Man gets 40 years for 2016 slayings
Stephen Jacob Reed received a 40-year prison sentence Thursday in connection with the April 2016 double murder of two women in Cleveland, Tennessee.
Reed pleaded guilty in Bradley County Criminal Court to two counts of seconddegree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder, according to Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Evie West. He was sentenced to 20 years on each killing and a 12-year term for attempted murder to be served concurrently.
On April 21, 2016, Cleveland police responded to a reported stabbing at the Springbrook Apartments at 2360 Blackburn Road just after 11:45 p.m., she said. Police found Crystal York, 35, and Crystal Canino, 33, in one apartment, and 35-year-old Sewell Anthony Beck in another, West said. York and Canino died, and Beck was critically injured but did survive.
Reed, also known as Stephen Jacob Gaddis, was standing in the roadway, his pants torn and covered in blood from his chin to his waist, the Times Free Press reported previously.
Police arrested the then24-year-old. Over the course of the investigation, more than 50 people were interviewed and more than 100 pieces of evidence were collected and sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab for forensic testing, West said.
No true motive was ever established, based on the facts investigators were able to determine, 10th Judicial District Attorney Steve Crump said.
“There didn’t appear to be any real triggering event, but there was certainly some form of disagreement,” he said.
At the time of the murders, Beck’s sister, Deweana “Mimi” Biddwell, told the Times Free Press she thought the two women were killed and her brother critically injured because of jealousy.
The night before the stabbings, Biddwell said, she heard Reed utter the words: “‘If I can’t have her, nobody can.’”
Reed hung out with the women and Beck, Biddwell said. But he was jealous of Beck’s relationship with York.
Regardless, what truly motivated Reed would have been up to a jury to determine, had Reed not pleaded guilty.
“This was a good result for the state, and a fair outcome,” Crump said. “We believe the right move was to work out a plea that put him in prison for a long time and didn’t expose the families and the people of Tennessee to an extended appeals process, and possibly a chance that wouldn’t get the result wanted [out of a jury trial].”