CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The murder trial for Kenneth Hudspeth, accused of raping and killing 23-year-old Crista Bramlitt in 1996, resumed Wednesday with final testimony.
On Tuesday, the jury heard from experts in DNA analysis and forensics, which ultimately led authorities to identify Hudspeth as the suspect in the case. They also watched the first half of an interview conducted by Clarksville Police Detective Michael Ulrey in April 2019.
On Wednesday, Hudspeth testified that he lied during that interview about having sex with Bramlitt and not remembering events on the night of her death.
The rest of the interview
The trial picked up with the remaining minutes of the interview Ulrey conducted with Hudspeth in Phoenix after collecting his DNA in April 2019.
“That looks staged as hell,” Hudspeth could be heard saying to Ulrey after looking at the photo of the way Bramlitt’s body was discovered.
“The evidence speaks for itself. At the end of the day, people lie. Evidence does not,” Ulrey was heard saying to Hudspeth about the DNA evidence allegedly proving that he had sex with Bramlitt.
Hudspeth again denied having sex with her. “Evidence can speak for itself. It don’t speak to me,” Hudspeth responded.
Several minutes later, Hudspeth admitted he had seen information about Bramlitt’s death in the newspaper.
Ulrey placed Hudspeth under arrest and informed him that he would be extradited back to Montgomery County to face the murder charges.
Ulrey’s testimony
District Attorney General Robert Nash asked Ulrey about his theory behind who might have been responsible for Bramlitt’s death.
“Whoever had sex with her killed her,” Ulrey responded.
“I was seeing an obvious pattern change as I was showing him the evidence,” Ulrey said, referring to Hudspeth’s claim that he did not had sex with Bramlitt, and that he initially had no idea about a murder before admitting he’d seen it in the paper.
During the course of the interview, Hudspeth said “I don’t remember” close to 100 times, according to Ulrey.
Ulrey then told Nash it made him suspicious that Hudspeth’s memory only blacked out the portion of time of Bramlitt’s rape and murder – not before or after.
The state rested its case, and the defense made a motion for acquittal, calling the state’s case circumstantial, which Nash acknowledged was true.
“We can’t avoid the circumstance of which Bramlitt was found,” Nash said, gesturing towards the way her body was positioned.
Judge Robert E. Lee Davies denied the defense’s motion.
‘Once I told the lie, I stuck with it’
The defense called Hudspeth to testify on his own behalf.
“I was dead tired, I was sleepy,” Hudspeth said about the day of the interview. “I had been up for a day and a half doing maintenance for an apartment.”
When police in Phoenix pulled him over, he said he had just taken a Xanax, and he was on his way home to go to sleep.
In the interview room at the Phoenix Police Department, Hudspeth said he was scared and nervous when Ulrey told him he was cold case homicide detective. He then recounted the day of Bramlitt’s murder, and how he ended up in her trailer.
He said he got up early and went to work that day, adding that he returned home around 6:30 p.m., and had $100 to spend.
He began looking for a man in the trailer park he always bought drugs from, and he found him at the back door of Bramlitt’s trailer. He said he was invited in, and he bought $40 worth of crack cocaine.
“I kind of messed with her (Bramlitt) a little bit,” Hudspeth said, adding he was now unsure whether she was also smoking the crack cocaine he had just purchased.
He told her he was going to give her the $60 left over to have sex with her. They had sex, and when they were done, he left, with her still in bed.
He denied raping and killing Bramlitt.
During cross examination, Hudspeth admitted to Nash he lied during the first interview.
“I knew my DNA was inside of her the whole time,” Hudspeth said. “You tell one lie, you have to tell another lie to back it up.”
“Exactly,” Nash said in response.
“Once I told the lie, I stuck with it,” Hudspeth continued, adding that he wasn’t thinking rationally because he had been awake for so long and was under the influence of Xanax.
The trial will resume Thursday with closing arguments.