Vol 10

IN THE CRIMINAL COURT OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA
THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT -

2
3 STATE OF TENNESSEE
Appellee, *
4 *
VS. * Case Nos. 215403
5 215404, 215405
FRANKIE E. CASTEEL *
6 Appellant.
Li
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EVIDENCE
Volume Ten of Eighteen Volumes
Pages 1351-1500
THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS A. MEYER, PRESIDING JUDGE

10
11 APPEARANCES
12
FOR THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
13
William Cox, Esq.
14 District Attorney General
City and County Courts Building
15 Chattanooga, Tennessee 37402
16 SPECIAL PROSECUTOR:
17 C. Leland Davis, Esq.

428 McCallie Avenue
19 FOR THE DEFENDANT:
20 Don W. Poole, Esq.,

Poole, Thornbury, Stanley, Morgan &
21 Richardson
732 Cherry Street
23 Phillip C. Lawrence, Esq.

Lawrence and Lawrence
24 701 Republic Centre
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37402
25
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Volume Ten
PAGE
BURNIE MCDOWELL
Direct Examination 1353
Cross Examination 1358
JUDITH ANN LOWERY

Voir Dire Examination/Davis
(Jury out) 1366
Voir Dire Examination/Poole
(Jury out) 1369
MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.

Voir Dire Examination/Davis
(Jury out) 1375
Voir Dire Examination/Poole
(Jury out) 1377
JUDITH ANN LOWERY

Redirect Examination 1389
MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.

