She only saw Reginald “Tez” Bullard once, from a distance, 21-year-old Promise Mathes testified Tuesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
She was with Tabitha Nicole Garrison – “my best friend,” she noted – the evening of Feb.
19, 2015, while Garrison waited for Mr. Bullard to arrive and take her out, Ms. Mathes said.
Also present were Khyree Donte Thompson and Verronta Page, Ms. Mathes said, and “They were all talking about how they were going to rob (Mr. Bullard) later that night.”
Ms. Mathes’ testimony came during the opening day of the trial of the first of the trio to face a jury.
The defendant, Khyree Thompson, a slight bespeckled man, sat quiet and largely ignored at the defense table. Even his attorney, Rex Sparks, seldom glanced at him.
His co-defendants, Garrison and Page, will be tried at a later date, officials said.
There’s no mystery about how the trio knew that Mr. Bullard had money, assistant prosecutor Andrew Coyle told jurors during opening arguments. The victim had sent Garrison a photo of himself sitting with a lapful of dollar bills via Facebook, and the two had made arrangements to meet.
At the same time, prosecutor Coyle continued, Garrison was making plans with her two co-defendants to follow her and Bullard to the Cascade Motel so they all could rob him.
In court Tuesday, a series of East Ridge Police and other witnesses described the morning of Feb. 20, 2015, when motel workers discovered the victim’s body after noticing that the door to room 48 was standing open.
Mr. Bullard was lying on his side on the floor beside the motel bed, which was stained with blood, witnesses said. A variety of spent bullets also were found throughout the room.
When detectives checked under the bed, testimony indicated, they found the dead man’s wallet. It contained a combination of $100, $20 and $1 bills which, together, totaled $4,104.