Eyewitness to 2015 brutal slaying in Soddy-Daisy testifies for state

Chad Massengale
Chad Massengale

Tiffany Sneed told jurors Tuesday her ex-boyfriend, Chad Massengale, who occasionally supplied her with methamphetamine, had scared her into participating in a murder.

Just a few hours into the trial of Massengale, the 33-year-old woman said she helped Dekota Burchard and Roy Henderson load Tony Rector's body into a white pickup truck - minutes after the 51-year-old was beaten with a tire iron on Dec. 28, 2015. Sneed said she hadn't done the beating - but she watched Massengale and Henderson each take turns on Rector, a caretaker who had recently become a nuisance to several drug users who lived in a home on Dallas Hollow Road.

Earlier that night, Rector had tried to comfort Burchard's girlfriend during a fight. Burchard then called Massengale, and the Hixson man pulled up around 9 p.m. with two acquaintances, moving the fight indoors to the living room, where Rector was beaten severely.

photo Chad Massengale

"After the living room, [Henderson], Dekota and myself moved his body to the truck," Sneed explained on the stand in Hamilton County Criminal Court.

"Why?" prosecutor Cameron Williams asked.

"Because I was told to."

"And who told you?" Williams asked.

"Chad."

Using Sneed's testimony, prosecutors say Massengale, 31, helped guide a driver to the Soddy Presbyterian Cemetery five minutes away. Then he stomped on Rector's partially nude body once they dumped him on the ground, prosecutors said.

"Have you ever testified or told police the defendant stomped Tony?" Williams asked Tuesday.

"Yes, sir," Sneed said.

"Is that true?" Williams asked.

"I didn't see it," she replied, "but if somebody's walking around thinking their foot's broke "

Williams stopped her. "What do you mean by that?"

"Chad mentioned a broken foot the next morning," Sneed said. "He just said he thought his foot was broken. He didn't say why."

Criminal Court Judge Don Poole dismissed jurors for the evening before defense attorney Steven Moore could cross examine Sneed. But he will have his chance this morning when the trial continues at 9:15 a.m.

Moore stressed in opening arguments that prosecutors were simplifying the story. Sneed had worked as a confidential informant for the Soddy-Daisy Police Department in exchange for help on her own criminal cases, Moore said. She had the greatest motivation to throw Massengale under the bus, but had never been charged like Burchard or Henderson.

"She has given several statements to Wilkey and others. She testified in a hearing in this case," Moore told jurors. "In her own words, she struck Mr. Rector many times. She helped put Rector in the back of this truck - and rode with him to the cemetery. She helped Mr. Rector out of the truck at the cemetery. Yet Ms. Sneed is not only not indicted in this case, she's not even arrested for anything - ever!"

Moore said his client was riding around East Ridge with Henderson's little brother, Nicholas, who testified for the state Tuesday about his perspective at the Dallas Hollow Road home. Like Sneed, he was not charged and said he did not attack Rector; he just drove Massengale around.

"They didn't rush to Soddy-Daisy," Moore said. They rode around for four or five hours, probably getting high."

Massengale never came to the home armed, Moore argued. He came to settle a dispute with Rector. And the state, Moore said, didn't even have a clear picture of who even started the fight (while Sneed testified Burchard threw the first punch, Nicholas Henderson said it was Massengale).

"I hope you listen to the evidence here," Moore said, "and I would hope at the end Judge Poole will give you other options other than first-degree murder."

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

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