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Mich. Teen Convicted in Beating Death of 2 Homeless Men
By wchung | 27 Jun, 2025

An jury has convicted a 15-year-old of felony murder in the beating deaths of two homeless men in Michigan.

The Oakland County jury deliberated for about five hours Tuesday before delivering the verdict for Thomas McCloud.

McCloud was accused in the deaths of Wilford Hamilton and Lee Hoffman. The homeless men, both 61 years old, died after they were attacked in August 2008 in Pontiac.

The charges carry a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole. Sentencing was set for Nov. 13.

McCloud wept as the verdict was announced. Several jurors also wept as they were polled by the court.

A second jury will resume deliberations Wednesday for 15-year-old Dontez Tillman, who is charged with first-degree felony murder in Hamilton’s death.

The group of teenagers accused of beating a homeless man to death last year had “no respect for human decency,” a prosecutor had told jurors Tuesday before they began deliberations in the murder trial of two of the teens.

Defense attorneys had called the case against Thomas McCloud and Dontez Tillman weak. The 15-year-olds from Pontiac could face life in prison if convicted.

McCloud and Tillman are charged in the death of Wilford “Frenchie” Hamilton, 61, and McCloud also is charged in the death of 61-year-old Lee Hoffman, another homeless man. Both attacks took place in Pontiac in August 2008. There was not enough evidence to charge Tillman in the attack on Hoffman, prosecutors said.

Two Oakland County Circuit Court juries heard four days of testimony and arguments before beginning deliberations. One jury will judge each defendant.

The teenagers are charged as adults and face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of first-degree felony murder. Jurors also have the option of finding them guilty of second-degree murder, which carries up to life in prison but allows for the possibility of parole.

Hamilton and Hoffman were brutally beaten by a group of three or four young people, with larceny as a motive, assistant prosecuting attorney Gregory Townsend said Tuesday.

The attackers had “an intent to harass, an intent to intimidate, an intent to hurt,” Townsend told jurors, “having no respect for human decency, no respect for human pain, no respect for human suffering and certainly no respect for human life.”

But attorneys for Tillman and McCloud assailed the case against their clients as weak, saying it lacked hard evidence and relied on videotaped police interviews that Townsend described as confessions. Instead, Tillman’s lawyer said, the interrogation of her client was confused, “jumbled” and useless as evidence.

“If a waitress makes a mistake at her job, you may get the wrong sandwich,” defense attorney Marsha Kosmatka told jurors. “But if a detective makes a mistake at his job, even an honest one … it can end up being a mistake that affects someone for a lifetime.”

Attorney Howard Arnkoff, who represents McCloud, said family members placed the teen at his brother’s home in nearby Waterford Township at the time of the attacks.

“The state just didn’t convince me beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

10/27/2009 5:13 PM BEN LEUBSDORF, Associated Press Writer PONTIAC, Mich.

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