Bledsoe County double ax murder trial begins Tuesday

Ben Benton, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.
·2 min read

Aug. 3—The man accused of hacking a Bledsoe County, Tennessee, mother and her adult daughter to death with an ax in 2017 will face a jury Tuesday in Franklin County after the venue was changed recently, court officials said Monday.

Robert Joe Whittenburg, 47, of Pikeville, Tennessee, faces a trial Aug. 3 on two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 30, 2017, slayings of Deanna Lawrence, 46, and her 24-year-old daughter, Dedra Lawrence, at a home on Sawmill Road in Pikeville, according to court officials.

The murder trial was moved last week within the 12th Judicial District from Pikeville to Winchester, officials in the Franklin County Circuit Court Clerk's Office said Monday. It will be the 12th Judicial District's first such trial since the start of the pandemic, officials said.

Whittenburg is represented by Dunlap, Tennessee-attorney Sam Hudson, who did not immediately return a call Monday seeking comment on the trial start. He was out of the office Monday, according to a person there.

Whittenburg was arrested at the scene, but because Bledsoe County's grand jury only meets three times a year he wasn't indicted in the slayings until the grand jury heard the case in March 2018. Bledsoe County's grand jury meets in March, July and November, court officials said.

In August 2018, Whittenburg's first trial date was set for May 2019, but a defense motion regarding laboratory testing of hair that was on the suspected murder weapon delayed the trial date until June 2020. Then the pandemic hit and Tennessee's court system ground to a halt.

The slayings happened in a residential area a block off U.S. Highway 27 in Pikeville, a town of around 1,600 about 50 miles northwest of Chattanooga.

County and city officers reaching the scene on Sawmill Road found the women "in a pool of blood," Bledsoe County Sheriff Jimmy Morris told the Bledsonian-Banner in Pikeville in December 2017. Whittenburg had changed out of his bloodstained clothes and was lying on a bed in a bedroom at the home, the sheriff told the newspaper.

During the initial investigation, authorities said the two women and Whittenburg lived at the same home in Pikeville at the time of the killings, officials said.

According to preliminary autopsy findings, the women died of wounds allegedly inflicted with an ax, District Attorney General Mike Taylor said in 2018 when Whittenburg was indicted.

Franklin County court officials said the trial is set to begin at 9 a.m. CDT at the Franklin County Judicial Center before Judge Thomas Graham.

Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.