Willie Eddie WitcherA 56-year-old Chattanooga man now will face the grand jury on charges he shot and killed his girlfriend, then cleaned her body and changed her clothes, police said.
Hamilton County General Sessions Court Judge David Norton sent the case against Willie Eddie Witcher to the grand jury following a preliminary hearing Tuesday. Witcher faces charges of criminal homicide, tampering with evidence and unlawful possession of a weapon. He is in jail.
Witcher told police his girlfriend, 35-year-old Nicole Dupree, came home at 3:30 a.m. on May 26 from playing bingo and asked him for money to buy drugs. When he wouldn’t give her money, he said, she grabbed his .38-caliber revolver and said she would pawn it for cash.
The pair struggled over the gun in the couple’s 1912 Citico Ave. apartment before the weapon went off, striking Dupree, Witcher said in a police interview.
But a few details pointed Chattanooga police Detective Jay Montgomery to a different conclusion.