Jessie Dotson Murder Trial Opens: Memphis Mass Killing Motivated by Fear of Jail, Says Prosecution
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (CBS/WREG/AP) Prosecutors say Jessie Dotson committed one of the worst mass killings in Memphis history on March 2, 2008.
The 35-year-old had been out of prison several months when an argument at his brother's house turned violent, police said, and he gunned the man down. Desperate not to return to jail, he tried to rid the scene of witnesses - shooting and killing three other adults, then using knives and boards to kill two of his brother's children and seriously injure three others, a prosecutor said at his trial Monday.
A defense attorney countered in his own opening statement that there isn't enough evidence to convict him and that the brother had gang ties that could have played a role in the killings.
Dotson has pleaded not guilty to six first-degree murder charges in the slayings at the Memphis house. Dotson also is charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Prosecutor Ray Lepone said Dotson shot his brother Cecil Dotson over their argument, then attacked the rest of the people in the house to eliminate witnesses. Authorities said he then fled on a child's bicycle.
"He wasn't going back to jail, ladies and gentlemen, and he did whatever he had to do to get out of that house with no witnesses," Lepone said.
Dotson, who served prison time for murder and was released about seven months before the killings, confessed to police and to his mother days after the bodies were found, Lepone said.
According to CBS affiliate WREG, defense attorney Marty McAfee argued prosecutors don't have enough evidence. There is no DNA connecting Jessie Dotson to the scene, while police also found several unidentified fingerprints and hair from an unknown Asian person, McAfee said. The victims and the suspect are black.
McAfee also said Cecil Dotson had ties to Memphis' "Gangster Disciples" and suggested the killings could have been gang-related. Cecil Dotson recently had a falling out with a gang member and even called the police to a gang member's house, McAfee said.
The jury was chosen last week in Nashville in an effort to find people unfamiliar with the case. In addition to national media coverage, the investigation was featured on A&E's reality crime television series "The First 48."
Shot to death were Jessie Dotson's 30-year-old brother Cecil; Marissa Williams, the brother's 27-year-old girlfriend; and Hollis Seals, 33, and Shindri Roberson, 22, a couple who were at the house visiting. Four-year-old Cemario Dotson and 2-year-old Cecil Dotson II also were killed.
Reporting Contributed by CBS Affiliate WREG
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