Henry Jones was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for the murder of an elderly couple. Henry Jones was also sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of a teenager. According to court documents Henry Jones would break into the elderly couples home where he would stab to death the two victims, Clarence James, 82, and Lillian James, 67. Henry Jones would also be convicted of a Florida murder where he stabbed a man to death during a robbery. Henry Jones was sentenced to death
The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for a Florida man convicted of murdering a Bartlett couple in their home in 2003.
During a second trial in 2015, a jury found Henry Lee Jones guilty of premeditated murder in the deaths of Clarence and Lillian James. He was sentenced to death for the killings.
82-year-old Clarence James and his 67-year-old wife Lillian were found strangled with their throats slashed at their home on Bartlett Boulevard in August 2003. Jones once lived near Bartlett, and was arrested three weeks later in his hometown of Fort Lauderdale.
Jones had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2009, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2014.
Jones filed appeals after the second conviction and sentencing, which were upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeals and now the Tennessee Supreme Court.
From the Tennessee Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court, which is required to review all death penalty cases, also considered other issues on appeal, including whether the defendant was unconstitutionally denied the right to counsel, whether the trial court properly admitted the former testimony of a witness upon a determination that the witness was “unavailable,” whether the evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to convict the defendant, and whether the trial court erred when it denied the appointment of a mitigation expert. The Court also conducted a required review of Jones’ death sentences.
The Court held that the trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion for mistrial based upon Jones’ own ineffectiveness in representing himself or in denying Jones’ motion to appoint a second attorney. Furthermore, the Court found no error on the part of the trial court on a number of evidentiary issues raised by Jones. Next, the Supreme Court determined that the evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to support Jones’ convictions for the premeditated murder of both victims.
Under the Court’s mandatory review of Jones’ death sentences, the Court determined that the evidence presented by the State supported all of the aggravating circumstances applied by the jury. Additionally, given that Jones waived any presentation of mitigating circumstances, the Court agreed with the jury that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstance in this case. Finally, the Court determined that the death sentences were not disproportionate to sentences imposed in other similar cases.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Sharon G. Lee agreed with the Court’s outcome, but stated she believed that when reviewing whether a death sentence is disproportionate to similar cases, the Court should not limit its review solely to cases in which the death penalty was imposed, but should review all first degree murder cases in which life imprisonment or a sentence of death was imposed. Using that analysis, she also concluded that the defendant’s sentence of death was not excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.
Oral arguments for this case were heard as part of the Court’s S.C.A.L.E.S. (Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students) project at Lipscomb University during the American Legion Auxiliary Volunteer Girls State program. To read the majority opinion in State of Tennessee v. Henry Lee Jones, authored by Chief Justice Jeff Bivins, and the concurring opinion by Justice Sharon G. Lee, go to the opinions section of TNCourts.gov.
Jones remains the suspect in another similar murder in 2002 in Fort Lauderdale. Jones Was also convicted and sentenced to death in a 2003 Melbourne, Florida killing.
Nickolus Johnson was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Nickolus Johnson was in a domestic incident with his girlfriend when Bristol police officer Mark Vance arrived at the door to investigate a complaint. Nickolus Johnson would fatally shoot the officer. Nickolus Johnson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Officer Mark Vance of the Bristol Police Department was shot and killed on November 27, 2004, while responding to a dispatch call at the home of Walter Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, a long-distance truck driver, lived on Belmont Drive in Bristol, Tennessee with his twin seventeen-year-old daughters, B.M. and T.M.1 , and B.M.’s one-year-old son. On the evening of November 27, Mr. Mitchell left his home to pick up a load of goods for his employer. His grandson, two daughters, and two of their friends remained at the home. Not long after Mr. Mitchell left his home, B.M. called him to report that a man was at the house threatening her with a gun. Mr. Mitchell called 9–1–1 and turned his truck around to go home.
