A Decatur woman charged with manslaughter who asked the court for emergency leave from jail to attend her alleged victim’s funeral will have her case presented to a Morgan County grand jury, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Chelsie Nicole Lampkin, 22, was arrested on Oct. 30 after an early morning 911 call sent Decatur police to Third Ave. S.E., where they found Terrance Faulks, 56, of Decatur, suffering from a gunshot wound. Faulks was transported to Decatur Morgan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m., according to police.

Court filings show Lampkin asked the court for transport to and from Morgan County Jail to attend a visitation and funeral service for her “significant other” at Guntersville Memorial Chapel on Nov. 11. An exhibit attached to the request included an image of Faulks and information from the chapel regarding his funeral service.

District Judge Shelly Waters denied the request the same day it was filed.

Lampkin appeared before Waters for a preliminary hearing alongside her defense attorney, Thomas Di Giulian, on Wednesday. Assistant District Attorney Joseph Lewis represented the state. Lewis called lead investigator Det. Jasmin Ferizovic of the Violent Crimes Unit as the state’s witness.

Ferizovic said Officer Malachi Compton was the first to respond to the 911 call and arrived on the scene to hear a woman crying. In the backyard, Compton found Lampkin sitting on the ground holding Faulks. He then observed a wound to Faulks’ head and a shotgun and 9 mm pistol underneath Faulks’ leg, according to Ferizovic.

Lampkin raised her shackled hands to her face and began crying as Ferizovic plainly recounted the investigation. Di Giulian fetched a box of tissues. Lampkin raised her head to dab her eyes, revealing bags labeled with dollar signs tattooed on the left side of her neck. The bearded Ferizovic, in jacket and tie, continued unfazed.

Lampkin told detectives at the scene that she had been living at Faulks’ home for the last 11 months, and that Faulks’ adult daughter had also lived with them before recently returning to college, according to Ferizovic.

During that time, Lampkin told detectives that Faulks would “mix illicit drugs with medication, making him extremely paranoid,” according to Ferizovic. When Faulks entered that state, two to three times per month, he and Lampkin would fire guns into the air from the backyard in order to scare off imaginary threats, Lampkin claimed.

Faulks had a dog, and his residence is equipped with security cameras, neither of which picked up any strange activity the morning he was killed, Lampkin allegedly told detectives. Despite knowing no trespassers were in the rear of the house, Lampkin said she accompanied Faulks into the backyard, anyway, because she couldn’t convince him otherwise, according to Ferizovic. She said she carried the pistol and Faulks carried the shotgun.

“Faulks immediately dropped on the ground,” after Lampkin admittedly fired a pistol in the air, Ferizovic testified. According to an autopsy report, the “trajectory of the bullet entering the skull was upward.”

Ferozivic said the autopsy, performed by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, determined the bullet entered the bottom of Faulks’ skull and was recovered from his upper nasal cavity.

A toxicology report on Faulks was returned to DPD on Monday and indicated he had meth, THC and alprazolam, or Xanax, in his system, according to Ferizovic. Lampkin reportedly admitted to investigators taking medication the day Faulks was killed and smoking marijuana the night before.

On cross examination, Di Giulian asked if detectives viewed video from the home’s security cameras. Ferizovic explained that, because Faulks did not pay the security company for a premium subscription service, nothing was recorded.

“Do you have any evidence that this was anything other than an accidental shooting?” Di Giulian asked.

“The whole incident is 100% reckless,” Ferizovic replied.

In her ruling, Waters addressed Lampkin directly and told her that she found probably cause to bound her case over to a grand jury. The wet-cheeked Lampkin was then escorted timidly from the courtroom.

Afterward, Di Giulian expressed doubts that a jury would find his client criminally responsible.

“I think it was an accident,” he said. “Just because they’ve done this before doesn’t mean the actual incident was not an accident.

“At the trial, they’ve got to prove that she had criminal intent … or it was so reckless that it amounted to criminal negligence, but I don’t think that’s there.”

Lampkin has previously been arrested on drug-related charges. Her most recent charge, trafficking meth, came after she was arrested by the Lawrence County Drug Task Force in April 2022, according to court documents.

The arrest warrant for that charge, signed by a Lawrence County investigator, claimed Lampkin had 69 grams of meth inside her bra when law enforcement approached her. She was out on bond at the time of Faulks’ death and scheduled to appear in Lawrence County circuit court for the trafficking charge next year.

Lampkin remained in Morgan County Jail on Wednesday in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

— [email protected] or 256-340-2438. @DD_DavidGambino

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