JOHN SAVOR
JAMES PERRY
GARY MCDOWELL
MARK SIVLEY
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
Volume Ten
2
PAGE
3
PAUL ANTHONY MEEKS
4 Voir Dire Examination/Davis
(Jury out) 1451
5 Voir Dire Examination/Poole
(Jury out) 1454
6 Direct Examination 1463
Recross Examination 1476
8
May 15, 1998 - Friday
9
MARK SIVLEY
10 Voir Dire Examination/Cox
(Jury out) 1486
(Jury out) 1488
12
JONATHAN EWTON
13 Voir Dire Examination/Cox
(Jury out) 1490
(Jury out) 1497
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
P. McDowell - Direct
1 A Right.
2 Q And the smell was awful, you said?
A Yes, sir.
4 Q Did your dog react in any particular way?
A Yes, sir. He got up right beside me and
6 bristled up and growled, and I thought he was going to
7 knock me off of the bluff, he was real upset about it.
And did your grandson react in any specific
9 way?
10 A Just he got sick.
11 Q You mean got physically --
12 A The odor was, yes, sir, he vomit, he sure
13 did.
14 Q Did you come back and recant -- or recount
15 this story to your husband?
16 A No, sir.
17 Q Or at some point in time did you mention it
18 to your husband?
19 A We have -- everybody comes in at my house
20 at the same time and we all eat supper together, or
21 dinner, and we had a lot going on, and it rained for the
22 next two days and I didn't even think to tell him
23 anything.
24 Q All right. By Wednesday did you tell him?
25 A I was talking on the phone to a friend that
1351
had called and she wanted to know if we had been looking
for those bodies that had been missing on Signal
Mountain, and he heard me talking on the phone about how
the dog acted.
Q Did something click with you then? Did you
have a thought at that time?
A No. I kept telling him, This couldn't be
our mountain, this happened on Signal Mountain, not on
my mountain.
Q All right. But at some point did you talk
to your husband about going down and taking a look?
A I think it was on Tuesday. We have a
nursery and we had just planted 5,000 little white
pines, and we have to go over and check them after it
rains because the water will wash them out and they'll
die, and I had told him I'd like for him to stop and
look how someone had cleaned up the dump, but we got run
off the road almost by some vehicles and we went back,
and we forgot to even stop then.
Q Okay. But then Wednesday your husband did
go check it out?
A Yes, sir.
Q Did you go with him?
A No, sir, I went to church. I didn't.
MR. COX: That's all.
1352
MR. POOLE: No questions.
MR. LAWRENCE: I don't believe we have any
questions.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You can
have a seat in the courtroom or you are free to leave.
(Witness excused.)
MR. COX: Burnie McDowell, Your Honor.
Burnie McDowell
THE COURT: Okay.
BURNIE MCDOWELL,
called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. COX:
Q Would you state your name, please, sir?
A Burnie McDowell.
Q All right. Now, Mr. McDowell, I think that
your wife Portia just testified, is that correct?
A That's correct.
Q And I think you and she lived at the, near
the intersection of U.S. 27 and Big Fork Road, is that
correct?
A That's right.
Q And you run or own a nursery up there in
that location?
1353
B. McDowell - Direct
1 A Right.
2 Q Where is your nursery?
3 A It's four miles from my house out Big Fork
4 Road. It's right behind my house, but you've got to go
5 out Big Fork Road and circle around because of the Suck
6 Creek being right behind the house.
Q And is this area where you live, is that
8 close to Prentice Cooper?
9 A Yes.
10 Q All right. As a matter of fact, is your
11 property or some of it adjacent to Prentice Cooper?
12 A Very close. I don't know if it actually --
13 no, it don't actually touch it, but it's --
14 Q By it's very close?
15 A Very close.
16 Q All right. And your wife's in the habit of
17 taking a walk, a daily morning walk, is that correct?
18 A (Witness nods head up and down.)
19 Q By Wednesday, the 13th of July, had she
20 talked to you about going down and checking the dump
21 site that's there on Big Fork Road?
22 A Right, she had.
23 Q And did you do that on Wednesday?
24 A Yes.
25 Q What time did you go down there?
1354
1 A It's quite late. I didn't want her to go
with me, so she had to go -- she was going to church,
3 and in my mind, I said, I'll just wait till she goes to
4 church and I'll go check it out.
5 Q Did you do that?
6 A I did that.
7 Q So it was in the evening you went down
8 there. What did you find when you got down there?
9 A When I pulled up to the site, then I was
10 afraid of what I was going to find because of the news
11 and all.
12 Q You'd been hearing about people missing?
13 A Right. And they had dumped dead bodies,
14 cattle, farm animals there, so to be -- I didn't want to
15 call the law and them thinking, you know, here I have
16 called the law out here for a dead cow or something, to
17 be sure, so I said I'd better go down and at least make
18 sure of what's down there.
19 And so that's how come me to go on down
20 there, to verify the fact that it was human body rather
21 than a dead cow or a horse or something.
22 Q Just tell us what you did when you got
23 there?
24 Do what?
25 Q Tell us what you did when you got there.
1355
A To the site?
2 Q Uh-huh.
3 A Well, I looked down in there and then it
was obvious there was a dead something there because of
the insects and all that, you know, swarming the area.
6 And I said, If it should be those people, I
7 need to not disturb anything, so I walked back up the
8 road and come down on the low side, and when I come to
9 the low side I could see one of the boys' arms sticking
10 out.
11 Q That's when you knew?
13 Q And then what did you do?
14 A I got back in the truck and went home,
15 called -- I told my daughter to call the law, and she
16 couldn't do that, so -- terrified her, so I finally got
17 on the, the book, found the number and called them, and
18 they come on out and I went out with them, and, of
19 course, we stayed there the rest of the night.
20 Q You'd been living out there a long time,
21 Mr. McDowell?
22 A Yeah.
23 Q When you go down off the mountain, I assume
24 you go down Highway 27 down through Suck Creek, is that
25 right?
1356
A Back to Chattanooga, yes.
Q Yeah. Do you know of a shortcut to get
from Suck Creek Mountain over to Signal Mountain?
A Yes.
Q And --
A With a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Q You can't do that with a regular car but
you can only do it with a four-wheel-drive?
A Right.
Q Ask you to step down here, if you would.
Is this about where your house is, Mr.
McDowell?
A Yes, approximately.
Q And is this the area you've been discussing
where you found them?
A That's correct.
Q Okay. And how do you get back -- what's
the shortcut going over to Signal?
A This road right here. This is the old
county road, runs right through there.
Q Comes out on Taft Highway?
A Right, closer to the park there.
Q And if you come, you come from there, you
come down Taft Highway and get on -- well, you come
Signal Mountain, you get on Corral Road over into this
1357
area, is that correct?
A I'm not familiar with the streets over
here.
But you're just familiar with Taft Highway?
A (Witness nods head up and down.).
MR. COX: You can take your seat, sir.
You may ask.
Mr. McDowell, you need a drink of water?
THE WITNESS: I'm all right.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. LAWRENCE:
Q Mr. McDowell, I can tell that was a very
troubling experience for you, and I'm sorry that you had
to be the one to find that.
Let me ask you some other questions. These
folks are from Loudon County and they're not really
familiar with the area. You've been a life-long
resident, haven't you? .
A Since 1968, and that's when I built my
house there where it's at.
Q Where were you living, where were you
living before that?
A Over on Whitwell Mountain, what they call
Griffith's Creek, but just across the valley.
Q You moved up there and started this nursery
1358
B. McDowell - Cross
or did you have the nursery before you moved?
2 A Practically all my life I've been fooling
3 with the nursery business, but I really didn't have a
nursery business. It's just interest in it, you know.
5 Q And is that growing into your main
6 occupation now?
7 A Yeah.
8 Q In fact, I think I've seen -- you've got a
9 wooden sign out there, I've passed it going over to, you
10 go to Whitwell that way, too?
11 A Correct.
12 Q And you've got a big sign says, "Big Fork
13 Nursery" up there, don't you?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q If you don't mind stepping down again,
16 could I get you to come down here and just show these
17 folks the different routes that one would take to get
18 hither and yon around your house?
19 They've got that little pointy device, I
20 don't have that so we'll have to use our fingers.
21 Here's Ketner Gap. What is that? Is that
22 where your house is?
23 A This is Big Fork Road right here, so this
24 is Ketner Gap just comes right up.
25 Q So this is Big Fork Road here, and one of
1359
B. McDowell - Cross
1 the other ways of travel would be to come up what they
2 call Suck Creek Road?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Okay. Can you show us where that is, kind
of trace that?
6 A This would be the road comes back.
7 Q Comes along the Tennessee River and then
8 runs into Signal Mountain Road?
9 A Signal Mountain Road.
10 Q And then one method of travel from the town
11 of Signal Mountain would be go down the mountain on
12 paved road, go around the Tennessee River and come up to
13 Big Fork Road there?
14 A Yes.
15 Q It's a shorter -- it's a longer distance,
16 but do you have any calculations to know the time it
17 would take to get from the town of Signal Mountain going
18 the long route as compared to going back through the,
19 through the --
20 A There's a lot of miles in difference, so
21 it's five miles from my house to this road down here.
22 Q To Taft Highway?
23 A To Taft Highway.
24 Q Now, the road that you take, the map that
25 you looked at earlier shows the two roads branch and one
1360
B. McDowell - Cross
1 ties into Taft Highway and the other one, looks like it
2 comes out a little higher, and one of those you say is
3 unpassable?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Even with a four-wheel-drive vehicle?
6 A Maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't travel it
7 with a four-wheel-drive.
8 Q Okay. And the other road, do you know
9 whether the other road that connects with Big Fork Road
10 at your house and Taft Highway goes down a structure
11 called the staircase or the stair steps? Are you
12 familiar with that?
13 A Yeah. I have traveled it many years ago.
14 I come through there here the other day and I wouldn't
15 try that. I come the way right down the bluff there.
16 Q Okay. So there's, there's a method of
17 travel that comes around the bluff rather than going up
18 what's called the staircase?
19 A ❑h-huh.
20 Q And coming around the bluff is rural,
21 unpaved country road, isn't it?
22 A Four-wheel-drive.
23 Q Four-wheel-drive road?
24 A Right.
25 Q And the staircase would be a tougher road
1361
B. McDowell - Cross
1 to travel, wouldn't it?
2 A Lot tougher.
3 Q Which would be the faster way to travel,
4 coming around the bluff or coming up the staircase?
5 A You can't get up the staircase, in my
6 opinion, but going around the other way it's very quick,
7 you know, it's just a mile, it's just probably just a
8 mile from where the intersection is there, you know.
9 Q Now, where you live, do you have contact
10 generally with folks on the mountain, you know,
11 there's --
12 A Folks on Signal Mountain?
13 Q Yes, sir.
14 A No.
15 Q Mrs. McDowell seemed to describe where you
16 live as a different mountain than Signal Mountain. Is
17 that the way you look at it yourself?
18 A I know not anybody over there. Very
19 unusual for me to know anybody over there.
20 Q What separates --
21 A I do know a few but not very well.
22 Q What separates the mountain? You're sort
23 of describing this area as a mountain and Signal
24 Mountain over here as a mountain. What geological
25 feature separates the two areas from each other?
1362
B. McDowell - Cross
1 A These two creeks fork right here, Huge
2 Creek and that's called Big Fork, all that there.
3 Q And so this area right here where these
4 contour lines are closely spaced together signifies a
5 creek coming down?
6 A Bluffs, yeah.
7 Q Bluffs? And is that Suck Creek?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Okay. And then there's another creek over
10 here, I don't really --
11 A Both of them are Suck Creek. One's North
12 Suck Creek and one's South Suck Creek.
13 Q So this is a deep valley, then, that's
14 separating these two, these two mountains, correct?
16 Q Is there a lot of four-wheeling that goes
17 on in your observation as you travel from your house
18 back to --
19 A Yes, oh, yes.
20 Q See a lot of different kind of vehicles
21 back there?
22 A Yes, motorcycles.
23 Q Pickup trucks?
24 A Four-wheel, mostly four-wheel-drive now.
25 Q Jeeps?
1363
B. McDowell - Cross
1 (Witness nods head up and down.)
2 Q See a lot of those?
A Yes.
4 Q You see a lot of these folks on what they
call ATVs, you know what that, what I'm describing,
6 four-wheelers and three-wheelers?
7 A See a lot of them.
8 Q Now, you said that if this is your house,
9 here's Big Fork.
10 A Right there.
11 Q Right at that intersection?
12 A Right there.
13 Q So what you do to get to your nursery, you
14 have to go how far back here?
15 A Four miles. I live -- it's right behind my
16 house, this power line, just right back here.
17 Q All right. So the nursery is actually back
18 here?
19 A Yeah, right here. Strip mine is actually
20 back here.
21 Q All right. But these are, these are dirt
22 roads that go back in here, too?
23 A All of them dirt roads.
24 Q I guess you have a four-wheel-drive
25 vehicle, don't you?
1364
H. McDowell - Cross
1 A Pickup truck.
2 MR. LAWRENCE: All right. Thank you.
3 Nothing further, Your Honor.
4 MR. COX: Nothing further from the state,
5 Your Honor.
6 THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You can
7 have a seat in the courtroom or you are free to leave.
8 (Witness excused.)
9 THE COURT: Who is your next witness?
10 MR. DAVIS: Approach for a second, Your
11 Honor?
12 THE COURT: All right.
13 (Thereupon, a bench conference was held on
14 the record in the presence of the jury but
15 out of the hearing of the jury and the
16 following proceedings were had:)
17 MR. DAVIS: I think the next two or three
18 witnesses we have left, we have to have a quick jury-out
19 hearing on them. This is the Lowerys, and --
20 MR. LAWRENCE: I need to step in the men's
21 room.
22 THE COURT: Okay.
23 (Thereupon, said bench conference having
24 been completed, the following proceedings
25 were had in the presence and hearing of
1365
1 the jury:)
2 THE COURT: All right. Jurors, we'll take
3 a short break at this time and the attorneys can take a
4 break also at this time, and Mr. Casteel.
5 (Thereupon, at 2:18 p.m., the jury was
6 excused from open court a recess was had.)
7 (Thereupon, pursuant to recess, the
8 following proceedings were had in open
9 court in the absence of the jury:)
10 THE COURT: All right. I believe we have a
11 couple other jury-out matters?
12 MR. DAVIS: Yes. Judy Lowery will be the
13 first one.
14 JUDITH ANN LOWERY,
15 called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was
16 examined and testified as follows:
17 VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION
18 BY MR. DAVIS:
19 Q Judy, if you could, state your full name
20 for the record.
21 A My name is Judith Ann Lowery.
22 Q And if you could direct your comments to
23 Judge Meyer for this jury-out hearing.
24 On June 18th of 1988, did you have occasion
25 to be out with your husband Melvin, who goes by the name
1366
J. Lowery - Voir Dire/Davis
1 Butch, out on a trip to the blue hole?
2 A Yes, sir.
3 Q Could you relate the substance of that trip
4 to Judge Meyer, please?
5 A On what happened that day?
6 Q Yes, please.
7 A My husband, myself, my two children, Talena
8 and Tallan Taylor, Cheryl White and Rusty White and his
9 two children, we all went up to the blue hole to go
10 swimming. My husband lived up on the mountain, he'd
11 been swimming up in the blue hole for 14, 15 years. It
12 was a known place.
13 We were all up at the blue hole, and my
14 husband, Rusty White, and one of the children were up on
15 the rocks swinging down into the water, while Cheryl,
16 myself and my two children were down at the bottom
17 playing in the pool.
18 At this point in time, Mr. Casteel came
19 down behind us, I heard him, turned around, and he told
20 me to have the men come down now.
21 When we got down, my husband got down
22 first, Rusty was still up on the rocks, he had his
23 shotgun pointed at my husband at all times. He told us,
24 Do not make a wrong move, he would not hesitate to use
25 the shotgun. And then he also told us that the men were
1367
1 very lucky that women and children were present.
2 At that point he escorted us up the hill,
3 the children first, Cheryl and I second, and then my
4 husband Butch and Rusty White. At all times he had the
5 gun pointed directly at my husband. At -- several times
6 it was right in my husband's face.
7 Going up the hill, he had a walkie-talkie.
8 We did not hear nothing come back from the other side of
9 the walkie-talkie, but he was relaying through the
10 walkie-talkie for everybody to keep watch on us as we
11 went up the hill.
12 When we had first come into the blue hole
13 up at the power lines, there was an area where there was
14 just a chair standing up against a tree. After we were
15 . escorted out and had to sign a book with our plate
16 numbers of our truck and sign the names to it, when we
17 went out of there past that little place where the chair
18 was, there was now a full campsite there. There was a
19 chair, there was a --
20 , 4 I want to stop you right there.
21 A Okay.
22 Q That's the substance of what we need for
23 the jury-out hearing, and in front of the jury I'll ask
24 you some other questions.
25 A Okay.
1368
VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION
3 BY MR. POOLE:
4 Q Ma'am, I think you've indicated this was
5 June the 18th, is that true?
6 A It was the weekend of the Fourth of July.
7 Q I thought you said it was June the 18th.
8 I'm sorry. Did you sign your name in the book on that
9 weekend?
10 A My husband did.
11 Q So you remember looking at the little book
12 that was signed by your husband?
13 Y'all have that?
14 THE COURT: No, he's got it.
15 MR. DAVIS: Here it is, I'm sorry.
16 Q (By Mr. Poole) And I guess I was asleep
17 then, but I thought I heard something about the 18th and
18 you said yes, that was the 18th?
19 A I --
20 Q What sort of vehicle were you all in,
21 ma'am?
22 A We were in a Toyota four-by-four pickup,
23 blue.
24 Q And is that, let's see, Butch Lowery?
25 A Yes.
1369
J. Lowery - Voir Dire/Poole
1 Q Blue Toyota pickup, Toyota, '88, FWF 411,
2 Hamilton County, phone number 698-8515. Is that a long
3 time ago?
4 A Yes, sir.
5 Q Your number changed?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q "Two families, ignored signs, drove
8 through." Let me show you, if I could approach the
9 witness, Your Honor.
10 THE COURT: Yes.
11 Q (By Mr. Poole) This is a couple of things.
12 I'm just looking at those things there. Is that your
13 husband's writing?
14 A Yes, sir.
15 Q And under this it says, June the 18th, and
16 I thought that was the question that was asked of you.
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q Okay. Well, could it have been June the
19 18th or are you pretty sure it was Fourth of July?
20 A It could have been June 18th. I do know it
21 was around Fourth of July.
22 Q Okay. And then Russell, you were with the
23 Russell White family?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q White Toyota pickup?
1370
A Yes, sir.
2 Q Okay. That's fine. Now, by your
3 testimony, ma'am, he pointed the shotgun right at at
4 least your husband the whole time that you're talking to
5 him?
6 A Yes, sir.
Q And I think at the face or head or whatever
8 you said?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q And did he make threats?
11 A Yes, sir.
12 Q What were those threats?
13 A The threats being that not to make any
14 sudden moves or he would not hesitate to use the
15 shotgun.
16 Q This took place at the blue hole, and you
17 were accompanied back up to the power line?
18 A Yes, sir.
19 Q And then you hot-footed it out of there, I
20 guess, didn't you?
21 A Yes, sir.
22 Q Did you go out this Helican Road or this
23 road that leads out to Vandergriff Road?
24 A Yes, we did.
25 Q Is that the way you came in?
1371
1 A Yes, we did.
2 Q And whatever day it was, what time did this
happen?
4 A It was mid afternoon.
5 Q Okay. Ma'am, going in or out, did you meet
6 any other families, meet any other people coming in or
7 out?
8 A No, sir, we didn't.
9 Q There was some indication that somebody
10 going out in a blue pickup may have met another family
11 coming in or some more folks coming in, that was not
12 you?
13 A No, it was not.
14 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, that's all the
15 questions I have preliminarily of the witness.
16 THE COURT: All right. What is your
17 position?
18 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, we will object as
19 we have been, pretrial and throughout, that this is a
20 direct situation, under 404(b), it does charge other
21 assaults, other misconduct, and we would urge the
22 Court's ruling that it does, in fact, and that there's
23 no basis for the introduction of it.
24 THE COURT: What's the state say?
25 MR. DAVIS: For the reasons we've
1372
1 articulated previously, we believe it's admissible.
2 THE COURT: But at a certain point, doesn't
3 you -- when you keep introducing more and more witnesses
4 to the same or similar things, aren't you getting closer
5 and closer to this being propensity to commit an
6 offense?
MR. DAVIS: I don't believe so, Your Honor.
8 THE COURT: You don't think you run into
9 danger on that the more witnesses you call?
10 MR. DAVIS: I certainly understand the,
11 that argument. I think in this particular case what
12 we're talking about is a circumstantial evidence case
13 over a period of time. This goes to motive and
14 identity.
15 Her statements are as to the identity of
16 the man behind the shotgun and the motive for him doing
17 what he said he could do. There's no way that we can
18 get into his head about either identity or motive from
19 the three victims that are dead. It's impossible.
20 That's why the rules allow us to get into identity and
21 motive through these types of witnesses.
22 And I will tell Your Honor that we have
23 four witnesses from this incident. We are only going to
24 call two of them, so that we're not going to get --
25 we're going to call this witness and her husband, and
1373
1 I'm not going to --
2 THE COURT: Will his testimony add anything
3 to what she will testify to?
4 MR. DAVIS: Well, the only thing I'm -- it
5 will substantially corroborate what she says. The only
6 thing I'm concerned, if I don't call her, then they'll
7 argue, Well, you never heard from the husband that he
8 had a shotgun pointed at him, you know.
9 But at any rate, the point is, of the four
10 people that are there -- we are trying to move this
11 forward as quickly as possible -- of the four, actually
12 multiple people that were there, we're going to call
13 just these two that have what we think to be very
14 relevant, admissible evidence as quickly as possible.
15 THE COURT: All right. What does the
16 state -- I mean the defense say about the testimony of
17 the husband and about your raising that as an issue if
18 he doesn't testify?
19 MR. POOLE: Well, Your Honor, I think all
20 of these are issues that the state intends to call
21 Mrs. -- this lady and her husband. I think, I think
22 their testimony about threats and assaults are not
23 admissible. It's our argument that none of them have
24 been admissible.
25 THE COURT: I know that, but I'm saying,
1374
are you willing, if the state doesn't call him, to
forego arguing to the jury that they didn't call him?
MR. POOLE: I don't know that -- we may be
forbidden from doing that at any rate at this point in
time.
THE COURT: Okay. Then they can go ahead
and call them then.
All right. You can have -- wait outside
and let your husband come in.
MR. DAVIS: Butch or Melvin Lowery.
MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.,
called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q Good afternoon, Butch. If you could,
please state your full name for the Court and direct
your comments to Judge Meyer.
A My full name is Melton B. Lowery, Jr.
Q Okay. And do you go by Butch, is that
correct?
A Yes, sir.
Q All right. Could you relate to Judge Meyer
an incident that happened out at the blue hole in the
summer of 1988?
1375
M. Lowery - Voir Dire/Davis
1 A Yes, sir. We went up to -- me and my wife
2 and her two kids and a friend of mine and his wife and
3 two kids went up there for a picnic and to swim the blue
hole. We'd been up there approximately 30 minutes to 45
5 minutes and we were approached by a gentleman with a
6 shotgun. He told my wife to tell me to come off the
7 rocks and to come down.
8 Once I came down off the rocks, he pointed
9 a shotgun at me and told me not to move, he would not
10 hesitate to use it. . And I said, "Well, you have no fear
11 of that, I'm not using -- I'm not moving, my wife and
12 children are here."
13 And he said, "Well, you're lucky you've got
14 your wife and children here." He kind of got a little
15 irate and told us to pack up our things and walk up the
16 hill.
17 When we got up the top of the hill, he
18 started telling us about other things. He relaxed the
19 shotgun when we got up there, and during the time of
20 walking up and the time he had his shotgun pointed at my
21 face, he'd been talking on a walkie-talkie, but I
22 couldn't hear anything else come across the
23 walkie-talkie.
24 Time we got at the top of the hill is the
25 first time he relaxed the shotgun, and at this time I
1376
M. Lowery - Voir Dire/Davis
noticed when we came up, the first time when we first
got there, there was two chairs leaning up against a
tree. Well, this time when we got up top of the hill
there was a full camp set up with four or five chairs, a
table, a stove, and sort of like a lean-to, so --
4 I'm going to interrupt you and stop you
there, if I could. For purposes of this jury-out
hearing, those are all the questions I'm going to ask
you right now.
THE COURT: All right.
Q (By Mr. Davis) And the only other
question: At some point did he direct you to sign the
logbook?
A Yes, sir.
MR. DAVIS: Okay. That's all I ask for
right now.
BY MR. POOLE:
Q Sir, other than what you've been asked,
were there any other threats or comments made to you
that day other than what you've just been asked?
A Best of my knowledge, he said he was
getting tired of me coming up there. He said he had
seen my pickup before and it was a brand new pickup and
that's the first time I'd been up there in several
1377
B. Lowery - Voir Dire/Poole
1 years.
2 Q Right.
3 A And other than that, that's all I can
4 remember.
5 Q See anybody going in or coming out other
6 than this man?
7 A No, sir.
8 Q Is the man that you're talking about here
9 in court?
10 A Yes, sir.
11 Q Mr. Casteel?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 Q Did you know him before that?
14 A I had heard about him from living on Signal
15 Mountain.
16 Q Did you know him before that? Had you ever
17 seen him?
18 A Never have met him.
19 MR. POOLE: That's all.
21 MR. DAVIS: That's all, Your Honor.
22 THE COURT: Okay. You can have a seat.
23 Better still, wait out in the hall, and I guess you're
24 ready for the wife?
25 MR. DAVIS: We're ready for Judy to come
1378
1 in, and the jury.
2 MR. POOLE: Oh, wait a minute. Have we had
3 a ruling on it yet? I'm sorry.
THE COURT: Yes. I assume that your
5 argument is the same for him as it is for his wife?
6 MR. POOLE: I didn't know we ruled on Judy,
7 I'm sorry.
8 THE COURT: Yes, yeah, she can testify.
9 MR. POOLE: She can testify. And the Court
10 is specifically finding that this is a material issue,
11 Your Honor, that bears on both of them and the rest of
12 them?
13 THE COURT: Right.
14 MR. POOLE: Which is?
15 THE COURT: I was trying to get you to
16 agree that it's cumulative and that you wouldn't comment
17 on it, and, therefore, we'd only have one of the
18 Lowerys, but you indicated you couldn't agree to that.
19 MR. POOLE: Well, I understand, but what
20 was the ruling then? I'm sorry, I didn't hear it in
21 regard to Judy. What's the material issue that Judy is
22 being allowed to testify about?
23 THE COURT: Again, showing Mr. Casteel's
24 motive for having committed this crime.
25 MR. DAVIS: We would urge the Court to also
1379
1 put on the record identity. We believe the case law
2 raises that.
3 MR. POOLE: And even though it's
4 prejudicial, Your Honor, the Court is under the
5 assumption --
6 THE COURT: The probative value outweighs
7 the prejudice.
(Thereupon, at 2:54 p.m., the jury returned
9 to open court and the following proceedings
10 were had in its presence:)
11 THE COURT: All right. You ready to call
12 your next witness?
13 MR. DAVIS: Yes, Judy Lowery, please.
15 JUDITH ANN LOWERY,
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION
19 BY MR. DAVIS:
20 Q Judy, if you could, please introduce
21 yourself to the jury?
22 A My name is Judith Ann Lowery.
23 Q And, Ms. Lowery, where do you live?
24 A I live in Idaho.
25 Q Okay. And you've come back from Idaho to
1380
J. Lowery - Direct
testify at this trial, is that correct?
2 A Yes, sir.
3 Q All right. Ten years ago in 1988, where
did you live?
5 A At that time I believe we lived at Casa
6 Loma apartments in East Ridge.
7 Q Okay.
8 A Tennessee.
9 Q Here in Hamilton County?
10 A Yes, sir.
11 Q All right. If you could tell the jury, did
12 you have an occasion to go out to a swimming area known
13 as the blue hole in the summer of 1988?
14 A Yes, sir, we did.
15 Q All right. And what is your memory of when
16 that took place?
17 A I believed it was around the Fourth of July
18 weekend somewhere. We had just come back from Idaho, so
19 there's a little span there, but I thought it was right
20 around the Fourth of July weekend.
21 Q Okay. If you could take a look at that
22 photograph that's up on the TV monitor and ask if you
23 recognize that?
24 A Yes, sir, I do.
25 Q What is that?
1381
J. Lowery - Direct
A That's the blue hole.
Q Okay. The blue hole. And let me show you
another angle on that. Do you recognize that? 0
A Yes, sir.
Q What is it?
A Looks like the blue hole.
Q Okay. If you could, tell the jury about
your, your trip to the blue hole, start with who was
there and what happened, which you believe to be around
the Fourth of July of 1988?
A Yes, sir. My husband, Butch Lowery,
myself, my two children, Talena and Tallan Taylor, Rusty
White, his wife Cheryl White, and his two children, we
all went to the blue hole to go swimming. My husband
was raised or lived up on the mountain for several
years, and been swimming in the blue hole for 14, 15
years. We all decided to go swimming up at the blue
hole.
At the time of the incident, my husband,
Rusty and one of their children were up on the rocks
swinging off, swinging off the rocks into the water.
Cheryl and I and my two children were down at the bottom
by the rocks and stuff swimming in the area down there.
At that point in time, Mr. Casteel came up
behind us and told me to get the men down from the
1382
J. Lowery - Direct
1 rocks. I called my husband down. Rusty was still up on
2 the rocks. My husband came down. At that point, Mr.
3 Casteel had a shotgun pointed at my husband's head.
4 never took the shotgun off of him.
5 He made the statement to not make any
6 sudden moves or he would not hesitate to use the
7 shotgun. Then after that, he told us that, "You're very
8 lucky," he spoke this directly to my husband while he
9 was, had the shotgun on him, that "You are very lucky
10 that you have women and children present with you."
11 At that point he leaded (sic) us up the
12 hill, the children in front, Cheryl and I second, and my
13 husband and Rusty in the back, still pointing the
14 shotgun at him.
15 On the way up the hill, he had a walkie-
16 talkie. We could not hear anybody on the other end of
17 the walkie-talkie, but he was stating to somebody to
18 make sure they were keeping an eye on us while we were
19 going up the hill. When we got to the top of the hill,
20 he had my husband and Rusty White sign a book as to the
21 date and us being in the blue hole, and took our license
22 plate numbers down.
23 Q Okay. And how'd that affect you at that
24 time?
25 MR. LAWRENCE: Your Honor, we've objected
1383
J. Lowery - Direct
1 to that kind of testimony before. We'd renew that
2 objection.
3 MR. DAVIS: Want me to rephrase the
4 question?
5 THE COURT: All right. Rephrase your
6 question.
7 Q (By Mr. Davis) All right. Were you
8 afraid?
9 A Definitely.
10 MR. LAWRENCE: Same objection, Your Honor.
11 THE COURT: No, he can ask that part.
12 Q (By Mr. Davis) I'm sorry, I didn't hear
13 your answer.
14 A Definitely.
15 Q Okay. Is that substantially the events
16 that happened out there at the blue hole that day?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 MR. DAVIS: Okay. That's all for right
19 now.
20 CROSS EXAMINATION
21 BY MR. POOLE:
22 Q Ms. Lowery, you've told the jury, and I
23 think it's true, this was a Saturday that you were up
24 there on, correct?
25 A It was on a weekend.
1384
J. Lowery - Cross
1 Q Okay. And we jostled back and forth about
2 what weekend it was, and I indicated that the book
3 showed the 18th of June, and you wouldn't argue
4 strenuously with that if it shows what I guess the
5 family signed up that weekend, would you?
6 A Correct.
7 Q Okay. Now, when this took place, you all
8 were in this, this area, pretty country there, swimming?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q You were already in the blue hole when it
11 happened, right?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 Q What time of afternoon on the weekend did
14 that happen?
15 A It was mid afternoon.
16 Q Two, three, four o'clock, somewhere in
17 there?
18 A Somewhere in there.
19 Q Had you all come up that day from your
20 homes to go swimming?
21 A Yes, sir, we did.
22 Q Okay. And you had not seen anybody else
23 coming in, had not even seen Mr. Casteel coming in when
24 you came in that afternoon?
25 A Not when we came in, no, sir.
1385
J. Lowery - Cross
1 Q Okay. First time you saw anybody that
2 afternoon related to the blue hole was Mr. Casteel when
3 he came on you?
4 A Yes, sir.
5 Q Let me ask you, as you go, went back there
6 to go swimming, did you see any no-trespassing signs or
7 anything like that?
8 A I do believe I saw one.
9 Q One. Okay. Do you know, do you remember
10 crossing the power line?
11 A Yes, sir.
12 Q Okay. And that was up close to the
13 campsite that you've described?
14 A Correct.
15 Q It's a pretty good walk down from that
16 campsite power line down to the blue hole, isn't it?
17 A Yes, it i
18 Q Okay. And then there's a goodly piece to
19 walk across the power line, you know, 40, 50 yards or
20 something like that, across the power line?
21 A Well, we didn't walk across the power line.
22 Q Drive across it, right?
23 A Yes, sir.
24 Q Okay. But now, you did walk up and back
25 from the blue hole though, right?
1386
J. Lowery - Cross
A Yes, sir, we did.
Q And then you, at the, I guess up at the top
of the power line, you got in your vehicle and went on
out that road to Vandergriff Road and went home or went
somewhere else, right?
A Correct.
Q Okay. Now, this certainly, the
altercation, the encounter that you have described took
place from the blue hole back up to the campsite of the
power line?
A That's correct.
Q And then did Mr. Casteel put the gun down?
A He leaned it up against a tree right at the
end.
Q Okay. And, you know, he had you guys sign
up that you were there, right?
A Yes, sir.
Q Okay. And you gave a statement to the
police but it was, was it sometime later than that, I
guess, wasn't it?
A We made a call the day of the murders.
Q Did you move then or did you stick around
in Chattanooga, Signal Mountain, awhile after 1988?
A Oh, yes. We were here for several years.
Q Several years. When did you move to Idaho?

