Not-guilty pleas entered in NE Alabama slayings

A pair of not-guilty pleas were entered this week in two unrelated murder cases in Northeast Alabama, one of them a capital murder case from a July slaying and the other going back to a cold-case killing from 1997.

In the most recent death, 32-year-old Valley Head, Ala., resident Daniel Adam Beaty -- who faces a capital murder charge in the death of 33-year-old Daniel Thomas Fuller -- pleaded not guilty during a hearing Tuesday at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Fort Payne, according to Bob Johnston, chief deputy district attorney for the 9th Judicial District.

photo Daniel Adam Beaty

Johnston said the plea doesn't affect the state's approach to prosecution in the case.

photo Daniel Thomas Fuller

Authorities say Beaty used a knife to kill Fuller, whose body was found by horseback riders on Aug. 31 near the Mule Day campground in Ider, Ala. The body had been there since July 21, authorities said during the initial investigation.

Fuller's body was found in a wooded area on land DeKalb County Sheriff Jimmy Harris said belonged to Beaty's grandmother. Harris described the area as being a "regular place people go drink and do drugs."

Harris would not discuss a motive in the case, but he said Beaty claimed he had a dispute with Fuller over a girlfriend. And Beaty reportedly sold some of Fuller's property and his vehicle, Harris said.

The murder weapon was described as "a very large knife," Harris said.

In the second case, out of Jackson County, Barry Whitton, 46, is charged in the beating death of his first wife, 28-year-old Michelle Townson Whitton. Her body was found in neighboring DeKalb County near the town of Powell on Jan. 20, 1998, just over a month after she was reported missing on Dec. 7, 1997.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange's spokeswoman, Joy Patterson, confirmed that Whitton entered a not-guilty plea but said prosecutors cannot comment further on the case. The attorney general's office in Montgomery is prosecuting the case.

Whitton entered the plea Tuesday during his arraignment on murder charges that stemmed from an indictment charging him in the cold-case slaying issued in December.

Michelle Whitton's body was found in a shallow grave under sticks and rocks near the Jackson-DeKalb county line about 15 miles from the couple's home in Dutton, Ala., according to archives on the Huntsville Times' website al.com.

Barry Whitton also is suspected in the 2007 disappearance of his second wife, 36-year-old Kimberly Compton Whitton, and her 11-year-old daughter, Haleigh Brean Culwell, according to the newspaper's accounts. He has not been charged in connection with their disappearances but netted the federal weapons charges while authorities were searching for the mother and daughter on Barry Whitton's 40-acre farm near Section.

Jackson County authorities are still seeking information in that case.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton atbbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.

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