Donnie Jones
Erika Megan Sharpton, 24, of Tullahoma, Tenn., was killed around July 2 and her body was found burning off of Awalt Road by a paassing motorist in Franklin County, Tenn.The man convicted on a plea of killing 24-year-old Tullahoma, Tenn., nursing student Megan Sharpton is trying to withdraw that guilty plea and take the case to trial.
Donnie Jones Jr., 37, filed paperwork Monday from his prison cell in Morgan County, Tenn., claiming his legal counsel, Winchester, Tenn., lawyer Joseph Ford, coerced him into the guilty plea he entered on Feb. 4.
That plea earned Jones a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Jones, of 1912 Bel-Aire Drive in Tullahoma, initially was charged with first-degree murder, especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape on an indictment issued by the Franklin County grand jury on Nov. 5.
Ford got Jones to plead guilty by telling him “the fact he could prove he was in another location when the crime occurred would mean nothing — the jury would find him guilty anyway based on the mere word of the prosecutor,” Jones states in a motion to withdraw guilty plea filed in Franklin County Circuit Court.