J. Lowery - Cross
1 A A year and a half ago.
2 Q Did you? As you came out that day, you
3 didn't see anyone else either, did you, ma'am?
4 A No, sir, we did not.
5 Q You would have -- I mean, certainly no
6 shots were fired by anyone, correct?
7 A No, sir.
8 Q No shots were fired over your head,
9 warning, threatening you or anything like that, were
10 they?
11 A No, sir.
12 Q Was this a -- what kind of weapon was it?
13 A It was a shotgun.
14 Q Do you know --
15 A Short, short barrel on it.
16 Q Short barrel on it?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q Let me ask you, does this look like the
19 shotgun?
20 A Yes, sir, it does.
21 Q That does?
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q And do you know -- I don't know how to get
24 that thing back down, but do you know whether it was
25 loaded or not?
1388
J. Lowery - Cross
1 A No, I don't know whether it was loaded or
2 not. I assumed it was.
3 MR. POOLE: Okay. Thank you.
4 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
5 BY MR. DAVIS:
6 Q What was the demeanor of Mr. Casteel during
7 this altercation with your husband when he had the gun
8 pointed at your husband's head?
9 A He was very threatening.
10 Q Okay. Appear angry?
11 A Yes.
12 Q What was his tone of voice? Was it
13 conversational?
14 A No, no conversation. Just direct, to the
15 point and -- trying to figure out how to say it.
16 Q Take your time.
17 A It was a demanding, threatening tone with
18 the statements that he was making to us. Whether there
19 was anybody else there or not, he was making it be known
20 that we were being carefully watched. Let's just say I
21 don't get frightened very easy, and that is not a moment
22 I would like to return to.
23 Q Okay. And what was the statement he said
24 while he had the gun pointed at your husband's head?
25 A He said not to make any sudden moves or he
1389
J. Lowery - Redirect
1. would not hesitate to use the shotgun.
2 MR. DAVIS: That's all.
3 THE COURT: Anything further?
4 MR. POOLE: (Shakes head from side to
5 side.)
6 THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You can
7 have a seat in the courtroom or you are free to leave.
8 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir.
11 MR. DAVIS: Butch Lowery, please, Your
12 Honor.
13 Your Honor, while Mr. Lowery is coming up,
14 I would just like to take those two photographs of the
15 blue hole and show the jury, and put these into
16 evidence.
17 THE COURT: All right. Let them be marked.
18 (Thereupon, Exhibits 71 and 72