The armed man at the Mitchell residence was the defendant, Nickolus Johnson. Mr. Johnson and B.M. had been seeing each other socially, and B.M. was pregnant by him. Mr. Johnson was twenty-six years old and already had two young children by two different women. He insisted that B.M. have an abortion, but B.M. refused. Earlier that evening, they argued over the telephone about her pregnancy and her refusal to have an abortion. Mr. Johnson became angry and B.M. abruptly ended the discussion. About ten minutes later, Mr. Johnson arrived unexpectedly at the Mitchell home, entered the house, and started pacing back and forth, “yelling and cussing.” Mr. Johnson, armed with two guns, was worried that Mr. Mitchell would press statutory rape charges against him, and he threatened to kill B.M. and her father. Mr. Johnson laid the guns on the coffee table in the living room, but later picked up the guns and put them in his pocket. Mr. Johnson threatened to kill the first person who walked through the door. He vowed that he would go to prison for murder, but not for statutory rape. Termaine McMorris, a mutual friend of Mr. Johnson and B.M., arrived at the house and tried unsuccessfully to calm Mr. Johnson. Meanwhile, B.M. continued to talk to her father on the telephone. When she told Mr. Johnson that her father had called the police, he responded that the “police can’t dodge these shells” and threatened to shoot any police officer who arrived at the house.
Officer Vance was dispatched to the Mitchell residence. From an upstairs bedroom window, Mr. Johnson watched Officer Vance arrive. T.M. and Mr. McMorris met Officer Vance on the front porch and told him everything was “okay.” Officer Vance insisted that he still needed to go into the house. T.M. and Mr. McMorris entered the split-level home first and proceeded up the stairs. Officer Vance was right behind them armed only with his flashlight; his gun was still holstered. Mr. Johnson was standing out of sight in the upstairs hallway. As Officer Vance reached the hallway and living room area at the top of the stairs, Mr. Johnson, from a distance of one to two feet, shot Officer Vance in the head, mortally wounding him. No words were exchanged before the shot was fired. Mr. Johnson immediately threw one of his guns into the living room and said “I’m out.” As he was going out of the front door, Mr. Johnson laid down the other gun.
Lieutenant Eric Senter, also of the Bristol Police Department, arrived at the Mitchell residence at the same time as Officer Vance was entering the home. Lt. Senter watched Officer Vance enter the residence and proceed up the stairs. As Lt. Senter was walking to the front door, he saw an arm holding a gun extend from the hallway toward Officer Vance and heard the gun blast. Lt. Senter retreated behind a nearby tree and called for back-up.
Officer Daniel Graham of the Bristol Police Department arrived at the scene as Lt. Senter took cover behind the tree. Mr. Johnson ran out of the house, followed by Mr. McMorris. Lt. Senter shouted at the two men and ordered them to lie on the ground. T.M. carried the gun out of the house and repeatedly shouted “why did you shoot him?” T.M. was also ordered to lie on the ground. As Mr. Johnson was being handcuffed, he said that he had “shot the fucker.” Lt. Senter asked him who he had shot and Mr. Johnson said “I shot the fucking cop․ I shot him in the head. He’s dead․ Ain’t no use of going in there.” Then Mr. Johnson began laughing. According to Mr. Johnson, he shot Officer Vance because Mr. Johnson did not call the police and did not want the police there. After the officers placed Mr. Johnson in a patrol cruiser, Mr. Johnson continued to laugh about shooting Officer Vance.
The officers then entered the residence and discovered Officer Vance lying in the upstairs hallway, shot once in the head. Bristol Police Officer Bradley Michael Tate arrived shortly afer the shooting and attempted to provide medical assistance, but Officer Vance was not breathing, in cardiac arrest, and had no pulse. According to Dr. William McCormick, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Tennessee, the bullet entered Officer Vance’s right eye and proceeded in a sharp downward angle, causing massive shattering of the middle and anterior cranial parts. Officer Vance died “as the result of a single intermediate range gunshot wound to the face, with the entrance slightly above the right eye about the level of the mid-eyebrow with destruction of the skull[,] damage to the brain[,] ․ and bleeding.”
