DUNLAP, Tenn. - A jury from Sequatchie County, Tenn., was empaneled Tuesday to hear testimony starting Wednesday morning in the trial of the Dayton man charged with first-degree murder in the 2016 hit-and-run death of a local thrift store employee.
Douglas Edward Alvey, 52 when charged in September 2016, is accused in the death of 60-year-old Walter Ralph Hale, a popular employee of the We Care Thrift Store in downtown Dayton. The trial begins at 9 a.m. with opening statements from prosecutors and Alvey's defense team.
Walter HaleJurors were picked from Sequatchie County residents to avoid drawing from a pool exposed to extensive media coverage in Dayton of Hale's death and Alvey's arrest, Circuit Criminal Court Judge Justin Angel told jurors Tuesday in Dunlap. Dunlap, the Sequatchie county seat, is about a half-hour drive to the other side of Walden's Ridge to Dayton, where the crime occurred and Alvey is to be tried.
The jury was to be sequestered in Dayton for the duration of the trial. On Tuesday, Angel said phones had been removed from jurors' rooms but televisions were left in place. He warned jurors to avoid local network television, newspapers and any other local media that might publish or broadcast information about the case.
The trial will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Rhea County Courthouse with opening statements from the prosecution and the defense. The rest of the week has been blocked out for the trial.
Twelfth Judicial District Attorney General Mike Taylor and Assistant District Attorney David Shinn will prosecute the case representing the state, while defense lawyers Clancy Covert and Lee Ortwein will defend Alvey.
Alvey originally was charged with criminal homicide in the Sept. 6, 2016, hit-and-run at the store where the victim worked for several years. In December 2016, the charges against Alvey were upgraded to first-degree murder, and Alvey has remained behind bars since his arrest on a $400,000 bond.
During the initial investigation, Dayton Police Department Chief Chris Sneed said, surveillance video taken minutes before the incident showed a man, later identified as Alvey, walking around inside the We Care store on Market Street in downtown Dayton. Alvey was shopping, measuring furniture and talking with store employees. Hale, who had worked at the store for six years, was behind the facility when a pickup truck driven by Alvey pulled up to the loading dock area, Sneed said.
The chief said that as Alvey's truck pulled out, it appeared to accelerate before hitting Hale and continuing out of the parking lot onto Iowa Avenue. The chief said Hale fell off the hood of Alvey's truck and was run over and left lying near the Krystal restaurant across the street from the thrift store.
Hale was hospitalized but died from his injuries on Sept. 10, 2016.
Hale started working at the thrift store in Dayton after the business he worked at on Rossville Boulevard in Chattanooga closed, We Care manager Ina Carol Ring said in 2016 after the man's death. Ring said other Hale family members had worked at the store, too, and regarding Hale remarked that "everybody here loved him."
The trial in Dayton is being held in the main courtroom of the Rhea County Courthouse.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.