were marked and filed.)
19
20 MR. POOLE: What are those numbers?
21 MR. DAVIS: 71 and 72.
22 MR. POOLE: Wowl
23 MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.,
1390
M. Lowery - Direct
2 BY MR. DAVIS:
3 Q Good afternoon, Butch. If you could,
4 please introduce yourself to the jury.
5 A My name is Melton B. Lowery, Jr.
6 Q Your friends call you Melton?
7 A Everybody calls me Butch.
Q Yeah. Okay. Butch, if you could, where do
9 you live now?
1 10 A Hayden Lake, Idaho.
11 Q All right. And in 1988 where did you live?
12 A Apartments in East Ridge.
13 Q Okay. Here in Hamilton County?
14 A Yes, sir.
1 15 Q All right. At some point did you have an
16 opportunity to go up to a swimming hole known as the
17 blue hole on Signal Mountain?
18 A Yes, sir.
19 Q All right. What has been your history up
20 at the blue hole?
21 A The history?
22 Q Well, I mean, had you been there before?
23 A Yes, I lived on Signal Mountain for 14
24 years and I've been over there quite a few times.
25 Q Okay. And what is it?
1391
M. Lowery - Direct
1 A That's a little swimming hole and formation
2 of rocks around it. Everybody goes over there to swing
3 off a vine or swing off a rope.
Q Is that the, is that a photograph of it
5 right there on the television?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q Okay.
8 A Yes.
9 Q All right. And when do you think in 1988
10 you went up to the swimming hole?
11 A Excuse me?
12 Q When in 1988 did you go out there?
13 A June, I believe.
14 Q Okay. And tell us, who did you go with
15 and -- is this another photograph of the swimming hole
16 here?
17 A Yes.
18 Q All right. When you went out in June to
19 the blue hole, tell us, who did you go with and what
20 happened? Tell the jury.
21 A Went up to the blue hole with my wife, two
22 children, a friend of mine, his wife and his two
23 children. We went up there to take a picnic lunch and
24 swim for a while.
25 Q Okay. And while you were there, tell us
1392
M. Lowery - Direct
what happened.
A We had been there approximately 30 minutes
or a little more when a man walked up with a shotgun,
told my wife to order, tell me to come down off the
rocks.
And when I got down to the rocks and all
where he was standing, he pointed a shotgun at my face
and told me not to move, that he would not hesitate to
use it.
And I told him, well, he had no worry about
that because I got my wife and children here. He told
me that I was lucky that I had my wife and children with
me.
Q Let me stop you there. What was his
demeanor? How did he look when he said those things?
A He looked, to me he looked sort of mad, or
some other people might say P.O.'d.
Q Okay. And what tone of voice did he use?
Was it a tone of voice like I'm using with you right now
or was it different?
A It was sort of more like a hostile voice.
Q Okay. And are the rocks where you were, is
that in that picture here on the television screen or is
it off to the left there?
A It should be off to the left.
1393
M. Lowery - Direct
1 Q Okay. And is it more in that photograph?
2 A Well, if I'm right, it's been a while since
3 I've been up here. The, these are the rocks we jumped
4 off of, and if I ain't mistaken, the sort of flat part
5 where the rocks are is back to the left.
6 Q Okay. And then after, after that
7 statement, after that hostile statement, what happened?
8 A He told us to pack up our goods, our
9 baskets and stuff and proceed up the hill.
10 Q Okay.
11 A That whole time he was talking on a
12 walkie-talkie, which I never heard anything come back
13 over, I don't know if he had it too low or whatever, but
14 time we got to the hill is the first time that he
15 relaxed the shotgun, said something in his microphone or
16 the walkie-talkie, laid the shotgun up against a tree
17 and proceeded to get a book out.
18 Q Let me show you what's State's Exhibit
19 Number 1 and ask you if you can recognize that book?
20 A Yes, sir, that looks like it.
21 Q All right. And let me ask you to read the
22 top of this page to yourself.
23 A "Butch Lowery, blue Toyota pickup, Toyota
24 '88, four-wheel-drive, all terrain, all Hamilton
25 County."
1394
M. Lowery - Direct
1 Q All right. Is that, who wrote the "Butch
2 Lowery" in there?
3 A That's my signature.
4 Q Okay. And what about the other
5 information?
6 A May I take my glasses off?
7 Q Sure.
8 A It says, "Two families, ignored all signs,
9 drove through woods to blue hole." And below that is
10 Russell White's name, "white Toyota pickup, Toyota '86,
11 1023 UW Tennessee. Telephone number, 894-0595."
12 Q And Russell and Cheryl, were they your
13 companions out there that day?
14 A Yes, sir.
15 Q All right. And Russell or Rusty, he signed
16 his name underneath yours?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q And you were present when that happened?
19 A Yes, sir.
20 Q Okay. And the number entry on there, what
21 numbers are there?
22 A Mine is 101 and Russell's is 102.
23 Q Okay. The -- and that took place at the
24 campsite, or where did it take place?
25 A At the top of the blue hole where a
1395
M. Lowery - Direct
1 campsite was set up.
2 Q Okay. Do you recognize, in the courtroom
3 today the person who held the shotgun and put it up to
4 your head?
5 A Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I do.
6 Q And for the jury, could you please point
7 out that person?
A The gentleman sitting in the black suit in
the middle.
10 Q All right. In the middle between these two
11 attorneys here?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 MR. DAVIS: All right. Let the record
14 reflect, Your Honor, he has picked out the defendant,
15 Mr. Casteel.
17 MR. DAVIS: Luther, you want to check that
18 and make sure it's clear? Okay. Is that clear?
19 Q (By Mr. Davis) All right. What I want you
20 to do is, I don't want you to put this to your head, but
21 I want you to tell me how close was this to your head,
22 was the end of the -- first off, do you recognize this
23 shotgun?
24 A Yes, sir, I do.
25 Q And what is this shotgun?
1396
M. Lowery - Direct
1 A It's a 12-gauge assault rifle, pump
2 shotgun.
3 Q And you recognize this gun from a previous
4 encounter?
A Yes, sir, I do.
6 Q All right. In whose hands the last time
7 you saw this shotgun?
8 A Frank Casteel's.
9 Q All right. Now, tell us, how close did the
10 end of this shotgun come to your head when he made that
11 statement?
12 A Approximately 12 to 13 inches, 14.
13 Q Why don't you just -- don't point it at
14 your head, but just point it. You get my meaning on
15 that?
16 A On me?
17 Yeah, without pointing it at your head.
18 THE COURT: Don't point it at yourself.
19 Q If you had a second head out here.
20 A Yeah, it would be about right here.
21 All right.
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q All right. And we're all laughing now in
24 my poor attempt to recreate that, but was it funny then?
25 A No, sir, it wasn't.
1397
M. Lowery - Direct
1 Q And was it, in your experience, one of the
2 most serious things you've ever been through?
A Yes, sir, it was.
4 MR. DAVIS: No further questions.
5 THE COURT: For the defendant.
6 CROSS EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. POOLE:
8 Q Mr. Lowery, if I stand over here can you
9 hear me all right, sir?
10 A Yes, sir.
11 Q You all came down to the blue hole without
12 encountering any other people on your way in that day,
13 did you not, sir?
14 A Yes, sir.
15 Q And came down I guess kind of a rough dirt,
16 rocky road to get there?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q Okay. Your first encounter with anybody,
19 your first meeting with anybody was the person you have
20 now picked out as being Frank Casteel?
21 A Yes, sir.
22 Q Okay. The only time or the places that you
23 saw and encountered and talked to him was between the
24 blue hole and the power line area, is that true?
25 A Yes, sir.
1398
M. Lowery - Cross
1 Q Okay. And he indicated to you that was his
2 property?
3 A Yes, sir, he did.
4 Q He say what he was going to do with it?
5 A No, sir. He said he was just tired of
6 people coming on his property.
7 Q Okay. And now, was your vehicle parked up
8 there about, you know, his campsite area?
9 A There's a little path going down to the
10 blue hole. It was parked approximately 15 feet into the
11 woods.
12 Q Okay. This area from the campsite or the
13 power line area to the blue hole drops off quite a bit
14 and is a pretty rough walk, isn't it?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q Pretty far down there?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q And so you were, you came back up, I guess,
19 with the families and Mr. Casteel following you as you
20 came back up there?
21 A Yes, sir.
22 Q Okay. Do you know how long it takes to
23 walk down or walk back up?
24 A Well, going downhill, it takes a little
25 shorter time going down, but walking back up, maybe 15
1399
M. Lowery - Cross
1 minutes.
2 Q Fifteen minutes to walk back up, and then
3 you get to the campsite, which is at the corner of the
4 power line, right?
5 A Yes, sir.
6 Q And then you got -- of course, Mr. Casteel
7 put the weapon down that we've talked about up there,
8 did he not?
9 A Yes, sir, he leaned it up against a tree.
10 Q Okay. And you signed your name, Mr. White
11 signed his name and did Mr. Casteel put in this other
12 information about you and your vehicle and things like
13 that?
14 A After we handed the book back, I don't know
15 what -- he wrote something in it but I don't know what
16 it was.
17 Q The things that Mr. Davis has read out to
18 you, you didn't put those in there, though, did you,
19 about what kind of vehicle you were in and things of
20 this nature?
21 A My name, the Toyota is mine that I signed,
22 the year and all, but not the tag.
23 Q All right. So after you left there, you
24 crossed the power line area and then went back on into
25 the woods on the trail?
1400
M. Lowery - Cross
1 A Yes, sir.
2 Q This little road. Did you, as you came in
3 that day, sir, see any signs about no trespassing or
4 anything?
5 A No, sir. I never seen a sign at all.
6 Q Okay. And certainly didn't look for them
7 as you went out because you were getting out, weren't
8 you?
9 A That's right.
10 Q Okay. Did you see any gate areas?
11 A There was a gate area but nothing was
12 across it.
13 Q Okay. So it was open when you went in and
14 came out both, right?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q And that was a goodly piece from that power
17 line area that you've talked about. You had to get back
18 on into the woods to get to that, did you not, sir?
19 A Yes, sir.
20 MR. POOLE: That's all. Thank you, sir.
22 Q (By Mr. Poole) Let me ask you one other
23 thing before you leave: You have identified Frank
24 Casteel today. You haven't seen him in ten years?
25 A No, sir.
1401
M. Lowery - Cross
Q Okay. Has he gained any weight since then?
A Well, I couldn't tell that. I remember the
facial features on him. With a shotgun pointed at your
face and you're looking at a shotgun, you don't forget
something like that or who's holding the shotgun.
Q That's the reason you picked his face out,
you were able to remember his face?
A Yes, sir, and the shotgun.
Q But his body weight or anything like that,
you didn't notice it?
A No. I was more interested in his finger
motions and his facial expressions.
Q So you could pick out his face or his
fingers but not his body then, I guess?
A That's right.
MR. POOLE: Okay. Thank you, sir.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You are
free to go or you can have a seat in the courtroom.
(Witness excused.)
THE COURT: Who is your next witness?
MR. COX: John Savor, Your Honor.
Gentlemen? Mr. Poole?
MR. POOLE: Yes.
MR. LAWRENCE: Should we approach?
(Thereupon, a bench conference was held on
1402
M. Lowery - Cross
4 MR. COX: This is another encounter, two
5 witnesses. I hate to keep sending the jury out, in and
6 out, but I don't know what else to do if y'all want to
7 hear him.
8 THE COURT: Have you heard his statement?
9 Have you read his statement, the one that's going to
10 testify?
11 MR. LAWRENCE: Yes.
12 THE COURT: Okay. And do you have the same
13 objection?
14 MR. POOLE: Yes, sir.
15 MR. LAWRENCE: Yes, sir.
16 THE COURT: Do you need a jury-out hearing?
17 The Court doesn't if it's not going to be any different
18 than the other.
19 MR. POOLE: If we could stipulate --
20 MR. COX: The statement?
21 MR. POOLE: Stipulate his statement, and
22 again, once again, we will argue it's a violation of
23 404(b).
24 THE COURT: Okay. You can preserve that,
25 your exception to my ruling.
1403
M. Lowery - Cross
1 MR. LAWRENCE: We might put it a little bit
2 more explicitly on the record maybe at a break or
3 something, if we can do that.
4 THE COURT: Okay. Sure.
8 the jury:)
9 JOHN SAVOR,
13 BY MR. COX:
14 Q Good afternoon.
15 A Good afternoon.
16 Q Will you tell the jury your name, please,
17 sir?
18 A John Savor.
19 Q John, where were you living back in 1988?
20 A Middle Valley.
21 Q And how old were you back in 1988?
22 A Twenty-five.
23 Q Did you have the occasion on June 16th to
24 go up to the blue hole area?
25 A Yes, sir.
1404
Savor - Direct
1. Q All right. What was your purpose for going
2 up there?
3 A Go swimming.
4 Q All right. There's a logbook entry here,
5 Mr. Savor, that says "June 16th, John M. Savor, '77
jeep." Is that you?
7 A Yes, sir.
8 Q Also there's a notation, it says, "caught
9 seven/eight young men, Toyota on power line, but jeep
10 went down to blue hole." Is that right?
11 A Yes.
12 Q What about that word "caught," is that
13 right?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Tell us what happened.
16 A There was two vehicles came in with us. We
17 left one at the power line and drove my jeep down to the
18 blue hole.
19 Q Keep your voice up a little bit.
20 A As we got down to the blue hole, we went
21 swimming, stayed down there a few hours, came back out.
22 I loaded, had six people in my jeep and two walked out
23 in front of us, and they were probably 50 yards in front
24 of us, I saw a man detain the two people.
25 Q A man detaining them?
1405
Savor - Direct
1 A Yes.
2 Q How were they being detained?
3 A With a shotgun.
Q How far from them were you when you first
5 saw them?
6 A Probably 50 to 75 yards.
7 Q All right. Did you continue, then, on up
8 to where they were?
9 A Yes.
10 Q All right. Continue your story about what
11 happened.
12 A As we got there, Mr. Casteel told us to all
13 get out of the jeep and stand where we could see him and
14 keep our hands where we could see them.
15 Q He didn't tell you to leave, he told you to
16 all get out of the jeep?
17 A Yes, he lined us all up.
18 Q Lined you up?
19 A In a, kind of in a group.
20 Q All right. And why did he do that?
21 A I'm not sure.
22 Q All right. But he told you to stay
23 together in a group?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q And lined you up?
1406
Savor - Direct
1 A Yes.
2 Q All right. Did he have any type of weapon
3 at this point in time?
4 A He had a shotgun.
5 Q How old were the other folks that were with
6 you?
7 A Pretty much my same age, give or take a few
B years.
9 Q Twenties?
10 A In their twenties, mid twenties.
11 Q All right. After he got you out of your
12 vehicles and lined you up, what'd he do?
13 A We just talked and he told us that he
14 didn't appreciate people driving through his back yard.
15 Q His back yard?
16 A Yes.
17 Q When he was telling you that, where was the
18 shotgun?
19 A In his hand, held in this position. His
20 hand was on the stock and he was holding it up against
21 his arm, straight up.
22 Q Did he ever, did he ever relax that
23 position any time during the conversation he was having
24 at that time?
25 A Only a few times. He wanted to get his
1407
Savor - Direct
3. book so we could enter our names in the book.
2 Q Did he enter the names in the book or did
3 you enter the names in the book?
4 A We did.
5 Q All right. And while you were entering
6 your names in the book, where was the shotgun?
7 A Still in his hand.
Q All right. Do you think you'd recognize
9 that shotgun if you saw it again, or can you describe
10 it?
11 A It was just a pump shotgun, I don't know a
12 whole lot about guns. That looks like it.
13 MR. COX: He's identified State's Exhibit
14 Number 1 (sic).
16 (By Mr. Cox) What were some of the other
17 folks -- was everybody just standing there lined up for
18 this entire episode?
19 A We had a couple of people in our party that
20 were not taking it very seriously. They were kind of
21 laughing and joking.
22 Q Was that you?
23 A No.
24 Q All right. And what happened to those two
25 that were not taking it too seriously?
1408
Savor - Direct
A One of them went to the back of the Toyota
2 to get a pack of cigarettes out of the back, and as he
turned and walked to get his cigarettes, Mr. Casteel
4 told him to stop right there, and which he did not, and
5 he forcefully told him to back away from the truck, not
6 to move and keep his hands where he could see them.
7 Q How long were you caught and detained?
8 A About 30 minutes.
9 Q Well, did it take that long to write your
10 name down in the book?
11 A No. I couldn't understand how, why it took
12 so long to I guess calm Mr. Casteel down. He was pretty
13 irritated that we had come on his property, and me and
14 Mr. Perry, another guy in our group, we just talked to
15 him, tried to calm him down and tell him we were sorry
16 for coming in there and that we would put back anything
17 that we disturbed.
18 Q All right. You wanted to leave at that
19 point in time?
20 A I really did want to leave.
21 Q Did you ask to leave?
22 A No, I did not.
23 Q You said you'd just put the stuff back?
24 A I told him that anything that was
25 disturbed, that we would put back.
1409
Savor - Direct
1 You said you would do anything?
2 A I would have done anything.
3 Q At some point, then, were you released?
4 A Yes. After we noted our names in the book,
5 he explained to us that we were not to come back, that
6 he was tired of people driving through his back yard,
7 and that we told him that was no problem, that we would
8 leave and never come back.
9 Q Were you scared?
10 A I was scared for my life.
11 MR. COX: You may ask.
12 MR. LAWRENCE: Your Honor, we have an
13 objection to that last question. The Court has
14 overruled us before.
15 THE COURT: Yes.
17 BY MR. LAWRENCE:
18 Q Mr. Savor, I'm Phil Lawrence. I'm Frank
19 Casteel's lawyer, and I'm going to put a statement that
20 you gave in front of you because I'm going to ask you a
21 question about it in just a second.
22 As you drove back there from the paved
23 road, over the dirt road back to the blue hole, you
24 noticed the no-trespassing signs that were posted there,
25 did you not?
1410
Savor - Cross
A Yes, I did.
Q For whatever reason, you ignored those
signs and continued to drive on?
A Yes, I did.
Q Was there any reason that you didn't think
they were, meant what they said?
A We had gone back in there prior to that and
there was no-trespassing signs there, so we, we broke
the law by trespassing.
Q But there was a group of you, you were out
to have fun, feeling bold and went on through to the
blue hole, right?
A Yes, sir.
Q How long had you been down there before Mr.
Casteel arrived?
A Probably about two hours.
Q Okay. And when he came down there, he made
it known that you weren't welcome to be there, right?
A He didn't come down. He met us as we came
out.
Q As you came out. Okay. And the record
that this lady is taking down doesn't really indicate
the hand positions that you were demonstrating about how
he was holding the gun, but would it be fair to say the
gun was held so that the barrel was pointing up into the
1411
Savor - Cross
1 sky?
2 A Yes.
3 Q And it stayed in that position throughout
4 this entire encounter?
5 A As well as I can remember, yes.
6 Q Okay. Now, I've put that statement in
7 front of you, and would you mind reading just the bottom
8 quarter of the page where you're asked about whether or
9 not Mr. Casteel threatened you? Now, what was the date
10 that that statement was given? Let me just turn to the
11 first page and see. You gave this statement on July the
12 12th, 1988, a few days after the incidents?
13 A It was three weeks after.
14 Q You think it was three weeks after?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Okay. Oh, you gave your statement three
17 weeks after --
18 A The murder.
19 Q -- your encounter with Mr. Casteel?
20 A No, it was three weeks after the murders.
21 Q Well, we think the murders occurred on July
22 the 9th, and apparently you gave your statement on July
23 the 12th. Would there be some just maybe mistake in
24 your mind about when the murders occurred?
25 A Yes.
1412
Savor - Cross
1 Q Okay. So if it says July the 12th, that's
2 when you gave your statement, correct?
3 A Yes.
Q Shortly after the murders had occurred?
5 A Shortly.
6 Q And how were you contacted?
7 A We were not contacted. We contacted them,
8 the detectives.
9 Q Okay. You contacted someone at the
10 sheriff's department?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Now, you were asked by Detective Parham on
13 July 12, 1988, "Did he threaten you?" And how did you
14 respond to that question?
15 A "He never threatened me."
16 Q And is that what you remember today, --
17 A Yes.
18 Q -- that he never threatened you or anyone
19 else there?
20 A No, he didn't.
21 Q He was authoritative?
22 A Yes.
23 Q Would that be a way of expressing this
24 man's attitude towards you?
25 A Very authoritative.
1413
Savor - Cross
1 Q Was very clear in what he told you, that he
2 didn't want you there and didn't want you to come back?
3 A Yes.
4 Q And at that time, you probably felt that he
5 was justified in saying that because he had posted those
6 signs there warning people not to come back?
7 A Yes, sir.
8 Q And some of your companions were not taking
9 him as seriously as you did?
10 A Exactly.
11 Q Okay. You later had an encounter with Mr.
12 Casteel at your job, didn't you?
13 A Yes, I did.
14 Q Tell the jury about that.
15 A I worked as a mechanic at a local Ford
16 dealership, and I had the job to put an engine in a car,
17 and which I did.
18 MR. COX: Approach the bench for a moment,
19 Your Honor? I object, have an objection, like to be
20 heard.
25 MR. COX: He went down to the shop sometime
1414
Savor - Cross
1 later, had some work done on his car. He confronted him
2 about what had happened up on the mountain. I think
3 he's going to try to elicit testimony from this witness
4 that Casteel said the gun was not loaded. That's
5 nothing but self-serving hearsay.
6 MR. LAWRENCE: Well, what if I don't ask
7 him that?
8 MR. COX: Well, that'd be good.
9 MR. LAWRENCE: Okay.
10 (Thereupon said bench conference having
13 the jury:)
14 Q (By Mr. Lawrence) So you were working as a
15 mechanic at the local Ford dealership?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Was it Lawrence Doster Lincoln Mercury at
18 the time?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Mr. Casteel brought his wife's car there
21 for some work?
22 A Yes.
23 Q Did you approach him?
24 A Only after I realized that was him.
25 Q What'd you say to him?
1415
Savor - Cross
1 A I told him I didn't appreciate being
2 detained like that.
3 Q And he told you that he was afraid he --
MR. COX: Object.
5 Q What did he tell you?
6 MR. COX: Object.
7 THE COURT: No. You're going to have to
8 direct your question at what answer you wish to get.
9 MR. LAWRENCE: It only has, it only has --
10 MR. COX: May we approach, Your Honor?
16 MR. COX: Maybe I was confused but I
17 thought Mr. Lawrence just got through saying, What if I
18 don't ask him?
19 MR. LAWRENCE: I'm not going to ask him
20 that question.
21 THE COURT: What are you going to ask him?
22 MR. COX: You just asked him what he said.
23 MR. LAWRENCE: Well, he'doesn't have to say
24 that he said the gun wasn't loaded. Maybe he said
25 something else.
1416
Savor - Cross
MR. COX: Come on, that's what you're
trying to elicit, I mean, you know --
MR. LAWRENCE: I'm telling you, I'm not.
MR. COX: I'm telling you, you are.
MR. LAWRENCE: You're not going to let me
ask the question?
THE COURT: (Shakes head from side to
side.)
MR. LAWRENCE: All right, Your Honor.
(Thereupon, said bench conference having
been completed, the following proceedings
were had in the presence and hearing of
the jury:)
Q (By Mr. Lawrence) What was Mr. Casteel's
demeanor on that occasion?
A He looked different than I'd seen him prior
to that. He had a beard and his demeanor was calm.
Q Friendly?
A He wasn't saying anything. He just stood
over in the corner and I approached him.
Q Okay. How much later was that than July
9th, 1988, or July 12th when you had your, gave your
statement?
A I'm not exactly sure.
Q Several months later?
1417
Savor - Cross
1 A Several months.
2 Q Many months later?
3 A Yes.
4 MR. LAWRENCE: Okay. Thank you.
5 THE WITNESS: You're welcome.
6 THE COURT: Anything further from the
7 state?
8 MR. COX: Nothing further, Your Honor.
9 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Savor, you are
10 free to go or you can have a seat in the courtroom.
11 MR. LAWRENCE: Let me ask you one other
12 question, if I may, Your Honor.
13 THE COURT: Okay.
14 Q (By Mr. Lawrence) Did Mr. Casteel tell you
15 anything about what would happen if you came back up
16 there a second time after he had given you a warning?
17 A He said he would swear out a warrant for us
18 trespassing.
19 MR. LAWRENCE: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. COX: Nothing further.
22 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Savor, you are
23 free to go or you can have a seat in the courtroom.
1418
1 MR. COX: James Perry.
2 MR. POOLE: As he comes down, may we just
3 approach the bench one more time, sir?
MR. POOLE: Your Honor, we just want the
10 record to be very clear. This is another witness with
11 this young man, says the same thing, we've got the same
12 motion.
13 THE COURT: Okay. And for the reason I've
14 given on the others, let your objection be denied.
15 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, I think further, we
16 have repeatedly objected to what their thoughts and
17 fears were. I think the state seeks to elicit to make
18 it more of an assault, to say you were afraid, you were
19 scared and all that, which makes the assaults worse, it
20 seems like to me. We've objected to that.
21 THE COURT: You can note an exception.
22 JAMES PERRY,
1419
Perry - Direct
BY MR. COX:
Q Would you state your name, please, sir?
A James Perry.
Q And, Mr. Perry, did you have occasion to be
up at the blue hole on June 16th, 1988?
A Yes, sir.
Q And were you up there with Mr. Savor?
A Yes, sir.
Q And who all else was up there?
A There were approximately six or seven
others. I can't recall all the names.
All right. Where were you living at the
time?
A I was living in Hixson.
Q All right. And what had y'all gone up
there to do?
A We went up there to go swimming,
four-wheeling. We'd been going there since early '80s.
Q You'd been going there since the early
'80s?
A Yes, sir.
Q To that same location?
A Yes, sir.
Q On this particular day, what time did you
go up there, do you remember?
1420
Perry - Direct
1 A Approximately 4:30, 5 o'clock. And I think
we were exiting around 6:30, 7.
3 Q Okay. And how were you exiting? Were you
4 walking or were you in a truck or what?
5 A My truck was parked at the power lines and
6 we had walked down to the swimming hole, and we walked
7 out, and he -- and that's where Mr. Casteel was waiting.
8 Q All right. And what, were you walking out
9 ahead of a vehicle that was following or were you in the
10 vehicle --
11 A No, one of the other vehicles was all the
12 way down and I was riding on the bumper.
13 Q Okay. What happened when you got up to
14 that area?
15 A Two of the guys with us were already
16 confronted and motioned us over. We all gathered
17 around.
18 Q All right. Did some people get out, have
19 to get out of their vehicles?
20 A Yes.
21 Q And what, just tell the jury what happened.
22 A He confronted us, telling us this was his
23 property and he was going to stop the trespassing, and
24 we should have read the signs and we knew better than to
25 be there.
1421
Perry - Direct
1 Q He said he was going to stop the
2 trespassing?
3 A Yes.
4 Q As he was saying these things, was he armed
in any way?
6 A Yes, he had a shotgun.
7 Q And how was he holding it and what was he
8 doing with it?
9 A The shotgun was draped over his arm in a
10 cradle position.
11 Q All right. Then what happened?
12 A I guess we talked for probably 30 minutes
13 or so, and he was telling us about the people who'd been
14 coming in and out and this was his land, his family was
15 up there and he had to protect them.
16 Q Did you see any family up there at this
17 point in time?
18 A No.
19 Q Did you see a campsite?
20 A No.
21 Q All right. Did you see a vehicle?
22 A A vehicle was off to the, to the right
23 facing out on the far side of the hill. You could see
24 the top of it.
25 Q All right. So what took 30 minutes?
1422
Perry - Direct
1 A Basically just, you know, he was pretty
2 wound up at us, you know, thought we should have
3 obtained to the signs and not came in, and we explained
4 that we'd been coming up there for years and there was
5 always unlimited access, and he said that no longer was
6 there unlimited access, that this was his property and
7 this was going to stop.
8 MR. COX: All right.
9 THE COURT: For the defense
11 BY MR. LAWRENCE:
12 Q Do you recall what hour of the day this
13 was, Mr. Perry?
14 A It was late evening after work, I believe
15 on a Thursday is the first time we'd been up there that
16 year.
17 Q Did you write your own name in Mr.
18 Casteel's book?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Could I show you this, please?
21 A Sure.
22 Q Would you -- you can hold it.
23 A Okay.
24 Q Does that appear to be your handwriting?
25 A That is my handwriting.
1423
Perry - Cross
1 Q What have you written there?
2 A My name, my Toyota and my tag number.
Q Just read out what's written there?
4 A "Jim Perry, '84 Toyota," my license tag
5 number, FTP 973.
6 Q You remember that being your license tag
7 number back then?
8 A Yes, sir.
9 Q And what is the date that's entered in the
10 book?
11 A It says June 16th.
12 Q Is that when you remember that it was?
13 A Approximately.
14 Q Okay. And you think that might have been a
15 Thursday?
16 A I think so. Seemed like it was towards the
17 end of the week. I can't be for sure.
18 Q Not that it's critical, but let me just
19 check.
20 A Okay.
21 Q I've got a calendar. Yeah, you're right,
22 it was a Thursday.
23 And did you say that you went up there
24 after work?
25 A Yes, sir.
1424
Perry - Cross
1 Q So what time would it have been that you
2 got off from work and went up there?
3 A 3:30, got off work at 3:30 and probably got
4 up there 4:30, 5 o'clock.
5 Q How long were you swimming there at the
blue hole?
7 A About an hour.
Q And what, so that would put your encounter
9 with Mr. Casteel at what time?
10 A Somewhere between 6, 6:30, somewhere in
11 that neighborhood.
12 Q Okay. How was he dressed?
13 A I really don't recall, blue jeans and
14 flannel shirt possibly. It was warm so it was probably
15 a short sleeve shirt.
16 Q You did see the no-trespassing signs as you
17 came from the pavement back on the dirt road to the blue
18 hole?
19 A Saw no-trespassing signs. I'm not exactly
20 sure where they started.
21 Q You remember coming through something that
22 appeared to be a gate?
23 A I'm familiar with the gate.
24 Q And how are you familiar with it? Just
25 from the years going --
1425
Perry - Cross
1 A Just from being up there so often.
2 Q Do you have any recollection whether there
3 was any barrier at the gate at all?
4 A There was no barrier.
5 Q No wire, no swinging gate, nothing like
6 that?
7 A No. We drove straight through.
8 Q Drove straight through.
9 Now, after Mr. Casteel had this discussion
10 with you, did he make any statement about what would
11 happen if you came back up there?
12 A Possibly prosecution for trespassing.
13 Q You didn't go back up there?
14 A No.
15 Q You understood that he meant what he said
16 about that?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And as you recall, the shotgun was draped
19 over his arm while it was kind of cradled in his arm?
20 A It was cradled over his arm.
21 Q Never pointed at you?
22 A No, sir.
23 Q Never pointed at anyone else?
24 A Not that I recall. Like I say, some of the
25 guys had exited before I did and I couldn't say.
1426
Perry - Cross
Q Where were you working then?
A General Industries.
Q Which is?
A It was a van conversion company.
MR. LAWRENCE: Okay. I think that's all.
Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You can
have a seat in the courtroom or you are free to leave.
(Witness excused.)
MR. COX: May we approach, Your Honor?
(Thereupon, a bench conference was held on
the record in the presence of the jury but
out of the hearing of the jury and the
following proceedings were had:)
MR. COX: I think we're waiting on a
witness right now at this second.
MR. DAVIS: Want to take a ten-minute
break --
MR. LAWRENCE: Sure.
MR. DAVIS: -- and we can probably pound
out one or two more witnesses for the day?
THE COURT: I intend to give y'all a
working charge.
1427
1 MR. LAWRENCE: Wonderful.
2 THE COURT: This, this is just something
3 I've mentioned the other day that y'all can look at, and
4 here's one for Mr. Steelman, too.
5 That was just if you wish me to include
6 identification. That's just something to look at.
7 MR. DAVIS: Okay.
8 THE COURT: All right. So we need to take
9 a few-minute break.
13 the jury:)
14 THE COURT: Okay. All right. Jurors,
15 we're waiting for a witness that'll take just a few
16 minutes, so you can step back in the jury room, or they
17 can walk up and down the hall back in there if they
18 would rather, if you want to get some exercise, if you
19 get tired of being in that room.
20 OFFICER TILLEY: I think they've got a
21 trial going on down here.
22 THE COURT: Oh, they've got a trial going
23 on? Well, they still might be able to walk.
25 excused from open court and the following
1428
1 proceedings were had in its absence:)
2 MR. COX: May we be excused, Your Honor?
3 THE COURT: Yes.
4 (Thereupon, a recess was had.)
5 THE COURT: All right. All right.
6 Everybody's present, so let the jury come back.
7 (Thereupon, at 3:59 p.m., the jury returned
10 THE COURT: All right. Is your next
11 witness ready?
12 MR. COX: Yes, Your Honor, Gary McDowell.
13 GARY MCDOWELL,
17 BY MR. COX:
18 Q Would you state your name, please, sir?
19 A Gary McDowell.
20 Q Mr. McDowell, where were you living back in
21 1988?
22 A At 2556 Boston Branch Circle.
23 Q Is that up there near the Helican?
24 A Yes, sir, it is, about --
25 Q And where specifically?
1429
G. McDowell - Direct
A Probably three quarters of a mile across
2 the ridge.
3 Q All right. Did you own horses?
4 A Yes.
5 Q And did you from time to time ride that
6 area, ride back in that area?
7 A Quite often.
8 Q Okay. How long had you lived up there at
9 the time this, what I'm about to talk to you about
10 happened?
11 A We moved up there in '78.
12 Q So you lived up there ten years before July
13 of 1988?
14 A Correct. We'd been riding that area for
15 that length of time.
16 Q On May the 15th of 1988, were you and your
17 wife out riding in that area?
18 A Yes, sir.
19 Q All right. And where did you ride?
20 A We came across Hixson Branch and over the
21 ridge across Hixson Branch and up to the Helican and out
22 through the power line toward --
23 Q All right. Did you ride up -- I'm sorry,
24 go ahead.
25 A Toward the blue hole.

