Brumbalough gets life in prison

By Michael R. Moser / mmoser@crossville-chronicle.com

July 31, 2008 07:35 pm

— Jack Wayne Brumbalough Sr. was listening to his attorney moments after being sentenced to life in prison for the gruesome and brutal beating-death murder of Wilford Pat Mullinix. Court had just been adjourned and officials were gathering their documents to leave and spectators were slowly filing out.
Members of the victim's family paused in the aisle to wait on Chief Deputy Attorney General Gary McKenzie to learn what the next step in the case will be.
Suddenly Brumbalough shouted toward the family in a rapid staccato and barely distinguishable voice, "Your daddy got what he deserved."
Cumberland County Corrections Officers quickly grabbed Brumbalough and whisked him out a rear door to the courtroom and to his jail cell that will be home until the Tennessee Department of Corrections makes room for his permanent domicile.
Cold hearted as the crime itself, it was as close to a confession to murder as the family would get because throughout the trial, Brumbalough skirted around taking responsibility for the killing. He instead blamed his actions on old head injuries and acute alcoholism and at times, on the victim.
In closing arguments McKenzie challenged the jury, "If you believe him, let him go ... this burden has been placed on this family for two years," he said in a raised voice as he walked from directly in front of the jury to just a few feet from where the defendant sat.
"Place the burden where it belongs," he said pointing at and looking at Brumbalough. It took the jury four hours to return a verdict of felony murder during commission of a robbery, and guilty of especially aggravated robbery. The jury could not reach a unanimous decision on first-degree murder.
The three-day trial was more emotional for the family then they had been prepared for, one family member said outside the courtroom during a recess Wednesday. Particularly hard was the report of state medical examiner Adele Lewis, whose testimony was accompanied by pre-autopsy photos of the victim showing the brutality of the beating that Brumbalough, 44, had inflicted upon Mullinix, a 68-year-old paraplegic who had been confined to a wheelchair for over 30 years.
Shocking was the revelation that despite having been beaten over 20 times with a crowbar (pry bar), a beating so vicious that both arms had been broken, the face grossly distorted, heart bruised and both eyes gauged out, Mullinix probably lived two to four hours after the first assault. The medical examiner added that all the injuries to the victim's arms and hands were consistent with defensive wounds.
Mullinix later suffered strangulation so powerful that it bruised muscles in the neck, broke the voice box and broke small bones in the neck.
Lewis explained that during the autopsy she found blood in the victim's digestive system which would have taken between two and four hours to travel to the small intestine. She concluded that after enduring the brutal beating, the victim swallowed his own blood and lived at least two hours, and up to four hours, after the initial assault, before he was strangled.
She listed cause of death as multiple blunt force injury and strangulation. She added that the injuries were consistent with having been inflicted with a weapon like the blood-spattered pry bar that investigators found inside a closet, several feet away from where the victim's body was discovered.
Testimony from over a dozen witnesses and over 40 exhibits introduced as evidence developed the following time line for the events leading to and after the murder.
On Monday, March 27, 2006, home health care worker Helen Norris testified that she made her regular visit to the Mullinix home on East Lane just off Hwy. 127 S and saw both the victim and the defendant at the residence. Len Smith testified that he owed Mullinix $387 and that he went to the Mullinix home on that Monday to pay his debt, delivering three $100 bills, four $20 bills and a six-pack of beer to cover the remaining $7.
At 8:30 p.m. that night, taxi driver Kathryn Lawrence responded to a call from Brumbalough at the East Lane residence for a cab ride, but no one answered the door when she got there. At 9 p.m. Brumbalough checked into the Budget Inn, renting a room within walking distance of the East Lane residence.
Over the next several hours Brumbalough placed several calls to his ex-wife, Shawnda Flowers, who was living at the Village Inn. He offered her $100 to find someone to pick him up and $20 to someone who would buy him some beer.
Flowers, who has been married to Brumbalough for eight years, testified that the calls seemed odd in that Brumbalough had money and had not been working. She added that she could not be specific, but his voice sounded troubled to her.
A second call for a taxi was made by Brumbalough from the East Lane address around 12:30 p.m.
At between 7 and 8 a.m. Brumbalough arrived at Flowers' room at the Village Inn and for the rest of the day, Brumbalough, Flowers and her husband, Richard Flowers, made runs to buy beer and consumed around three cases of beer before leaving the apartment and going to a Mexican restaurant for drinks, then traveling to Vegas for mixed drinks and ending the night at Jake's.
At one point Brumbalough told his ex-wife, "Sometimes you find people lying face down," and adding, "I have no conscience."
On Wednesday she was interviewed by investigators. That was the day Norris discovered Mullinix's body. On Thursday Brumbalough visited his ex-wife and asked Flowers what she had told investigators the day before.
"I asked him if he killed Pat. He gave me a look. You know, being married to someone eight years, you know them. He said no, but I know he did."
Under cross examination from Fields, Flowers went on to say, "I still care for him, still love him," but she said Brumbalough gave her signals "something bad had happened over at Pat's. He just would not say what."
Inside the Mullinix home investigators found lying on the hospital bed in the front room where the body was found lying, the victim's billfold which had no money in the money compartment. Investigators did find one $100 bill and one $20 bill hidden in a side compartment of the billfold.
The wall behind the bed was splattered with blood and blood was found on a metal strip between rooms and in a sink at the rear of the residence.
