State makes its case in Sutton murder trial over four days

Larry Griffin

lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com

 

Autumn McCoy, the first witness in the trial of Daniel Sutton charged with first-degree murder, said she was in the car at the scene when Sutton and his co-defendant Jeremy Solomon allegedly assaulted area resident Jackie Thomason over the title to a truck, leaving him with injuries that he would later die from.

The alleged crime happened on May 10, 2019, at Thomason’s house at 44 McCracken Road in the Galbraith Creek community of Bryson City. The trial began Thursday, Aug. 31, after a first attempt at a trial earlier in the week ended in a mistrial when two jurors were dismissed just after the opening statements, and the courts opted to not move forward with no alternates.

In opening statements last Thursday, Sutton’s defense attorney Ted Beason said he would look to prove that Sutton had acted in self-defense, to protect himself from Thomason’s attacks.

Meanwhile, district attorneys John Hindsman and Joseph Scoggins said they’d look to prove the opposite – that Sutton acted proactively and not in self-defense, and that there had been a plan in place when he and Solomon went to the residence that day.

On the stand for much of Thursday afternoon, Aug. 31, and part of Friday morning, Sept. 1, McCoy told her story. She said Solomon had driven her to the scene and Sutton had come separately. They met near Thomason’s residence at a church across the street. Sutton came over to Solomon’s car and Solomon, allegedly, asked him if he “needed a tool,” which McCoy later said she knew was street slang meaning a gun.

Sutton said he didn’t want a gun but instead wanted some other type of weapon, so Solomon gave him a large stick with carvings on it, McCoy said. Then Sutton allegedly left them and went off alone “up a trail” nearby.

Solomon and McCoy drove up to Thomason’s residence, where Thomason and Solomon exchanged words about the title to a truck that Solomon had bought from Thomason, with Solomon claiming Thomason was dodging him.

McCoy claimed the argument got “heated,” with Thomason brandishing a knife and Solomon pulling a gun in response.

Sutton then came from behind them, shouting for Thomason to “put the knife away,” McCoy said. When Thomason didn’t, Sutton hit him in the head with the stick, McCoy said. She recounted watching Thomason try to strike Sutton with a shovel, but Sutton blocked it and then hit him again.

Solomon is alleged to have been saying “we just want what we paid for” likely in regard to the truck title.

After Thomason had been beaten down, Solomon allegedly approached the woman also on the scene, Stephanie Crowe. Crowe was reportedly standing around or sitting in Thomason’s truck while the altercation occurred, multiple witnesses said.

Solomon told her that she needed to get his money or “it’d happen to her next,” McCoy said on the stand, though it was unclear what this referred to.

Crowe has since died, according to several sources at the trial.

From there, McCoy recounted how the three of them left the premises – she and Solomon left in Sutton’s vehicle and Sutton left on foot.

They met up at Sutton’s house later, where McCoy said Solomon hid the gun he’d brought to the confrontation.

McCoy said that day was the first day she’d met Solomon or Sutton at all.

“A friend of mine and I were walking, we didn’t have a ride. We stopped by Rosewood’s, a motel. Jeremy was living there at the time,” she said.

McCoy said her friend had known Solomon and she ended up riding in Solomon’s car as the events unfolded.

In response to questions from the defense, she said she never got out of the car while everything was going on and had been in the front passenger seat the whole time. She said she couldn’t see Thomason’s house very well and didn’t know if anyone else was inside.

 

Tom Sutton takes the stand

The second day of the trial saw Bryson City Mayor Tom Sutton, who at the time of the incident in 2019 was still a probation officer with the state.

Tom Sutton said he’d received a call from Stephanie Crowe around 1 p.m. on the day the alleged murder was happening. It was his day off, he said, but Crowe was known to him and had helped him with several other cases in the past, seeming to trust him, Tom said.

“I got a text from her that said ‘call me quick,’” he said on the stand. “She said Daniel and Jeremy are beating Jack with a bat, they’re killing Jackie.”