Q Toward the blue hole. When you were riding
up the power line toward the blue hole, did you run into
Mr. Casteel's campsite?
A Yes, sir, we did.
Q All right. And what happened when you got
there?
A As we came into the power line, we noticed
some, a no-trespassing sign and we noted the no-
trespassing sign and the phone number, and then we
continued to ride on to make the loop down to the blue
hole and back out. And as we got down to the bottom of
the hill, there's a ravine and a small creek that runs
through it with some trees or brush on each side, and as
we started through the ravine, Mr. Casteel and his son
stepped out in front of us and stopped us.
Q All right. And was that right there at his
campsite or just a bit from it?
A Yes, just right beside it.
Q Were you making any noise in particular
when you rode up?
A No, not unless we were just talking.
Q All right. Do you think you surprised him
or do you know?
A I think it probably did because we, you
know, just leisurely riding and it wasn't like he was
1431
1 there. They were kind of coming out of the, from behind
2 the bushes when we got there.
3 Q Okay. And what was said then?
4 A Mr. Casteel stopped us and said, "Don't you
5 guys know, don't you know that you're trespassing?"
6 And we said that, you know, "Well, we're
7 here on the power line like we've been riding for years,
and we thought the power line was public domain and
anyone had the right to be there."
10 He said, "No, this is my property." He
11 said, "Didn't you see the trespassing signs?"
12 I said, "Yes, I noted the one and thought
13 we would go on and ride on through."
14 Q I'd just ask you to keep your voice up just
15 a little bit so that the -- I'm sorry, go ahead.
16 A And he, you know, noted that, that we were
17 trespassing and told us, you know, that he'd been having
18 a lot of trouble, he didn't -- it was his property and
19 he was going to build a house out there and he didn't
20 want a lot of people out there trashing the place like
21 they had been, especially at the blue hole.
22 Q All right. Did you, did you resist in any
23 way or verbally and say that you'd been riding out there
24 and you thought you ought to be able to ride?
25 A Well, at first we told him that we'd been
1432
continuing riding on the power line and that we didn't
know that it was private property, you know, and we
were -- meant no harm, we were just there to go to the
blue hole.
Q All right. But did he ultimately insist
that you couldn't be on his property?
A Yes, he did. He stated that we shouldn't,
you know, that we were trespassing and that he wanted to
make sure that he was going to stop that type of
activity.
Q Okay. And how long did you engage in a
conversation with Mr. Casteel up there?
A Well, it was quite a while. At first he
was kind of perturbed and maybe to the extent mad about
us being there and insistent that we were trespassing,
and I could tell that he was getting -- the more that I
told him, you know, that I felt like we were on public
property, then the more madder that he seemed to get,
and so I kind of backed off and told him, "Look, you
know, I'm sorry, we don't mean no harm to be out here.
We'll leave right now." And he kind of calmed down a
little bit.
His son was with him at that time, and his
son kept kind of what I call egging it on, nudging him,
saying, you know, "Get their name, Dad. Here's the
1433
1 book," you know, "Don't let them get away without
2 getting their name," and that type of thing.
And we, so we continued to talk on for a
4 few minutes. That's when he told me that he was going
5 to build a road and build his house out there and that
6 that was -- but that that was a lot of trespassing going
on and he was going to put a stop to it, that it was, it
8 was hard to get it through to a lot of the old timers
9 there on the mountain.
10 Q All right. That's what I was getting to.
11 Did he specify to you any particular individuals that he
12 stated to you he was having trouble with?
13 A Yes, sir, he did. He stated that there
14 were particularly three people that he was having
15 troubles with, and that was Joe Skinner, Mason, and
16 someone else that I can't remember their name, and that
17 he was going to make believers out of these guys.
18 Q Okay. He told you he was going to make a
19 believer out of Mason?
20 A Yes, sir, that's correct. He said he'd
21 been having a lot of trouble with him coming out there
22 and he'd make believers out of them.
23 MR. COX: You may ask.
24 Q (By Mr. Cox) One other question: Did you
25 know who Mason was when he was talking about him?
1434
1 A I knew of him. I didn't know him
2 personally.
3 Q You know where he lived?
4 A I knew where he lived, yes.
5 CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. LAWRENCE:
Q Well, actually what you said at that time,
Mr. McDowell, was that the person -- you knew that he
9 was, knew specifically that he mentioned Joe Skinner?
11 Q And then he mentioned another name, and to
12 the best of your recollection at that time, it was
13 someone named Mason?
15 Q You were not positive at that time that
16 that's the name he said?
17 A Well, it was a name that I recall him
18 saying, yes.
19 Q On the time that you had this encounter
20 with Mr. Casteel, he didn't have a gun?
21 A No, he didn't.
22 Q And he did take your name and your wife's
23 name down in his book?
25 Q You have been riding that area for some
1435
G. McDowell - Cross
1 period of time?
2 A Yes, sir.
3 Q And when is the first time that you had --
4 when is the last time before this date in May when you
5 encountered those trespassing -- had you encountered
6 those no-trespassing signs at any time prior to May
7 18th?
8 A Never.
9 Q When was the last time before May 18th that
10 you had ridden that road on horseback?
11 A In that area?
12 Q Yeah.
13 A It was possibly a few weeks. We rotated,
14 you might say, from one end of the mountain to the
15 other.
16 Q You ride other places on the mountain as
17 well?
18 A Sure.
19 Q You still live there?
20 A Yes, sir.
21 Q Still ride your horses?
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q And when you were there, did he have an
24 encounter with some other people?
25 A He had told us about numerous encounters
1436
G. McDowell - Cross
that he'd had, specifically, of course, specifically
with Skinner and Mason and this other gentleman, and
then also about an encounter with the Pendergrasses, I
think their name was, because he ultimately allowed them
to horseback ride on his property, he said.
And we asked him if possibly we could, and
he said maybe at some later date, "I'll," you know,
"will allow you to but I want to get this straight right
now first."
Q He wanted to establish that this was his
property?
A He wanted to stop all the trespassing, is
what he said. Said he wanted to keep everybody out.
Q But at some future time, that you might
inquire again and it would be okay to come on his
property?
A Correct.
Q Did he have his telephone number posted on
the no-trespassing signs?
A Yes, he did. He had a phone number, no
names, just "no trespassing," and gave a phone number.
Q And gave a phone number.
A And it was, the sign was on a tower, posted
on a tower.
Q Okay. Did you have any contrary
1437
G. McDowell - Cross
1 understanding at that time that, that he could claim
2 some kind of dominion over the power line area?
3 A I never knew anybody could. I thought it
4 was on open land for, you know, walking or riding or
5 whatever.
6 Q You understand differently now?
7 A I've been told differently, yes.
8 Q Give me just a moment.
9 The young -- in fact, in your statement,
10 you actually identify and describe the person who was
11 with Mr. Casteel as a young boy?
12 A Yes, sir. He introduced him as his son.
13 Q Okay. And by "young boy," what did you,
14 what age did you determine him to have been?
15 A I would have said 18, 19 years old maybe,
16 17, 18, somewhere in that range.
17 MR. LAWRENCE: Okay. All right. Thank
18 you.
20 MR. COX: Nothing further.
21 THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr.
22 McDowell. You're free to go or you can have a seat in
23 the courtroom.
24 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir.
1438
G. McDowell - Cross
2 MR. COX: Mark Sivley.
3 MARK SIVLEY,
7 BY MR. COX:
B Q State your name, please, sir.
9 A Mark Sivley.
10 Q And, Mr. Sivley, where were you living in
11 1988?
12 A Down in Red Bank.
13 Q All right. Did you own some property or
14 have some property up on the mountain?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q And whereabouts?
17 A Well, the address is 1770 Sivley Trail at
18 the end of Layton Lane.
19 Q All right. What was your property?
20 Where'd you own property? Did you own any property
21 along the Helican Road or in that area?
22 A It's close to the Helican, about a couple
23 hundred yards from the Helican Road.
24 Q All right. Did you own a portion of the
25 property there on the road?
1439
Sivley - Direct
1 A Right up to the road.
2 Q All right.
3 A Not far from the road. ,
Q Okay. And did you know where Mr. Casteel's
5 property was?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q All right. Did you at any time authorize
8 or give any permission to Mr. Casteel to post any no-
9 trespassing signs on your section of the roadway?
10 A No, sir.
11 Q Or on your property?
12 A No, sir.
13 Q All right. Did you ever determine that
14 that was done at some point in time?
15 A No, sir.
16 Q All right. So nobody ever gave him any
17 permission that you're aware of?
18 A Not that I know of.
19 Q All right. And I think that you were up
20 there and participated in the search in this case, is
21 that correct?
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q Did you know the victims?
24 A Two of them.
25 Q Who'd you know?
1440
Sivley - Direct
1 A Richard and Kenneth.
Q All right. And were you present in the
3 gate area on the date that certain items were found?
4 A Yes, sir.
5 Q All right. Just tell us what you observed.
6 Who were you with?
7 A Stanley Nixon. I believe Kenneth's
8 brother. I'm not sure who all was there, four or five,
9 and two detectives, and we were walking towards the gate
10 area and found a knife and a quarter.
11 Q Okay. And you were there when those two
12 items were found?
13 A Yes, sir.
14 Q All right. Did you see any signs at that
15 point in time?
16 A Well, we got up closer to the gate where
17 the detectives were, and we talked to them, and one of
18 the detectives said that --
19 MR. LAWRENCE: Your Honor, we would object
20 to what the detective said.
21 Q (By Mr. Cox) Yeah, don't tell me what
22 anybody said.
23 A Okay. Well, anyway, we determined there
24 was gunfire had been there, so we decided to spread out
25 and look. And we looked, and the place looked, you
1441
Sivley - Direct
1 know, normal, undisturbed, like nobody had been there.
2 And we noticed green flies, and, you know,
3 you associate green flies with, you know, a dead animal
4 or something, and you look down at the ground and
5 there's nothing, nothing there, just leaves, and then
6 the flies were actually like, you know, close to the
7 ground and they were actually crawling under the leaves,
8 so we bent down and started turning the leaves over, and
9 that's when we found the blood and the brain matter.
10 Q Okay. And shortly after that, I assume the
11 police took over the scene, is that correct?
12 A That's correct. They, they closed the area
13 off as a crime scene is what they said.
14 MR. DAVIS: Thank you.
16 BY MR. LAWRENCE:
17 Q Mr. Sivley, let me ask you to look at a
18 chart here, please, sir, a map, and this has been marked
19 as Exhibit 70. Let me orient you to this. Maybe you
20 can sort of turn so the jury can see it, you won't have
21 to get out of your chair. Let's just move this a little
22 bit.
23 Can I get you to look at it this way? Here
24 is the intersection of Vandergriff -- I'm sorry, here's
25 Vandergriff and Sawyer. Previously somebody has
1442
Sivley - Cross
identified the Ellis home and Wayne Cox identified his
2 house and the cabin where the Kellys are. This is
3 called Layton Lane right there?
4 A Yes, sir.
5 Q Okay. Can you sort of take this pen and
6 outline where your property would be? Does that look
7 familiar to you? Can you tell where we are?
8 A I know exactly where we are, yes, sir.
9 Q Is that your house?
10 A Yes, sir.
11 Q Okay. Does this property extend further
12 out so that there would be some reason that Mr. Casteel
13 would be asking you to post that little piece of
14 property there, or are we talking about some other
15 property that he would be asking to post?
16 A Say the question again, sir.
17 Q Well, General Cox asked you if he asked
18 your permission to post your property, and you said he
19 didn't, or that you didn't give him permission, but he
20 wouldn't have been wanting to post no-trespassing signs
21 where your house was?
22 A I think his intentions were that he wanted
23 to build his road on down my driveway and go in by my
24 driveway.
25 Q But he never did that?
1443
Sivley - Cross
1 A No, sir. I think he was wanting to cut
2 across two or three pieces of property here and just cut
3 a road through there. I don't think anybody would go
for that.
5 Q Okay. So he was asking permission to
6 actually to extend a road, then, from the end of your
7 driveway on out here to maybe connect somewhere with
8 this road?
9 A Yes, sir. I think it was coming down
10 through here and angling back toward this way. Now, I'm
11 not -- my house, my property may be a little further
12 down in this area here.
13 Q But your property certainly doesn't
14 intersect with the Helican Road going back here from the
15 blue hole, does it?
16 A It goes within about 150 foot of the road.
17 Q Okay. Let's do this then. This apparently
18 represents the Helican Road going back here to the blue
19 hole?
20 A Yes.
21 Q You see that trail?
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q So would your property extend closer?
24 A Yeah, and a portion of this map, I'm not
25 sure what this road here is, but according to the
1444
Sivley - Cross
1 property deed, this road goes all the way down and
2 crosses this road, so --
3 Q Actually there's a deeded right-of-way?
4 A Yes, sir.
5 Q Thirty-foot right-of-way?
6 A That's correct.
7 Q And goes all the way here?
8 A All the way down, yes, sir.
9 Q It's not open, but the right-of-way exists?
11 Q Okay. And does your property, then, come
12 all the way down parallel to that right-of-way?
14 Q How deep is your property?
15 A About 880 feet.
16 Q So --
17 A Eighty-five.
18 Q Rather than what you've drawn here, your
19 property would actually extend all the way down here?
20 A Yes, sir. That's my -- my house is sitting
21 on this front corner. The property goes all the way
22 down.
23 Q Okay. So would I be misrepresenting things
24 if I drew a line to sort of connect your property to
25 the, to this road?
1445
Sivley - Cross
1 A That's correct, almost to the road, about
2 150 foot from the road.
3 Q Okay. So it's probably stopped where I've
4 drawn this line here?
5 A Yes, sir.
6 Q And then your house is built on one corner
7 of it?
8 A Yes, sir.
9 Q Okay. Now, when Mr. Casteel bought his
10 property up there on the mountain, he got in touch with
11 several families up there about his desire to get better
12 access to his property, and you've testified yourself
13 about his desire to maybe extend your driveway back and
14 open that 30-foot right-of-way that existed on the deed
15 records back to get to the Helican Road?
16 A Yes, sir. He wasn't actually trying to
17 cross my property. He didn't actually want to cross
18 mine, but he was wanting to go down so far and angle to
19 the right and cross some other people, but I don't know
20 if he contacted them or not.
21 Q But you know he contacted you?
22 A Yes, sir.
23 Q Contact you in person?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q Did you ever have any social encounter with
1446
Sivley - Cross
1 Mr. Casteel, you know, a visit?
2 A He introduced himself when he was looking
3 or purchasing the land, that he was the new owner of the
4 land out there.
5 Q How did he -- under what circumstances,
6 circumstances did he discuss with you the opening of
7 this road? Was it in a face-to-face meeting, on the
8 telephone or by some other means?
9 A If I can remember, he was, he came by and
10 just asked if he could open that road up, and I told him
11 it was an unopened road, you know, there's nobody owned
12 it, so as far as my part goes, but as far as crossing
13 anybody else's property, I can't speak for them.
14 Q So as far as you were concerned, he had the
15 right to do that?
16 A Yes, sir. As long as he wasn't crossing my
17 property, I had no right to say.
18 Q And this 30 foot right-of-way, then,
19 paralleled your property as it goes back to the roadway?
21 Q Okay. General Cox said something about did
22 you ever give him permission to post your property and
23 you said no?
24 A That's right.
25 Q And then he asked you did he ever post your
1447
Sivley - Cross
1 property, and you said no, not to my knowledge, correct?
2 Is that right?
3 A Yes, sir.
Q Did he ever invite you to come down and
5 visit at his place?
6 A No, sir.
7 MR. LAWRENCE: All right. Thank you.
8 MR. COX: Just one more thing.
10 BY MR. COX:
11 Q You were out searching for these three
12 missing men?
13 A Yes, sir.
14 Q When were you searching?
15 A Sunday and Monday.
16 Q How many people up on that mountain were
17 searching?
18 A Quit a few. Lot of friends.
19 Q Lot of neighbors?
20 A Lot of neighbors. We all were.
21 Q Would you say there was hundreds of people?
22 A Close to it.
23 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, I object because
24 it's beyond the scope of cross examination. Whatever
25 he's going into was not gone into on cross. Mr.
1448
Sivley - Redirect
1 Lawrence didn't ask anything like this.
2 THE COURT: All right. I will allow it.
3 You can note an exception.
4 Q (By Mr. Cox) Everybody you knew up on the
mountain was looking?
6 MR. LAWRENCE: Well, if he's going to, if
7 he's going to cross-examine him or if he's going to
8 redirect, he doesn't need to ask leading questions, Your
9 Honor. Let the witness testify, please.
10 Q (By Mr. Cox) Was or was not this man
11 looking for them?
12 A Not to my knowledge.
14 MR. COX: That's all.
15 THE COURT: Anything further from the
16 defense?
17 MR. COX: That's all.
18 THE COURT: Okay. All right. You are free
19 to go or you can have a seat in the courtroom.
20 MR. DAVIS: May we approach, Your Honor?
25 MR. DAVIS: We've got one more witness for
1449
1 the day and it's a Tony Meeks, and he is an altercation
2 witness at the gate. I don't know if you want a 404(b)
3 thing or not. Suzie actually has the shotgun, Casteel
4 is directing the activity, but it's at the gate.
5 MR. POOLE: What's that now?
6 MR. DAVIS: Our last witness for the day,
7 Tony Meeks.
8 MR. LAWRENCE: Yeah, we want a jury-out on
9 that.
10 MR. DAVIS: Okay. That's fine.
14 the jury:)
15 THE COURT: Okay. Jurors, step in the jury
16 room for a moment.
20 THE COURT: All right. Who is the witness
21 that --
22 MR. DAVIS: Tony Meeks.
23 Judge, while he's coming in, General Cox
24 and I have gone through our witness list and cut out
25 some of the witnesses who we felt would be repetitive,
1450
1 cumulative in light of the conversation with the Court
2 earlier, so we would like to stop after this witness for
3 the day.
5 MR. DAVIS: And then we have, we think,
6 enough witnesses to fill the morning tomorrow.
7 THE COURT: And you think that'll be it
8 tomorrow?
9 MR. DAVIS: I think we'll be finished
10 tomorrow, don't you think?
11 THE COURT: Did the defense attorneys hear
12 that? The state expects to complete their proof by noon
13 tomorrow, so the defense will need to be ready to go
14 after lunch.
15 PAUL ANTHONY MEEKS,
18 VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION.
19 BY MR. DAVIS:
20 Q All right. Tony, we're having a jury-out
21 hearing briefly before the Court.
22 First of all, should we shut that door?
23 THE COURT: The jury room door is closed.
24 They can't hear.
25 Q (By Mr. Davis) Okay. Could you state your
1451
Meeks - Voir Dire/Davis
full name for the record?
2 A Paul Anthony Meeks.
3 Q Okay. And do you go by Tony?
A Yeah.
5 Q All right. Could you direct your comments
6 to Judge Meyer?
7 Do you remember riding your motorcycle out
8 in the Helican area on July 4th, 1988?
9 A Yeah, I do.
10 Q Could you relate to Judge Meyer -- well,
11 first off, look at the television screen, and do you
12 recognize that area known as the gate?
13 A Yeah, I do.
14 Q Okay. And could you relate to Judge Meyer
15 an incident that happened in that area on the Fourth of
16 July?
17 A Yeah, it was just a drizzly, rainy day, and
18 I was sitting at home so I decided I would just ride
19 down, see what -- you know, I hadn't been there in a
20 long time, go down and look at the blue hole, so I just
21 rode on down, and I --
22 Q What were you riding?
23 A It was just a little Honda 90. It was my
24 wife's motorcycle, but I just, instead of walking, I got
25 on it.
1452
1 Q Okay.
2 A So I just eased on down there, and then
3 right before I got to the gate there was four people
4 sitting there with their backs to me, and so I just
5 started to turn around because I had heard, you know,
that you don't want to get caught in there, so I just --
7 by the time I started to turn around, I was about
B halfway turned around, and she jumped up, grabbed the
9 shotgun and stuck it right in my face, within an inch or
10 two, and then Mr. Casteel jumped up, got in my face in
11 the front of me, and he jumped up and down and went
12 nuts, you know.
13 Q Do you recognize Mr. Casteel seated at
14 counsel table?
15 A Yeah, I do.
16 Q All right. And is he the man in your word
17 who "jumped up and went nuts"?
18 A Yes, sir.
19 Q Okay. And what did he say to you, if you
20 could tell Judge Meyer?
21 A He just asked me if I was dumb or stupid
22 and couldn't read the signs or whatever, you know.
23 There was signs probably on every other tree, it seemed
24 like, but it wasn't really that many. Probably fifty
25 signs in that area.
1453
1 Q Okay. Between the roadway and the gate on
2 the way in, right?
3 A Yeah.
4 Q Okay.
5 A Yeah, between the roadway and the gate.
6 And I told him yeah, I could read, I was just wanting to
7 ride down there, you know.
8 He says, "Well, I'm telling y'all, y'all
9 going to have to stay out of here or I'm going to make
10 sure that y'all don't come back in here."
11 Q Okay. And that's what Mr. Casteel told
12 you?
13 A Yeah.
14 MR. DAVIS: All right. That's the
15 substance, Your Honor, of what we'd introduce before the
16 jury.
17 THE COURT: All right. For the defense.
19 BY MR. POOLE:
20 Q Sir, I was looking at your statement while
21 you talked. You apparently gave this statement to the
22 police in October of 1990. Does that sound about right?
23 A Should be about right.
24 Q You got your statement there?
25 A Yeah, I got it here.
1454
Meeks - Voir Dire/Poole
1 Q When did you get that?
A 10th 19th of '90, 11:15 a.m.
3 Q Well, let me ask you: What time of day or
4 night were you down in the, in this area you're talking
5 about?
6 A It was probably like, between 5 to 6
7 o'clock, somewhere around in there.
8 Q Okay. How'd you get there?
9 A Maybe seven.
10 Q What was your vehicle or how did you get
11 there?
12 A I rode a little, my wife's little, it was ,
13 just a little motorcycle.
14 Q Were you by yourself?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q And you have indicated that you had some
17 kind of an encounter where? Where was this meeting?
18 A I run into them at what we call the gate.
19 It was just two fence posts sitting there.
20 Q Okay.
21 A And they had it barb wired off right when I
22 got there. The motorcycle was real quiet so they didn't
23 really hear me pull up, so I was going to try to get
24 turned around and leave before they could get up, but by
25 the time I got turned around, they'd done jumped up and
1455
caught me.
Q I mean, did you see them or see -- why were
you getting ready to turn around so fast?
A Yeah, I seen them. They had their backs --
they was sitting on rocks. There was like a rock ledge
that goes down.
Q Yes, sir.
A The road is smooth till you get to that
gate, then there's rocks sitting all in it, and they was
sitting on them rocks at the barbed wire, you know, at
the gate, so I was going to try to ease around.
Q Was the barbed wire closed off?
A Yeah, it was closed off.
Q Were these people that you saw on your side
of the barbed wire or the other side of the barbed wire?
A Yeah, they was on this side.
Q Facing towards the Vandergriff Road then,
closer to Vandergriff Road?
A Well, their backs was facing Vandergriff.
They were facing going towards the power lines or the
blue hole.
Q Okay. And what day of the week? Weekend,
day of the week or what, do you know?
A Monday, I believe, Monday or Tuesday.
can't remember exactly. It was July the 4th.

