CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – A couple charged with murdering a teenage boy was found guilty Saturday afternoon. After five days of testimony and three hours of deliberation, the jury found Robert Holland and Miracle Bailey, both 20, guilty of all charges.
After the verdict was read and court was adjourned, family members erupted into shouting confrontation with law enforcement in the hallway.
On the night of Dec. 8, 2021, at about 8:42 p.m., 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, Holland and 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.
State: ‘This was an ambush’
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this was an ambush,” Michael Pugh, the deputy district attorney, said in his closing arguments.
Burdened with the task of proving the defendants’ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Pugh methodically laid out the facts and evidence while dissecting the charge sheets.
Pugh argued that Bailey acted with intent when she chose to message Majors first on Dec. 8, and explained that she made sure the conversation was on Instagram because of the app’s vanishing mode feature. He said Holland’s phone was tracking that he was downtown until around 7:30 p.m. when it started displaying a GPS signal that he was in the Buckshot-Whitetail Drive area.
Pugh told the jury Bailey lured Majors out of his house and worked to get him alone so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.
“Who you with? I’m not with my bestie. It’s just me,” Bailey messaged to Majors. “He finna be 3rd wheeling. … Hurry up. You know I’m by myself. But it’s just gonna be me and you cause I don’t want your cousin 3rd wheeling.”
Bailey also repeatedly told the victim to walk toward the bus on Buckshot Drive. In crime scene photos, a yellow school bus can be seen in the background.
“Walk up,” was the last message sent to Majors.
911 calls reporting shots fired started about two minutes after the last message was sent, at about 8:42 p.m.
“What was he walking up to?” Pugh asked the jury. “His homicide.”
Later, the account name Bailey had been messaging from was changed, and the ability to message the user was no longer available.
“Intention,” Pugh said. “You don’t accidentally shoot someone 14 times.”
Defense: ‘775 days’ and the ‘Mailman’
“At the beginning of this trial, I asked you to remember a number,” Erin Poland, Bailey’s defense attorney, said in closing arguments. “Do you remember it? It’s 775. … The state had 775 days to get this right.”
Poland focused on holes in some of the witness’ stories. She noted that one of the witnesses never reported seeing blond hair in the suspect vehicle’s passenger seat until he got on the stand. She said another had initially reported the suspect vehicle as a small Ford and that the first responding officer on the scene failed to have every person properly document their time in and out of the crime scene. She also brought up the faulty body cams.
Poland argued that it was an incomplete and inconsistent investigation. Despite the DNA of her client being found in the passenger seat, and the orange acrylic nail found in the car that matched what Bailey wore when she was arrested, Poland said the state had presented no proof that Bailey knew either Holland or Majors.
“775 days, and this is how they want to charge my client,” Poland told the jury. “In order to charge Miss Bailey with first-degree murder, you would have to believe in evidence that wasn’t presented.”
Holland’s defense attorney, Robert Koewler, used a PowerPoint presentation to show flaws in the investigation and mistakes.
Koewler highlighted the lost Ring camera footage that detectives failed to retrieve, the inability to prove outright that Majors and the defendants knew each other, and other suspects that CPD did not follow up with, as well as the lack of DNA tying Holland to the gun or the car.
Even though his client tested positive for GSR, and the gun collected on his flight path matched the murder weapon, there were still two other suspects who escaped during the vehicle pursuit, the name Seaberry, an angry boyfriend of a neighbor Majors had been involved with in Nashville, and the lack of DNA testing on all the items found in the stolen Jeep.
“The state stood here and talked to you about circumstantial evidence, and they talked to you about that mailman example,” Koewler told the jury. The mailbox is empty, then you go and check it, and suddenly, the mailbox is full. Who put the mail in there? They want you to believe only one person could have put the mail in there: the mailman.”
“Maybe mail was misplaced, so a neighbor brought it over? Maybe one of those pesky solicitors that aren’t supposed to do it but sometimes do it anyway? The fact is, they ask you to let your mind rest easy with the verdict … and they bring this to you with the understanding they have to meet the highest burden in our legal justice system – beyond a reasonable doubt.
“They brought you no proof that they (defendants and victim) even know each other, no proof that my client even wanted to harm Mr. Majors, or why Miss Bailey would want to harm Mr. Majors!”
Sobs, shouts and hallway confrontation
The defendants were found guilty of first-degree murder, evading arrest (two counts for Holland) and joyriding.
When the verdict was read, Bailey began crying, as did several of the defendants’ family members. One woman got up and made her way to the hallway, where she broke down into loud sobs.
After court adjourned and the victim’s family was escorted out, people began screaming in the hallway. Court baliffs ran out and had a confrontation with several people.
Both defendants face up to life in prison on the murder charge. Sentencing is scheduled for April 10.
Chris Smith contributed to this report.