Hamilton County, Tenn., jurors must now decide whether a defendant who intended to beat a 51-year-old man also meant to kill him and leave him for dead in a Soddy-Daisy graveyard.
Intent was a major discussion among attorneys this morning in the trial of Chad Massengale, who is charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 28, 2015, slaying of Tony Rector.
Prosecutors say Massengale, 31, went to 10965 Dallas Hollow Road because he wanted to send a message to anyone who was threatening his drug trade and "disrespecting" his women.
Chad MassengaleThat happened to be Rector, a 51-year-old caretaker who battled methamphetamine addiction and who frustrated his next-door neighbors in the months leading up to his death.
Prosecutors argued that on the day of the slaying, Rector made Dekota Burchard, a friend of Massengale's, angry by comforting Burchard's girlfriend during an argument. So he called Massengale.
Massengale got brothers Roy and Nicholas Henderson to drive him over to the house, where his on-again, off-again girlfriend Tiffany Sneed was living next door. When he arrived, prosecutors said, Rector refused to leave, upsetting Massengale and forming his intent to kill.
"When Tony talked back and said, 'I'm not leaving your territory, you have no association with this house,' that's when the intent forms," assistant district attorney Cameron Williams told jurors.
Williams also pointed to a statement Massengale gave about a month later to former Soddy-Daisy Police Department detective Ryan Wilkey: "You don't disrespect my women in here, you don't get in my -- wallet."
According to testimony, Massengale moved the fight indoors, helping beat Rector more than 20 times, part of the time with a four-way tire tool. He had his friends drive him and Rector, who was still alive at that point, to Soddy Presbyterian Cemetery. There, Massengale stomped on Rector's head and then went back with his friends and tried to clean the Dallas Hollow Road home, prosecutors said.
Massengale's defense attorney, Steven Moore, said his client intended to go over and beat Rector, but not kill him.
He cautioned jurors to examine where the state was drawing its recollection of events - from Sneed, who allegedly told a friend she participated in the beating, but denied it to law enforcement.
Because she's considered an accomplice to the crime - but does not face charges - jurors have to use another piece of evidence to corroborate her story, Moore said.
But what else do they have? he asked.
They have Sneed's testimony, which is full of inconsistencies, and Massengale's statement, which is also scattered because he was under the influence, Moore said.
(During their final arguments, prosecutors countered that Nicholas Henderson provided corroborating testimony and that medical examiners had thoroughly detailed the damage to Rector).
But in his closing, Moore told jurors, "the state is telling you [Massengale] had what they call a business motive: Selling drugs."
But former detective Wilkey, who used to work in narcotics, had never heard of Rector, who would have to be a major player in the drug trade to threaten Massengale's business, Moore said.
"If he was a seller of any major significance, wouldn't it be fair to think Wilkey would know the name?" Moore asked. "So is there any proof that there's some business motive other than Chad's rambling in his statement?"
Moore has worked to discredit the state's witnesses since the trial began Tuesday to prove his client never intended to kill, and that he wasn't the only participant in the fatal beating.
But prosecutors also deflected that point before jurors started their deliberations around noon.
First, Tennessee law says jurors don't have to consider any out-of-court statements Sneed gave to law enforcement. And second, this isn't her trial.
"This is the state of Tennessee versus Chad Massengale," assistant district attorney Kevin Brown told jurors. "This is not the state of Tennessee versus Tiffany Sneed, or the state of Tennessee versus Nicholas Henderson."
This is a developing story. Check back with timesfreepress.com for more updates.