BY STANLEY DUNLAP
SDUNLAP@JACKSONSUN.COM
— Stanley Dunlap, 425-9668
SAVANNAH — The attorney for a man on trial in a 2001 homicide described the investigation as a "mess," during the first day of testimony Monday.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Curt Hopper said two conflicting statements, a threat by another man, and a lack of scientific evidence provide enough doubt that John Wesley May should be found not guilty in the death of Mildred Grant, 58.
Grant was found dead inside her burned Savannah home on Nov. 15, 2001.
May was arrested in January 2010 in Florida and is accused of strangling Grant and burning her body. He is on trial on a charge of first-degree murder in Hardin County Circuit Court.
Grant's daughter Cybill Grant was indicted on charges of accessory after the fact of first-degree murder and accessory after the fact of arson in March. Her case is being considered separately.
In one statement to police, Grant's daughter said she and May killed her mother. In another statement, May's friend William Nathaniel Nave said he was with May when May killed Grant.
A Savannah police officer testified that another man threatened Grant's life within the weeks leading up to her death.
"(The case) is such a mess, it's hard to describe what's happened over the last nine years," Hopper said.
Hopper said a test the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation did after exhuming Grant's body in 2007 to try to find DNA under her fingernails was inconclusive. He questioned why a second test was not done.
Nave testified Monday that he initially gave May an alibi and told police May was not involved in Grant's death because May was a "good friend." About eight years after the killing, Nave gave police a statement saying May killed Grant.
May lived next door to Grant at the time she was killed.
"When we left (Adamsville on Nov. 14, 2001), John said, 'Man, we need to go rob Mildred. She's got money and pills,'" Nave testified Monday. "I thought he was just joking because he was laughing."
Nave said he was outside Grant's home in a car when May went inside. May came back out and told Nave to come in, he testified.
Nave said May told him that after he and Grant began fighting, he choked Grant with a pipe.
"I asked him if he was sorry, and he said, 'Yeah, I don't know why I did it,'" Nave testified. "He said, 'Remember if I get in trouble, so do you, too.'"
Under cross-examination, Nave said he was given immunity for his testimony.
Savannah police Sgt. Walstine Jaggers, who found Grant's body, testified Monday that Grant had contacted him prior to her death saying that a man, not May, was harassing her and threatening to burn her house down.
Jaggers was told to come to Grant's home by Cybill Grant and her husband, who said they were concerned about her the day of her death. When Jaggers arrived with another officer, he saw through a back door that part of the house looked "black and sooted."
"I told (the other officer) something didn't look right — we need to get in there," Jaggers said.
A special agent with the state's Bomb and Arson Division testified that "every lead that we would follow in this case — every lead took us back to (May)."
Bomb and Arson Agent Johnny Hayes also testified that he contacted a laboratory in North Carolina to try to get another DNA test on Grant's fingernails after the first one was inconclusive. Hayes said lab officials told him they might at least be able to figure out if her killer was male or female.
Hayes said he was told to wait until TBI technology improved and that the sample was too degraded
"I really don't know who it came from," Hayes testified about the decision not to do another test.
A medical examiner testified Monday that Grant died after being strangled and that she had bruises on her face, scalp and lower back.
Dr. Teresa Campbell said at the time of Grant's death, investigators didn't check for DNA under her fingernails because they thought it would have been burned off her hands.
The state's case resumes at 9 a.m. today with three more witnesses scheduled to testify.
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