Can stunned family find justice in Columbus after murder charges dismissed in AL?
The family of slain Columbus woman Renee Eldridge hopes authorities will pursue a local case against accused killer Stacey Demar Gray after Alabama prosecutors dismissed murder and other charges on which the suspect was set for trial.
Eldridge’s sister, Nichole Hawk, said she and eight relatives were waiting for Gray’s trial to begin Tuesday in Chambers County when a prosecutor said the judge had thrown out DNA evidence crucial to the case, prompting the charges to be dropped.
She said that was around 11:30 a.m. at the courthouse in LaFayette, where the victim’s stunned relatives were left wondering, “So what do we do? Is he just going to walk out of here?”
Gray was not going to walk free, because Columbus police have warrants charging him with rape and false imprisonment from an earlier case involving Eldridge, who initially accused another man of assaulting her, before DNA evidence matched Gray, investigators said.
Now 51 years old, Gray waived extradition and was transferred from Chambers County to the Muscogee County Jail on Wednesday, according to jail records. A Recorder’s Court hearing set for Friday was postponed until 9 a.m. June 14, authorities said.
Columbus District Attorney Mark Jones said he will pursue Gray’s Muscogee County case.
“I think we have probable cause to hold him on the rape based on the DNA being found inside Renee Eldridge,” Jones said Wednesday. “We’ll take it to a grand jury.”
Gray had been accused of kidnapping Eldridge from her Columbus home on July 4, 2015. Her body was found bound and weighted down in a creek in Chambers County three days later. She died of blunt-force trauma to the right side of her head, authorities said.
She was 25 years old.
Case dismissed
According to the ruling Tuesday from Alabama Circuit Court Judge Steven Perryman, the DNA evidence had to be excluded from Gray’s trial because prosecutors failed to provide it to the defense during the discovery process, when attorneys share the information they have.
“On February 27, 2017, the defendant, through counsel, requested production of DNA testing data in this matter. Specifically, the defendant’s counsel requested the raw data and processed date related to this case in the possession of the State of Alabama,” Perryman wrote.
The evidence was not provided, and the defense on Jan. 2, 2020, filed a motion to exclude it from the trial, the judge said, adding, “The court notes that this is a capital murder case; therefore, all parties are aware that the defendant is entitled to all evidence in the possession of the State of Alabama.”
The court ordered the prosecution this past Jan. 14 to share the DNA evidence with the defense, warning it could not be used at trial if the district attorney’s office still held it back. “The State willingly violated this order and to this day, some one hundred and thirty days later, has failed to comply,” Perryman wrote.
He said prosecutors on Tuesday acknowledged they had not provided the evidence, but said then that it was available.
Waiting until the case went to trial left the defense no time to have an expert analyze the data, so it had to be excluded, the judge said, adding that failing to comply with the court’s Jan. 14 order was “either willful or due to incompetence.”
Attempts to reach the Chambers County district attorney’s office were unsuccessful Wednesday.
The evidence
Gray was to be tried for murder in Chambers County because that’s where investigators thought he killed Eldridge.
Dismissing that case is just the latest twist in a long-running saga that has taken many turns.
“July will be six years since it happened,” Eldridge’s sister said Wednesday. “Just to be back to square one is devastating.”
Hawk, now 33, said she was only 11 months and 13 days older than Eldridge, and thinks about her little sister every day, “from the time I open my eyes until the time I shut them at night.”
She still wants Gray held accountable for her sister’s homicide: “I want him to answer to the murder.... He took her to three different counties through the process of the crime.”
Authorities believe Gray first took Eldridge to Russell County, to dispose of some evidence there, before dumping the body in Chambers County.
Much of the evidence against Gray was disclosed in a hearing in Chambers County in September 2015, when a Valley, Alabama, police detective described how investigators tracked Gray’s movements the night Eldridge disappeared.
He said Gray had been close with Eldridge’s mother Nancy Gray, who is not related to him. Eldridge and her mother that night met friends at a Columbus bar, where Stacey Gray came in and began flirting with Eldridge and stroking her hair. The encounter was captured on surveillance video, he said.
Nancy Gray and a friend dropped Eldridge off at her 46th Street home about 3:30 a.m., the officer said.
Investigators checking Stacey Gray’s cellphone records saw that the phone was near Eldridge’s home that night, and its signal later hit cell towers on U.S. 80 in Russell County and a tower near Lee Road 379 in Lee County, he said.
Searching a trailer off U.S. 80 in Russell County, where Gray sometimes stayed, investigators saw cinderblocks the same size and form as one used to weight down Eldridge’s body, in the creek where she was found, the detective said. In the bathroom they found blood and a box of Band-Aids that had been left open, with remnants of used Band-Aids scattered about, he said.
In a trash barrel outside, authorities found the remains of burned clothing, and pieces of a purse Eldridge carried the night she disappeared, the officer testified.
Also in the yard, investigators saw a tarp tied down with a running bowline knot, commonly used by tree service workers, he said. Gray worked for a tree service.
When Eldridge was found face down in the water, her hands and ankles were bound with green rope tied to a cement block, and at least one of the knots was a running bowline, the detective said.
He said witnesses had reported seeing a greenish gray SUV parked at the bridge over the creek. Searching for an acquaintance of Eldridge’s who worked for a tree service and usually left his car parked on Abbott Avenue in Columbus, police saw a greenish-gray Ford Expedition belonging to Gray, he said.
Some green rope was in the cargo hatch, the officer said, and crime-scene technicians examining the vehicle later found blood in the front seats, back seat and cargo hold.
Gray was questioned that day at police headquarters, but released. Authorities later got a warrant for his arrest, tracking him down on July 13, 2015 in Notasulga, Alabama, where he was traveling in a black SUV with his brother. Gray fled into the woods, triggering a 10-hour manhunt.
Hidden in a bag of dog food in the rear of the SUV, authorities found a gun that belonged to Eldridge, the officer said. The brother told investigators Gray put it there, the detective said.
The 2014 case
According to police records, Eldridge was raped on Dec. 22, 2014, and her hands and feet were bound during the assault. She named another suspect, an Army Ranger who was held without bond for 10 weeks before he was released, after DNA evidence cleared him.
The Ranger’s attorney was Kyle Fischer, who in 2015 said his client knew Eldridge, having met her in a bar and later taking her for dinner. He was to meet Eldridge again the night she was raped, but he decided not to when he couldn’t reach her by phone, the attorney said.
It was unclear whether investigators here tried to have DNA evidence from the rape case checked for a match through the FBI’s national DNA database known as CODIS. It also wasn’t clear whether Gray at the time had a criminal record sufficient to have his DNA included in the system, though Fischer said Gray was in prison in Ohio from 1994 until 2003, having been convicted of assaulting two police officers.
On Wednesday, District Attorney Mark Jones said he will collect all the available evidence to determine what charges he may pursue against Gray, when he takes the case to a grand jury.
He hopes to do that “sooner rather than later,” he said, adding he’ll need at least two to four weeks.
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 3:58 PM.