David Ivy was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for the murder of his ex girlfriend. According to court documents David Ivy had previously assaulted the victim and she had obtained a protection order against him however before police could arrest him he would murder the woman, Lakisha Thomas. David Ivy would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
In June of 2000, the defendant, David Ivy, was released from prison and placed on parole. Thereafter, he began dating the victim, LaKisha Thomas.
The relationship was marked by Ivy’s violence against Thomas. For example, Jackie Bland (“Bland”), the victim’s cousin, testified that she once saw Ivy pull Thomas’s hair and that on another occasion, Thomas told her that Ivy had kicked in her door and broken her furniture. Deborah Kelley (“Kelley”), another cousin, testified that she also saw Ivy grab Thomas by her hair; when Kelley intervened, Ivy said, “I told you about playing with me, bitch.” Andrea Hunt (“Hunt”) testified that Thomas told her that Ivy “had her on 23 and 1,” because he would only allow her to leave her apartment one hour per day.
In May of 2001, Officer Alvin Clark of the Memphis Police Department responded to a call at Thomas’s apartment on Millbranch Road. Thomas told Officer Clark that Ivy had forced his way into her apartment and threatened to kill her. Thomas said that Ivy had been threatening to harm her because she wanted to end the relationship. Officer Clark testified that Thomas was “very shaken up and afraid.”
Similarly, on the morning of June 6, 2001, Officer Steve Cummings responded to a call at Jackie Bland’s apartment, where he found a bleeding and bruised Thomas. Thomas told Officer Cummings that her “ex-boyfriend,” Ivy, had attacked her at a nearby convenience store and had struck her in the head “with a black Uzi type pistol.” Thomas told Officer Cummings that Ivy, who was also known as “Day Day,” told her “he wasn’t going back to jail” and “he would ․ kill her.” Officer Cummings testified that Thomas had a two-inch laceration on her head, bruising on her chest, and a black eye on the right side of her face.
Deborah Kelley and Jackie Bland also saw the victim after she was attacked on June 6, 2001. According to Kelley, she arrived at Bland’s apartment and found that Thomas was bleeding and bruised. Bland said, “Look what [Ivy] did․” Kelley testified that Thomas told her she had been attacked by Ivy and that Ivy wanted to kill her. Bland called the police. After Officer Cummings responded to the call, Kelley and Bland drove Thomas to the Criminal Justice Center to swear out a warrant against Ivy. While en route, they saw Ivy following them in his car. Kelley pulled over and called police, but Ivy was gone when the police arrived. The women then continued to the Criminal Justice Center where Thomas swore out a warrant for aggravated assault against Ivy.2
After leaving the Criminal Justice Center, Thomas, Kelley, and Bland drove to a liquor store. Ivy, who again had been following them, appeared in the parking lot and approached the car. According to Bland, Ivy told Thomas, “Bitch, if you put the police in my business, I’m going to kill you.” Similarly, when Kelley returned to the car from the liquor store, Thomas told her that Ivy threatened to kill her “if she put the police in his business.”
Ivy’s conduct in the liquor store parking lot was captured by a surveillance camera and was witnessed by two employees. One employee, Terrance Hibler, heard Ivy tell Thomas that “it wasn’t over” and that “[h]e was going to get her.” According to Hibler, Thomas, who was “shaking real bad,” said, “I know he’s going to kill me.” Similarly, another employee, Frank Sullivan, noticed that Thomas was “shaking” and “bruised pretty badly.” He too heard Thomas say that Ivy was going to kill her. The police were called; when they arrived at the liquor store, Thomas was taken to the Criminal Justice Center, where she obtained an ex parte order of protection against Ivy.3
Two days later, on the morning of June 8, 2001, Thomas and Hunt were outside Bland’s apartment complex in Thomas’s car. According to Hunt, Ivy ran up to the car while wearing a black cap and a towel over part of his face. Ivy pulled the towel from his face and said, “Oh, bitch, you want me dead, huh?” He shot Thomas five times and fled. Bland, who was outside her apartment, likewise saw someone wearing a black hat, sunglasses, and a towel over his mouth run up to the car and “open fire.” Although the shooter’s face was partly covered with a towel, Bland said that he resembled Ivy. Similarly, Deborah Kelley, who was inside Bland’s apartment, heard a gunshot followed by screaming. According to Kelley, Bland said, “Call the police. Day Day shot [the victim].” Kelley then heard the noise of tires in the parking lot.
