CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Testimony this week in the murder trial of a man charged with killing a Fort Campbell soldier included a gun being found in a dresser, details about the shooting on a basketball court, and six hours of cross-examination of the victim’s wife.
On July 3, 2019, at about 11 p.m., police responded to a shots fired call off of Eighth Street. Officers arrived to find Army Sgt. Kendrick Grayer on a basketball court with multiple gunshot wounds. Grayer later died later from his injuries. Adriam Hodge, 26, was charged with first-degree murder.
Here are three takeaways from this week’s testimony:
1. Six hours on the stand
Erica Grayer, the wife of the victim, took to the stand on day one. At the moment of the shooting, Mrs. Grayer was standing in the street only a short distance away, and she called 911. Assistant District Attorney Marianne Bell replayed the tense 911 phone. “Why did you call Kendrick ‘a military guy’? You kept calling him that,” Bell asked.
“Because I thought that would get them (the first responders) there faster,” Grayer told the jury.
Hodge’s attorney, District Public Defender Roger Nell, cross-examined Grayer for, in total, six hours. Questions ranged from her involvement in the crime and her connection to Hodge, to her initial reluctance to be forthcoming with information to law enforcement.
2. Gun found in dresser
The day after the shooting, Keanna Barnett, a friend of Hodge’s, was spending the Fourth of July with her family when she came home to find Hodge sitting on the stairs of her apartment waiting for her. She invited him in for a drink, and they talked for a while before going to bed together.
The next morning, Hodge left about an hour after Barnett woke up. Later, when she opened her dresser drawer, she found a black gun sitting in her clothes. “I don’t allow guns in my apartment. I don’t allow guns at my house at all,” Barnett told the jury. “I was raised in a house that didn’t allow guns. My mom was very strict on that.” Barnett asked her roommate’s friend, “Tiny,” to get rid of the gun.
A few weeks later, on July 16, Barnett saw Tiny leaving the apartment with a white bag. When she went to take the trash out, Barnett was suddenly taken in by detectives for questioning. She soon found out what was in the white bag Tiny was carrying: the gun.
3. Expert errors in report
TBI Agent Alex Brodhag, a firearms examiner, testified as an expert witness. Brodhag was able to match the .45 caliber handgun retrieved from Barnett’s apartment to the spent casings at the crime scene and the bullets retrieved from Sgt. Grayer’s body.
Multiple test shots were made with the gun at TBI, and Brodhag determined that the .45 caliber handgun had an undeniable mechanical fingerprint that matched both the test shots and the casings.
During cross-examination, Nell pointed out an apparent flaw in Brodhag’s report. A bullet, which had previously and consistently said to not match, was mistakenly written in one paragraph as a conclusive examination. Furthermore, Nell capitalized on a correction made in Brodhag’s findings, a spelling error. “So you caught a spelling error, but you didn’t catch where you moved one exhibit from inconclusive to conclusive?” Nell asked Brodhag.
The trial is set to continue Monday at 8:30 a.m.