TIPTONVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An attorney for a man charged with killing four members of the same family told a judge on Monday that he plans to request that a jury from outside the county hear the case, which set a swath of rural Tennessee on edge as the man eluded authorities for a week after the shootings.
Austin Robert Drummond pleaded not guilty in his first court appearance since he was indicted on charges including first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in the July 29 shootings in Lake County, in rural northwest Tennessee.
Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty if Drummond is convicted of first-degree murder at trial.
During the brief hearing, Drummond’s attorney, Bryan Huffman, told Circuit Court Judge Mark Hayes that he intends to file a motion for a change of venue. Such motions can be entered in cases where pre-trial publicity is high and lawyers believe that an unbiased jury cannot be selected.
Drummond appeared in court wearing orange jail clothing and a protective vest, with shackles on his wrists and ankles.
A grand jury indicted Drummond on Nov. 10. Drummond also had pleaded not guilty in a lower court before a judge ruled there was enough evidence for his case to proceed to the grand jury. A trial date has not been set.
Drummond is accused of the deaths of the parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found abandoned in a home’s front yard. An intense search for Drummond ended on Aug. 5 in Jackson, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of the location of the killings in Tiptonville.
An FBI agent testified at a hearing in September that data from a cellphone used by Drummond showed he was in the vicinity of a wooded area where the bodies were found with gunshot wounds and covered by tarpaulins.
But Huffman argued that there was no evidence presented at the hearing that showed Drummond actually shot any of the victims.
On the day of the shootings, officers responded to a call of an infant in a car seat being dropped off at a “random individual’s front yard” roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Tiptonville, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office has said.
Then, investigators in neighboring Lake County reported four people had been found dead from gunshot wounds in Tiptonville. They were identified as the baby’s parents, James M. Wilson, 21, and Adrianna Williams, 20; Williams’ brother, Braydon Williams, 15; and their mother, Cortney Rose, 38. Drummond’s girlfriend is Rose's sister, Huffman said.
In all, five people have been charged with being accessories after the fact in the case.
Drummond has served prison time for robbing a convenience store and threatening to go after jurors. He was also charged with the attempted murder of a prison guard while behind bars, and he was out on bond at the time of the killings, District Attorney Danny Goodman has said.
With a population of about 3,400 people, Tiptonville is about 120 miles (195 kilometers) north of Memphis, near the Mississippi River and scenic Reelfoot Lake.