Trantham scheduled to be released from prison today

By Rose Hooper

Robert Trantham, one of the seven defendants convicted in the 1994 torture death of Tony Cecil Queen of Cullowhee, has been imprisoned since Oct. 11, 1995. The 26-year-old Jackson County native was charged as a committed youthful offender. His crime was murder in the second degree and his sentence was 20 years for murder.

Tony Queen, son of Cecil and Geraldine Queen of Tuckasegee, was found in a shallow grave near Toccoa, Ga. It was Trantham who showed authorities where the body was hidden.

"In his own way, Robert gave Tony back to us," said Geraldine Queen. "If Robert hadn't showed authorities where Tony was buried, Tony's bones could still be scattered out there and we would never have known what happened to him.

"But Robert told; he was the only one who talked; and he gave Tony back to us," she said.

Geraldine Queen said Trantham, 19 at the time of her son's death, was the only defendant who showed any remorse.

"In court, Robert turned around, looked at me and he was crying," Queen said. "He told me, 'I'm so sorry, but I can't bring Tony back.'"

Before Queen's body was taken to Georgia, investigators said the 24-year-old endured at least a week of torture in a Cullowhee trailer, including being bound and gagged and placed in a narrow closet with the door nailed shut. He died of suffocation, the autopsy revealed.

Trantham served seven years of his 20-year sentence. Originally he had been in a Polk County facility, was moved to Johnston Correctional Institute, then Lincoln Correctional Center and since June of this year has been in Wayne Correctional Center. Following his release, Trantham will be placed on five years probation.

In August, Michael Blain Hagedorn, 24, the youngest of the seven convicted in Queen's death, was released from prison. Like Trantham, he was sentenced as a committed youthful offender.

Also convicted as a youthful offender is Michelle Shook Vinson, 26, who remains at the N.C. Correctional Institute for Women.

Those who received life sentences for the crime were Carlton Anderson, Vickie Jumper Fox, Kenneth Fox and Walter Thomas York.

Back to Archive: 12/27/01.