An appeal by Gary June Caughron, convicted of the 1987 murder of a Sevier County woman, was denied Monday by the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Caughron alleged in a post-conviction petition that his attorney was ineffective during the guilt and sentencing phases of his trial; that the court erred in denying his request for funds to provide certain expert and investigative services; and that there were too few women on the jury. The Sevier County Circuit Court upheld Caughron's conviction, but set aside the death sentence and required a new sentencing proceeding after finding that Caughron was denied his constitutional right to effective counsel during the sentencing phase of the trial. Justices rejected Caughron's claims challenging his conviction in a one-sentence order. The State did not seek to appeal the trial court's ruling that set aside the death sentence.
Caughron, 27, accompanied by 14-year-old April Marie Ward with whom he was romantically involved, entered the home of Ann Robertson Jones and kicked in her bedroom door. The woman was bound, beaten and strangled with cloth strips. Ward testified that she and Caughron also sat on the floor and drank Jones' blood from shot glasses. Ward, the prosecution's key witness, testified that Caughron had been upset with Jones because she made him leave the Pigeon Forge tee shirt shop she operated several weeks before the murder. Ward told authorities Caughron planned the murder and said he intended "to gut" Jones or "slice her throat."
During the sentencing phase of his trial, jurors found that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind." The jury found that the aggravating circumstance, as defined by Tennessee law, outweighed any mitigating circumstances, and imposed the death penalty. Caughron also received two consecutive 10-year sentences for burglary and assault with intent to commit rape. The Supreme Court had upheld Caughron's conviction and sentence on direct appeal in 1993. At the post-conviction proceeding, however, the trial court found that Caughron had been denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel, a ruling which the State did not seek to appeal to the Supreme Court.