Gregory Kelley, the brother of Deborah Kelley and Jackie Bland, was working as a maintenance supervisor at the apartment complex when he heard gunshots and screaming. He ran to a green car and saw that Thomas had been shot. He pulled Thomas from the car and applied pressure on her wounds while shouting for someone to call 911. He then saw a “white car speed up out of the apartments” that resembled Ivy’s car.
Officer Alvin Clark arrived at the scene and saw a white car speeding from the apartment complex. He found that the victim had no pulse. Spent shell casings, bullet fragments, and live rounds were found at the scene.
Dr. O.C. Smith, the medical examiner for Shelby County, Tennessee, conducted an autopsy on the victim. The victim had five gunshot wounds that entered the right side of her body from a distance of no more than two feet away. Although Dr. Smith could not determine the sequence of the gunshots, he concluded that two of the gunshots struck the victim’s heart and that the gunshots affected all of the victim’s major organs except her spleen. Dr. Smith concluded that the multiple gunshots caused the victim’s death and that the two gunshots to the victim’s heart would have “ended her life the quickest.”
Ivy was arrested on June 27, 2001, and he was incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail pending trial. He escaped from jail in May of 2002. Two months later, Ivy was captured in San Diego, California, after diving through a window and fleeing from police officers for several blocks.
After the prosecution rested its case in chief, Vickie Crawford testified on the defendant’s behalf. She stated that she had lived with Ivy and that Ivy was the father of her daughter. She learned that Ivy was dating Thomas in October of 2000, but she had heard of no problems in their relationship.
The jury convicted Ivy of premeditated first degree murder. The trial then moved into the sentencing phase to determine the punishment.
Stephen Hugueley was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for a prison murder. According to court documents Stephen Hugueley was serving a life sentence for the murder of his mother and would murder another prison inmate a few years later. Stephen Hugueley would stab to death a prison counselor in order to get the death penalty. Stephen Hugueley would be sentenced to death. Stephen Hugueley would take his own life in July 2021
The evidence adduced at Defendant’s trial established that, on January 17, 2002, Stephen Hugueley was an inmate at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility, where he was housed in the “F” pod. That day, correctional counselor Delbert Steed entered the “F” pod in order to counsel inmates. Mr. Steed was sitting at a table when Defendant approached from behind and began stabbing Mr. Steed with a homemade weapon. Defendant stabbed Mr. Steed a total of thirty-six times. Defendant did not cease stabbing the victim until the handle of his homemade weapon broke off. Once Defendant was unable to continue using his weapon, he lay down on the floor of the pod and permitted other correctional officers to restrain and remove him. The victim was recovered with the sharpened portion of the weapon still embedded in his back, and he was transported to the infirmary.
Mary Harris testified that she was working in the control room from which she could view the activity occurring in the pod. She observed Stephen Hugueley approach the victim from behind and begin stabbing him. Upon witnessing Defendant’s attack on Mr. Steed, she called for assistance. Another female officer opened the door to the pod and told Defendant to stop. At that, Defendant rose and started toward the officer “with the knife drawn back like he was going to stab her.” The officer closed the door, and Defendant returned to the victim, recommencing his attack. Ms. Harris testified further that Officer Donald Watkins entered the pod and told Defendant to stop. According to Ms. Harris, Defendant stabbed the victim once or twice more and then stopped when the handle on the weapon broke. At that point, Defendant allowed himself to be taken into custody.
