Alleged kidnappers used hay bale to restrain man
RINGGOLD, Ga. — Accused of stealing $500, police say, a man was marched to a field at gunpoint before sunrise, stripped nude, bound with electrical tape, punched and pistol whipped. Then, he later said, his three attackers grabbed a bale of hay.
“He felt they were trying to roll it on him so he couldn’t escape,” Catoosa County Lt. Jason Sullivan testified in Magistrate Court on Tuesday morning, during a preliminary hearing in a case against Wesley Gage Weldon.
By all accounts, Weldon was not in the field on Jan. 13 with the victim, Zachary Williams. But investigators say he ordered the beating, and the sheriff’s office charged him with attempted murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and theft by receiving.
Tuesday’s hearing was an opportunity for prosecutors to offer key evidence and ask a magistrate to send the case to a grand jury. It was also an opportunity for Weldon’s defense attorney to show the first signs of his legal strategy, questioning how sure detectives are that Weldon ordered the attack.
“We know that Mr. Weldon wasn’t present,” Chris Townley said.
“From everything we’ve gotten so far,” Sullivan testified, “yes.”
Townley also questioned the credibility of the victim. After he was beaten, Williams did not blame Weldon for orchestrating the assault. And 12 days later, after detectives arrested the three alleged attackers and decided to charge Weldon, too, Williams was still spending time with him.
They arrested Williams on an outstanding warrant, and he then told investigators that Weldon ordered the attack on him.
“At this point, the state asks that the court does not consider the counterintuitive behavior of the victim,” Assistant District Attorney Clay Fuller said, arguing that Williams’ condition on the day of the attack and evidence found at the scene are strong enough to bring the case to a grand jury.
“While I have some serious questions about the higher burden of proof and proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Townley told Magistrate Stephen Keith, “I think for your purposes [the state has] met your burden.”
Keith agreed and bound the case over, to be heard by a grand jury at a later date.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Sullivan explained further why Williams, who had been living with Weldon, got attacked: $500 went missing. Some of Weldon’s associates, Richard Rush and Lacey Paty, shook down a man at the house named Nathan Coker. They found nothing.
Coker, Paty and Rush then told Williams they were suspicious of another man. They decided to go confront that person.
“Zach hears them talking, that they’ve got to find somewhere to do this,” Sullivan said.
He added: “That’s when they ended up at the pond [across from Weldon’s house].”
There, Sullivan said, the three attacked Williams. The detective added that, based on his interviews with the people involved, Weldon called Rush while they were in the field. Rush supposedly put the phone to Williams’ ear, so that Weldon could talk to him while he was face down in the ground.
After Coker, Paty and Rush left, Williams freed himself, put on a T-shirt and wandered down the road, bloodied. Sullivan said he eventually arrived at an aunt’s house, and he then rode to Parkridge Medical Center. A Catoosa County detective responded to the hospital to interview him.
After talking to Williams, investigators inspected the area near the pond. Sullivan said they found a pool of blood, pieces of electrical tape and a belt. They later searched Weldon’s house. He was not home, but Sullivan said they found syringes filled with methamphetamine. They also found a substance that they think is heroin, though they are awaiting lab test confirmation.
They found guns, too, in the living room and in a bedroom.
Weldon is also facing charges in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Tennessee. On Feb. 28, based on evidence from a DEA investigation, a grand jury indicted Weldon on charges of distributing methamphetamine and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
A federal prosecutor announced in the indictment he would ask Weldon to forfeit $255,000 — the amount of money he supposedly earned selling drugs.