Single bullet key evidence in Roane murder trial

Knoxville man accused of killing employee with whom he had an affair

KINGSTON, Tenn. — A single bullet.

One solitary, 7.65-mm bullet found on a closet floor in Shawn Smoot’s Knoxville townhouse is a key piece of evidence in his murder trial, officials said Thursday.

Markings of that unfired bullet when it had been ejected from a handgun match markings on a shell casing found near the body of Smoot’s former lover, Brooke Nichole Morris, 23, prosecutors said.

The Powell woman had been shot three times, and her body was found just after dark Oct. 15, 2011, on rural Blair Road in Roane County.

After three days of jury selection, an eight-woman, four-man panel began hearing testimony in the first-degree murder trial of the former Allstate Insurance executive.

Smoot had an office in Knoxville, and Morris had been an employee of his during their tumultuous affair, which the state contends had included death threats from him and physical attacks on her.

Jurors Thursday heard opening arguments from Tiffany Starr Smith, the state’s lead counsel, and Bob Jolley, the court-appointed attorney representing the 44-year-old Smoot.

“Mr. Smoot was not the one that committed that act,” Jolley asserted. “There’s no evidence that links Mr. Smoot to Roane County that day.”

Smoot, married at the time, was “obsessed” with Morris, with whom he had been having an affair, Smith said.

Some of the circumstantial evidence the state plans to introduce, Smith said, includes an order of protection Morris swore out against Smoot, phone records and text messages between the two, testimony from Morris’s friends, and a statement Smoot made when told of Morris’s death.