By Michael R. Moser / mmoser@crossville-chronicle.com
July 02, 2009 05:59 pm
—
Shackled hand and foot and dressed in a white state prison jump suit with a blue stripe down the leg, Huston Lloyd faced Criminal Court Judge Leon Burns and heard his fate. Life in prison with no possibility of parole.
It was the ending to a three-year long journey to the halls of justice that began on the evening of June 3, 2006 in the parking lot of Lantana Church of Christ in rural Cumberland County, and ended in a Putnam County courtroom yesterday.
Lloyd, 51, in what investigators described at the time as an unsolicited rage of passion over rejected romantic overtures, brutally and unmercifully gunned down a state prison nurse and her four-year-old daughter.
Lloyd and Kimberly Wyatt, 27, of the Crossville area and a native of Fentress County, worked for the Tennessee Department of Corrections in the health field and the two met at an inservice training session in Nashville.
The two dated a short time but Wyatt had decided that she did not want the relationship to go any further. There was also talk that Wyatt was contemplating trying to reconcile with her ex-husband.
On the evening of June 3, 2006, Wyatt and her two daughters were traveling on Lantana Rd. not far from the Lantana Church of Christ when she encountered Lloyd in his vehicle traveling in the opposite direction.
Wyatt called her close friend and co-worker, Alexander Bosland, to meet her in the church parking lot and take her girls for safe keeping because she feared a confrontation with Lloyd.
As the two were transferring the children to Bosland's pickup, Lloyd raced into the parking lot, exited his vehicle and wildly started shooting.
With Bosland on the phone with E-911, Lloyd emptied his Luger handgun into Kimberly Wyatt's body, made a cell phone call, and then fired a fatal shot into Kimberly Wyatt's head. When it was all over, Kimberly Wyatt had been shot nine times and her daughter, twice.
Wyatt was dead at the scene but Sarah was rushed to Cumberland Medical Center and then flown to The University of Tennessee Medical Center where she died a short time later.
During a preliminary hearing held in June 2006, Bosland testified that Lloyd drove into the parking lot, walked around his pickup truck and opened fire.
The first shot hit Sarah, fired from a distance of about three feet. Bosland said Lloyd stepped over Sarah's body and fired several shots into Wyatt's upper torso. Wyatt fell to the pavement and tried crawling under Bosland's pickup. Bosland said Lloyd was screaming things like, "You are not going to ruin my life anymore," "You've ruined my life for the last time," and, "You're going to die."
According to arrest warrants at the time, Lloyd made a cell phone call, reloaded his gun, walked over to the pickup and grabbed Wyatt's leg, dragged her from beneath the vehicle and fired one last shot into the back of her head from inches away.
Lloyd fled the scene but his Nissan Altima was spotted in Bledsoe County a short time later and after a chase of about 36 miles, his vehicle was forced to a stop when rammed by a Bledsoe County sheriff's deputy's vehicle.
The case had been moved to Cookeville in an attempt to gain an impartial jury panel when it appeared the case was headed for trial. The state had already announced it would seek the death penalty.
Most observers stated it was a slam-dunk case, with the most damning evidence being the E-911 call placed from the scene. That recording includes not only the witness, the voices of Kimberly Wyatt and Huston Lloyd and the sound of gunshots ringing out.
Other evidence, including the murder weapon which was traced to Lloyd, made it appear the case was air-tight.
But privately there was much concern expressed over the effects the trial would have on the surviving child, who at age 7, witnessed her mom and sister being gunned down.
That and the amount of time the appeal process takes in capital murder cases led prosecutors to seek a resolution in the case that all parties involved could accept.
State law requires prosecutors to lay out their case to the court so that the facts of the crime justify the plea being entered. In a sense, it is an unchallenged, brief presentation of the state's case.
District Attorney Randy York called as his only witness Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Tommy Callahan to the witness stand and through the investigator, laid out most of the state's case against Lloyd.
The weapon used in the killings had been thrown off the Laurel Creek bridge on Lantana Rd., a few miles from the crime scene, and the ammunition clip for that weapon was tossed out of Lloyd's car in another area.
Investigators recovered the handgun, which traced back to Lloyd who purchased the weapon in 2000.
A private citizen found the discarded ammunition clip and turned it into authorities.
The issue of Lloyd's competency was questioned by Burns who wanted to make sure Lloyd understood what he was doing and what the ramifications were.
Lowery told the court that in March Lloyd had undergone a 30-day inpatient evaluation that found him able to understand the legal proceedings surrounding the case, and competent to stand trial.
In May, Lowery told the court, a plea bargain agreement had been reached.
The only request that defense attorneys made was that the court recommend to state prison officials that Lloyd be housed closer to his family in Kingston Springs, and that he not be housed in the state prison facility in Bledsoe County where the victim worked.
That judicial request is not binding on the state prison system, but often is considered by the state.
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