An legal professional for a person charged with killing four members of the same family informed a choose on Monday that he plans to request {that a} jury from exterior the county hear the case, which set a swath of rural Tennessee on edge as the person eluded authorities for per week after the shootings.
Austin Robert Drummond pleaded not responsible in his first court docket look since he was indicted on expenses together with first-degree homicide and aggravated kidnapping within the July 29 shootings in Lake County, in rural northwest Tennessee. He was additionally charged with weapons offenses.
Prosecutors have stated they plan to hunt the demise penalty if Drummond is convicted of first-degree homicide at trial.
Throughout the temporary listening to, Drummond’s legal professional, Bryan Huffman, informed Circuit Courtroom Choose Mark Hayes that he intends to file a movement for a change of venue. Such motions could be entered in circumstances the place pre-trial publicity is excessive and attorneys imagine that an unbiased jury can’t be chosen. Throughout the weeklong manhunt for Drummond, a number of folks have been arrested and accused of serving to him after the killings.
Jackson Police Division
Drummond appeared in court docket sporting orange jail clothes and a protecting vest, with shackles on his wrists and ankles.
A grand jury indicted Drummond on Nov. 10. Drummond additionally had pleaded not responsible in a decrease court docket earlier than a choose dominated there was sufficient proof for his case to proceed to the grand jury. Drummond is accused of the deaths of the dad and mom, grandmother and uncle of an toddler discovered deserted in a house’s entrance yard. A trial date has not been set.
An intense seek for Drummond ended on Aug. 5 in Jackson, about 70 miles southeast of the placement of the killings in Tiptonville. Jackson Police Chief Thom Corley stated Drummond was staying in a vacant constructing on the time of his arrest. Drummond was unarmed, however authorities stated that a number of weapons have been recovered. It was unclear in the event that they have been used within the killings.
An FBI agent testified at a listening to in September that knowledge from a cellphone utilized by Drummond confirmed he was within the neighborhood of a wooded space the place the our bodies have been discovered with gunshot wounds and lined by tarpaulins.
However Huffman argued that there was no proof offered on the listening to that confirmed Drummond truly shot any of the victims.
On the day of the shootings, officers responded to a name of an toddler in a automotive seat being dropped off at a “random particular person’s entrance yard” roughly 40 miles from Tiptonville, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Workplace has stated.
Then, investigators in neighboring Lake County reported 4 folks had been discovered lifeless from gunshot wounds in Tiptonville. They have been recognized because the child’s dad and mom, James M. Wilson, 21, and Adrianna Williams, 20; Williams’ brother, Braydon Williams, 15; and their mom, Cortney Rose, 38. Drummond’s girlfriend is Rose’s sister, Huffman stated.
Dyer County Sheriff Jeff Field informed reporters on the time of Drummond’s arrest that the child was “secure, wholesome and being properly taken care of.”
In all, 5 folks have been charged with being equipment after the very fact within the case.
Drummond has served jail time for robbing a comfort retailer and threatening to go after jurors. He was additionally charged with the tried homicide of a jail guard whereas behind bars, and he was out on bond on the time of the killings, District Lawyer Danny Goodman has stated.
With a inhabitants of about 3,400 folks, Tiptonville is about 120 miles north of Memphis, close to the Mississippi River and scenic Reelfoot Lake.