Donald Watkins testified that he is a Senior Correctional Officer at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility. He responded to Ms. Harris’ call for assistance. As he looked through the door into the pod, he saw Defendant kneeling down next to the victim. When he saw Stephen Hugueley stab the victim with a homemade weapon, he entered the pod shouting, “Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon!” Mr. Watkins stated that Defendant complied immediately and lay face down on the floor. Mr. Watkins called for medical assistance, and when he heard the victim making a groaning noise “like he was in pain,” Mr. Watkins tried to reassure the victim that help was coming.
Pursuant to his employment by the Tennessee Department of Correction as an Internal Affairs Investigator, Mr. Joseph Vernon reported to the crime scene where he collected evidence and took photographs. Mr. Vernon was present when the murder weapon was removed from Mr. Steed’s body. He described the weapon as a “quarter inch rod that ha[d] been sharpened to a very fine point” on one end. Mr. Vernon stated that the point was “razor sharp.” The weapon measured approximately eleven inches long. The handle of the weapon was a “Magic Marker” pen.
Mr. Don Dunaway, also an Internal Affairs Investigator with the Tennessee Department of Correction, interviewed Stephen Hugueley after the killing. After being informed of his rights and agreeing to waive them, Defendant gave Mr. Dunaway a lengthy statement in which he described his intense dislike of the victim. Mr. Dunaway testified about the statement. Additionally, an audio tape of Defendant’s statement was played for the jury, and a transcript of the tape was provided. Defendant described numerous conflicts and confrontations that he had had with Mr. Steed in his capacity as a correctional officer. Defendant claimed that Mr. Steed had threatened to write him up and told Defendant that he was “friends with these gangs around here! They like me! They love me! ․ you ain’t nothing!”
Stephen Hugueley killed the victim on a Thursday. Defendant told Mr. Dunaway that he began thinking about killing the victim on the previous Monday. On that day, he got his weapon but then decided to “just ․ leave it alone.” Defendant described to Mr. Dunaway what then occurred on Thursday, while Mr. Steed was in the pod:
I started to walk up and say something to him, and one of the little gang members that he talked to a lot there, run up and set down at the table and started talkin’ to him. And I stood over to the side for a few minutes, and he looked at me, and he just shook his head ․ just turned around and faced the other direction. And I said, “F[-]k this!” And I went to the house, and got my damn knife and packed my property up real quick ․ throwed my s[-]t in a box and un-done my TV, and set it over to the side, and went and killed his ass! It was that plain and simple.
Stephen Hugueley admitted to Mr. Dunaway that he intended to kill the victim by stabbing “the most vital organs first ․ the heart and the lung.”
Mr. Dunaway testified that in May of 2003, Defendant wrote a letter to the district attorney. Mr. Dunaway obtained this letter and subsequently verified with Defendant that he had written and signed it. This letter was admitted into evidence and states, in pertinent part, the following: “I did with malicious intent premeditatedly murder Delbert Steed, and as indicated in my statement to Internal Affairs, I have no regret or remorse for this crime and I fully intended to kill others that day but was unable to do so because the handle on my weapon broke.”
Dr. O’Brian Clary Smith testified as an expert in the field of forensic pathology about the autopsy to the victim. Dr. Smith removed the murder weapon from the victim’s back. He stated that the victim’s cause of death was “[m]ultiple stab wounds, thirty-six.” Twelve of these wounds were lethal. Dr. Smith testified that there were ten wounds to the victim’s chest area, three of which were fatal. There were fourteen wounds to the victim’s back area, nine of which were fatal. Additionally, there was one wound to the victim’s abdomen and eleven wounds to the victim’s left arm.
Defendant testified at trial. He stated about his attack on the victim:
I was stabbing Counselor Steed. He was laying on the floor, stomach down. I was trying to drive it plumb through and hit the concrete below him. That was my intentions. I heard the door pop behind me. I turned around and it was the Watkins guy that testified yesterday, and a little girl named Perry. When I seen them, I took one and a half steps toward them. At that time, I still had the weapon in my hand. And they said, “He’s got a knife,” and slammed the door.
