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Beasley set a Nov. Jessie Dotson shot his brother in the head during a argument and, attempting to eliminate all witnesses, killed five other people including two of his young nephews. He then stabbed three more boys who survived after waiting in agony for some 40 hours until help arrived, prosecutors said. Two years later, two of the boys who survived the bloody Memphis rampage pointed to their "Uncle Junior" as the man who fatally shot their father and mercilessly left them for dead.
One of the survivors, year-old Cecil Dotson Jr. The penalty phase of the trial begins Tuesday when the same jury who convicted the mass murderer will decide whether he should be sentenced to death by injection. In his testimony Jessie Dotson claimed gang members were responsible for the horrid attack, but jurors concluded that it was in fact Dotson who committed the crimes. Authorities say that after a day of drinking, Jessie Dotson shot and killed his brother Cecil Dotson in the early morning hours of March 2, The young boy, who was 9 years old when the attack occurred, told jurors in his testimony that he went to call for police and tried to fight off his uncle before ending up in the bathtub with a kitchen knife embedded in his head.
The jury was selected in Nashville because of intense local coverage of the case. The year-old had been out of prison several months when an argument at his brother's house turned violent, police said, and he gunned the man down. Desperate not to return to jail, he tried to rid the scene of witnesses - shooting and killing three other adults, then using knives and boards to kill two of his brother's children and seriously injure three others, a prosecutor said at his trial Monday.
A defense attorney countered in his own opening statement that there isn't enough evidence to convict him and that the brother had gang ties that could have played a role in the killings. Dotson has pleaded not guilty to six first-degree murder charges in the slayings at the Memphis house. Dotson also is charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder. Prosecutor Ray Lepone said Dotson shot his brother Cecil Dotson over their argument, then attacked the rest of the people in the house to eliminate witnesses.
Authorities said he then fled on a child's bicycle. Dotson, who served prison time for murder and was released about seven months before the killings, confessed to police and to his mother days after the bodies were found, Lepone said. There is no DNA connecting Jessie Dotson to the scene, while police also found several unidentified fingerprints and hair from an unknown Asian person, McAfee said.
The victims and the suspect are black. McAfee also said Cecil Dotson had ties to Memphis' "Gangster Disciples" and suggested the killings could have been gang-related. Cecil Dotson recently had a falling out with a gang member and even called the police to a gang member's house, McAfee said.
The jury was chosen last week in Nashville in an effort to find people unfamiliar with the case. Shot to death were Jessie Dotson's year-old brother Cecil; Marissa Williams, the brother's year-old girlfriend; and Hollis Seals, 33, and Shindri Roberson, 22, a couple who were at the house visiting.
In a mass murder so gruesome it garnered international attention and caused police to consider gang conflict, a child witness led investigators to a family member who confessed to the brutal killings.
Jessie Dotson, 33, was charged Saturday with six counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder. Bill Gibbons said he would announce in the coming days whether his office will seek the death penalty.
During an argument with his brother at Lester, Jessie Dotson pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and shot Cecil Dewayne Dotson, police allege. He then slaughtered the others in the house, including children, in an attempt to cover up the shooting.
Cecil Dotson Jr. One of the surviving children told police Jessie Dotson was responsible for the killings, according to an affidavit filed Saturday.
Dotson then confessed to the mass murder. For Dotson, the gruesome killings on Lester Street made for an end to what was at times a hostile relationship with his family, arrest records show. His teenage home at S.
Lauderdale was a volatile place, where he regularly fought with neighbors and siblings. In , at age 15, Dotson was charged with disorderly conduct for making threats against his mother as she tried to discipline him. One year later, in fall , police arrested Dotson for disorderly conduct after his mother told police he came home and wanted to fight his brother.
When officers arrived, Dotson was loud and angry, refusing to calm down and still wanting to fight brother. Police charged Dotson again in with disorderly conduct following an incident in which Dotson cussed at a neighbor during an argument and then threw two beer bottles into her apartment.
On Dec. On the floorboards, an officer saw a. A little more than two years later and one year into adulthood, the year-old Dotson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in an apparent drug deal gone bad. On Jan. The two men argued, and during the conflict, Dotson killed the man. Four months later, on May 5, , police arrested Dotson for the murder. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, second-degree murder, and spent nearly 14 years in state prison.
He was released Jan. Three other of Cecil Jr. All of the adult victims died from multiple gunshot wounds. All of the children were stabbed with knives and beaten with boards, which Jessie Dotson found inside the home. Emergency personnel found one of the surviving children, nine-year-old C. Investigators quickly realized that the crime scene had been staged, with cocaine and marijuana placed on the bodies of two of the adult victims and shell casings collected after the shootings.
The police initially received information suggesting that the murders were gang-related. As a result, the surviving Dotson family members, including Jessie Dotson, were taken into protective custody. On March 7, , C. After his arrest, Jessie Dotson admitted his guilt during police questioning and during a conversation with his mother.
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