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Seven years after a man was convicted of murdering nursing student Holly Bobo, the case returned to a Tennessee courtroom for his intense, highly publicized murder trial.
As Bobo’s parents sat in the courtroom, a judge heard legal arguments yesterday as part of Zachary Adams’ bid to get a new trial for the abduction, rape and murder of 20-year-old Bobo, who disappeared from her rural home in 2011.
Her body was found more than three years later, ending a massive search by authorities and her family.
Adams and two other men were charged with her kidnapping, rape and murder.
But the only trial in the case was against Adams, who was convicted in 2017 of all charges and sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld Adams’ conviction in 2022.
But a little-used legal document surfaced last January when Adams asked a Hardin County judge for a new trial based on statements made by Jason Autry, a key trial witness who said he now recanted testimony that helped the jury condemned his friend.
During the trial, Autry spoke in a calm, deliberative manner as an attentive jury listened as he recounted the day Bobo was kidnapped, raped, wrapped in a blanket, placed in the back of a pickup truck, driven to a river and killed.
Autry told the jury he was serving as a lookout when Adams shot Bobo under a bridge near a river.
“It sounded like boom, boom, boom under that bridge. It was just one shot, but it rang out,” Autry testified. “The birds were everywhere, all up under that bridge. Then just dead silence for just a second.
Investigators found no DNA evidence linking Adams to Bobo.
Instead, they relied on testimony from friends and inmates who said Adams talked about hurting Bobo after she died.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the investigation was the most comprehensive and expensive in the agency’s history.
Witnesses paint a disturbing picture of drug life in rural West Tennessee, and the trial involves strong emotions: Bobo’s mother, Karen, collapses on the witness stand.
Autry was also charged with kidnapping, rape and murder, but he was granted leniency for his testimony, which was judged by the judge to be very credible.
Autry pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
He was released in 2020, but was arrested about two months later and charged with federal weapons violations. Autry is due to be sentenced later this year following his guilty plea in the weapons case.
Adams’ brother, John Dylan Adams, also pleaded guilty to charges in Bobo’s murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
The new filing by Zachary Adams, known as a coram nobis petition, says Autry is recanting his testimony, claiming he made up the story to avoid spending his life in prison. For the petition to succeed, Adams must show that he is presenting new evidence.
The petition said Autry met with a forensic neuropsychologist in December and admitted to making up the story after his attorney told him before the 2017 trial that he was “95 percent certain of conviction” on the charges. the Bobo case.
Autry claimed he made up the entire story in his jail cell before the trial while reviewing discovery evidence. Autry used extensive cellphone data to create a story, the petition said.
“He said he just recreated his day and ‘added Holly to it,'” the petition said.
Adams’ attorney, Douglas Bates, argued that a hearing should be granted to discuss Autry’s recantation as new evidence. Prosecutors said Adams’ petition should be dismissed without an evidentiary hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Nichols, who was also a prosecutor in the trial, said the case had already been “thoroughly litigated.”
Adams has not provided new, specific evidence that Autry’s testimony was false, other than “general statements without oath,” Nichols wrote in court documents.
Nichols said Adams’ petition must be supported by affidavits. Autry’s statements were presented to the court only in a video interview that was sealed from the public.
Citing previous case law, Nichols wrote that recanted testimony is “viewed with suspicion.”
Nichols also said Adams would have been convicted even without Autry’s testimony because other trial witnesses said Adams made “incriminating admissions” about his involvement in Bobo’s death.
“Jason Autry was just one piece,” Nichols told District Court Judge Brent Bradbury.
Bradbury said he would rule later on whether to grant the state’s request to dismiss the case without an evidentiary hearing.
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