And they stood outside the door while I stabbed the man while he was laying on the floor, face down, I stabbed him about eight more times trying to run it plumb through him. They didn’t come in until when I drawed back going to hit him again, I didn’t see nothing but a piece of pen, Magic Marker sticking out of my hand․
At that point, Defendant threw the weapon handle away and lay down on the floor. Defendant also testified about a grievance he had filed in which he set forth various complaints about the victim and the victim’s supervisor. He explained that he had made numerous cell change requests and requests to be placed in the anger management program, “all in an effort to get away from Counselor Steed” and the unit manager. Defendant stated that the victim “had a smart ass mouth” which was the source of their “problem.” Defendant continued: “He had a habit of shooting his mouth off to inmates, threatening them, and I wasn’t going to stand for it in any way, shape or form.”
On cross-examination, Defendant stated, “In the world I live in, you die for disrespect. It should apply to both employee and inmate.” He explained that he had made the murder weapon from a piece of metal removed from a laundry cart. He used sandpaper from a belt sander to sharpen the point. He stated that he would not have quit stabbing the victim if the handle of the weapon had not broken off. He admitted that he aimed for the victim’s vital organs.
Defendant acknowledged that his actions in killing the victim were both intentional and premeditated. He also acknowledged that during his conversations with defense counsel he had consistently maintained that he wanted the death penalty.
Upon considering this proof, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on Defendant’s charge of first degree premeditated murder.
A man on Tennessee’s death row died Friday, three days after the state filed for a new execution date in his case.
This week, he once again pleaded with the courts to be let out of solitary confinement, where he’d been for 18 years.
Stephen L. Hugueley, 53, was pronounced dead at 2:35 a.m. Friday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where he was housed, a release from the Tennessee Department of Correction indicated.
He died of apparent natural causes, according to the agency.
“Years of this abuse took a tremendous physical and mental toll upon Stephen. That Stephen withstood this treatment for so long is a testament to the strength of his spirit,” his attorney, Federal Public Defender Amy Harwell, wrote Friday.
Hugueley was sentenced to death in 2003 after a conviction for first degree murder in the 2002 killing of prison counselor Delbert Steed at the Hardeman County Correctional Complex.
Steed was stabbed 36 times.
Hugueley was serving time on previous convictions at the time of Steed’s killing.
He received a life sentence in August 1986 after he was convicted of fatally shooting his mother, Rachel Waller of Dyer County, with a shotgun and dumping her body into the Forked Deer River. He was 18 at the time.
In 1991, Hugueley killed a fellow inmate while he was incarcerated at the West Tennessee High Security Prison.
Six years later, Hugueley stabbed another inmate at the state’s maximum security prison at the time, Brushy Mountain. He was convicted of attempted first degree murder.
Hugueley was later moved to the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Harwell said his interactions with the prison system started very young.
Stephen Hugueley entered the Tennessee Department of Correction as a profoundly damaged individual who from his 12th birthday to today spent less than two years outside of an institutional setting,” she wrote. “He left that system today after nearly two decades in solitary confinement where he had severely limited interaction with other humans and was systematically denied access to treatment and basic health care.”
Hugueley sued TDOC leadership in federal court over his continued solitary confinement in July 2019.
In a letter filed Tuesday, he called living in solitary confinement for 18 years “psychological and physical torture,” and accused the department of trying to drive him to suicide, “like my father.”
“Every day that they can delay providing me any meaningful relief is a good day for the defendants and a psychologically and physically horrifying day for me, and it is a day closer to my death, a day which I can never reclaim, thereby, making it even more apparent that it is their intent to hold me in solitary confinement without any immediate and meaningful relief until I am dead,” he wrote.
The same day, the state moved to set his execution date. It was not scheduled before his death.
His exact cause of death was not immediately available, pending official determination by the medical examiner, TDOC said.