1 Q How many people were there, sir?
2 A Four.
3 Q Do you know who they were?
4 A I know one was Mr. Casteel and there was a
5 lady that I figured it must have been his wife.
6 Q Now, let me ask you this. This is pretty,
7 you know, could be important, but you're not sure who
B the other people were, are you?
9 A I don't know them by name.
10 Q Well, you sure who they are?
11 A Yeah, I'm sure who he is.
12 Q All right. Well, okay. You're sure that
13 Mr. Casteel was there?
14 A Yeah. He was the one facing me the whole
15 time.
16 Q All right.
17 A And the only thing I could see with her was
18 the shotgun.
19 Q All right. So you don't know who this
20 "her" was with a shotgun?
21 A Not exactly sure.
22 Q Okay. And you say there were two other
23 people?
24 A Yeah, there's two younger people that they
25 kept their backs turned to me the whole time.
1457
Q So you don't know who they were at all, do
you?
A No. I never seen their face.
Q So basically the person that you're looking
at is Mr. Casteel, this man here?
A Yeah, he was standing in front of me doing
the talking.
Q And this man here -- okay. How was he
dressed that afternoon, sir?
A He just, I reckon just blue jeans and a
regular shirt.
Q Okay. But he did not have a weapon?
A No, not that I seen.
Q So there were three other people there that
you cannot identify?
A That -- no, I can't identify them for sure.
Q Okay. Did you look at pictures, these
detectives show you any pictures of other people or
anything like that?
A They may have showed me some pictures a
long time ago.
Q But you don't remember either looking at
them or picking any out?
A They gave me a lineup. I ain't exactly
sure the day, but I picked him out of one back when it
1458
1 happened.
2 Q Picked Frank out right after it happened,
3 right? Okay.
4 . But he's the only one you can be sure, as
5 you tell Judge Meyer this morning, he's the only one you
6 can be sure that was there, right?
7 A Yeah, because he --
8 Q Okay. Let me ask you a few other things,
9 sir. Do you know any of the men that were killed, sir?
10 A I just know them by he lived up the street
11 and I seen him mow his grass.
12 Q Which man is that?
13 A Mr. Mason, that's the only one that -- I
14 didn't really know him.
15 Q Okay. Were they friends of yours, the
16 Masons, you know, if they lived up the street,
17 neighbors, whatever?
18 A No, huh-uh. I really didn't know them that
19 well.
20 Q Okay. You said something when you started
21 your testimony about going in, you shouldn't go in there
22 or you knew you shouldn't go in or something like that.
23 What'd you mean by that?
24 A Well, a lot of people had said, you know,
25 "Just don't get caught in there if you go in." So I

figured it was a drizzly, rainy day, there wouldn't be
nobody in there.
Q Do you know why, you got your statement
there in October of 1990, why it took two years to, for
them to take a statement from you or for you to give a
statement?
A I talked to some detectives right after it
happened.
Q Okay. You just didn't give a statement
then?
A Not that I --
Q Or didn't give a written statement?
A Not no written statement.
Q Who did you talk to right after it
happened?
A I can't remember their names. Just
detectives on the, from the sheriff's department.
Q Was it Mr. Sneed here?
A Yeah, I believe he was one of them.
Q Okay. Do you know Mr. Parham?
A I ain't familiar with that name.
MR. POOLE: Okay. All right, sir.
MR. LAWRENCE: Well, Your Honor, you know,
this doesn't show any motive, habit, custom or anything
else. You know, Mr. Casteel is not identified as having
1460
pulled a weapon, so this certainly doesn't fit within
2 the parameters of what the state has been arguing about
3 these other witnesses to this point.
4 MR. DAVIS: No, but it certainly answers a
5 lot of the direction that the defense has been going
about Mr. Casteel never having any assaults out at the
7 gate, it was always on his property.
Here we have, on the Fourth of July, an
9 assault with a shotgun where Mr. Casteel is directing
10 the activity. It's Mr. Casteel who is in the face of
11 this man and directing what's happening.
12 We're going to ask at some point that I
13 imagine that there be a criminal responsibility of
14 another charge given to the jury as well, depending on
15 how the case develops from here, but I think it is
16 relevant that Mr. Casteel has signed, put signage on
17 property that is not his own from the Vandergriff Road
18 up to the gate, and there he is posted with a weapon and
19 his wife and another, on the Fourth of July, off of his
20 property, and he is directing an assault and turning
21 this man back.
22 MR. LAWRENCE: I haven't heard of an
23 assault by Mr. Casteel, Your Honor. That's the point
24 I'm making.
25 THE COURT: No. The testimony --

