CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – They were barely adults when the crime occurred, and now the trial has started for two 20-year-olds charged with killing a 17-year-old former boyfriend.
At about 8:42 p.m., Dec. 8, 2021, Clarksville Police responded to shots fired in the area of Buckshot Drive and Whitetail Drive. Upon arrival, they found 17-year-old Arahmonie Majors lying in the road, dead.
According to previous Clarksville Now reports, Robert Holland and Miracle Bailey, both 18 at the time, were arrested and charged with murder. On a cell phone recovered from the scene, detectives found records of Instagram messages sent and received just moments before Majors’ death. Messages on the phone of the victim revealed he was lured out of his home by his ex-girlfriend, and her current boyfriend, Holland, was there waiting for him.
Straightforward facts and telling evidence
During his opening remarks, Michael Pugh, the deputy district attorney, presented the jury with straightforward facts and evidence, explaining the findings of their investigation to the jury.
“Dec. 8, 2021, at approximately 8:40 in the evening, shots rang out across the neighborhood of Whitetail Drive,” Pugh told the jury. “Shortly after that, 911 received several calls. Many people were reporting shots fired, and some were able to describe the vehicle leaving the scene.”
Pugh said that that night, when law enforcement was pursuing a black SUV matching the description of the suspect vehicle, a gun was recovered that had been discarded while four of the suspects fled in different directions. Not only would the gun match the shell casings found at the crime scene, Pugh told the jury, but the defendants would test positive for gunshot residue.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the state submits that by the time all of the evidence is in, there will be enough of it to prove that Mr. Robert Holland and Miss Miracle Bailey, with premeditation, killed Mr. Majors,” Pugh said.
“CPD got it wrong” and “2+2=4”
Erin Poland, defense attorney for Miracle Bailey, told the jury she could sit and do crossword puzzles and not ask a single question. Her stance to the jury on behalf of her client was that the investigation was not only sloppy and incomplete but that CPD had gotten it wrong entirely.
“It’s not easy for me to say, but the Clarksville Police Department got it wrong,” Poland said. “They did not take into consideration every bit of evidence. They overlooked evidence, and they overlooked suspects. … We have to get this right, because they did not.”
Robert Koewler, Holland’s attorney, began his argument with some arithmetic.
“Two plus two is four,” Koewler told the jury. “Now, when we think about this case, what the state wants you to think is that they knew the answer was four from the beginning, and the only way you could get to four was two plus two.”
Koewler explained to the jury that there were many ways to add, subtract, and divide to get the number four and implied that the state decided Holland was the suspect from the beginning without investigating any other avenues. He pointed out to the jury that during the pursuit with law enforcement of the four people who fled only one person was pursued and caught.
“Ladies and gentlemen, circumstantial evidence, when there are other explanations, doesn’t lead to the same answer.”
The trial resumes Tuesday morning at the Montgomery County Courts Center.