Court settles on 14 jurors who will determine the fate of Billy Hawk

Billy Hawk, a bowling alley owner indicted in September 2015 in the 1981 slaying of Johnny Mack Salyer, appears with attorneys before Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Poole to discuss if two pieces of evidence could exonerate him.
Billy Hawk, a bowling alley owner indicted in September 2015 in the 1981 slaying of Johnny Mack Salyer, appears with attorneys before Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Poole to discuss if two pieces of evidence could exonerate him.

Nearly 35 years to the day that authorities pulled Johnny Mack Salyer from a 55-gallon steel drum, opening arguments will begin in his alleged killer's murder trial.

Attorneys spent the morning in Hamilton County Criminal Court, siphoning through a pool of 72 prospective jurors. Around 2 p.m., they settled on 14 people to determine the fate of Billy Hawk.

A grand jury indicted Hawk, 62, in September of first-degree murder and set a $500,000 bond.

During a press conference that same week, District Attorney General Neal Pinkston said Hawk was responsible for the slaying of Salyer. On June 3, 1981, Pinkston said, authorities pulled a 55-gallon steel drum from Lake Chickamauga. Inside, they found a disintegrated man. Several days passed before a relative identified Salyer because of a Rolling Stones tattoo on his thigh.

At the time, Hawk was a suspect in the killing, Pinkston said. He and Salyer were co-defendants in a pending cocaine distribution case. But the case never materialized because of several, younger uncooperative witnesses, he said.

Since the indictment, Pinkston and Hawk's defense attorneys - Bill Speek, Jonathan Turner, and Jimmy Logan - have tangled over evidence.

The defense emphasized that state agents lost the barrel. There could have been exonerating evidence inside, they argued, even though a judge disagreed.

They repeatedly asked prosecutors for a more detailed theory of the killing. They also questioned why a 2015 autopsy showed that Salyer appeared to die from a gunshot wound to the chest when the original X-ray - now missing - never did.

After listening to the arguments, Judge Don Poole ultimately sided with prosecutors and denied a motion to dismiss Hawk's indictment.

If convicted, Hawk faces life in prison or death, according to Pinkston's office.

Because jurors are sequestered (meaning they have to stay in a hotel throughout the trial) attorneys have agreed to stop after opening arguments today.

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