Casteel didn't have a weapon at that time, but he was
2 directing the activities there.
MR. LAWRENCE: And I don't think I heard
4 that testimony.
5 THE COURT: Well, I thought I heard that in
6 essence. What did Mr. Casteel do?
7 THE WITNESS: He stood in front of me while
8 she held the gun, and he done the talking. He was
9 asking me, you know, what, can't I read or what, or
10 whatever. We just --
11 THE COURT: So in substance, that's what he
12 was doing. Mr. Casteel was in charge. It's up to the
13 jury to give whatever weight they care to to the
14 testimony.
15 MR. LAWRENCE: Well, it's up to the Court,
16 Your Honor, to keep out evidence that has no probative
17 value as to any material issue in the case, or as to
18 incidents are totally inappropriate for a jury to hear
19 that have no connection with the state's theory, and
20 that is that these acts prove Mr. Casteel's motive, his
21 identity.
22 MR. COX: Your Honor, this man was at the
23 scene of the --
24 MR. LAWRENCE: It's a huge logical leap to
25 say that he was in charge of what was going on if
1462
1 someone was standing behind him.
2 MR. DAVIS: Your Honor, if I could just
make it even simpler.
5 MR. DAVIS: Mr. Casteel is literally
6 standing on the crime scene where a triple homicide will
7 take place five days down the road, on the Fourth of
July, with a shotgun, directing whatever activity it is,
9 and it's up to the jury to give whatever weight it is,
10 but he's literally on that scene, you know, with
11 constructive possession at least of the shotgun.
12 THE COURT: No. The probative value would
13 outweigh any prejudice to the defendant, so -- on the
14 issue of motive of the defendant, so let your objection
15 be denied and you can note an exception.
16 All right. Let the jury come back.
17 (Thereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the jury returned
20 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Davis.
21 MR. DAVIS: Thank you, Your Honor.
23 BY MR. DAVIS:
24 Q Mr. Meeks, if you could, please introduce
25 yourself to the jury?
1463
Meeks - Direct
1 A I'm Paul Anthony Meeks.
2 Q And do you go by Tony?
3 A Yeah.
4 Q All right. Mr. Meeks, if you could, I want
5 you to speak loud enough so that the jurors in the
6 corner can hear you, all right? You need to pick up
7 your voice a little bit, okay?
8 A Okay.
9 Q All right. Mr. Meeks, where did you live
10 in July of 1988?
11 A I lived on Sawyer Road.
12 Q Okay. And where is Sawyer Road?
13 A It's approximately a quarter of a mile from
14 Vandergriff Road.
15 Q All right. Vandergriff and Sawyer Road,
16 are they on Walden's Ridge in Hamilton County?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q All right. Could you tell the jury about
19 something that you did in the late afternoon or early
20 evening on the Fourth of July 1988?
21 A Yeah, I just --
22 Q Just tell the jury.
23 A Okay. I got on my motorcycle, on my wife's
24 motorcycle and decided to ride down and look at the blue
25 hole. It was just a rainy, drizzly day, and so I rode
1464
Meeks - Direct
1 down approximately probably two miles down a dirt road
and I run into a gate with the barbed wire across it and
3 four people sitting in the middle of the road.
4 So I, I'd heard before, you know, if you
5 see anybody in there, hide or leave prior to that. So I
6 seen them sitting there, so I tried to ease my
7 motorcycle around to ease out before they caught me.
8 Then the lady that was sitting there, she jumped up and
9 grabbed a pump shotgun and stuck it right within a few
10 inches of my face, and then Mr. Casteel jumped up and
11 got in front of me and started asking me, you know,
12 "Can't you read? There's trespassing signs all down
13 through here."
14 And I told him yeah, I could read. I said,
15 "But I just wanted to ride down, you know, and see the
16 blue hole." And then he raised Cain for a while, it
17 seemed like. It might not have been five, ten minutes,
18 but it seemed like hours, but --
19 Q Let me stop you there for a second.
20 A He just went a little crazy.
21 Q Okay. Let me stop you there for a second.
22 You say "raised Cain." The jury wasn't there. Do the
23 best you can to tell the jury what you mean by that, by
24 what happened?
25 A He told me, you know, he says -- after he
1465
Meeks - Direct
1 told me, "Can't you read?" He says, "I'm tired of
2 people coming in here. I'm tired of people doing" this
3 and that, he said, "I'm going to make sure that you
4 people don't come in here no more like this." He says,
5 "You can't do it."
Q Okay. What was his --
7 A And I agreed with him every, you know,
8 everything I could. I didn't even tell him my real
9 name. I told him that I'd been in Florida for the last
10 four or five years and I was just curious to see what it
11 looked like again. You know, I was just trying to say
12 anything to get away from the gun.
13 Q Okay. And what was his tone of voice or
14 his demeanor like when this, when this occurred?
15 A He was crazy to me. He was just shouting
16 and screaming and going on, and finally he just told me
17 to go on.
18 Q Okay.
19 A So I didn't know what was -- I was just
20 gone, you know, I left.
21 Q Okay. Show you a photograph and ask you if
22 you can identify. Take a look at that photograph, and
23 do you, can you identify that area?
24 A Yes, sir, that's the gate.
25 Q What is it? That's the gate?
1466
Meeks - Direct
1 A Yes, sir.
2 Q Okay. And what was across the gate that
3 day on July 4th, 1988, when you were there?
4 A There was just a couple of strands of
5 barbed wire that they had stretched across it
6 Q Okay. And where was -- well, first off,
7 the man you call Frank Casteel, do you recognize him
8 today in the courtroom?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q All right. Where is he?
11 A He's sitting in front of me.
12 Q Okay. Where was Mr. Casteel on the Fourth
13 of July? Where in that picture would he have been?
14 A Okay. They was sitting on the rocks.
15 Q Okay. Do you see those rocks there?
16 A I can't be sure if it's the exact ones, but
17 it was like one was sitting right here and one over
18 here, then on up there was two more people sitting with
19 their backs turned to me.
20 Q Okay. And --
21 A They kept their backs turned the whole
22 time.
23 Q All right. And what was their relative
24 age?
25 A I figure -- they just stood up and kept
1467
Meeks - Direct
1 their back turned.
Q All right.
3 A What I looked like, probably from 18 to 21.
4 Q Okay. And you didn't have any interaction
5 with them? Were they men, women?
6 A Never turned around and looked at me.
7 Q Were they men or women?
8 A It was a man and a woman.
9 Q Okay. And then Mr. Casteel, and --
10 A Yeah, an older lady with him.
11 Q All right. And who was holding the shotgun
12 on you?
13 A She was.
14 Q All right. And who was doing the talking
15 and, from your point of view, directing the activity?
16 A Mr. Casteel. He done all -- she never said
17 nothing. She just held the shotgun on me.
18 Q Okay.
19 A And he done all the talking.
20 Q All right. How close -- well, let me
21 where were you in this photograph when that altercation
22 took place? Can you place yourself on the scene there?
23 A I was probably up here a little bit. It
24 don't show it on the picture, but just back of the
25 screen a little bit.
1468
Meeks - Direct
1 Q Okay. Off the screen. And then how close
was the gun to you, the end of the gun?
3 A Probably within two inches, --
4 Q Okay.
5 A -- I figure.
6 Q How close was Mr. Casteel to you?
7 A Probably within touching range, within arm
8 length.
9 Q All right. You could have reached out and
10 touched him with your arm if you wanted to?
11 A Yeah. I was holding the handle bars and he
12 was right here.
13 Q Okay. He was standing over you while you
14 were on the bike?
15 A Yeah, he was standing just right in front
16 of me.
17 Q All right. And that's when he made these
18 commands to you or however you want to describe it?
19 A Yes, sir.
20 Q Okay. And then after that, what did he do?
21 A He just told me to get out of there and
22 don't come back, and if I wanted to ride anywhere, he
23 says, "You can go to Prentice Cooper or Big Fork,
24 somewhere like that and ride, and don't come back in
25 here."
1469
Meeks - Direct
1 Q All right. So he told you you could go
2 where if you wanted to ride?
3 A Either to Prentice Cooper, over at the
4 state park or whatever, state hunting area.
5 Q Okay.
6 A Or Big Fork area.
7 Q All right. Are you familiar with those
8 areas?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q All right. Where are those areas relative
11 to this area?
12 A It's probably six miles if you go through
13 the woods.
14 Q Okay. Other side of the mountain?
15 A Yeah, on the opposite side.
16 Q Okay. After this happened, were you
17 afraid?
18 A Yeah, I. just, I went home and didn't leave.
19 MR. DAVIS: That's all.
21 BY MR. POOLE:
22 Q Okay. Mr. Meeks, this was out on the
23 Fourth of July weekend that this happened, sir?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q Okay. And was it the Fourth of July?
1470
Meeks - Cross
1 A Yes, sir, it was the Fourth of July.
2 Q Is this an off-day for you? Were you
3 working somewhere?
4 A Yeah, it's an off-day for us, holiday.
Q Where were you working then?
6 A Asplundh Tree Company.
7 Q Okay. And did you go to work the next day?
8 A Yes, sir.
9 Q Okay. What time did you go out on the
10 property that day?
11 A It was probably between four and six,
12 somewhere in that area. I ain't exactly sure.
13 Q Sometime that late afternoon. Okay. And
14 you indicated to these folks that you said that, that
15 you lived out in Florida, you'd been gone so you didn't
16 know you couldn't be back there or whatever, I guess,
17 right?
18 A I did that because he was going, you know.
19 Q I'm not going to get you for lying. You
20 just told him that, though, right?
21 A Yeah, I was just trying to get away.
22 didn't know exactly what was going to happen.
23 Q And the truth of the matter is, you do live
24 pretty close to there, though, don't you, or didn't you
25 then?
1471
Meeks - Cross
1 A Yeah, I lived within a quarter of a mile of
2 the dirt road entrance.
3 Q Okay. And were you friends of Mr. Mason?
4 Neighbor of Mr. Mason maybe?
5 A He lived up the road. I knew him by just
6 driving by and seeing him.
7 Q What, a couple of houses apart, a quarter
8 mile apart or how far?
9 A Probably three quarters or maybe a mile.
10 He lived on Corral Road.
11 Q Okay. And you said -- you've identified
12 Mr. Casteel as being the person that talked to you that
13 day, right?
14 A Yes, sir.
15 Q And the gentleman that you've identified as
16 Mr. Casteel did not have a gun, did he?
17 A No, sir.
18 Q And he is the only one that you know, is
19 that truthful?
20 A Yeah. That's the only one that I know for
21 sure.
22 Q Okay. And, you know, you mentioned a name
23 a moment ago, but the truth of the matter is, back in
24 1990 and 1988, whenever you gave a statement, you didn't
25 know anybody else that was there, is that true?
1472
Meeks - Cross
I didn't know them for sure. You know, I
knew, I figured, but figuring don't work.
Q Figured, but you still don't know for sure,
do you?
A I don't know who for sure the other three
are.
Q Okay. You know, you're sure about Mr.
Casteel?
A Yes, sir.
Q Okay. In fact, Mr. Casteel said -- did he
know your name? Did he call you Mr. Meeks or did you
tell him?
A No. I gave him a fake name, too.
Q Okay. So, I'm Joe Smith from Florida?
A Or Jack Johnson I believe is what I gave
him.
Q Jack Johnson. So he said, Mr. Johnson,
don't come back here anymore, right?
A Yes, sir.
Q And, in fact, he said, Mr. Johnson, if you
come back here anymore, I'm going to call the police,
I'm going to prosecute you?
A No, he never said nothing about --
4 He didn't?
A That I can remember. He might have said,
1473
Meeks - Cross
Get out of here or we'll get you for trespassing at one
2 time, but he said, "I'm going to make sure that nobody
3 else trespasses back in here."
4 Q Well, now, you've got your statement there,
5 you've gone over that, haven't you, that you gave back
6 in 1990?
A I've looked at it a little.
8 Q Why don't you turn over to page 5. It's
9 got Meeks here, but you were really Johnson at that
10 time, right?
11 A Well, to him, not the police.
12 Q Not to Mr. Sneed. Look down at the bottom
13 of the page there. Do you recall what he said to you
14 after the statement? What'd Mr. Meeks, alias Johnson,
15 say? Is that plain on your --
16 A Yeah, I see it here now.
17 Q What'd you say back in 1990?
18 A He'd get me for trespassing or "put you in
19 jail."
20 Q Yeah, what'd he say? "I think he mentioned
21 something about he could get me for trespassing and put
22 me in jail or something. That's far as I know." That's
23 what he said then, wasn't it?
24 A Yeah. As far as I know, that's what he
25 said.
1474
Meeks - Cross
1 Q And I guess you remembered when you gave
2 this statement better than you do now that that's what
3 he said, right?
A Yeah, I'd say so.
5 MR. POOLE: Okay. That's all, Mr. Meeks.
6 Thanks for coming, sir.
7 MR. DAVIS: Just one or two points of
8 clarification.
10 BY MR. DAVIS:
11 Q Mr. Poole asked you a compound question.
12 He said you were a neighbor or a friend of Richard
13 Mason's. Let's be clear about this: You, were you a
14 friend of Richard Mason's?
15 A I knew him of just passing by, you know, as
16 a neighbor.
17 Q Okay.
18 A More or less.
19 Q Has he ever had dinner over at your house?
20 A No, huh-uh.
21 Q Have you ever had dinner at his house?
22 A No, sir.
23 Q All right.
24 A I've never -- just ride by and wave and say
25 hi.
1475
Meeks - Redirect
1 Q Okay. You were a neighbor from, I believe
you said about three quarters of a mile away?
3 A Yeah, or a mile, yes.
4 Q All right. And you lived on Sawyer Road,
5 which is around the corner from Vandergriff Road?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q And how much of your life in the summertime
8 have you spent going down to the blue hole?
9 A At that time?
10 Q Ever.
11 A Probably 27, 28 years.
12 Q Yeah. And been going down there for 27, 28
13 years?
14 A Yeah, at least.
15 Q How many times have you run into people
16 with shotguns out there?
17 A One time.
18 Q Okay. And when was that?
19 A That was when I run into Mr. Casteel.
20 MR. DAVIS: No further questions.
22 RECROSS EXAMINATION
23 BY MR. POOLE:
24 Q Did you ever run into Cecil Hickman out
25 there with a shotgun, sir?
1476
Meeks - Recross
1 A No, sir.
2 Q Do you have friends that did?
3 MR. COX: Object.
4 MR. POOLE: I think he opened the door for
5 that, sir.
6 THE COURT: All right. Go ahead.
7 Q (By Mr. Poole) Did you have friends that
were confronted by Cecil Hickman?
9 A Not that I know of.
10 Q How many sons did Cecil Hickman -- do you .
11 know Cecil Hickman?
12 MR. DAVIS: Your Honor --
13 MR. COX: We object. We object. This
14 is -- may we approach?
r. 16 (Thereupon, a bench conference was held on
20 MR. COX: Mr. Poole is simply trying to
21 tell his story now through the questions to a witness
22 that doesn't know anything about what he's talking
23 about.
24 MR. POOLE: He says he'd never been
25 confronted --
1477
Meeks - Recross
MR. DAVIS: Let me be clear --
2 THE COURT: He said he didn't know if his
3 friends had ever been threatened by him.
4 MR. DAVIS: If the answer to my question
5 had been yes, that he'd run into other people, I agree
6 with you, it would have opened the door, but the answer
7 was no, that this happened one time. That doesn't open
8 the door.
9 THE COURT: No, but he's already asked him
10 so it doesn't make any difference, but he can't go any
11 further.
15 the jury:)
16 Q (By Mr. Poole) Sir, how long have you
17 lived there in that area?
18 A I've lived there all my life.
19 Q And you still live there now, sir?
20 A Yes, sir.
21 Q So you were born, raised there, you know,
22 right before you go into the Vandergriff Road, I guess?
23 A No. I just lived there, rented a house
24 there. I was born and raised on Wilson at the top of
25 the W Road.
1478
Meeks - Recross
1 Q Oh, okay. So when did you move from Wilson
2 at the top of the W Road to this place?
3 A I can't even remember. I stayed there till
4 my mom died.
Q Okay.
6 A Till I was probably in my twenties.
7 Q How old a man are you now, sir?
8 A Thirty-six.
9 Q So this, the incident that you are
10 describing took place about ten years ago, 26. How long
11 had you lived at that place then as best you can
12 remember?
13 A Probably a year.
14 MR. POOLE: Okay. All right. That's fine.
15 Thank you.
16 THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You are
17 free to go.
19 THE COURT: Jurors, I believe this is a
20 good breaking point for the day, so you can go back to
21 the jury room and get ready to go back to your rooms.
25 THE COURT: All right. The state has
1479
1 announced that they expect to conclude their proof by
2 noon tomorrow. Of course, after they complete their
3 proof --
4 MR. COX: That may be a little optimistic,
5 Your Honor.
6 THE COURT: Hmm?
7 MR. COX: That may be a little bit
B optimistic.
9 THE COURT: Okay. So you may finish
10 tomorrow afternoon then.
11 MR. COX: Hope to.
12 THE COURT: Yeah, by tomorrow. Of course,
13 if they finish by noon, then you would want to be heard,
14 I'm sure.
15 MR. POOLE: Yes, sir.
16 THE COURT: And then after that, you do
17 need to have witnesses on call if you expect to call
18 witnesses.
19 MR. POOLE: Yes, sir. Quite frankly, we
20 had put most of them on call thinking it was going to
21 last longer from Monday, so we'll need to be making some
22 calls.
23 THE COURT: All right. And we will be
24 trying the case Saturday morning, so you might have to
25 put your witnesses on call for Saturday.
1480
1 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, in view of the fact
that this seems to be moving quicker than we
3 anticipated, is it possible that we could just start
4 back Monday?
5 THE COURT: Why?
6 MR. POOLE: Well, because we've had the
7 whole week, we've got other things to do, and it is
8 going a lot quicker than I think everybody anticipated,
9 and we've got some things to do in the office as a
10 matter of actual fact, and we did tell our witnesses,
11 quite frankly, some of them are from out of town, to be
12 here on Monday.
13 THE COURT: Well, of course, the jury, all
14 the jurors have indicated very strongly they want to
15 work Saturday since they're sequestered.
16 MR. POOLE: But if we're going to finish in
17 two days, two to three days after that, seems like to me
18 that would not be too great an inconvenience and
19 certainly would fit in more with the schedules on how
20 we've arranged witnesses to come in.
21 THE COURT: How does the state feel about
22 working Saturday?
23 MR. COX: We would like to accommodate the
24 jury, Your Honor. I think that they're anxious to hear
25 proof on Saturday and we're anxious to proceed, and
1481
1 understand the problems with scheduling witnesses
2 because we've been doing it all week long, but I think
3 it's something that I'm sure counsel as skilled and
4 adept as these two defense attorneys can get them in.
5 THE COURT: It may very well be that the
6 state won't complete their proof until Saturday morning
7 anyhow, because we're not starting back till 10 o'clock
8 on this case tomorrow, so we're not going to finish by
9 noon tomorrow, so it'll probably be tomorrow afternoon
10 and maybe Saturday morning.
11 If you've got some witnesses that you can
12 call, local witnesses that you could call easily, you
13 should have them ready on Saturday so that we can go
14 ahead and finish, or go ahead and try the case for the
15 convenience of the jury, so plan on working Saturday.
16 They probably will be Monday before you would have to
17 put on all of your proof.
18 MR. POOLE: How long would we anticipate
19 working Saturday?
20 THE COURT: I would say we would work
21 between, to about 4:30 on Saturday.
22 MR. POOLE: Well, even though Mr. Lawrence
23 and I are very skillful and adept, we don't have the FBI
24 and the TBI and GBI, so we really have a real problem
25 with doing that, as a matter of fact.
1482
1 MR. LAWRENCE: We've also got practices
2 beyond this case, Your Honor, and I know the Court, when
3 the Court was a private lawyer doing trial work, that,
4 you know, it's difficult to manage all that you have to
5 do when a case like this goes on, so --
6 THE COURT: You've got a couple of young
7 associates behind you that can make arrangements for the
8 witnesses to be here Saturday, so let's plan on working
9 Saturday.
10 MR. POOLE: Well, it makes it difficult.
11 THE COURT: Okay.
12 MR. POOLE: And I guess we went into it on
13 the assumption early on that we weren't going to do
14 that, at least last week. I know the Court told us
15 Monday or Tuesday we would.
16 THE COURT: But the jury indicated that
17 since they were from out of town they did not want to be
18 sequestered any longer than necessary, like you have one
19 juror that every time she talks to her husband on the
20 phone, she cries because she misses him so much.
21 OFFICER HARGIS: Son also.
22 THE COURT: Yeah. So it's a strain on the
23 jury, and it's better for everyone concerned if we can
24 try the case as expeditiously as possible, so we'll plan
25 on working Saturday, say, until 4:30.
1483
This Court will adjourn until 8:30 in the
morning, but we will take up this case at 10 o'clock in
the morning, 10 o'clock in the morning.
MR. POOLE: Your Honor, we have a video
we'd like to show or let Mr. Davis and Mr. Cox look at
over night. That would be something that we'll get into
Saturday.
(Thereupon, at 4:56 p.m., court was
adjourned, continuing the trial of this
cause to Friday, May 15, 1998, when the
following proceedings were had in the
absence of the jury:)
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Casteel is
here, Mr. Lawrence I think stepped back that way, and
General Cox and Mr. Davis are here.
All right. Anything we need to take up
before we resume?
MR. COX: Yes, Your Honor. We have three
witnesses that we're going to put on this morning,
encounter witnesses, which I presume require a hearing.
MR. LAWRENCE: Can we also mention to the
Court -- (To Mr. Poole) You want to talk to him about
the viewing?
1484
1 MR. POOLE: Your Honor, by way of
2 procedure, all of us have indicated that maybe the jury
3 could go out and look at certain things, the ATVs, and
4 we're going to try to get the Scrambler to the Police
5 Services Center out on Dayton Boulevard. Could we do
that, assuming the state finishes in the morning, sir?
7 THE COURT: What I thought about overnight
8 is that no way the state's going to finish today, so
9 we'll say the state finishes by tomorrow and we let the
10 jury go out and look at the, those items, and then y'all
11 could be ready to start, if the state's finished, on
12 Monday, so you wouldn't need your witnesses until
13 Monday.
14 MR. POOLE: But we could go out after lunch
15 tomorrow?
16 THE COURT: Yeah, we can take care of all
17 those other details.
18 MR. POOLE: We've got somebody, Your Honor,
19 that can take that Scrambler up there and they can leave
20 it at the end of the building, so if the ATVs could be
21 outside with that midday tomorrow.
22 THE COURT: Okay.
23 MR. DAVIS: There are only two people with
24 keys to that building, so we'll need to make some

