Hamilton County jurors will hear closing arguments today in a 2015 case in which a 51-year-old man was beaten in a living room and hauled to his eventual death in a Soddy-Daisy graveyard.
Prosecutors say Chad Massengale should spend life in prison for attacking Tony Rector at 10965 Dallas Hollow Road with two friends and then stomping on his head at Soddy Presbyterian Cemetery on Dec. 28, 2015.
Since Tuesday, they have sought to convince jurors that a first-degree murder verdict is appropriate, while Massengale's co-defendants, Dekota Burchard and Roy Henderson, remain in custody on the same charge.
Defense attorneys don't dispute Massengale participated in the beatdown, they just want jurors to find the 31-year-old Hixson man guilty of a lesser charge because they say Rector's death wasn't premeditated.
This week they have suggested Massengale's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Tiffany Sneed, also hit Rector with a tire tool in an effort to shift blame among all parties. And Thursday was no exception.
After prosecutors rested their case, defense attorney Steven Moore called Michael James, a friend who testified Sneed called him in a panic that night and admitted to hitting Rector with a four-way tool.
Earlier in the week, when prosecutors called her to the stand, Sneed testified Rector was a caretaker at the Dallas Hollow Road home and had upset some tenants in the months leading up to this death. Massengale and Henderson came into the picture around 9:30 p.m. that day after Burchard called. Allegedly, Rector had tried to comfort Burchard's girlfriend during an argument and was refusing to leave, Sneed said.
After Massengale arrived, the confrontation turned into an all-out fight indoors. Sneed said she initially ran to the house next door, where she lived, before rushing inside to see Henderson attacking Rector with a tire tool. She never partook in the violence, she said, and has never been charged.
That account, however, went against James' testimony, Moore said.
James, who is serving federal time for a felon- in-possession-of-a-firearm conviction, said he went to the house the next morning and noticed Burchard limping around with blood on his clothes. Sneed previously testified that Massengale stomped on Rector, and that she knew this because he was complaining about his foot the next morning.
James said he then drove Massengale and Burchard to the graveyard, knowing something horrible had happened because of his conversation with Sneed. "That's when we saw the body," he said. "Nobody thought it was going to be dead."
Days later, former Soddy-Daisy Police Department Detective Ryan Wilkey caught up with James.
Prosecutors pointed out that James initially didn't tell the truth to Wilkey by failing to mention Sneed's confession on the phone. That didn't stop the detective from asking James to wear a wire to try to recapture Sneed's confession. But the effort failed, James said, because he couldn't get Sneed to fess up.
Before jurors were dismissed for the evening, prosecutor Cameron Williams quizzed James about his other illegal gun and drug possession charges in state and federal court. He went through five or six convictions, asking the prisoner to verify each one.
"Thank you," Williams concluded. "No further questions."
Jurors will begin deliberating this morning after attorneys give closing arguments in Criminal Court.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.