BLOUNTVILLE — A Kingsport double-murder and robbery trial will begin this morning after a jury was picked Monday afternoon and sent home following a brief selection process.
Jawaune Massey, 36, is charged in the alleged drug-related Nov. 18, 2005, robbery and execution-style shooting deaths of Jeffrin Nolan and Terrance Alexander inside the former Solé candle shop on Myrtle Street in Kingsport, which Nolan owned.
Jury selection began about midmorning Monday, with a handful of jurors excused for medical or pretrial publicity reasons. During voir dire, the process of questioning prospective jurors on their ability to give Massey a fair trial, prosecutors described Nolan as a known “drug dealer” and Alexander as a “drug user” and advised several witnesses will be co-defendants who have “cut deals” with the state, resolving their cases with a plea bargain that requires their truthful testimony.
Of the 11 peremptory challenges allotted to each side, the prosecution had used up only four, and the defense six, when a jury was picked at 3 p.m.
Massey and Leslie Allen Ware Jr. are the last of several co-defendants yet to resolve their cases. The other co-defendants include Rita Massey, Clyde Green, Octavia Brooks, Brian Beco, Thelma Gardner and Crystal Arnold. All but Rita Massey have agreed to testify truthfully against Ware and Jawaune Massey, if called to do so, as part of a plea bargain in their respective cases.
In connection with the alleged robbery and Nolan’s and Alexander’s deaths, the suspects are charged with two counts each of premeditated and felony first-degree murder and one count each of especially aggravated robbery and criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery.
Both men also face several drug charges due to their alleged participation in a cocaine distribution operation headed up by Jawaune Massey’s half-brother, Osheene Massey. Those charges include criminal conspiracy to possess more than 26 grams of cocaine with intent to sell or deliver, possession of over 26 grams of cocaine for resale, and maintaining a dwelling where controlled substances are used or sold.
Ware and Osheene Massey, a co-defendant who has already pleaded guilty to a laundry list of charges, are accused of having the largest role in the crimes that led to the deaths of Nolan and Alexander.
According to several codefendants, Osheene Massey met Nolan in jail and arranged to purOsheene Massey started up a drug operation in Johnson City, then relocated everyone but his half-brother, Jawaune Massey, to 404 Holly Point, Piney Flats. Jawaune Massey wasn’t allowed to live there because of an alleged cocaine addiction.
According to Green, on the day Nolan and Alexander were shot, Osheene Massey and his co-conspirators had planned to buy some cocaine and then rob them.
Green told prosecutors that Osheene Massey and Ware were discussing the plans about a week before the robbery and agreed “Ebu” (Nolan) should die because he’d been “snitching.” Ware and Jawaune Massey told the group what they did after leaving the store the day of the shootings, Green alleged.
Jawaune Massey was captured in Maryland in 2009. Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus and Sullivan County Deputy District Attorney Gene Perrin are prosecuting Massey. He is represented by attorneys Douglas Payne and William L. “Louis” Ricker.
Ware was located and arrested in New York in 2007. He is currently scheduled for a Feb.11, 2013, trial.