,
25 arrangements.
1485
1 MR. POOLE: Detective Sneed gave me those
2 names.
MR. DAVIS: Great, you've got those.
4 MR. POOLE: Y'all might call them, too, or
5 something, whichever.
6 THE COURT: Yeah, you might let Sandi worry
about that. She got a real good write-up in this
8 morning's paper so we know she can work out anything.
9 All right. Who's your first witness?
10 MR. COX: Mark Sivley, Your Honor.
11 THE COURT: Sivley?
12 MR. COX: It's a re-call.
13 MARK SIVLEY,
17 BY MR. COX:
18 Q Mark, you're the same Mark Sivley that
19 testified under oath yesterday, is that correct?
20 A Yes, sir.
21 Q At the completion of the proof yesterday,
22 you related an incident to me and reminded me of an
23 incident that occurred about a week before the murders,
24 is that correct?
25 A Yes, sir.
1486
Sivley - Voir Dire/Cox
1 And just tell us what that was.
2 A Mr. Casteel, I'd heard that he was parked
3 at the gate turning people around, and I was curious, so
4 I rode my four-wheeler out there just to see, talk to
5 him, you know.
6 And I got out there, and I -- he was
7 sitting at the gate in his jeep, and I got off and
8 introduced myself as the property owner back down the
9 road, and I asked him if a lot of people had been coming
10 back in there.
11 And he had a book laying on his seat of his
12 jeep, and he opened it up and he flipped through the
13 pages and showed me some names and said that some people
14 were, these people were coming in and that some were
15 giving him false names and stuff like that.
16 And then I asked him if he'd had any
17 trouble out of any of them. And he had a shotgun laying
18 in his seat of his jeep, and he held the shotgun up and
19 said, "No, not as long as I have this."
20 Q Okay.
21 A And --
22 Q Go ahead.
23 A We made a little small talk after that, and
24 I told him I was leaving, so I turned around and left.
25 I had no intentions of going any further. I was just
1487
Sivley - Voir Dire/Cox
1 merely going out there to see what was going on.
2 Q See what was going on?
3 A Yes, sir.
4 MR. COX: Okay.
5 THE COURT: For the defense.
7 BY MR. POOLE:
8 Q Mr. Sivley, when did this happen?
9 A About a week before the, the murders took
10 place.
11 Q Early July of '88?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 Q You got some information and you went out
14 and talked to Mr. Casteel?
15 A Excuse me?
16 Q You'd gotten some information and you went
17 out and talked to him?
18 A Yes, sir.
19 Q When you got there, he was -- was he in his
20 jeep or what was he doing?
21 A I believe he was sitting in his jeep.
22 Q And you all talked about -- what did you
23 talk about?
24 A I introduced myself.
25 Q That the first time you'd met him?
1488
Sivley - Voir Dire/Poole
1 A No, I had met him before at my brother's
2 house.
3 Q Okay.
4 A And I introduced myself, told him who I
5 was, told him I'd just rode out to see what was going
6 on, and we made a little small talk. He showed me his
7 book and his gun, we made a little small talk, you know,
8 just about the weather and how he liked his property,
9 stuff like that, and then I left.
10 Q And that was the extent of it?
11 A Yes, sir.
12 Q Okay. And he didn't say he was having
13 trouble with anybody?
14 A He said he had trouble out of a few.
15 Q What'd he say he was trying to do there?
16 What was he trying to do?
17 A He was trying to stop people from coming
18 onto his property, which is on down the road.
19 Q On down the road from where he was?
20 A He was sitting at the gate area, what we
21 call the gate area.
22 Q Was he by himself, sir?
23 A Yes, sir.
24 MR. POOLE: Okay. Yeah, that's all the
25 questions I have.
1489
Sivley - Voir Dire/Poole
MR. COX: That's all.
THE COURT: Okay. If you don't mind, wait
outside for a moment.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Who's your next witness?
MR. COX: Mr. Ewton.
JONATHAN EWTON,
called as a witness, was examined and testified as
follows:
BY MR. COX:
Q State your name, please, sir.
A Jonathan Ewton.
Q What we're having now, Mr. Ewton, is a
jury-out hearing and then you'll possibly testify before
the jury in a minute, but we wanted to ask you a couple
of questions preliminarily.
Did you have the occasion to be up near the
Helican in April of 1988 or sometime thereabout?
A Yes, sir.
Q Do you recollect what specific date it was?
A Not specifically. It was in the spring,
the weather had just warmed up.
1490
Ewton - Voir Dire/Cox
1 Q All right. And what were you doing out
2 there?
3 A I was riding a motorcycle, just trail
4 riding.
5 Q Who was with you?
6 A Mike Dantzler.
7 Q And was he on a motorcycle also or in a
8 vehicle?
9 A No, sir, he was in a jeep.
10 Q All right. And where'd y'all go to?
11 A We went into the Helican, rode out -- the
12 trail forks where the power line area is. We were just
13 going to ride up there, make a circle and come back out.
14 Q Okay. And did you get to the power line?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q And who was in front and who was in the
17 back?
18 A When we initially came out onto the power
19 lines, Mike was in front. As soon as we came out into
20 the field where it opened up, I passed him.
21 Q All right. So then at that point you were
22 in front --
23 A Yes, sir.
24 Q -- on a motorcycle; he was in the back in
25 his vehicle, a jeep?
1491
1 A Yes, sir.
2 Q And then which way did you go after you
come out onto the power line? Did you go left or right?
4 A Turned left.
5 Q All right. Up the hill toward --
6 A Yes, sir. It drops off a hill, kind of a
7 long grade, crosses a creek and then climbs back up a
hill.
9 Q All right. Had you crossed the creek and
10 started back up?
11 A Yes, sir.
12 Q And then what happened?
13 A Saw a man step out of the edge of the woods
14 there. I'd looked back to see how far behind me Mike
15 was, it was kind of rocky and a little creek and
16 everything, and when I turned back around, there was a
17 man stepping out of the woods.
18 Q Okay. Who was the man?
19 A That man right there.
20 Q Okay. And was this man armed?
21 A Yes, sir.
22 Q With what?
23 A A revolver.
24 Q All right. What did he do with the
25 revolver?
1492
1 A He pointed it at my face and said, "Hold
2 it." Told me to hold it.
3 Q All right. And what did you do?
A I just started slowing down. I didn't
5 really know what to do. He yelled, "Hold it," again,
6 and I said, "Wait a minute."
7 And as I kept getting closer to him, I was
8 almost stopped, and he yelled, "Hold it," one more time.
9 And I yelled, "Wait a minute," back to him. And as I
10 pulled along beside him, I didn't know who the man was,
11 why he wanted me to stop, why he was pointing a gun at
12 me, and I decided I was going to make a run for it.
13 Q All right. Did you?
14 A Yes, I did.
15 Q All right. And then where did you go?
16 A Another trail cut back off to the left of
17 the direction I was traveling, cut back into the woods
18 and the way back out.
19 Q All right.
20 A I went that way to try to get away from him
21 because I didn't know -- I decided, you know, if I was
22 going to get shot, I was going to do it trying to get
23 away.
24 Q Okay. And then did you stop some place up
25 in the woods?
1493
1 A Yes, sir. When I felt I'd traveled a safe
2 distance from where he was, the trail kind of drops over
3 a little hill. There's no possible way he could get a
4 shot that way. I stopped to listen for my friend in the
5 jeep behind me.
Q Did you finally hear your friend coming?
7 A Finally I heard the jeep start back up. It
8 didn't come out the way I had gone out. He had turned
9 around and gone back out the other way. It was, it was
10 shut down. I didn't hear anything for maybe 10, 15
11 minutes, it seems like.
12 Q Then you heard your friend coming out?
13 A Right.
14 Q All right. What did you do? Did you --
15 A I rode back to where the trail had split
16 originally and stopped there, turned my engine off to
17 wait for him. And when I - heard him, I started it up and
18 sat there. And when I saw the front of his jeep, could
19 just see the front of it to make sure it was him coming
20 back out, I rode , on, and continued to do that till I was
21 back out to the road. I would stop and wait for him to
22 catch up.
23 Q So you were kind of hop-scotching ahead of
24 him--
25 A Yes, sir.
1494
1 Q -- waiting for him to come out?
2 A Yeah. A motorcycle is considerably faster
3 through the woods than a jeep.
4 Q Okay. And then did you at some point
5 arrive at the intersection of the Helican Road and
6 Vandergriff Road?
7 A Yes, sir.
8 Q And did you wait there?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q And then what happened?
11 A Well, I heard the jeep coming again, went
12 ahead and started the motorcycle up, and, you know, I
13 was kind of relieved and looked back kind of smiling,
14 expecting to see Mike coming out of the woods, but it
15 wasn't his jeep in the lead, it was a Jeep Scrambler --
16 Q All right.
17 A -- that was at this place where he pulled a
18 gun on me.
19 Q And had you seen that Scrambler down there?
20 A Yes, sir. It was parked just in the edge
21 of the woods. There's like a little clearing there.
22 Q All right. So you thought that was a man
23 who had pointed the gun at you at that point?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q So what'd you do?
1495
1 A I took off.
2 Q On Vandergriff Road?
3 A Yes, sir, went back out to Sawyer's and
4 turned right.
5 Q And what'd that, the driver of the Jeep
6 Scrambler do?
7 A When I pulled out on to Sawyer's, I looked
B back over my shoulder, you know, I didn't bother
9 stopping for the stop sign, looked back. He didn't
10 either. He came through the stop sign a pretty good
11 speed, so I ran -- my motorcycle is a small, little
12 bike, you know, and ran about 70 miles an hour, and he
13 pursued me.
14 Q Pursued you for how far?
15 A I would say a mile and a half to two miles.
16 Q How'd you get away?
17 A There's an area that cuts from Sawyer's,
18 crosses a place called Marshall Creek, comes out on
19 another road, North Fairmount. It's several miles to
20 get from that on the road, but it's like maybe half a
21 mile through the woods. The end of the trail that I cut
22 off on had been blocked off by rocks and dirt where
23 people dumped it. I cut off the bank, off the side of
24 the road, pretty steep embankment there, and the trees
25 are too close together to get a jeep down it anyway, so
1496
I knew if I -- the road gets kind of curvy and I pulled
away just a little bit through the curves. I knew if I
went that way, he couldn't follow me.
Q Was the motorcycle loud?
A Yes, sir, extremely loud. I had damaged
the exhaust system on it about a year before that and
never fixed it.
Q Did you hear any shots?
A No, sir.
Q Did you know there'd been shots?
A Not at that time, no, sir.
Q Not until you talked to your friend, Mr.
Dantzler?
A Yes, sir.
MR. COX: All right. You may ask.
BY MR. POOLE:
Q Sir, do you know, Jonathan, when this
happened?
A I'm not sure exactly when it was. It was,
I would say about the middle of April.
Q Middle of April of '88?
A Yes, sir.
Q How old are you now?
A I'm 28.
1497
Ewton - Voir Dire/Poole
1 Q So you were --
2 A Twenty-nine, I'm sorry, 29. I had a
3 birthday this month.
4 Q You forget, huh? So you were 19, 18, 19 at
5 the time?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q And what you have described -- and tell me
8 how you got back onto the power line to start with?
9 A I rode out there.
10 Q Were you on the Helican Road?
11 A Yes, sir. Yes.
12 Q Okay. And have you been back there before?
13 A Yes, sir, several times.
14 Q Before this happened?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q When was the most previous time before
17 that?
18 A It had probably been the year before.
19 Q Back in '87?
20 A Yes, sir.
21 Q And when you came in on this time in '88
22 then, were there any postings or signs or anything like
23 that?
24 A Sir, I do not recall seeing any signs. I
25 can tell you if there were, I ignored them. I do not
1498
1 recall seeing signs that day.
2 Q Did you come through a gate area?
A No, sir, there was no gate. There's a
4 place they call the gate, but there's not actually a
5 gate there.
Q Nothing there?
7 A Hasn't been for several years since the guy
8 used to keep cows back there or something.
9 Q So you just rode on through there?
10 A Yes, sir.
11 Q And then it's a good piece and you got to
12 the power line?
13 A Yes, sir.
14 Q And what'd you do when you got to the power
15 line?
16 A Turned left to ride down the power lines,
17 come back out the other trail and go back out.
18 Q Okay. And is that when there was this
19 encounter?
20 A Yes, sir.
21 Q And the guy you had it with was Mr.
22 Casteel?
23 A Yes, sir.
24 Q And you said you didn't hear any shots
25 then, you never did hear any shots at all, did you?
1499
1 A No, sir, I did not.
2 Q But did he have a weapon?
3 A Yes, sir.
4 Q And what'd he do with the weapon?
5 A He pointed it at my face.
Q Were you stopped at the time?
7 A I was not stopped. I was coming up the
8 hill. I was going fairly slow. When he stepped out and
9 pointed, I slowed down. I wasn't sure if .I was going to
10 stop or not.
11 Q Did you stop?
12 A No, sir, I did not.
13 Q So he had a weapon pointed at you and told
14 you to stop?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q You just kept going?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q And nothing happened?
19 A Sir, when I got next to him and he yelled,
20 "Hold it," that last time, I just took off. I thought
21 he was going to kill me. I was going to be trying to
22 get away if he did.
23 Q I guess the truth of the matter is, if he
24 intended to kill you, he probably could have as you
25 drove by, couldn't he?
1500

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IN THE CRIMINAL COURT OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA

THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT -

THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS A. MEYER, PRESIDING JUDGE

17 C. Leland Davis, Esq.

19 FOR THE DEFENDANT:

20 Don W. Poole, Esq.,

23 Phillip C. Lawrence, Esq.

JUDITH ANN LOWERY

MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.

JUDITH ANN LOWERY

MELTON B. LOWERY, JR.

2 Q And the smell was awful, you said?

4 Q Did your dog react in any particular way?

A Yes, sir. He got up right beside me and

6 bristled up and growled, and I thought he was going to

7 knock me off of the bluff, he was real upset about it.

And did your grandson react in any specific

10 A Just he got sick.

11 Q You mean got physically --

12 A The odor was, yes, sir, he vomit, he sure

14 Q Did you come back and recant -- or recount

15 this story to your husband?

17 Q Or at some point in time did you mention it

19 A We have -- everybody comes in at my house

20 at the same time and we all eat supper together, or

22 next two days and I didn't even think to tell him

24 Q All right. By Wednesday did you tell him?

25 A I was talking on the phone to a friend that

for those bodies that had been missing on Signal

Mountain, and he heard me talking on the phone about how

the dog acted.

Q Did something click with you then? Did you

have a thought at that time?

A No. I kept telling him, This couldn't be

our mountain, this happened on Signal Mountain, not on

Q All right. But at some point did you talk

to your husband about going down and taking a look?

A I think it was on Tuesday. We have a

nursery and we had just planted 5,000 little white

pines, and we have to go over and check them after it

off the road almost by some vehicles and we went back,

and we forgot to even stop then.

Q Okay. But then Wednesday your husband did

Q Did you go with him?

A No, sir, I went to church. I didn't.

MR. COX: That's all.

MR. LAWRENCE: I don't believe we have any

THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You can

have a seat in the courtroom or you are free to leave.

MR. COX: Burnie McDowell, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Okay.

called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was

examined and testified as follows:

Q Would you state your name, please, sir?

Q All right. Now, Mr. McDowell, I think that

your wife Portia just testified, is that correct?

Q And I think you and she lived at the, near

the intersection of U.S. 27 and Big Fork Road, is that

Q And you run or own a nursery up there in

2 Q Where is your nursery?

3 A It's four miles from my house out Big Fork

4 Road. It's right behind my house, but you've got to go

6 Creek being right behind the house.

Q And is this area where you live, is that

8 close to Prentice Cooper?