A month after they found the body in the graveyard, authorities found Chad Massengale.
He was coming out of a house on Ely Road, about to get into a car with his mother and son, when Soddy-Daisy Police Department officers moved on him, detective Ryan Wilkey said Monday. Since September 2015, authorities had a warrant on Massengale, 31, for possessing contraband in a penal institution. But the charges they hoped to file against him that January 2016 afternoon were far more severe: First-degree murder.
Authorities believe Massengale, along with Dekota Burchard and Roy Henderson III, beat and stabbed Tony Rector, 51, before dumping his body at the edge of a cemetery at 11600 Holly Circle in December 2015. There, Wilkey said, Massengale stomped on the victim’s body a few more times. A few key witnesses led Soddy- Daisy officers to Massengale, who confessed to the crime on Jan. 31, 2016, during an interview, authorities say.
Chad Massengale
Chad Massengale, Roy Henderson and Dekota BurchardBut Massengale’s defense attorney, Steven Moore, raised a concern during an evidentiary hearing Monday in Hamilton County Criminal Court: Was Massengale in the right state of mind when he gave up that information? And if he wasn’t, should the state have permission to use that interview during his upcoming murder trial in May?
Criminal Court Judge Don Poole said he would issue a decision before the next check-up date for all three defendants on March 27.