All six suspects now in custody in Winchester, Tenn., slaying
All six defendants are now in custody in the 2017 slaying of a 50-year-old Winchester, Tenn., man whose body was found in January buried under a concrete slab in his own backyard.
“They have all been returned, four of them from Colorado and one from Alabama,” 12th Judicial District Attorney General Mike Taylor said Tuesday. A sixth suspect was allowed to return on her own to Tennessee to turn herself in on an accessory charge.
James Leon Wood’s body was found the night of Jan. 24 when Winchester police served a search warrant at Wood’s Spring Hill Drive home as part of a missing person investigation. The investigation was launched after Wood’s mother filed a report when she hadn’t heard from him or been able to reach him since July 29, Winchester police Chief Richard Lewis said at the time. Initially, the human remains found at the home had not been identified, though police suspected the identity. Wood was positively identified a few days later. He died of bluntforce trauma to the head.
A Franklin County grand jury issued indictments against six people on Feb. 2. The suspects, some Wood’s family members, were scattered from Alabama to California and Colorado — all but one were held where they were taken into custody until they could be extradited — but now all have been returned to Tennessee to face charges.
Those now formally charged in Franklin County where they are accused are Wood’s 44-yearold wife, Glenna Yvonne Newingham Wood; her 19-year-old daughter, Mikayla Danielle Harmon Poole; Poole’s husband, Grant Matthew Poole, also 19; and family friend Shawn Michael Hampton, 21. Each of the four is charged with first-degree murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and abuse of a corpse. Two others, Kisha Evelyn Anderson, 20, another friend of the family, and Glenna Wood’s 20-year-old son, Joseph Scott Newingham, are charged as accessories after the fact, according to authorities. The ages listed date from when the suspects were charged in January.
Anderson and Newingham are each free on $15,000 bond, while the remaining four are held without bond, officials said.
On Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Steve Blount, who is based in Winchester and prosecuting the case, said the four suspects charged with murder are set to appear May 24 for a hearing before Circuit Court Judge Thomas R. Graham.
Glenna Wood, Mikayla Harmon Poole, Grant Matthew Poole and Hampton have been appointed legal counsel, and Blount said all the attorneys are going through the discovery process now. They will meet a few days before the May 24 hearing to make sure everyone is ready to proceed, Blount said.
Since it’s so early in the process, there have been no motions to separate the cases from each other, Blount said, though that sometimes happens in cases with multiple defendants. All four suspects still held in the Wood homicide case were charged on a single, four-count indictment, according to court records.
Wood’s body, wrapped in a sheet or blanket, was found buried under a 5-by-8-foot concrete slab that was positioned several feet away from an above-ground pool in the home’s backyard. The slab had been poured over the grave, investigators said during the initial investigation. A Jan. 24 search warrant linked to the original missing person investigation led to the discovery of Wood’s body about 10:30 p.m. that day.
Neighbors didn’t notice the activity, officials said.
Tennessee property records list the property as belonging to Wood and “Glenna Y. Wood,” according to purchaser information in state records. The property purchase was made in June 2017.
Lewis said in January he believed Wood’s body had been buried for “probably about five months.”