Jury convicts man for North Shore slaying, sending him to prison for life

Briston Smith
Briston Smith
photo Briston Smith

A Hamilton County jury on Monday returned a life sentence for Briston Smith's role in a fatal 2015 drug deal.

Jurors also convicted Smith of attempted especially aggravated robbery in the death of Charles Holsey. He will be sentenced on that class C felony on Aug. 21 in Hamilton County Criminal Court.

Smith's attorneys declined to comment afterward.

Prosecutors said Smith, then 18, was a "linchpin" in the planned robbery that killed Holsey, a 19-year-old Berry College student who agreed to sell him marijuana in a North Chattanooga parking lot on March 2, 2015.

Before that night at 310 Sylvan St., Smith and Holsey had never met. Smith meant to text someone else and wound up talking to Holsey after he messaged the wrong number.

But instead of abandoning the conversation, Smith saw an easy target, prosecutors said, and asked his friends Robert Thompson and Jayda Mayhue to pick up Abram Young, who sometimes carried a gun in his backpack.

According to Holsey's girlfriend, who was in the front passenger seat, Smith ordered Young to shoot Holsey after a scuffle broke out in the car over marijuana prices.

Afterward, they fled the scene, never reporting the incident to police until officers traced a fingerprint on Holsey's vehicle to Smith three days later. During that time, prosecutors said, the young adults made up a story for police. But Smith, the first to be interviewed, blew it when he admitted to playing "his part" in the robbery to score a deal from detectives, prosecutors said.

Smith's defense attorneys argued that didn't make much sense.

No one could corroborate Holsey's girlfriend's testimony, no authorities found physical evidence of a scuffle between Smith and Holsey, no one knew Young brought a gun, and no one in the car discussed a plan, defense attorney Brian Pearce said.

Smith didn't pull the trigger. But prosecutors stressed the concept of a "planned robbery" because felony murder only requires the state to prove someone committed a felony when an unlawful killing occurred, Pearce said.

And none of the defendants - all under age 20 when the crime occurred - were savvy enough to plan a robbery and then construct a cohesive narrative that would pass police interrogation, Pearce argued.

After receiving the case Friday, jurors worked about an hour and a half before returning Monday.

In the meantime, Thompson and Young are both charged with felony murder and attempted especially aggravated robbery and have pending cases. Mayhue was never charged and testified at Smith's trial.

Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.

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