Date of Birth: November 2, 1970

On May 18, 2001, Tracy Allen Hampton shot and killed Charles Findley and Tanya Ramsdell at 802 E. Roberts Road in Phoenix. Ramsdell was five months pregnant at the time.

Hampton, who bore tattoos of skulls and slogans such as "White power," was a White supremacist. Findley's family had befriended him when he was homeless.

Hampton shot Findley in the forehead because he had identified him to state Department of Safety Officers trying to serve him with a traffic ticket. Seconds later, he kicked in Tanya's bedroom door and put a .40-caliber bullet in her forehead.

Prosecutors said Hampton killed Ramsdell because he believed her baby's father was a Black man.

Trial

Sentenced to death: January 24, 2003

Tracy Allen Hampton

Date of Birth: 11/02/70
Defendant: Caucasian

On January 24, 2003 Tracy Allen Hampton was sentenced to the following:

MARICOPA COUNTY CR2001-008991, Count 1, Murder First Degree of Charles Findley committed on May 18, 2001, sentenced to Death. Count 2 Murder First Degree of Tanya Ramsdell, committed on May 18, 2001, sentenced to Death.

According to the Phoenix Police Department on May 18, 2001 the defendant shot and killed Charles Findley and Tanya Ramsdell at 802 East Roberts Road in Phoenix.

It was also noted that Tanya Ramsdell was five months pregnant at the time of the shooting. No other case information is available.

Inmate Hampton is also charged with the following:

Maricopa County CR2001-008991

Count 3, Manslaughter, committed on May 17, 2001. Sentencing set for January 27, 2003.

Inmate Hampton is to submit to DNA testing and it is recommended that Counts 1, II, and III run concurrently.

  

State v. Tracy Allen Hampton

CR-03-0033-AP

Facts:

On May 16, 2001, two Department of Public Safety officers attempted to serve a traffic ticket on Tracy Allen Hampton. The officers went to the home where Hampton had been staying with Charles Findley and Findley’s girlfriend, Tanya Ramsdell, who was five months pregnant. Hampton was not there, but Findley and two women were. To demonstrate that he was not the man they were looking for, Findley showed the officers a photograph of Hampton, and the officers left.

At around 7:30 a.m. on May 17, Misty Ross and a man named Shaun Geeslin went to the home where Hampton was staying. Hampton answered the door and let them in. Hampton told Geeslin that police officers had come to the home the previous day and that Findley had given the police information about Hampton. Hampton said he planned to confront Findley about the incident. When Findley awoke, Hampton had an argument with him in a back room of the house.

During the course of the morning, Hampton, Findley, Ross, Geeslin, and two others named Tim Wallace and Stephanie smoked methamphetamine. About 10:30 a.m., Wallace and Stephanie left the house.

Hampton later left with Geeslin, leaving Ross behind with Findley. Ramsdell was asleep in a bedroom at the house.

Around noon, Hampton and Geeslin returned to the home. Hampton and Geeslin entered a room at the back of the house where Findley was kneeling on the floor. Hampton turned on a CD player to a loud volume, walked in front of Findley, and called out his name.

As Findley looked up, Hampton shot him in the forehead, killing him. Hampton then went to the bedroom where Ramsdell was sleeping, slammed open the door, walked to the bed and shot her in the head. Ramsdell and her unborn daughter died as a result. Hampton then joined Ross and Geeslin in Geeslin’s truck and, after asking whether he had any blood on his face, said he was hungry and asked to be taken to get some food.

Hampton was arrested on May 31, 2001.

While in the Maricopa County jail in August 2001 awaiting trial, Hampton shared a cell with George Ridley. In exchange for a plea bargain, Ridley testified at Hampton’s trial. He said that Hampton admitted to committing the murders and told Ridley the story of the murders every night for the two weeks that the men were cellmates.

Hampton reportedly told Ridley that he killed Findley because “he was a rat” and he killed Ramsdell because Hampton was affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood and thought that Ramsdell was a “nigger lover” who was pregnant with a Black man’s child. Hampton allegedly told Ridley that he “thought it was funny” that Ramsdell had slept through the shooting of her boyfriend, and bragged that he was able to shoot Ramsdell in pretty much the same place he shot Findley.

Before leaving the house, according to Ridley, Hampton knelt down next to Findley’s body and whispered in his ear, “I want to let you know I took care of your nigger loving old lady and her little coon baby, too. Don’t worry, they didn’t feel a thing.”

The State charged Hampton by complaint with two counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Findley and Ramsdell, and one count of manslaughter for the death of Ramsdell’s unborn child. On May 2, 2002, the jury found Hampton guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one count of manslaughter. The State filed a Notice of Aggravating Factors on May 7, 2002, specifying two factors: (1) A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(8) (2002) (multiple homicides), and (2) A.R.S. § 13-703 (F)(6) (especially heinous or depraved).

On June 24, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decided Ring v. Arizona (“Ring II”), 536 U.S. 584 (2002), holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury finding of aggravating circumstances necessary for the imposition of the death penalty. The aggravation and penalty phases of the trial were therefore conducted before a new jury. That jury found both murders to have been committed during the commission of one or more other homicides. The murder of Ramsdell also was found to have been committed in an especially heinous or depraved manner.

In the penalty phase, the jury unanimously determined that any mitigation proven was not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. The superior court imposed separate death sentences for each of the two murder convictions. For the manslaughter conviction, the court sentenced Hampton to an aggravated term of twelve and one-half years, to run consecutively to the death penalties. A direct appeal of the capital convictions and sentences was filed with this Court pursuant to Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure 31.2(b) and 26.15. Hampton also appealed the manslaughter conviction and sentence.

Tracy Allen Hampton