Hank Thomas BlizzardA Scottsboro, Ala., man charged in July with fatally stabbing a Hytop man in the neck was sentenced to 35 years in prison on a guilty plea entered in Jackson County Circuit Court on Wednesday.
Hank Thomas Blizzard, 19, pleaded guilty to murder as he was charged on the indictment and was ordered by Circuit Judge John Graham to serve the time with no probation and to pay court costs, according to Jackson County Circuit Court records. Restitution will be determined later in another hearing.
Jury selection in Blizzard's murder trial was scheduled to start Monday, court officials said.
With his guilty plea, Blizzard was convicted of killing 20-year-old Hytop resident Timothy Daniel Mullican in an investigation that began with a phone call from the County Road 107 home where Mullican had fled in his car on July 9, 2016. Mullican pulled into the home's driveway bleeding from a knife wound to his neck and desperately seeking help, authorities said during the initial investigation.
The stabbing was thought to have happened at or near the entrance to a rock quarry between the tiny Alabama towns of Hytop and Skyline about 200-300 yards from the home where Mullican stopped his car in the north end of the county.
After deputies found Mullican had been stabbed, "we determined that we had other areas of concern," Chief Deputy Rocky Harnen said in 2016. Mullican was pronounced dead at Highlands Medical Center in Scottsboro.
Mullican and Blizzard "knew each other, but not really well," Harnen said at the time.
There were three crime scenes; one where Mullican was found, another where the stabbing occurred at the quarry entrance and a third where Blizzard was taken into custody and the murder weapon was recovered from Blizzard's car.
Authorities said the car was found in a wooded area nearby.
All three scenes were "within a couple of miles of each other," Harnen said, and the area where the investigation was concentrated lies just 10 miles south of the Tennessee border.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.