Terry Landon Stidham: A Failure of the Justice System

 

Indictments after an arrest can take months in many Alabama counties. This is especially true in Franklin County. It's easy to lose track of various crimes while assuming the cases are still floating around somewhere in the criminal justice system. 

In Landon Stidham's case, it took 11 months for Franklin County District Attorney Joey Rushing to present the state's case against the 19 year-old Hamilton youth. With actual video of the crime, the indictment should have been a slam dunk, but strangely it wasn't.

Stidham's sex charges were no-billed. Why? Were palms crossed with silver or did the rural Franklin County jurors think the promiscuous 14 year-old girl got just what she deserved? Either way, the system failed. There was no "He said; she said." There was actual video of the sex acts taking place in a smelly public restroom. Apparently Landon didn't think his victim deserved even the back seat of a Buick.

Landon Stidham was a totally free man after September 2019, or roughly two years ago. Why is this news now?

Last week, a letter from a man purporting to be an employee of the Hamilton Journal Record began to make the rounds. It didn't take too much digging to ascertain that this "Shane" wasn't connected to the Marion County newspaper, but was actually Landon's father. The letter was asking that all negative reports about Landon's illegal sexcapades be removed from the Internet.

Why after two years is Landon's family now revealing to the press that the young man's case was dropped due to lack of an indictment? What has Landon been doing in the intervening years between his arrest and now?

In March 2019, months before the charges were dropped, Stidham coached for the Krossover Basketball Association in Cullman. He was billed as a former Welch Freewill Baptist College player at that time. Then at some point, he enrolled in the Ramp College in Hamilton where he spent two years before graduating last May.

Perhaps since this graduation, Terry Landon Stidham has found it difficult to secure a position in the real world. This would explain his family's nefarious attempt to have his record wiped clean of the videoed sex incident. 

News flash: Sending out letters using false credentials is not the best way to establish any Christian credibility. Let's also go on record that we hope any young ladies who cross Stidham's path will have the common sense to give a hard pass on this sadly unpunished sex offender.