Tennessee resumed executions for capital crimes in 2018 and has since executed seven people, most recently in February 2020 before pandemic considerations delayed others scheduled. New dates have not been been set for any of the 47 people remaining on death row as of Friday morning
Henry Hodges was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for a robbery murder. According to court documents Henry Hodges who was working as a male prostitute would rob and murder a man who propositioned him for services. Henry Hodges was also convicted of another murder. Henry Hodges would be convicted and sentenced to death.
he defendant, Henry Eugene Hodges, entered a guilty plea and was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder. Thereafter, the penalty phase of the trial commenced. The State presented proof of the circumstances of the offense through the testimony of Trina Brown, the defendant’s fifteen-year-old girlfriend. Brown testified that one week before the murder she and the twenty-four-year-old defendant, who were living with the defendant’s brother in Smyrna, Tennessee, decided to move to Florida. To get money for the move, Hodges, a male homosexual prostitute, told Brown that he would rob and kill the next person who propositioned him. Hodges discussed with Brown how the crimes would be carried out. Hodges repeated these statements on May 14, 1990, the day of this murder.
On the night of May 14, Brown and Hodges went to Centennial Park in Nashville. When the victim, Ronald Bassett, approached, Hodges talked with him, and they left together in the victim’s vehicle and went to the victim’s residence at 3133A, Parthenon Avenue, across from Centennial Park. Ten or fifteen minutes later, Hodges returned to the park on foot, and along with Brown, drove back to the victim’s residence in his own car. Hodges told Brown to lie down in the backseat of the car so no one could see her. When they arrived at the victim’s residence, Hodges told Brown to wait in the car. After an unspecified period of time, Hodges returned to the car, wearing gloves, and asked Brown to come into the house. Brown testified that when she arrived, Bassett was lying face down on the bed in his bedroom with a pillow over his head. Hodges had bound his feet together with duct tape and had handcuffed his hands. While Bassett lay helplessly, Brown and the defendant ransacked the house searching for items of value. After obtaining the personal identification number for the victim’s automatic teller card, Brown and the defendant “took a break,” drank a coke, and discussed whether to kill Bassett. Brown testified that she told Hodges to kill Bassett to prevent their arrest. Hodges then went into the bedroom and, ignoring the victim’s pleas not to kill him, strangled Bassett to death with a nylon rope. Brown testified that she heard Bassett moan and make a choking sound and that it took about five minutes for Bassett to die.
In an attempt to remove any fingerprints, the defendant wiped off various items in the residence. After turning the air conditioner in Bassett’s bedroom on high to prevent discovery of the body, Hodges and Brown left the victim’s residence, taking the victim’s automobile and several items of personal property, including jewelry, a gun, and a VCR. After using Bassett’s automatic teller card to withdraw the twenty-four-hour maximum of four hundred dollars from his account, the pair returned to the house of the defendant’s brother and went to bed. The next day, having learned that the victim’s body had been discovered, Brown and the defendant abandoned the victim’s car in rural Rutherford County and drove to Georgia in their own car. They were eventually arrested in North Carolina. Items of the victim’s personal property were found in their possession at this time. Also, the defendant’s fingerprints were found on items inside Bassett’s home, and Brown had been photographed withdrawing money with Bassett’s automatic teller card.
Testifying for the State at the sentencing hearing, Dr. Charles Harlan, the chief medical examiner for Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, confirmed that Bassett had died from ligature strangulation. Dr. Harlan opined that Bassett would have remained alive and conscious for at least three and perhaps as long as five minutes during the strangulation. Harlan also found abrasions on the victim’s wrists consistent with handcuffs.
The State proved that the defendant had been convicted of armed robbery, attempted kidnaping and robbery in Hamilton County in 1984. The State also established that the defendant had been convicted of murder in Fulton County, Georgia, in July 1990. The record reveals that the Georgia killing occurred when the defendant and Brown arrived in Atlanta after murdering Bassett. Hodges made arrangements with a man to engage in homosexual acts for an agreed price. Hodges accompanied the man to his motel room, but when the man was unable to pay the agreed price, Hodges murdered him.
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