Age at Arrest: 30
Date of Birth: 10/14/1985
Arresting Agency: Soddy Daisy
Last Date of Arrest: 01/31/2016
Charge(s):
CRIMINAL HOMICIDE
AGGRAVATED ASSAULT
Hamilton County jurors said a Hixson man didn't just intend to beat Tony Rector when he struck him about 20 times and left him for dead in a Soddy- Daisy graveyard.
Chad Massengale, they ruled, intended to kill on Dec. 28, 2015.
Intent was a major discussion among attorneys Friday in the trial of Massengale, 31, who was sentenced to life in prison after jurors returned their verdict around 4 p.m. after four hours of deliberation.
Prosecutors argued 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. "Anyone" 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.
On the day of his slaying, Rector enraged Dekota Burchard when he comforted Burchard's girlfriend during an argument. So Burchard called Massengale, a friend of his with ties to the Aryan Nation.
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.
"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 during closing arguments.
Williams 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, partly with a four-way tire tool. Massengale then ordered his friend to 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 to clean the Dallas Hollow Road home with his friends, prosecutors said. After the slaying, he traveled to South Carolina before he was picked up by police.
Massengale's defense attorney, Steven Moore, who declined to comment afterward, argued the state was relying on a witness who participated in the crime and a drug theory that didn't make sense.
"The state is telling you [Massengale] had what they call a business motive: Selling drugs," he said.
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.
"If he was a seller of any major significance, wouldn't it be fair to think Wilkey would know the name?" Moore asked during closing arguments. "So is there any proof that there's some business motive other than Chad's rambling in his statement?"
Besides, Moore argued, Massengale was already coming over to Dallas Hollow Road to see Sneed, and actually got the call from Burchard around 3 p.m. Massengale spent the next several hours riding around with the Henderson brothers, probably getting intoxicated, he said, pointing to Sneed's testimony that Massengale arrived at the house with a light beer in hand.
For most of the trial, which began Tuesday, Moore worked to discredit the state's witnesses.
He noted that Nicholas Henderson, who drove Massengale to the house but never went inside, said Massengale threw the punch - when Sneed said it was Burchard. He asked how Nicholas Henderson could look out the truck mirror and see any stomping if Massengale and Burchard left the doors open when they got to the graveyard. And he honed in on Sneed, who allegedly told a friend she participated in the beat-down but denied it to law enforcement. She and Nicholas Henderson don't face charges, while Burchard and Roy Henderson have pending first-degree murder cases.
Prosecutors, who get two closing arguments, deflated Moore's points right before jurors began deliberating around noon.
First, prosecutors said, Tennessee law says jurors don't have to consider any out-of-court statements Sneed gave to law enforcement. And second, this wasn't Sneed's trial.
"This is the state of Tennessee versus Chad Massengale," assistant district attorney Kevin Brown said. "This is not the state of Tennessee versus Tiffany Sneed, or the state of Tennessee versus Nicholas Henderson."
Both Burchard and Roy Henderson are scheduled to appear before Criminal Court judge Don Poole on Aug. 2.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.