Trial of man charged in stabbing death begins

♦ The murder trial of George Anthony Headen Jr., accused of stabbing his mother to death at her Larkspur Lane home on Dec. 3, 2016, begins in Floyd County Superior Court on Monday.

An associate medical examiner with the GBI testified Monday in the murder trial of a man accused of killing his mother at her Larkspur Lane home that she was stabbed 22 times and sustained 38 cut wounds.

The trial of the 30-yearold George Anthony Headen Jr. — accused of stabbing Sheila Williams, 50, to death at her 303 Larkspur Lane home on Dec. 3, 2016, — started Monday in Floyd County Superior Court. Headen’s uncle, of Lincoln Heights, Ohio, previously said that his nephew had just been released from an Ohio prison days before the incident.

Dr. Natasha Grandhi, the medical examiner with the GBI who found the manner of Williams’ death to be homicide by multiple sharp force injuries, was called as a witness on the opening day of the trial. She said Williams suffered sharp force injuries to her neck, head, torso, arms and hands.

When Grandhi performed the autopsy of Williams’ body at the GBI Crime Lab, there were three knives still lodged into her neck, which had multiple stab and cut wounds, and they were seen in an X-ray of Williams still in the body bag displayed by the prosecution for the jury.

Williams sustained fatal injuries after her left and right carotid arteries and jugular veins were hit, Grandhi said. Due to there being so many wounds to her neck area, Grandhi said she could not determine exactly which wound was the fatal one.

Grandhi also noted the wounds on Williams’ hands were defensive wounds.

The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Luke Martin, also called the first Rome police officer who responded to

the incident, initially reported as a domestic incident, around 7 p.m. on Dec. 3. Patrol officer Ethan Carpenter said when responding to the home the incident was still believed to be a routine domestic call.

A friend of Williams flagged Carpenter down as he was driving to the home and frantically relayed her concern, saying she could not reach Williams. Also, the friend told Carpenter the front door that was always closed, due to a couch inside blocking it, was open. Williams’ friend had been at the home earlier in the day, and told Carpenter that Headen was making strange statements and acting odd.

Carpenter said he approached the home and knocked on one door and yelled out more than 15 times without receiving a response. He then went to a door which looks into the kitchen, and when stepping on a porch step, he was able to see Williams sprawled out on the floor, which was covered in blood, he said.

Three other officers joined Carpenter as he went inside the home and searched to see if anyone else was in the home.

“Her head was nearly severed from her body,” Carpenter testified, adding that knives were still in her body and other knives and bent forks were on the floor.

Williams’ friend was able to provide a vague description of Headen, after officers performed a more extensive search of the home, said Carpenter, who stayed at the home until investigators arrived.

While officers were at the home, 911 dispatch reported a man was biting people and trying to get into cars near the Taco Bell on Shorter Avenue, Carpenter said, and police connected the calls.

Blake Merritt, who was a Rome police officer at the time of the killing, was one of the four officers who first arrived at Williams’ home.

“It was horrible,” he said, elaborating on why he believed the residence to be a murder scene. “Hands down the worst thing I’ve seen, not just in law enforcement but in my life.”

Merritt was contacting 911, to have dispatch notify local hospitals to report and hold anyone who comes in with significant cuts to their hands, believing attacker must have cut his hands while stabbing, when the report of what was happening around a quarter-mile away came in, he said.

The prosecution played the dash cam footage from when Merritt took the call and sped from the home up to the moment when Headen — who was “covered in blood” and had cuts on the base of his fingers, he said, — was taken into custody.

“It was almost as if he had been rolling in (blood),” Merritt said of Headen, in response to defense attorney Randall Williams’ question about if he had personally tested the blood on Headen to see whose it was — he did not.

The two people who restrained Headen outside the Taco Bell also took the stand. Jimmy Warren and his cousin Jeffrey Parker had been in a car on Shorter Avenue when they came upon a bloodied Headen in the road, they said.

Parker said they were trying to help Headen, who was acting a “little out of his mind,” when he took a swing at him and bit Warren on the shoulder. Headen was trying to get into cars while they were moving down Shorter Avenue, Parker said.

After Headen tried to get into one vehicle, causing a woman to scream, and then climbed underneath it, Parker said they pulled him out from it and he picked him up and slammed him on the ground. Warren and Parker then held Headen — who they said told them he would kill them if he got loose — down until police arrived.

The second day of the trial is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. today in Judge Bryant Durham’s courtroom.