Tennessee prosecutors are seeking the dismissal of a petition for a new trial sought by a man convicted of murder by a Grundy County jury in 2007 in a killing the defendant claims someone else committed.
In 2007, 23-year-old Adam Clyde Braseel was sentenced to serve life in prison for first-degree murder in the 2006 beating death of 60-year-old Tracy City resident Malcolm Burrows and the assault on Burrows’ sister, Rebecca Hill.
Adam Clyde Braseel
Adam Braseel, center, is embraced by his sister, Christina Braseel, left, and mother, Imojean Braseel-Davis, during a 2017 visit at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex, west of Pikeville, Tenn.Braseel filed in February a petition for a new trial based on “new evidence” in the case after the release of fingerprint evidence found in Burrows’ car at the crime scene in 2006. That fingerprint wasn’t identified until last year when the TBI matched it to another man, Kermit Bryson, who in 2008 shot and killed Grundy County deputy Shane Tate, then took his own life later the same day. Braseel contends he and Bryson resemble each other, the cars they drove at the time were similar and that a wallet was found on Burrows by an investigator who never testified at Braseel’s trial, while the state contended the motive was a robbery because the wallet was said not to have been found.
Braseel’s lawyer, Alex Little, contends the presence of the wallet “flatly destroys the government’s case and makes it clear that – had the new evidence been admitted at trial – the jury’s verdict would have been different,” court records state.
The state’s response to Braseel’s petition, filed in Grundy County Circuit Court by 12th Judicial District Assistant District Attorney Steve Strain, calls for a dismissal of the petition.