Abbott murder trial begins
The trial gets underway over three years after he is accused of shooting and killing James and Myra Reeves at their Terhune Road home.
The murder trial of 30-year-old Emerson Mack Abbott Jr. is set to pick back up today, after attorneys kicked off the trial Monday with opening statements and the testimony of several witnesses, including that of the man who found the couple killed in their Terhune Road home.
The trial opening came over three years after Abbott’s arrest in February 2015. He is accused of gunning down James and Myra Reeves with a shotgun in their home at 49 Terhune Road. He was initially arrested Feb. 12, 2015, on theft charges. He is accused of taking $7,500 for work at the home that he never intended to finish. He was re-arrested on two murder charges Feb. 24.
Abbott pled not guilty to the crime in August 2015.
Assistant District Attorney Luke Martin took jurors through the police investigation as it weeded out possible suspects, from any known enemies to family members, before eventually centering in on Abbott, who he said inserted himself into the investigation. On the day of killings, Jan. 23, 2015, Martin said Abbott ran through the woods to the Reeves’ home to ask police about what happened — Abbott lived next door in a residence with his girlfriend.
According to information presented in court:
Then on Jan. 30, 2015, police came to Abbott’s home after he reported a threat, claiming someone had painted “you are next” on his front door, Martin said.
Floyd County police Sgt. Rusty Williams asked Abbott if he owned a shotgun. Abbott then took a 12-gauge shotgun out of his truck and showed it to Williams.
The next day, with Abbott under suspicion by police, Williams showed crime scene pictures to him in an attempt to gauge his reaction. Abbott covered his eyes but peeked through his fingers to see the photos of James Reeves lying on his back on the kitchen floor with gunshot wounds to his torso and Myra Reeves sprawled out on the bedroom floor after receiving a shotgun blast to her head.
Martin said Abbott told Williams only a person with “no heart or compassion” would go through the Reeves’ home and shoot them.
On Feb. 11, Martin said family members of the Reeves went through their checking account and discovered Myra Reeves had signed a $7,500 check — James Reeves typically signed the checks — that was cashed by Abbott at a SunTrust Bank in West Rome the day of the murders. It was cashed around the same time a friend of the Reeves discovered their bodies in their home and called it into 911, around 3:09 p.m., Martin said.
Abbott used the money to pay to take back his girlfriend’s car which had been repossessed and was set to be auctioned off, Martin said. The payment was supposed to be for Abbott to cut down less than a dozen trees, Martin said, but another estimate from a tree company was less than $7,500 to cut down more than 20 trees. Also, the Reeves had been at their lake house in Alabama on the day the check was dated.
Abbott’s attorney Wade Hoyt IV started off his opening remarks by referencing the grisliness of the crime and spoke to jurors and the Reeves’ family members in attendance that he meant no offense to them in saying what he planned to during the course of the trial.
“This is a horrific crime,” Hoyt said. “This man’s life is on the line in this case.”
The trial would lay bare all of the evidence in the case and show Abbott is innocent, Hoyt said. At last casting the case in an objective light, he continued.
“Up until this point it has only been (the state’s) theory,” Hoyt said, a theory that Abbott killed the Reeves over a check.
The time in which Abbott cashed the check is a “heck of a coincidence,” Hoyt said, and investigators built on a knee-jerk reaction.
Hoyt said investigators sacrificed objectivity to make a case against Abbott, leaving potential leads uninvestigated due to the case being “too dag gum violent.”
To try and sully the theft theory for Abbott’s motive, Hoyt brought up the $2,015 that was in James Reeves’ wallet and a vase in the kitchen which was not taken.