Hamilton County jurors deliberated for seven hours on Saturday in the Billy Hawk murder trial but didn't reach a verdict.
Criminal Court Judge Don Poole announced around 7 p.m. that jurors had finished for the evening. The sequestered jury will remain under guard today and return at 9 a.m. Monday to determine whether Hawk shot and killed Johnny Mack Salyer, stuffing his body in a 55-gallon steel drum 35 years ago.
In 1981, Hawk and Salyer were co-defendants in a pending cocaine distribution case, prosecutors said. Last week, prosecutors called investigators, family members and former lovers to the stand to convince jurors that Hawk killed Salyer to stop his co-conspirator from testifying against him.
Hawk's trio of defense attorneys - Bill Speek, Jim Logan, and Jonathan Turner - countered Salyer was a known drug dealer and addict who owed thousands of dollars to area drug cartels. They said Salyer was caught up in the same 1981 arrest as Hawk and his then-girlfriend, Debra Bales, and was never an informant.
Furthermore, they argued, investigators never produced an eyewitness to the crime, never interviewed cartel members and never produced receipts of Hawk purchasing a barrel. Prosecutors instead relied on several witnesses who gave differing statements to investigators over the years, they said.
After closing arguments, jurors began deliberating around 12:15 p.m. Lance Pope, the executive assistant district attorney, implored jurors to separate the evidence from the defense's insinuations.
For instance, his ex-wife placed Hawk in a boat with a barrel around April or May 1981. Bob Hawk said he noticed his brother on Chickamauga Lake in May 1981 in a fishing boat he'd never seen before. And another ex-girlfriend said Hawk confessed to the crime days before the barrel turned up.
"Was there any proof whatsoever that [cartel member] C.W. Stephens had any access to a boat?" Pope asked. "Was there any proof they had some familiarity with Chickamauga Lake? Any proof they had seen someone in possession of a barrel? What about admitting their involvement to a witness?"
During his closings, Speek said the defense wasn't trying to trick anyone. He pointed out that state witnesses had either inconsistent memories, poor recollection, or no hard evidence - just testimony.
On the final recross of the jury, District Attorney General Neal Pinkston defended those witnesses, saying they wouldn't reopen this chapter of their lives without telling the truth.
He pointed out that in 1981, Salyer's cause of death was listed as undetermined. But, according to one ex-girlfriend's testimony, Hawk said he and others took him into the woods and shot him.
"The more important question is, how would the defendant know this information?" Pinkston asked. "The only person who would know that information is Mr. Salyer's killer."
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at 423-757-6347 or zpeterson@timesfreepress.com. Follow on Twitter @zackpeterson918.