A jury on Friday convicted a man of murder in the 2019 death of a Hixson woman.
Kameron Leslie, 34 was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder in the Jan. 11, 2019, death of Taja Whiteside. Whiteside, 30, was found dead in her duplex at the 5800 block of Moody Sawyer Road in Hixson by her eldest son.
Leslie and Whiteside were in a romantic relationship for less than a year, according to testimony from several family members during the trial.
Leslie is facing life in prison, eligible for parole after serving 60 years.
Whiteside died sometime overnight from Jan. 10 to Jan. 11, according to the opening statements of Chief Homicide Prosecutor Michael Dowd.
A Hamilton County Medical Examiner later determined Whiteside’s cause of death to be strangulation with blunt force trauma to the head as a contributing factor, according to Hamilton County Medical Examiner Steven Cogswell’s testimony Thursday.
After the verdict was announced, a sigh of relief could be heard from Whiteside’s family members. Family members told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that after four years of waiting for justice, they will be working on healing and getting her young children stronger.
“We just needed everybody else to know that he did it,” Akedus Hamilton, Whiteside’s cousin, said.
“Trying to mend our broken hearts,” said Sharon Claridy, mother of the victim. “We’ll never get the pieces back together. But with the family, anything’s possible, you know, getting these kids strong again and letting them see that they are loved. Justice for Taja, and that’s what it was today.”
They also urged those who are going through any type of partner abuse to speak up.
“Don’t be afraid to take a stand and let somebody know you’re vulnerable and that you’re going through something,” Hamilton said. “Don’t hide it, don’t be secretive, tell someone before it ends up in death … if somebody says love hurts, that’s not it.”
Dowd said that while justice was served, he is never happy with a guilty verdict.
“I can’t say I’m happy,” he said after the verdict. “This is my 47th homicide verdict. I can’t ever say that I’ve ever been happy with one, because I realized there’s somebody who’s dead. There’s somebody who’s never coming back. There’s a family of a victim that’s grieving and we’ll never get that person back. Even the family of the defendant, they’ve now lost him forever. So I’m just relieved.”
During closing arguments on Friday, Dowd said to jurors that what happened to Whiteside should not have happened to anyone, least of all her.
“To spend your last seconds on this Earth, having the life choked out of you, while your children are across the hall,” Dowd said. “That should not have happened to anyone. That should not have happened to her.”
During his portion of the closing arguments, Leslie, who represented himself in the trial, said there was DNA evidence in the pillow found at the crime scene that belonged to three other men.
“What we have here is people made an assumption about someone, and they just ran with it,” Leslie said. “If you assume that this person did it, it changes everything.”
In a passionate closing, Dowd listed the facts and evidence presented during the trial.
“Fact: the defendant had a controlling demeanor towards our victim,” Dowd said. “Fact: there is no evidence whatsoever of anyone else being in that home other than the defendant, the victim and the three children.
“The defendant is guilty of first degree murder, and that’s that and that is how you should find,” Dowd said.
On Thursday, Leslie said he was not going to take the stand. Leslie has been representing himself with the assistance of Chattanooga attorney Garth Best during the proceedings.
Also on Thursday, Leslie asked Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Amanda Dunn for an acquittal, saying the state had not proven the case against him beyond a reasonable doubt. Dunn denied the motion and said it was still up to the jury to decide his fate.
Leslie, who left Chattanooga in Whiteside’s vehicle, was arrested nearly four months later on May 1, 2019, in Jacksonville, Florida. Whiteside’s vehicle was found four months after Leslie’s arrest, abandoned in a parking lot in Jacksonville.
Contact La Shawn Pagán at lpagan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.