Man pleads guilty in 1989 motel killing
A fingerprint on a beer can put a 49-year-old Alabama man in jail Wednesday for his role in a homicide nearly three decades ago.
Samuel Reeves was taken into custody after admitting in Hamilton County Criminal Court that he killed James “Richard” Layne in the La Plaza motel on Cummings Highway on Feb. 20, 1989. He will serve one year in Silverdale Correctional Facility and then complete probation in his home state of Alabama.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” Reeves said to Layne’s relatives, who were packed into the front row. After the hearing, Reeves’ wife and mother walked out of the courtroom, straight for the elevator.
Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston said Layne checked into the motel for one night and planned to meet Reeves for consensual sex. But when the consent was violated, Reeves stabbed Layne 32 times in the arms, head, neck, chest, back and abdomen in a “state of passion,” according to testimony and court documentation. Motel staff found Layne, of Ringgold, Ga., the next morning, bloody and naked,
the ring finger on his left hand crudely amputated, his wedding ring gone and his wallet empty.
Detectives interviewed several possible suspects at the time, but Reeves’ name never came up. They tested beer cans from the motel room, but the results were inconclusive. The case went cold until Sgt. Bill Phillips, of the Chattanooga Police Department, began piecing together clues in 2004.
Phillips knew from the case file Layne told a friend that he met a young man from North Alabama. He also knew Layne never completed a check-in card at La Plaza in February 1989, which meant a suspect probably filled one out instead.
His hunch proved correct: One card had an address in Chattanooga that was “nowhere near correct” with an Alabama ZIP Code, Phillips said. Encouraged, he sent the developments to the Regional Organized Crime Information Center, which helps law enforcement agencies in the Southeast build cases by sharing and cross referencing records.
“After getting information from them in 2007, I saw from 1986 to 1988 [Reeves] was at Auburn University with two addresses at that ZIP Code,” Phillips said. The case started coming together. The FBI updated its technology and started feeding old cold cases through its revamped systems in 2013. The fingerprints were resubmitted. Then, in the summer of 2016, the FBI announced it had a match.
“It belonged to Samuel Edward Reeves and was identical to a fingerprint taken when Reeves was more recently booked on a DUI charge,” according to a news release from Pinkston’s office.
Chattanooga authorities officially reopened the case and began interviewing possible suspects. When they approached Reeves, he refused to speak with investigators and hired defense attorney Lee Davis, launching about six months of negotiations.
The state has a limited amount of time to prosecute each particular case. Unlike most charges, first-degree murder and felony murder don’t have a “statute of limitations” in Tennessee. That means the state has an unlimited amount of time to build those cases.
Davis, a former prosecutor in the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office, knew detectives wouldn’t start an investigation with lesser-included offenses like voluntary manslaughter. The evidence supported that charge, he said. But Davis also knew the statute of limitations for voluntary manslaughter is six years, and that window had passed about 22 years ago in this case.
“When I met with detectives, I knew they could go with first-degree murder,” Davis said after the hearing. “I think reasonable jurors could find him guilty of voluntary manslaughter — or something worse. So the legal question here is, do you insist on the statute of limitations and take your chances at trial on first-degree murder?”
Prosecutors typically have two options when they’re building a case.
First, they can present the case to the grand jury and secure an indictment, which formally charges someone with a crime. A judge then sets bond and defendants usually go to jail unless they can post bail.
They also can waive the defendant’s right to the grand jury, reach a plea agreement, and take the announcement straight to a judge.
That’s what happened here: Pinkston filed information on the state’s theory Monday in Hamilton County Criminal Court. Reeves was not formally arrested or indicted, records show, and walked into the courtroom Wednesday in slacks and a long-sleeve shirt.
“It’s not rare,” Davis said of the method. “But it’s an infrequently used procedure. It’s probably good here because both sides know the evidence. We waived a right to the grand jury so the case could be resolved.”
In this case, Reeves pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, a class C felony that carries three to six years in prison. He was eligible for the lowest form of punishment because of his minimal prior criminal history and received a six-year sentence.
The attorneys agreed to suspend that time after he serves 11 months and 29 days in Silverdale Correctional Facility. All told, he will probably serve six months because of a “Good Time” law that gives sentence reductions to prisoners who follow the rules while imprisoned, Davis said.
“Maybe not best-case scenario,” the investigating officer Phillips said afterward. “But considering the circumstances of the event, and it being 28 years later, I think this is the best case.”