Tom described Crowe as “in a panic” and said the phone call only lasted around “30 or 40 seconds.” She said she tried to call 911 but had not been able to. Tom then made the 911 call that alerted responders to Thomason’s house.

Tom said he was familiar with Thomason’s house and had been there several times in his line of work as a probation officer, looking for other individuals who might have been there. He said Thomason “did tend to have a cast of characters there” at his house. Crowe may have been staying there, he said.

“She drifted from place to place,” he said. “She may have been staying with [Thomason].”

Tom noted that he’d known Crowe for years – since she was a student at Swain County Middle School, where he worked as a School Resource Officer. As an adult, Crowe was in and out of the system a lot.

“She became a person who would have me information from time to time,” Tom said. Later he noted that she had helped him on “several” cases over the years. “She was always really good at giving me information I needed to know.”

The defense asked if Tom Sutton had ever spoken to Crowe while she was high on drugs. Tom said he had, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell over the phone and said the call on that particular day was so short that he “didn’t have an opinion” on whether she might have been high that day.

Asked what Crowe got out of helping him, Tom replied that she “never really got much of anything out of it” aside from Tom occasionally helping her navigate the court system to know when she needed to be in court.

 

Detective Bryant testimony

Swain County Sheriff’s Office Detective Andrew Bryant took the stand in the afternoon on Friday, Sept. 1, and gave testimony on how he found the scene once the alleged assailants had left on May 10, 2019.

Bryant said he arrived at 44 McCracken Road and found the driveway deserted, with blood splatters on the ground. He found more blood by the door.

Inside, he found Thomason on the couch bleeding from the head. Thomason smoked a cigarette as EMS personnel tended to the wounds on his head. Photos were shown showing Thomason sitting there, blood all down his neck and torso.

Bryant said Thomason was “extremely somber” in mood. “He wasn’t talking, he wasn’t communicating. His eyes were open, but it was like he wasn’t paying attention at all.”

He also said he spoke to Crowe at the scene. He described her manner as “crying, shaking, extremely panicked.”

He relayed what she’d told him – much of it the same as the allegations others had recounted. He said Crowe told him that Sutton had “come from nowhere.”

“She said ‘Daniel snuck up on [Thomason],’” Bryant said.

 

Other law enforcement testimony

The trial resumed Tuesday, Sept. 5 after the Labor Day holiday. Tuesday mostly saw various local law enforcement recounting their memories of May 10, 2019 when the crime happened.

Volunteer firefighter Donna Taylor responded to the call. On the stand, she recounted treating Thomason’s head wound and that he refused to put out the cigarette he was smoking while she did so.

However, Taylor said Thomason “became less responsive” the longer the ordeal went on and as he succumbed to his wounds. The defense used its questions to establish that Taylor and some other law enforcement professionals had not been on scene at the time of the alleged assault earlier in the day.

Then, Capt. Brian Kirkland with the sheriff’s office as well as Bryson City Police Chief Charles Robinson both recounted searching Sutton’s house, where they found a car that had a BOLO alert out from the assault on Thomason, as well as a gun hidden beneath Sutton’s porch steps and the stick allegedly used to hit Thomason.

The defense asked Kirkland about his arrest of Sutton, and Kirkland said Sutton had been cooperative and had come willingly when placed under arrest.

 

Brother’s words

The last witness of the day on Tuesday was John Wayne Thomason, the older brother of the victim. John recounted some of Jackie Thomason’s life – he said his brother was in the Marine Corps at the end of Vietnam and then worked for the local fire department.

John recounted getting the call that Thomason had been taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center on May 10, 2019, which was the closest place where Thomason could get treated for neurosurgical needs.

“I did go visit him,” John said. “Me, my sister and my brother-in-law. He had an intubation tube in, he was hooked up.”

John said Jackie was hooked up that way for three or four days before doctors told them there was nothing they could do to help him heal from his wounds, and the family had the choice to remove him from life support. Reaching this point in the story, John began to weep on the stand between words.

“They said there’s just nothing to be done. I watched him make his last breath,” John said.

The case continued after press time and later into the week as the defense began to make its case.