was.”

Moore told Martin he had been buying and selling cocaine, including a “quarter” from an associate he only knew as “T.”

He admitted making ATM withdrawals from the account he shared with Angela Eckler, his then live-in finance. Moore had used the money to “hustle” and buy $400 worth of cocaine he planned to sell for $800, as well as “drinks and things like that” during the days he told Eckler he had been working as a day laborer.

One of his drug suppliers was a man he only knew as “Juice,” whom he believed was the man who visited Eckler's home the afternoon of the home invasion.

“Who would want money from you?” Martin asked.

“I didn't owe money to anyone,” Moore said.

“You know any pretty black females?” Martin asked, in reference to the description Eckler provided about the woman who knocked on the front door at the start of the home invasion.

Moore guessed it could have been a woman did he drugs with, whom he knew as “Sharmaine.”

That woman, who was later revealed to be DeAungela “Shante” Montgomery, “and people that she knew” sold drugs for Moore, he said.

“Shante has some debts,” Moore told Martin, “so they must think I have some debts because I was with her.”

Following the investigative trail

Moore’s revelations led Martin to Montgomery, who eventually told the detective the many ways she had become consumed by a drug addiction, in part to explain how she became involved with the men who broke into the Eckler home.

She recounted a particularly bad night, when she anxiously shook $20 of drugs into a crack pipe after rushing home with her buy.

“I started smoking with the door wide open,” she told detective Martin less than a month after the Ecklers were attacked.

On another day, she had awakened to find her 4-year-old lying next to her on the bed, afraid it wouldn't be much longer before she passed out in front of her daughter.

There were even darker times after she began going on crack cocaine binges with Moore, who was then Angela Eckler’s fiance.

“I just realized I got a habit, like a bad addiction,” she said. “I got tired of it. I was just sick of being high.”

She was saying this in an interview room at J. Reuben Long Detention Center, where she was being held for her alleged role in an armed robbery that happened a week after the Eckler home invasion.

In that case, Montgomery had been charged with accessory before the fact of a felony, two counts of armed robbery, two counts of kidnapping and first-degree burglary. A man had given her a ride and was waiting on Singleton Street at her request, according to a Conway police report. Montgomery and a gun-wielding man allegedly stole $6 and a phone.

The following exchange comes from audio of the recorded interrogation:

When asked about the Eckler case, Montgomery initially denied knowing anything.

“To be honest, I used to do drugs and I really do not know,” she said.

But during her winding, contradictory statement, Montgomery mentioned Jamar Huggins. It was the first time his name would become connected to the case. An earlier check of phone records by Martin had turned up no contact between Huggins and Adrian Moore, the presumed target of the home invasion.

The jury would not be told that detail, nor would it know that Moore never mentioned Huggins, or about other inconsistencies apparent in Montgomery’s statements.

During the interrogation, Martin showed Montgomery a photo of Moore. At first she said she didn't recognize the face, then blurted out “Drake,” Moore’s street name.

She only hung out with him once, no twice, she quickly corrected herself, a three-day stay at a Conway hotel and later at her house. Moore had a really bad habit, would act strangely and needed someone with him when he did drugs, she said.

“He had a lot of money and stuff,” she said. “He had a lot of money.”

“Have you ever been to Drake's house?” Martin asked.

Just once, she said, when Moore snuck her into a back room. He would walk out and talk to Eckler, walk back into the room and smoke crack with Montgomery, and repeat the process.

Martin pulled out a sheet with a lineup of six women. Montgomery's photo, No. 3, was circled.

“This is the lady who robbed me,” a note on it read. It was initialed “AE” in cursive.

“Either she seen the wrong girl ...,” Montgomery said.

The note wasn't from Eckler, who hadn't been able to identify Montgomery at that point. It was written by Martin as a ruse — a fact that would later confuse Montgomery when she testified during the Huggins trial.

The detective didn’t do anything wrong by implying she’d been identified. The Supreme Court has ruled that police officers can lie to trick suspects into revealing information they otherwise wouldn't.

“You didn't go a time and knock on the door looking for Drake?”

“No,” Montgomery said.

“OK, I'm not gonna play around; we don't got time,” Martin said.

Then he told her about the home invasion, how a young woman knocked on Eckler's door and two men rushed in behind her.

“I have a lawyer and I don't wanna talk no more,” Montgomery said. “Because this is a bit confu[sing].”

Had the interrogation stopped there, Huggins likely wouldn't be in a Columbia prison serving 15 years.

But it didn't stop, which raises constitutional questions. Martin did not re-read the Miranda warning after Montgomery asked for a lawyer, an issue that could have been raised in Montgomery’s trial had she not taken a plea agreement to settle multiple charges in two cases.

“That's fine,” Martin responded. “I'm gonna go get the warrants right now. It's gonna be armed robbery times two, and kidnapping times two. OK?”

“OK, because I don't know what is going on,” Montgomery said. “I honestly don't know what's going on.”

“That's fine, I was giving you a chance to say what you wanted to say because maybe you weren't involved with it to the point that you didn't know what was gonna happen. Maybe you were made to do it, but that's fine.”

“And so if I talk ...” Montgomery asked.

“That's up to you,” Martin continued.

“OK, I'm gonna just be honest,” Montgomery.

Martin, along with another detective, sat back down. The conversation that would change Huggins's life was about to begin.

Contact Issac J. Bailey at @ijbailey via Twitter.com.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 3:16 PM with the headline "Day 2: Winding, contradictory tale told by crack-addicted woman leads police to suspect."