Man charged with killing 4 in rural Tennessee to make first court appearance since indictment

A Tennessee man charged with killing four members of the same family and kidnapping a baby before eluding authorities for a week is scheduled Monday to make his first court appearance since he was indicted.

Austin Robert Drummond is expected to appear before a judge for an afternoon arraignment in circuit court in Lake County, located in rural northwest Tennessee.

A grand jury indicted Drummond on Nov. 10 on charges including first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in the July 29 shootings. Drummond had pleaded not guilty in a lower court before a judge ruled there was enough evidence for his case to proceed to the grand jury.

Drummond is accused of the deaths of the parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found abandoned in a home’s front yard in rural west Tennessee. A weeklong search for Drummond ended on Aug. 5 in Jackson, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of the location of the killings in Tiptonville.

Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty if Drummond is convicted of first-degree murder at trial.

An FBI agent testified at a hearing in September that data from a cellphone used by Drummond showed he was in the vicinity of a wooded area where the bodies were found with gunshot wounds and covered by tarpaulins.

But Drummond’s attorney, Bryan Huffman, argued that there was no evidence presented during the hearing that showed Drummond actually shot any of the victims.

On the day of the shootings, officers responded to a call of an infant in a car seat being dropped off at a “random individual’s front yard” roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Tiptonville, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office has said.

Then investigators in neighboring Lake County reported four people had been found dead from gunshot wounds in Tiptonville. They were identified as the baby’s parents, James M. Wilson, 21, and Adrianna Williams, 20; Williams’ brother, Braydon Williams, 15; and their mother, Cortney Rose, 38.

Drummond’s girlfriend is the sister of the infant’s grandmother, according to Lake County District Attorney Danny Goodman.

In all, five people have been charged with being accessories after the fact in the case.

Drummond has served prison time for robbing a convenience store and threatening to go after jurors. He was also charged with the attempted murder of a prison guard while behind bars, and he was out on bond at the time of the killings, Goodman has said.

With a population of about 3,400 people, Tiptonville is about 120 miles (195 kilometers) north of Memphis, near the Mississippi River and scenic Reelfoot Lake.