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Both sides have rested their cases, and finished closing arguments. At 3:10 pm local time, jurors began deliberating in the murder case of Zachary Adams, charged in the death of 20-year-old Holly Bobo. Closing arguments lasted several hours Thursday morning with the defense trying to poke holes in prosecution’s theory that Adams was responsible for drugging, raping, and murdering the young nursing student.
Bobo disappeared at about 7:30 a.m. on April 13, 2011. Her brother testified that he saw her near the woods at her home with a man dressed in camouflage. Her brother said he assumed at the time that she was with her boyfriend. However, he alerted the authorities when he found blood outside the house.
After what has been called the most extensive search in Tennessee history, Bobo was not found.
Nearly two and a half years later, on September 7, 2014, hunters looking for ginseng found a skull later identified as Bobo’s some twenty miles from her home. Investigators also found a few rib bones.
Adams’ brother John Dylan Adams, Jason Autry, Shayne Austin, Jeff Pearcy, and Mark Pearcy were also arrested and accused of various levels of involvement.
The prosecution’s case largely hinges on whether the jury believes the testimony of Autry, who took the stand as part of a deal he made with prosecutors. Autry told the court that Zachary Adams killed Holly Bobo and asked him to help dispose of her body. He also testified that Adams admitted to raping Bobo, along with John Dylan Adams and Shayne Austin.
Adams’ defense included phone records used to show that he was not with Bobo at the time of the alleged kidnapping, and that another man, convicted sex offender Terry Britt, may have been the culprit.
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