After she killed Larry Adams, 72, Hollister, on November 6, 2015. Brandi Shaddox, 37 at the time, continued to live in house, drive his car and even wrote a $300 check on his account eight days after his death.
Shaddox told investigating officer she sold her car for scrap metal, but changed her story when they told her, they had found her car with Adams' lifeless body in the back.
An all-female jury convicted her of first degree murder, assault, armed criminal action, kidnapping and forgery May 22, 2017 in Lawrence County Circuit Court where the trial was held on a change of venue.
The crime was described in the appellate court's opinion:
Victim was 72 years old at the time of his death. He spent about the last fifteen of those years living in a trailer in Hollister.
Defendant (who was 38 years old at the time of trial) met Victim when she walked into his trailer park after having car trouble. One week later, Defendant moved in with Victim, and they began having “a sexual[-]nature friendship.”
Defendant testified that she had been living with Victim for about a month when she noticed “things [in Victim’s trailer] that were in another house that [she] had lived in.”
Victim denied that the items belonged to Defendant. Defendant nonetheless testified that she felt afraid. When she told several people, including Mark Bailey, about her concerns, they agreed to help Defendant move out.
Just prior to Victim’s death, Defendant put a large blue tarp in her car and went with Mr. Bailey to purchase a Taser and some zip ties.
On November 7, 2015, Defendant called both Mr. Bailey and Victim and asked them to pick her up at A-1 Storage, claiming that her car had run out of gas. Victim arrived in his truck with a can of gasoline and some cigarettes for Defendant.
Defendant then “[t]ased [Victim] so he wouldn’t try and block [her] from moving out.” When the Taser did not disable Victim, Defendant tased him again, and they wrestled for possession of the Taser.
That struggle continued into Victim’s truck, where Defendant located a flashlight and hit Victim in the head with it several times.
Defendant, with or without the assistance of Mr. Bailey, zip-tied Victim’s wrists and ankles. Defendant then drove Victim’s truck to her car, which she had parked in a church parking lot, and she transferred Victim into the back of her car.
With Mr. Bailey following in his vehicle, she then drove to an abandoned house in a remote location. Defendant left Victim in the back of her car -- still bound with zip ties and without access to food or water -- and she and Mr. Bailey drove away in his car.
The following day, Defendant went back to check on Victim. Victim, still bound, was alive, and he asked Defendant what she was going to do.
Defendant said that she was “going to go get help.”
Defendant did not get help, and Victim’s dead body was found seven days later, on November 14, 2015, still bound hand-and-foot in the back of Defendant’s car.
The mechanism of Defendant’s death was hypothermia that resulted from his exposure to the cold.
The jury found Defendant guilty on all counts, and the trial court sentenced her to serve consecutive terms of: life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on count 1, life imprisonment on count 2, twenty years on count 3, fifteen years on count 4, and four years on count 6.
On March 30, 2018 MARK BAILEY received a 20-year sentence for the murder, 15-year sentence for the kidnapping and seven-year sentence for the felonious restraint.
In her appeal, Shaddox claimed that a couple of slang phrases she used in talking to a friend, which had been used as evidence of deliberation were improperly admitted as evidence and that there was no evidence that she had intended Adams to die of hypothermia.
The court unanimously rejected her arguments and affirmed the conviction.
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