Gardhigh murder trial underway
The defense claims the prosecution’s case is riddled with contradictions.
“It’s not going to be a good day for you,” the text read. Prosecutors said Corey Demarcus Gardhigh sent that text after a dispute about payment for a painting job with Paul Anthony Grady.
Gardhigh is charged with murder for the attack in front of Grady’s home in Lindale on Dec. 28, 2016.
Gardhigh, who worked for Grady, a painting contractor, had sent Grady at least four text messages earlier in December about why he hadn’t been paid for a painting job, Floyd County Assistant District Attorney Luke Martin told the jury on Tuesday afternoon.
When Gardhigh finally did get a check, he went to two different banks to try to cash the check. At the second bank, on which the check was drawn, the teller refused to cash it and told him there were insufficient funds.
Martin said evidence would show he went to Grady’s home and they’d argued. Gardhigh attacked Grady, beating him severely. Grady was rushed to the hospital after the confrontation and died from his injuries several days later on Jan. 4, 2017.
Prosecution and defense attorneys painted different pictures of what happened that day as the trial got underway before Floyd Superior Court Judge Billy Sparks.
Defense attorney Durante Partridge said the prosecution’s case was “riddled with contradictions” and the description of what Gardhigh was wearing at the bank did not match with the description given by the victim’s stepson of a black man he saw running from the scene.
“The victim’s stepson will actually tell police who did this and it wasn’t Corey Gardhigh,” Partridge told the jury.
Jason Fuller, a longtime friend and business associate of the victim, was the first witness to take the stand and he recalled when Gardhigh was hired Grady said paydays would come every two weeks.
At some point, Grady’s painting business started to take on commercial jobs where they might not get paid until 60 days after the job was completed. Fuller said Gardhigh was not the only employee who had complained about not getting paid.
“I knew that when the money came in, I would get my money,” Fuller said.
Grady’s teenage stepson told the jury that he was watching a movie on his laptop computer when Grady answered the door and got into an argument that prompted the teenager initially to turn up the volume in his head set.
“Then I heard a big bang that shook the house,” the boy testified.
He said he looked out the blinds of his bedroom window and saw a black man in white pants with a blue stripe running down the driveway.
He went outside and found Grady lying on the steps with a lot of blood at the base of his head and cuts above his lip and over his eyebrow.
Martin played the 911 call where the boy described a black man running from the house toward a car. During cross examination the boy said he never saw the man get in and did not know if anyone else was in the car.
During the playing of the 911 call, people in the courtroom could hear Grady moaning in the background, which drew tears from the several of the victim’s family members seated in the audience.
The trial is expected to last through today and possibly into Thursday.