The following is a brief synopsis of criminal proceedings in Dade County courts last week:
Before Magistrate Judge Joel McCormick, Detective Cyndi Thurman of the Dade County Sheriff's Office testified May 22 in the case of Ryan Tishaw. Tishaw led police on a car chase after an alleged carjacking at the Hardee’s in Lookout Valley, Tenn., on March 31. Detective Thurman said she had interviewed the female owner of the stolen car at the hospital. The woman had been hit on the head after she tried to reach into her car and turn it off in an attempt to get it back. Detective Thurman also testified that another woman in the car with the accused had told police it belonged to her brother. Detective Thurman said the car had been valued at $5000.
Magistrate McCormick bound the case over to Dade Superior Court for later trial.
In another preliminary evidence case before the magistrate, a man was charged with aggravated assault after he reached for a knife in his waistband during an altercation with staff at a convenience store. A third involved a man who was charged with possession of a small amount of methamphetamine—“not residue but not a large amount,” said Casey York of the Lookout Mountain Drug Task Force—and was transported to the hospital for stitches after he was “taken to the ground” during the raid. McCormick bound both those cases over as well.
A fourth man was charged with assault and battery after his 12-year-old daughter wound up in the hospital with a concussion after he had punished her. “Apparently they have a very tumultuous father-daughter relationship,” testified Detective Cyndi Thurman.
She said the powerfully-built father had spanked and head-butted his daughter and also hit her in the head with his fists after she had disobeyed him by closing the door of her bedroom with the family puppy inside, ensuing in an accident on the bedroom floor. A fight had followed in which the girl told her father she hated him and he told her he wished she’d never been born. That altercation had ended with the physical punishment. The girl told Detective Thurman her father also physically punished the two children of his girlfriend, with whom they lived, and fought physically with the girlfriend as well.
“He said he thought it was normal, that that’s how he was raised,” said Detective Thurman.
She said the girl was legally in the custody of her mother but was living with the father.
Magistrate McCormick bound that one over to Superior Court as well.
Magistrate Court was on Wednesday, May 22. Thursday, May 23, was arraignment day in Dade Superior Court. On that day, Blayton Bethune. 25, was formally arraigned for homicide by vehicle, DUI and reckless driving in the July 2018 accident that claimed the life of his passenger, Brittany Morrow Crane. A trial has been scheduled for Oct. 21.
Finally, Charlie Wooten, 65, back in jail since he was arrested in January for probation violation, was also arraigned Thursday on charges of possessing methamphetamine and a firearm.
