The double homicide trial of the Bledsoe County, Tennessee, man accused of hacking a 46-year-old mother and her 24-year-old daughter to death with an ax in 2017 has a trial date set for August now that Tennessee's court system is set to resume normal operations July 1 for the first time since the pandemic started.
Robert Joe Whittenburg, 47, of Pikeville, Tennessee, faces a trial Aug. 3 on two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 30, 2017, slayings of Deanna Lawrence and her adult daughter, Dedra Lawrence, at a home on Sawmill Road in Pikeville, according to court officials.
Whittenburg is represented by Dunlap, Tennessee-attorney Sam Hudson. Officials in Hudson's office said he was in court Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment.
Whittenburg was arrested at the scene but wasn't indicted in the slayings until the grand jury heard the case in March 2018. Bledsoe County's grand jury meets three times a year - March, July and November, court officials said.
In August 2018, Whittenburg's first trial date was set for May 2019, but a defense motion regarding laboratory testing of hair that was on the suspected murder weapon delayed the trial date until June 2020. The pandemic hit in the interim and Tennessee's court system ground to a halt.
"COVID has just set everything behind," Bledsoe County Sheriff Jimmy Morris said Wednesday. The sheriff said he was glad the case was finally on a trial docket.
The trial in Bledsoe County Criminal Court is set for Aug. 3-6, said David Shinn, the 12th Judicial District assistant district attorney prosecuting the case. It will be the district's first trial since the pandemic started, he said.
Shinn met with Lawrence family members Monday who "are very anxious to get this finalized and have the trial," he said.
The prosecution filed notice it will seek a sentence of life without parole if Whittenburg is convicted of the first-degree murder counts, he said.
The slayings happened in a residential area a block off U.S. Highway 27 in Pikeville, a town of around 1,600 about 50 miles northwest of Chattanooga.
County and city officers reaching the scene on Sawmill Road found the women "in a pool of blood," Morris told the Bledsonian-Banner in Pikeville in December 2017. Whittenburg had changed out of his bloodstained clothes and was lying on a bed in a bedroom at the home, Morris told the newspaper.
During the initial investigation, authorities said Deanna Lawrence and her daughter were living at the home with the mother's boyfriend and Whittenburg at the time of the killings.
According to preliminary autopsy findings, the mother and daughter died of wounds allegedly inflicted with an ax, District Attorney General Mike Taylor said in 2018 when Whittenburg was indicted. The mother's boyfriend was at work the day the bodies were found, and he had been trying to reach the Lawrences by phone all day but couldn't get an answer.
When he got to the residence that day, he found all the doors locked and couldn't get anyone to let him in, Taylor said. When he finally made his way in, he discovered the bodies and called authorities.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.