SAVANNAH, Tenn. (AP) - A U.S. Marshals inspector said Wednesday that a jail inmate he interviewed about a missing Tennessee woman said he would plead to charges in the case, a year before another man was charged with her kidnapping and slaying.
Senior Inspector John Walker testified at Zachary Adams' trial in Savannah, Tennessee. Adams has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, raping and killing nursing student Holly Bobo. She was 20 when she disappeared from her home in Parsons on April 13, 2011. Her remains were found in woods 3 years later not far from her Decatur County home, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Nashville.
Walker said he interviewed Terry Britt in jail in March 2013. Walker said he told Britt that investigators believed he had kidnapped and harmed Bobo, and disposed of her belongings. Walker said Britt told him "sounds like you have it all figured out" and that he would "plead to it."
Walker did not elaborate on charges to which Britt said he would plead guilty. Walker said he gave the information to the TBI.
Britt's home and property had been searched and his phones and home had been under surveillance as part of the Bobo case, but he was never charged in her case and he was in jail on a separate charge when Walker interviewed him. Britt is a convicted sex offender stemming from a separate case.
Adams was charged in March 2014. He faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
Also Wednesday, a cellphone design expert testified that Adams' device and Bobo's phone were not in the same location until about an hour after she was reporting missing. Jonathan Reeves, president of JDR Telecom Solutions, said Bobo's and Adams' devices were in separate places in Decatur County from about 8:17 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. Bobo was reported missing by her brother at about 8 a.m.
The defense rested its case Wednesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, Terry Dicus, a former TBI agent who served as a lead investigator in the case, said he had ruled out Adams as the person who had kidnapped Bobo. Dicus testified that cellphones belonging to Adams and Bobo were too far apart within a two-minute span shortly after she was abducted.
Dicus said the TBI investigated Britt closely because of his past sex crime and a questionable alibi.
Dicus was removed from the case in 2013.