'Had plans for it': Sons killed father after learning he wanted to sell their inheritance and open a bar

Two Tennessee brothers volition walk respective decades down bars for killing their father implicit a existent property inheritance dispute.

In May, a Carter County assemblage recovered Jacob Alexander Hitchcock, 33, and Joshua Elliott Hitchcock, 27, blameworthy of first-degree murder and conspiracy to perpetrate murder. The charges stem from the April 2023 fatal shooting of their father, William "Bill" Hitchcock, Jr., 63.

The elder sibling was besides recovered blameworthy of tampering with evidence.

On Wednesday, the brace were handed beingness sentences for the execution conviction, with an further 15 years successful situation for the conspiracy conviction. The tampering condemnation carries a three-year sentence.

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On April 1, 2023, Bill Hitchcock's assemblage was recovered by a radical of fishermen successful the driveway of his location connected Old Stoney Creek Road successful Elizabethton – a tiny metropolis immoderate 15 minutes owed eastbound of Johnson City.

The fishermen, who were moving connected the Watauga River, called retired to inquire if anyone needed help. When they heard nary response, they called 911. Deputies recovered grounds of a gunshot erstwhile they arrived, according to the Carter County Sheriff's Office.

At the clip of the arrests, instrumentality enforcement declined to uncover details oregon grounds linking the brothers to their father's demise.

That communicative came retired during the seven-day trial.

While prosecutors accused the brothers of a execution conspiracy instigated by their tendency to halt their begetter from selling spot they were owed to inherit, the defendants rejected the state's narrative.

Joshua Hitchcock admitted to shooting and sidesplitting his begetter but insisted helium acted successful self-defense, not arsenic portion of a conspiracy.

The younger member said the spot quality was cardinal to the confrontation. That day, helium went to his father's residence to inquire him wherefore helium had decided to merchantability the onshore successful question, according to a courtroom study by Johnson City-based CBS and ABC affiliate WJHL.

During the confrontation, the begetter told his lad to permission and reached for a pistol, the suspect told jurors. Joshua Hitchcock said helium fired his ain weapon successful response.

"After I had seen him laying connected the ground, I went implicit to him and got connected my knees, and I started to outcry and asked him why," Joshua Hitchcock testified. "I was terrified and couldn't judge the actions that had conscionable taken place."

Joshua Hitchcock said helium failed to study the shooting due to the fact that helium was successful denial and feared arrest. He besides said helium told neither his member nor his parent astir the killing.

On cross-examination, Joshua Hitchcock said helium believed his begetter planned to unfastened a barroom with proceeds from the merchantability of the property.

Jacob Hitchcock did not attest during the trial.

With the shooter accepting work for the homicide, the authorities pinned the strategy itself connected the older sibling.

Prosecutor Dennis Brooks told the assemblage that Jacob Hitchcock obsessed implicit the spot his begetter had inherited from a precocious deceased comparative – and wanted to marque definite it stayed successful the family.

"He had plans for it," Brooks said during closing arguments, WJHL reported. "Nothing needfully incorrect with that, is there? Nothing incorrect with wanting to inherit your grandparents' property. Take attraction of it. What's incorrect is erstwhile that past germinates into an obsession."

During the trial, the authoritative placed Jacob Hitchcock's conveyance astatine a religion adjacent his father's residence. He besides told his younger member astir his father's whereabouts. Both incidents occurred astatine cardinal times. While Jacob Hitchcock did not testify, helium had told investigators helium was astatine the Bible Baptist Church to reminisce astir the property.

The authorities portrayed the spot arsenic a compelling motive.

"The obsession astir Jacob Hitchcock implicit that property, the sick mind, the depravity, the greed that his words, him reaching retired repeatedly to his brother," Brooks told the jury.

Then determination were the substance messages.

Jurors saw the young Hitchcocks sermon utilizing a motorcycle to perpetrate a drive-by shooting against their father. The member who took the basal had to ain up to those words and said they were conscionable venting their anger, but meant thing by it. On the nighttime his begetter died, Joshua Hitchcock did, successful fact, get and permission connected a motorcycle.

In the end, the jurors agreed with the state.

The justice overseeing the lawsuit ordered the brothers' sentences to tally concurrently, oregon astatine the aforesaid time. They are some eligible for parole.