In a closet, partially hidden by a tote lid, was a blood-covered pry bar. DNA testing on the blood revealed that it all belonged to the victim.
March 29, the day the body was discovered, Sheriff's Investigator Jeff Slayton found Brumbalough at the Village Inn. He was wearing the same sweat pants and work boots he had worn on that Monday and the investigator noticed what appeared to be blood stains on the pants and boots.
Brumbalough voluntarily surrendered his clothing to investigators and later lab tests revealed that the DNA found on the shirt, pants and boots all matched Mullinix. The forensic scientist report added that the probability that the blood belonged to the victim "exceeds the world's population."
McKenzie hammered on the fact that as the investigation progressed, Brumbalough's statements to police also changed.
When the state rested its case, Fields moved to have the first-degree murder charge dismissed because he said the state did not prove pre-meditation. McKenzie countered that he felt the burden of proving pre-meditation had been met because circumstantial evidence indicated Brumbalough had left the residence, after the beating, and later returned and strangled the victim.
"It most certainly is a circumstantial case," Burns said. He then ruled that the question would be one for the jury to decide.
Brumbalough then waived his right to not testify and took the stand. The Fentress County native testified that he had been drinking since the age of eight when he would steal beer from his father after his dad would pass out from over-indulgence. He added that he grew up in a household where his mother and father fought constantly, causing the children to polarize and choose one side or the other.
In the late 1980s Brumbalough said he suffered a several head injury in a traffic accident and that in 1994 he was assaulted by a man wielding a rock hammer, and suffered another severe head injury.
He had known the Mullinix for about 20 years and ended up staying from time to time at the Mullinix residence where he said he helped Pat and kept him company.
On the night of the slaying, Brumbalough testified that he told Mullinix he was going to be leaving and that Pat became angry, pulled a handgun and told him he was not. Brumbalough claimed he ran into a rear bedroom and barricaded himself in.
He said after a period of time, he came out and grabbed the pry bar from the closet with plans to hit Mullinix in the arm to knock the gun away so he could escape.
"I warped that arm for him, two or three times," Brumbalough told the jury. He then claimed he blacked out and when he came to his senses, he saw "nothing but a bloody body."
He then called for a taxi and left.
"I am very sorry it happened ... there was nothing I could do ... a friend is gone." He added that the entire confrontation was over "stupid drinking."
Brumbalough became very animated on the witness stand, waving his arms back and forth as he described the assault.
"I ain't denying anything. I didn't mean to do it. I hit that man and then, I just don't know. It happened, and yeah, I am sorry."
When McKenzie crossed examined Brumbalough, the prosecutor said at one point, "Only two people know what happened that night. You killed Pat Mullinix."
Brumbalough replied, "It would have had to be me."
He later said he did not call police or an ambulance or inform anyone else as to what had happened, stating he was "just trying to sort things in my head. I was too scared to tell." He later added, "I just wanted a drink to get that out of my mind."
Wednesday morning the state and the defense called two expert witnesses who conducted mental examinations of Brumbalough. Both came to the conclusion that Brumbalough was competent to stand trial and that he was competent at the time of the murder.
Dr. James Walker, a neuro psychologist at Vanderbilt, testified that he found Brumbalough did suffer from accute alcohol abuse and from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder relating to beatings he suffered as a child at the hands of his father.
He also found that the two brain injuries he suffered made him "much more explosive," and left him with "a lot less control of behavior and decision making." He added that it would also cause him to "black out" during times of extreme emotional stress or anger. This was based on what Brumbalough and other witnesses told the psychologist.
Walker said he found Brumbalough to have an IQ of 67, which places the defendant in the mildly mentally retarded classification.
Under cross examination Walker did state that he found Brumbalough to, at times, make more of his problems then what his problems were.
The state called Dr. Sandra Phillips, a clinical psychologist at Volunteer Mental Health, who testified that she found during examination and testing that Brumbalough "did have the capacity to perform a pre-meditated event."
She did come to a different conclusion about the PTSD diagnosis, saying that while Brumbalough may have features of the illness, she did not find that he actually had PTSD.
In his closing, Fields told the jury, "Certain things happened. Certain things are undeniable." But he challenged the state's theory on pre-meditation. He also challenged the state's theory that Mullinix was killed by Brumbalough for beer money.
There was plenty of beer at the Mullinix residence the day of the slaying, Fields said, pointing out that investigators found two cases of empty beer cans in the home.
It did not make sense that his client would deliberately kill Mullinix because he would "lose a bed (place to stay), lose a beer supply and lose a best buddy."
The jury announced it was hopelessly deadlocked on the first count of the three-count indictment, first-degree murder, and Burns ruled a mistrial on that charge.
That did not change much because if the jury had found Brumbalough guilty of both first-degree and felony murder, the two convictions would have been merged into one for the purpose of sentencing.
The jury also found Brumbalough guilty of especially aggravated robbery, which carries a 15- to 25-year prison sentence.
A sentencing hearing will be held Sept. 26 to determine how much of that sentence will be served, and whether the sentence will be consecutive or concurrent with the life sentence.