Victim called police on friend a year earlier
A year before police say his friend stabbed him to death, LeBron “Buddy” Hankins told the Walker County Sheriff’s Office that the same friend had beaten him up.
Hankins called 911 around 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2017. He told a responding officer that Steven Lewis Whittaker got mad at him and started beating on him all over his body. Hankins said he and Whittaker had been drinking.
But, he told the officer, he didn’t want charges pressed against Whittaker. After calling 911, he had second thoughts about reporting the crime. He said he and Whittaker would be friends again in the morning.
“I observed the complainant and didn’t see any visible signs of any altercation,” the officer wrote in a report. “The complainant stated he wasn’t injured and was fine now and didn’t want to worry about the situation anymore and stated the witness had already left so he was fine with that.”
Though he wasn’t charged that night, the Walker County Sheriff’s Office did arrest Whittaker on a charge of simple assault on Christmas Eve in 2009. According to an incident report in that case, Whittaker’s roommate said Whittaker came home drunk, kicked the roommate’s guitar, picked up the guitar and threatened to hit him with it.
The roommate told an investigator that he then picked up a wooden stick from under the couch and demanded that Whittaker leave him alone. Whittaker obliged and later admitted to the police that he threatened his roommate with the guitar, according to the incident report.
The roommate said Whittaker was often drunk and making threats.
“The victim stated that he worries what the aggressor is capable of doing,” the officer wrote.
Whittaker was convicted in that case.
In September 2016, friends of a woman living with Whittaker in the 2000 block of Rogers Road in Rossville told investigators that he beat the woman. A responding deputy found her with two black eyes and bruises on her arms.
The woman told an investigator that she got into an argument with Whittaker because he played music too loudly. She said they began hitting each other. Whittaker told an officer he pushed the woman down and hit her, according to the incident report.
A friend told the investigator that the woman texted her a photo of her injuries and said she was afraid to leave the house. The charge in that case was dismissed in September 2017.
Whittaker is charged with murder, accused of stabbing Hankins 50 times during an argument Friday. He remains jailed without bond.