A 1981 first-degree murder trial will continue full-speed ahead in Hamilton County Criminal Court after a judge decided not to dismiss the case.
Last month, defense attorneys asked Judge Don Poole to throw out the first-degree murder indictment of Billy Hawk, a 62-year-old bowling alley owner accused of slaying Johnny Mack Salyer. On June 3, 1981, authorities pulled Salyer’s decomposed body from a 55-gallon steel drum on Chickamauga Lake but never charged anyone with the crime until September.
The attorneys, Bill Speek, Jonathan Turner and Jim Logan, made a trio of points. First, state investigators at the time never preserved the barrel, which was taken to the county highway department and destroyed. That barrel could have contained forensic evidence that exonerated Hawk, they said. Furthermore, they argued, one of the state’s witnesses claimed to see Hawk with the barrel – but how could they identify the right barrel in court if it no longer existed?
Secondly, they argued, prosecutors needed to release a fleshed-out version of their theory. Otherwise, how could the attorneys produce a credible defense? As they argued in April, a former Chattanooga Police Department detective testified that Hawk showed him a cabin in Georgia where the killing might have happened. But that cabin was outside of Hamilton County, where Hawk was charged with the crime.
The state’s theory contained similar holes, they argued. Salyer was last seen 10 days before he turned up in the barrel. That left 10 days for Hawk to be anywhere in the region. Without a more detailed “bill of particulars,” they couldn’t adequately prepare, they said.
Finally, defense attorneys broached the topic of Salyer’s X-rays. During the April hearing, the defense called Teddy Ladd, who created the X-rays in 1981 for the medical examiner, since deceased. Ladd found no bullet wound in his chest radiograph. He didn’t know, though, that his boss never performed an autopsy.
In 2015, the state moved to have Salyer’s body exhumed, and in his body bag examiners found a bullet. After performing the autopsy, Chief Medical Examiner James Metcalfe determined Salyer died from a gunshot wound to the chest. But the defense took issue, saying the original X-rays were missing. They further contended that Metcalfe had said he based his findings on common sense – which disqualified him as an expert witness for the state. On the stand, Metcalfe vehemently denied uttering such a phrase.
After listening to the defense and the prosecution tangle for nearly six hours, Poole said he would take the matter under advisement. In a motion filed recently, the judge respectfully denied each of the defense motions to dismiss.
On the issue of the missing barrel: “The state contends that the barrel did not have evidentiary value and therefore it did not have a duty to preserve it. The Court agrees. Fingerprints and DNA were unlikely to survive the submersion.”
On the issue of the witness who saw Hawk with the barrel: “The defendants insist that, had the barrel been preserved, the witness who saw him with a metal barrel could have identified it. The Court respectfully disagrees. Without evidence of a description more distinctive than the description ‘metal barrel,’ it is not reasonable to infer that the barrel was distinctive enough to allow subsequent identification from the barrel but not a photograph of the barrel.”
On the issue of the state’s theory: “Apparently, the state regards the defendant’s statements to Mr. Slaughter that the offense ‘might have occurred in a cabin in Georgia’ as not amounting to an admission and perhaps constituting misdirection. Without eyewitness or other evidence of the location of the offense, the state cannot state more precisely than it does in the indictment and discovery the location of the offense.”
On the issue of the X-rays: “As for the original chest radiograph, the state does not dispute that one was taken and should have been preserved but contends that the loss of the radiograph was merely negligent, and recent findings, including recent radiographs, constitute an adequate substitute.”
Hawk will appear Monday before Judge Poole to discuss another defense motion asking for a sequestered jury, Turner said. If Poole grants that motion, jurors for the May 31 trial may not be able to go home during proceedings.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347 with story ideas or tips. Follow @zackpeterson918.