WINCHESTER, Tenn. - The trial of a Bledsoe County, Tennessee, man accused of hacking his girlfriend and her mother to death with a fireman's ax in 2017 got under way Tuesday in Franklin County Circuit Court after a venue change last week.
Robert Joe Whittenburg, 47, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the double ax slayings of Deanna Lawrence, 46, and her daughter, Dedra Lawrence, 24, and on Tuesday faced a jury of his peers in the first trial in the 12th Judicial District since the pandemic started.
The trial was moved from Bledsoe County to Franklin County because of heavy media coverage and, Judge Thomas Graham said, the fact that the World's Longest Yard Sale this week on U.S. 127 makes traveling in Bledsoe County a nightmare.
Deanna Lawrence's boyfriend, Jeff Seals, the man who found and reported the victims to law enforcement, was the first witness to see the slayings scene, according to testimony.
Seals testified he, both the women and Whittenburg lived at the home at the time of the killings in 2017. Seals had been out of town on a construction job and had been unable to reach anybody at the house, he testified Tuesday. He headed home early.
It was dark when Seals got to the Sawmill Road home in Pikeville the night of Nov. 30, 2017, and he couldn't get anyone to answer the door. He called repeatedly, sent texts but there was no response, and no sound came from the home except the bark of a dog, he testified.
Seals finally went around back of the home and knocked on windows. When he knocked on the bedroom window where Whittenburg and Dedra Lawrence slept, he said, the glass broke. Still no answer.
Seals climbed onto a heat and air unit and crawled through the window into the dark home onto a bed, he testified. When he could see, he saw Whittenburg lying unconscious on the mattress.
"His face was blue and I shook his legs and called his name trying to wake him up," Seals testified. "I realized something was terribly wrong."
Seals saw bloody rags on the edge of the bed and Whittenburg's fireman's ax nearby. Seals said he realized later he'd crawled over Whittenburg to get across the bed.
When he stepped into the kitchen, he found Dedra Lawrence's body and he could tell immediately that "she was gone," he said.
"I instantly tried to open the door to get outside," he said. "I had to move her leg to get out because it was blocking the door."
Once he got past Dedra Lawrence's body, he said, he realized Deanna Lawrence was probably still inside.
Seals then went back in and into the living room, where he found his girlfriend lying face down on the floor, he testified.
"I ran straight for the door," he said. "I ran outside to call 911. It's all I knew to do."
Under cross examination by Whittenburg's attorney, Sam Hudson, Seals testified that Whittenburg and Dedra Lawrence fought a lot, but he also said Whittenburg was in love with her.
Seals said Whittenburg during an argument once made the statement to him, "Jeff, I'm going to kill her," but he also testified he never made that threat directly to her to his knowledge.
Next-door neighbor Bruce Brouker testified the four were usually around the house and he had encountered Whittenburg several times and had even loaned him money as recently as the day before the women's bodies were found, according to testimony.
When he got home the day before their bodies were found, Brouker testified, things didn't look right at the home.
"It was dark," he said. "That was unusual."
Pikeville police officer Ricky Hodge testified he was the first officer to arrive at the home and found Seals outside "very frantic."
"He was crying and screaming, 'They're all dead,'" Hodge testified. He testified that he and Bledsoe County Sheriff's Office deputy George Hodge, his cousin, got to the home soon after and they started to enter the home but had to hold onto one another to steady themselves because of the amount of blood on the floor.
They located what they at first thought were three bodies until Whittenburg gasped, Ricky Hodge testified. He said the unconscious Whittenburg was transported for injuries described in other testimony as self-inflicted with the ax.
Thoughout the state witness testimony under direct questioning by Assistant District attorneys David Shinn and Steve Strain, Hudson kept suggesting none of them had testified about what happened and how it happened.
According to the state's opening remarks, Dedra Lawrence sustained seven "chop wounds" and 12 incised or stab wounds to her head and back. Deanna Lawrence sustained four chop wounds, one of which severed the brain stem, prosecutors told jurors.
Whittenburg has maintained he can't remember what happened, according to testimony and opening statements in the trial. The trial resumes at 9 a.m. CDT Wednesday.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.