A woman whose neighbor cooked for her when she was recovering from a broken foot is now charged along with two others with capital murder in his bludgeoning death early Saturday.

Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely said Jeannie Green, 35, told authorities Sunday night that her husband, Derrick Green, 41, and a friend, Randal “Bingo” Clem, 39, had gone to 74-year-old Art Champion’s mobile home late Friday night to rob him of money to buy drugs.

Champion was a familiar figure around Ardmore, having worked for about six years for the city, on the Tennessee side, maintaining John Barnes Park. He was said to always have his little dog, Pookie, with him on his rounds.

Events began to unfold at shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday when Champion’s hearing-impaired son, who lives in Madison County, came to check on his father and found him lying in a pool of blood on his bedroom floor. The son went to Ardmore Police with a note about what he had found, said Blakely.

He said that police contacted a service in Huntsville that specializes in providing people who do sign language so they could interview the son and his girlfriend, who is was with him and also is hearing-impaired.

“The Ardmore Police Department contacted us,” said Blakely. “It appeared that Mr. Champion had blunt-force trauma to the head. There was blood all over—in the living room, down the hallway and all over the bedroom. It looked as though he was struck in the living room and had gone down the hall to his bedroom for something and died on the floor next to his bed.”

Ardmore Police told sheriff’s investigators that Jeannie Green was known to frequent Champion’s mobile home a lot, so they went to her mobile home to interview her.

“In the meantime, Ardmore Police received an anonymous call that they needed to check out Derrick Green and Bingo Clem,” said Blakely. “We were familiar with Bingo Clem because he’s the guy who broke into my office and stole my machine gun about 15 years ago.”

Blakely said that Ardmore Police rounded up the two suspects, and Jeannie Green told him that the pair had gone to Champion’s home to rob him Friday night. However, investigators soon began to suspect that Jeannie Green’s involvement in his death was much deeper, said Blakely.

“It came out that they had been smoking crack and drinking all day,” said Blakely. “She went to Mr. Art’s house to borrow some money and he told her he didn’t have any because he was going on a trip and needed to save his money. She went back home and told her husband and Clem that, and Bingo says, ‘Hell, I know he had $100 because I carried a guy over there to buy some tires from him.’”

Blakely said the pair got Jeannie Green to go back over to Champion’s house to wake him.

“She goes to use his phone and he goes back to bed in the bedroom,” said the sheriff. “When she leaves the trailer, she leaves the door unlocked. When they came back over and entered the trailer Mr. Art’s little dog met them in the hallway barking and they hit him (Champion) upside the head with a post-hole digger handle. After they hit him, they ran to the bedroom where he kept a plastic jar of quarters, and there was about $100 worth in there. Next, they contacted a Harvest dope dealer and got about five rocks (of crack cocaine). This all happened between 11 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday.”

Blakely said investigators recovered 2-1/2 feet of the stick they believe was used in the murder from where it was hidden under some leaves. He said all three suspects confessed under questioning.

“At first, Jeannie tried to downplay her role, but both of them said that she was involved,” said Blakely.

She told investigators that the widowed victim had cooked for her when she had a broken foot.

All three are being held in Limestone County Jail charged with capital murder, which is not a bondable offense.

“We were very fortunate in clearing this up so quickly,” said Blakely. “When we got up there, it was a real ‘who-dun-it?’ But Ardmore Chief Doc Oliver and his men worked hard to help us and that is why we were able to clear it up so quickly.”