By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.–A jury trial that had been scheduled for the accused suspect in a cold case murder in Paris has been postponed due to new information presented to District Attorney Matt Stowe.
Douglas Wayne Talley was arrested in Nashville in 2019 and charged with murder in the homicide death of Etta Etheridge in Paris. Ms. Etheridge was killed at her home at 322 Rison Street June 8, 2001. She was 72.
Talley was arrested by Metro Nashville Police after he was placed on TBI’s Most Wanted.
Talley’s trial had been set to begin Monday, April 18 in Henry County Circuit Court. A full week had been scheduled for the trial.
Stowe has issued a statement explaining why the trial has been postponed, noting that his office had received “new information in this case that directly related to the defendant’s guilt or innocence.” In his statement, he said his team “agreed that this information caused us to have a doubt concerning guilt or innocence, and to proceed to trial without following up on all information could result in the conviction of an innocent man”.
He said, “I made a very tough decision and agreed to postpone the trial until all investigation was complete.”
The following is District Attorney Matt Stowe’s full statement:
“While I cannot comment on details of an ongoing investigation, there has been an overwhelming amount of interest in a bond that was recently lowered in a murder case in Henry County. I am on record as fighting HARD against the trend of low bonds in child rapes and homicides across Tennessee, a problem that has plagued this area in recent years. So some questioning is to be expected.
“This individual was supposed to be tried by my homicide team next week. Several days ago, my assistants contacted me and made me aware that we had received new information in this case that directly related to the defendant’s guilt or innocence. I immediately called a meeting between my team and the TBI to review this information. We agreed that this information caused us to have a doubt concerning guilt or innocence, and to proceed to trial without following up on all information could result in the conviction of an innocent man. I made a very tough decision and agreed to postpone the trial until all investigation was complete. I think this will take several weeks, but I cannot guarantee any specific timeframe..
“This individual had been locked up for a considerable period of time awaiting his trial. We cannot keep people locked up indefinately without giving them their day in court. My team worked with the defendant’s lawyer to reach an agreement lowering the bond in order to avoid giving the defendant a constitutional issue that could eventually result in a guilty person going free. For lawyers, it’s called a speedy trial issue. I approved the lowering of the bond for this reason, and Judge Parish approved my approval. If I thought Judge Parish had done anything wrong, I would tell you. We all made the best of a tough situation. Fortunately, newly discovered information that causes me to doubt an individual’s guilty in a immenent homicide trial is extremely rare.
“At the end of the day, when the dust settles, I fully believe that the murderer or murderers in this case will soon be more statistics laying at the feet of my team’s 100% conviction rate in homicides. However, that statistic would be absolutely meaningless, to me at least, if we accomplished it by ignoring the possibility that we were prosecuting a man who was either innocent or who was guilty of something less than murder.”