Prosecutors will pursue the death penalty in quadruple murder of abandoned Tennessee baby's family

CNN

2 days ago

Prosecutors plan to seek the execution of a man accused of shooting and killing four members of a family in rural Tennessee, including the parents of an infant found abandoned under the summer sun miles away, the district attorney said in court Thursday.
Austin Robert Drummond, captured Tuesday after a week-long manhunt, sat handcuffed in a black-and-white-striped prison uniform appearing by video feed from jail for his arraignment in a Tiptonville, Tennessee, courthouse on four counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping, four counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony.
Drummond showed no expression as Lake County General Sessions Judge Andrew T. Cook read the charges to him.
'At this time, the state intends to seek the death penalty,' Danny Goodman, district attorney for Dyer and Lake counties, told the judge.
Cook entered a not guilty plea on Drummond's behalf because he didn't yet have an attorney, and appointed attorney Bryan Huffman to represent him at his next hearing scheduled for August 14. CNN has reached out to Huffman for comment.
Cook ordered Drummond, 28, held without bond because, he said, state law allows him to deny bond in capital cases and because 'first and foremost, it's the court's responsibility to take into consideration the safety posed to the community.'
Drummond was remanded to the custody of the Lake County Sheriff's Department.
Drummond is a convicted felon with alleged ties to a violent street gang who was out on bail at the time of the killings on an attempted murder charge relating to time he spent in prison. He is charged with the murders of James M. Wilson, 21; Adrianna Williams, 20; Cortney Rose, 38; and Braydon Williams, 15.
The victims were found July 29 in Tiptonville, a town in northwest Tennessee's Lake County, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
The four were found hours after the seven-month-old daughter of Wilson and Adrianna Williams – identified only by the initials W.W. – had been found abandoned in a car seat in a 'random' front yard near the Dyer County community of Tigrett, nearly 40 miles southeast of Tiptonville and about 40 miles northwest of Jackson, authorities said.
Drummond allegedly kidnapped the baby while he was armed with a firearm, according to the affidavit of complaint in the case. The document does not offer any additional details about the alleged kidnapping, including whether Drummond ended up abandoning the child.
Rose was the baby's maternal grandmother, and Braydon Williams was the baby's maternal uncle, according to Goodman.
Drummond's girlfriend was Rose's sister, according to Goodman, and she served as a corrections officer when and where Drummond was in prison for aggravated robbery, CNN affiliate WHBQ reported, citing the state corrections department.
But authorities have not released any court documents or details identifying a motive for the killings or any other information about how they identified Drummond as a suspect.
Three other people have been charged with allegedly helping Drummond after the killings.
Drummond's rap sheet dates back to 2013 when the then-16-year-old armed with a pistol robbed a Circle K convenience store in Jackson just after midnight, court documents show. For that, he was convicted in 2014 of aggravated robbery and sentenced to 10 years in prison, records show.
After the trial, he made threats against the victim of the robbery and against the jurors who found him guilty, resulting in being charged with retaliation for past action and three more years added to his sentence, according to District Attorney Jody S. Pickens and court records.
After serving his time, Drummond was released in September last year, but faced new charges related to his time in prison: a drug arrest the day he was released, and an attempted murder case, according to records from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, or TBI.
Drummond and another defendant allegedly tried to kill a third inmate on August 29, 2023, according to the indictment in that case. The indictment does not include details about the incident.
'He made bond' and was 'out on bond on those charges' when the bodies were found in Tiptonville, Goodman said.
That bond was officially revoked in court Thursday.
Kim Hamil, Wilson's mother, told The Associated Press that she and other relatives were trying to let justice take its course and plan to attend Drummond's hearings whenever they can.
She said relatives are caring for her son's baby girl.
'It's a whole family gone. It's unbelievable,' Hamil said.
'As a family, we're just broken.'
CNN's Cindy Von Quednow and Emma Tucker contributed to this report.