Blackburn Verdict: Guilty Of First Degree Murder
Family members of slain motorist William Evon Strickland exited the courtroom Thursday morning with triumphant tears after hearing the jury’s verdict: guilty on both counts.
William Keith Blackburn, age 35, of Waynesboro, stood trial last week on charges of first degree murder and especially aggravated robbery in connection with Strickland’s grizzly death. Strickland’s three sons discovered his badly beaten body concealed in a brush pile off U.S. Highway 64 west, near the Chisholm Creek Road intersection, the day after he went missing. Authorities reported he had been beaten to death with a tree limb, robbed, and his body dumped in the brush pile.
On June 9, 2006, Strickland, age 56, and son Heath, had left their 109 Pointer Road, Waynesboro, home, headed to Spring Hill to pick up younger son Cody, then 16.
A flat tire caused the Stricklands to pull onto the shoulder of the highway around 4:30 p.m., approximately one mile west of Self’s Market. Shortly, Heath Strickland testified Monday, acquaintances Carrie Battles and Chris Hammack, both of Waynesboro, noticed their plight and stopped to offer assistance. Neither had the correct tire tool to change the tire, so Battles, Hammack and the younger Strickland drove to Self’s Market to borrow a tire tool, while William Keith Blackburn, who was with the couple, “insisted” upon remaining behind with the elder Strickland.
After locating the correct tire tool and pumping $3.00 worth of gasoline, Heath Strickland told jurors, they returned to the stranded van to find Blackburn alone. His father, he testified, was nowhere to be seen.
Witnesses testified that Blackburn told Heath Strickland his father had accepted a ride with a woman driving a white car, was headed back to Waynesboro to get a tire tool, and he should wait there for his return.
According to Heath Strickland and other witnesses, the trio remained at the location for approximately thirty minutes. Blackburn asked that they leave, Strickland said, after a Lawrence County Sheriff’s Deputy drove past.
When his father failed to return, Heath Strickland testified that he began to drive up and down the highway in an attempt to locate him. After placing calls to his father’s girlfriend he eventually made his way home. He and his two brothers returned to the scene the following morning and conducted a search. Cody Strickland found his father’s badly beaten body in the brush pile, approximately 150 yards southwest of the highway.
Both Hammack and Battles took the stand, indicating that Blackburn had been shirtless, and that when they returned to the van he was sweating profusely and “panting.” They stated that he wiped himself down with a blanket that was in the back seat of their car.
Special Agent Mike Turbeville of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who serves as the Quality Assurance Agent over the agency’s Crime Lab, testified that DNA analysis was performed on hair retrieved from a barb wire fence near the body and on blood found on the blanket, from a pool beneath the fence, and from a 3 to 4 foot tree limb, believed to be the murder weapon. Comparison and statistical analysis, Turbeville testified, showed that all the DNA matched victim Evon Strickland.
Blackburn was arrested on June 10, 2006, at a residence on Waynesboro’s Hurricane Creek Road. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Deputies reported at that time that when he saw them, Blackburn fled through the back yard and across a creek. He was quickly apprehended and placed under arrest.
On Tuesday, Judge Robert Jones ruled that a tape recording of Blackburn’s incoming and outgoing telephone calls at the Maury County Jail, would be admitted into evidence. Shortly after he was transported to the facility, Blackburn made or received some six calls, some to his girlfriend, Kelly Jones. In these conversations, Blackburn urged Jones to look for “a little white bag…up in the weeds where I took off running to the creek.” On the tape, Blackburn indicated the bag contained pills, cocaine, money and old coins. District Attorney General Mike Bottoms pointed out that Evon Strickland’s wallet was stolen when he was murdered. In addition to identification and other paperwork, Bottoms explained that the wallet contained old $2 bills and old coins, as well as $50 in cash he had withdrawn from his bank that morning to cover the cost of the trip. On the tape Blackburn expressed a sense of urgency when instructing Jones to locate the bag. Although law enforcement officers combed the area for the bag, they indicated that it was never recovered.
State Medical Examiner Bruce Levy took the stand Wednesday morning. He indicated that Strickland had died as the result of blunt force injuries to the head. According to Levy, Strickland sustained a minimum of six blows. His nose was broken, his brain damaged and bleeding, and he had sustained two cuts in excess of four inches in length to the back of the head. In addition, Levy stated that Strickland had numerous scrapes and bruises – many post-mortem.
When he took the stand in his own defense Wednesday afternoon, Blackburn told jurors that the elder Strickland had continued to attempt to remove the flat tire after the trio left in search of the proper tool. He indicated that Strickland had injured his hand in the process, stating that he was not certain whether the injury had caused Strickland to bleed
Bottoms questioned Blackburn about a statement he made on the tape where he said, “There was no witness. I mean there was no witness anywhere…” Blackburn responded that he had only been repeating information he had heard while at the Lawrence County Jail.
Blackburn stated that the reason he had been sweating profusely when the others returned was because he had been “jogging up and down the highway, kicking rocks,” in the 95 degree weather. He maintained, “I did not kill Evon Strickland…I did not rob Evon Strickland…The last time I saw him he was going toward Lawrenceburg.”
The jury began deliberations around 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, continuing until 8:30. They then opted to return the following morning. Deliberations got underway at 8:30 Thursday morning, with jurors returning with a consensus one hour later.
Jurors found Blackburn guilty of the first degree murder charge, which carries an automatic life sentence (60 years). On the charge of especially aggravated robbery the jury also found Blackburn guilty, affixing a fine of $50,000.
Blackburn will be required to serve 80% of his life sentence, or 51 years, before he will become eligible for parole consideration.
Jones set a sentencing hearing on the robbery conviction for Friday, May 18. The robbery conviction carries a sentencing range of between 15 and 25 years.
Defense Attorney Shipp Weems verbalized his intent to file a motion for a new hearing - the first step in the appeals process.
As he left the courtroom Heath Strickland expressed his satisfaction with the outcome, saying emphatically, “I’m so happy I could cry.”
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