CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The trial began this week for a man charged with killing a Fort Campbell Boulevard Walmart employee who police say tried to stop him from shoplifting.
On the night of March 1, 2022, at about 11:54 p.m. Clarksville Police responded to a shooting at Walmart, 1680 Fort Campbell Blvd.
According to previous Clarksville Now reports, when police arrived, they found 55-year-old William Eakes Jr. with multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville, where he was later pronounced dead from his injuries. According to his obituary, Eakes was a maintenance worker for Walmart.
Suspect grabbed snack, left store
Officers determined through multiple eyewitnesses and security camera footage from Walmart that a man – later identified by police as 42-year-old Christopher Clark – wearing a red hoodie and blue jeans entered the store after hours, grabbed a drink and bag of chips from inside and then left out of the front door without paying.
Shortly after, Eakes was seen on the security camera footage following the man outside. The man turned around, produced a firearm and shot Eakes multiple times before fleeing.
When police arrived, a K-9 led officers through a wood line and near the back entrance to the Planet Fitness at 1600 Fort Campbell Blvd., where Clark was found and arrested.
During the K-9 track, police found a .380 caliber handgun, and the caliber matched the shell casings recovered from the scene, reports said.
Gunned down on threshold of Walmart
“On March 1st, 2022, William Eakes was employed at Walmart,” District Attorney General Robert Nash told the jury. “At about a quarter to midnight, he’s going about his business; he’s doing his job.”
It was during the COVID pandemic, Nash told the jury, and the hours of operation for the store were strict. Walmart had closed at 11 p.m., and no customers should have been inside.
“It’s him and about a handful of other employees. … He didn’t know that a little over an hour before that, Mr. Clark had stolen a handgun.”
Nash told the jurors that earlier that night, Clark had stolen a gun from a woman named Miranda Foy while she was putting her kids to bed. When she realized a short time later that her gun was missing, she called police and gave them a picture of Clark that they had taken together earlier that day.
He told the jury that Clark pried open the doors to Walmart to gain access, walked around the store for a few minutes, and then left, but not before grabbing a drink and a snack.
“He finally gets noticed by employees. Nobody’s supposed to be in here,” Nash says. “Mr. Clark leaves the store, and Mr. Eakes is behind him and says, ‘Hey, you know we’re closed?’ And Mr. Clark – in these distinctive blue jeans, red hoodie, red ball cap – brandishes a gun from the pocket of his hoodie and guns down Mr. Eakes.”
Nash argued that not only did the video surveillance camera identify Clark, but an eyewitness was able to identify him. He said that after Clark was arrested, he tested positive for gunshot residue.
Just like a pocket watch
“It’s interesting,” Gregory Smith, Clark’s attorney, told the jury. “Just like a pocket watch. Sometimes, when you look at the outside, it shows one thing. But it shows something different when you look a little further into it.”
Smith referenced a semi-colon, calling it a break between two things.
“We believe the court is going to ask you three questions, and however you answer them could determine what happens,” Smith said.
Question one: Is Clark the same person seen in the surveillance video? Smith explained that the jury has to determine that Clark is the same person in the Walmart footage and the police camera footage.
Question two: Did the person in the surveillance video complete the act of shoplifting? Smith said the person left and disappeared around a corner. But when people followed, they called the person back, and then the murder transpired. He asked if these were two events that were just close in time? Or were they the same event? Smith again referenced the semicolon.
Question three: “As you look at all of these charges, has the state proved every single element beyond a reasonable doubt?”
“Mr. Clark and I believe in the system,” Smith told the jury. “We believe in the oath ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt, innocent until proven guilty,’ is not some hollow words you hear on TV shows for a few hours. Proof, beyond reasonable doubt. Innocent until proven guilty.”
The trial continues Tuesday morning at the Montgomery County Courts Center.
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