GARY WAYNE SUTTON: The INNOCENCE Report

Private Investigator, Heather Cohen

Spiritual Advisor, The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

We’ve all heard stories of injustice. A murder case can often take years for law enforcement to solve and, sometimes, the family never gets the answers they deserve. But, what about the innocent men, or women, who have been convicted of crimes that they did not commit? When law enforcement gets tunnel vision on a person who is innocent, and will stop at nothing for a conviction, it creates more victims in an already unthinkable scenario. That is exactly what happened, more than three decades ago, in Blount County, Tennessee.

Between the dates of February 21st and 24th of 1992, somebody shot and killed Tommy Griffin, on the riverbanks of Blount County, Tennessee. When Tommy didn’t return home, his sister, Connie Branam, went looking for him. She was burned alive in her car and her body was found four days after her brothers, in Sevier County.

Law enforcement officers immediately focused their attention on Gary Wayne Sutton, and his uncle James Dellinger, because they had been out drinking that night, with Tommy, at Howie’s Hideaway. In fact, the trio was often seen together because Tommy was Gary’s best friend. On the night in question, the three men (Gary, Tommy and James) got into a heated confrontation with two men, at the bar, known only as “Chief” and “Cowboy.” After the trio went their separate ways, Tommy was arrested on public intoxication charges. When he was picked up, he was with two “older” gentlemen in a black truck. The arresting officer noted that Tommy seemed “afraid” but that Tommy would not tell him why. The two men were never identified. While Tommy was in “the drunk tank,” somebody set his trailer ablaze. Tommy’s family asked Gary and James to go get him from jail, which they did, but Tommy did not leave the jail with them. Instead, he left in a Black Ford Fairlane (which Gary and James had mistaken for a Falcon) with a dark-haired woman. This is the last time that Tommy was seen alive. In their unmistakable desire to secure a conviction, detectives bungled this thing from the word “go.” Instead of looking for the real perpetrators, they lied, coerced witnesses, and manufactured evidence to secure a conviction on these two men, who they knew would not have the financial means to defend themselves.

The lead detective lied under oath, claiming to have two eye-witnesses placing Gary and James on the crime scene, to obtain a search warrant of James Dellinger’s trailer. It was only after that illegal search that two spent shells were found at the crime scene that were not there the first time they searched. Those shells just so happened to match shells found at Dellinger’s trailer. At trial, Sutton and Dellinger’s defense attorneys enlarged photographs of the crime scene on the day Griffin’s body was found, February 24, 1992, and placed that photograph next to the crime scene photographs taken when the shells were “discovered” (three days later) showing that they were not in the first photograph but seemed to have miraculously appeared three days later when they returned. Again, evidence of corruption seemingly went unnoticed by the prosecution and judge.

The state did not have any evidence tying Gary Wayne Sutton to the crime, other than the gross speculation that Gary and James were together the entire weekend, and that James was guilty. Gary’s girlfriend, Carolyn Weaver, testified that he was with her that weekend, and witnesses saw them together at The Huddle House in the early morning hours of February 22, 1992. However, the prosecution chose to ignore Gary’s alibi and proceed with their narrative despite all factual evidence pointing in another direction. When Gary’s defense team moved the court to separate his trial from his uncle’s, the prosecutor told the judge that they did not have anything tying Gary to the crime and that they would have to let him walk if they were to separate them.

Detectives, in both Sevier and Blount counties, admitted, on the stand, that they lied about eyewitnesses; forged signatures; obtained search warrants under fabricated pretenses; and created a three-page statement that they erroneously attributed to Gary Wayne Sutton. Despite Detectives having been exposed for multiple constitutional violations, the Judge showed prejudice by allowing the manufactured evidence into trial. Desperate to find a medical examiner who would give a testimony that fit their timeline, prosecutors enlisted Dr. Charles Harlan, who was under investigation at the time and would later lose his medical licenses over false testimony and countless discrepancies in his “work.”

Harlan testified that Tommy Griffin was murdered on the night of February 21, 1992. Scientific evidence did not support his theory, because Griffin’s body was in full rigor mortis when it was discovered on February 24, 1992 (a body does not stay in rigor mortis past, about 36 hours). The dates are important because Gary Wayne Sutton had an airtight alibi for the rest of the weekend, which is why the prosecution had to prove that the murder occurred on the 21st, rather than the 24th.

Detectives failed to consider Lester Johnson as an alternate suspect. Johnson had a violent reputation and had recently been arrested, and charged, with attempted murder for cutting a woman, named Tina Hartman’s, throat. While awaiting trial, Johnson issued several death threats to potential witnesses. Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam had both been called to testify. Johnson was found not guilty, due to no witnesses showing to testify, and released on February 21, 1992 (the day that Tommy Griffin went missing). Johnson’s girlfriend, Mary Ann Husky, provided Dellinger’s Federal Public Defenders with a statement that she had dropped Johnson off, in Sevier County, before sunset on that day (February 21, 1992). Authorities questioned a dark-haired woman who drove a Ford Falcon, but never provided her name or the information to Gary Wayne Sutton or James Dellinger’s defense teams. Two associates of Lester Johnson, Robin Sutton, and Penny Lewis, had dark hair and drove a car that looked almost identical to a Ford Falcon, a Ford Fairlane. Tommy was known to have been having a romantic relationship with Robin Sutton. Witness James McDonald provided testimony that he saw a Ford Fairlane flee the scene of the crime after hearing gunshots. However, the prosecution left that part of his testimony out and it was never heard by the jury, because it would have supported James and Gary’s statements that Tommy had left the jail, that night, with a dark-haired-woman in a Ford Falcon (similar to a Fairlane).

Lester Johnson had the means and motive to commit this crime because he believed Tommy was involved in an assault on his cousin, Michael Vaughn, that left Vaughn paralyzed. This just so happened to be his reason for cutting Tina Hartman’s throat, as well. The prosecution hinged its entire case on the key witness, Barbara Gordon’s, statement that she had seen a white Dodge pickup truck flee the scene where Connie’s body was later found. However, Lester Johnson also owned a white Dodge truck, and Gordon later provided private investigator, Heather Cohen, with a sworn statement that she was never a hundred percent certain that the white truck she saw was the same one that detectives showed her, belonging to James Dellinger; and that the state put her statement forth as if she said she was.

As if this shouldn’t be enough to exonerate Gary Wayne Sutton and his, now-deceased, uncle, two jurors have recently come forward, providing statements that they were pressured into entering a guilty verdict against Gary Wayne Sutton and James Dellinger.

There were many victims of this crime. There are the obvious victims which were Tommy, Connie, and their family and friends; and there are the less obvious victims which are James, Gary and their family and friends. Dellinger died on death row last year, but Gary is still very much alive and praying for the truth to come out. Exonerate Gary Wayne Sutton!