At 2:38 PM Wednesday afternoon in Trigg County Circuit Court, a jury of seven women and five men announced to Judge Natalie White that — following a little more than an hour of deliberation — they had reached a verdict in the case of Landon W. Stinson.
Charged with the July 2021 Cerulean Road double-homicide of family members Sue Faris and Matthew Blakeley, White read back the verdict at 2:43 PM.
As the decision was read aloud, several friends and family members openly sobbed.
In a sentencing phase that lasted for more than 90 minutes, Commonwealth’s Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins asked the jury to render life without parole.
And in his victim’s impact statement, Sue’s brother Robert Allen looked directly at Stinson, and told him: “you tore the family apart.”
Matthew’s widow, Bobbie Jo Overby, said “having to decide between an open casket or not” was among the many things she’s had to learn in the last two years.
Defense Attorney Chris Woodall followed by calling several character witnesses for Stinson, including stepfather Mike Neighbors, mother Rhonda Neighbors, sister Katelynn Schiro, grandfather Albert Stinson, and friends Taylor Creed and Jeremy Brown.
Mike pleaded, “You can’t turn your back on your kids.” Rhonda asked the jury to keep together “what little family she had left.” Schiro said that in all her life, all she’s known is “Sue, Matthew and Landon.”
The jury returned a sentence of life without parole for each count of murder, to be served consecutively in a state penitentiary. Official sentencing from Judge White will be heard at 1 PM, November 8. And the defense counsel still has the right to an appeal.
Earlier in the afternoon, in her closing arguments, Ovey-Wiggins made it quite clear that neither motive, nor a murder weapon, were needed in the conviction of Stinson.
The burden of proof, she said, came in a timeline of his actions following the deaths of Faris and Blakeley.
At the forefront: an undisturbed crime scene, save the deceased, and a common entryway that was locked. As per previous testimony, no robbery had occurred, no altercation broke out in the living room, and few individuals had a key to the property.
Among those who did, however, was Stinson. He’d lived there “off and on,” Ovey-Wiggins said, for the previous four years.
Ovey-Wiggins belabored that on July 4, 2021, Stinson called his mother, Neighbors, when he made it to California. It was from an unknown phone he’d purchased on the way.
And then, she opined this: why did Stinson call Neighbors, a person he hadn’t lived with in four years, and not call Faris, nor Blakeley? Two people Stinson remarked as being the most recent to know his California plans?
“Because Stinson knew they were already dead,” Ovey-Wiggins said.
Ovey-Wiggins also repeated again and again that Stinson withdrew $320 from a Hopkinsville ATM at 6:13 PM July 2, 2021, which would’ve been approximately a half-hour to 45 minutes from the Faris and Blakeley time of death. The amount of $320 was nearly his entire bank account, and he’d follow that with a stop at a gas station and a pass by his Julien Road apartment — where drug paraphernalia, two empty Smith & Wesson boxes and a pair of broken phones were found — before “hitting the road.”
She asked the jury to reflect on Stinson’s “reasons” for going out west, of which there were many. A fresh start. A new job. A vacation. Opportunity.
So, when he was picked up by the California Highway Patrol on July 5, 2021, why did Stinson not have any keys, identification or debit card with him? Why did he have none of his personal affects from the Cerulean Road and Julien Road homes? Would he not want access to an automatic payment from Walmart Distribution Center to Stinson, in the amount of $800, was deposited July 8, 2021?
And Stinson, she added, gave two different stories on when he stopped by the Faris residence that night — a clear indicator he was “already trying to straighten his story.”
Ovey-Wiggins said the toughest, but non-required part, of conviction is the motive.
Even as of Wednesday, it remains entirely unclear — at least publicly.
This story has been updated several times.
