Jury in Chattanooga murder retrial to come from Knoxville

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Posted 7:02AM on Friday, May 17, 2002

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE - A judge has ruled the retrial of a man charged in the 1988 Signal Mountain deaths of three ATV riders will be held in Hamilton County, but the jury will be chosen in Knoxville. In a case that took more than nine years to come to trial the first time, Frank Casteel, 54, is charged in the deaths of Richard Mason, 49, of Signal Mountain; Kenneth Griffith, 22, of Red Bank; and Earl Smock, 23, of Decatur, Tenn. The men were shot and killed as they rode on secluded, wooded mountain land, according to testimony. Casteel lived in Rock Springs, Ga., at the time he was charged. He was convicted in 1998 of three counts of first-degree murder and received three life sentences. The convictions were overturned last year by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals because audio tapes of conversations between Casteel, his wife and his mistress were improperly used during the trial. Special Judge James L. Weatherford of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., ruled this week that jury selection will be in Knox County beginning Nov. 4 and the trial will begin in Chattanooga Nov. 12. The three men were shot as they rode onto Casteel's 130 acres on Signal Mountain to go swimming. Their bloody ATVs were found over the side of a cliff the next day. A few days later and miles away, their bodies were found in a mountainside dump. Casteel, a suspect from the beginning, has said he and his wife were picnicking at the swimming hole and spent a quiet night camping on their land when the men were slain. In 1996, eight years after the murders, investigators got a break in the case when they received an anonymous call saying a woman named Marie Hill could help them solve the murders. Hill was Casteel's mistress. Casteel's attorneys for the retrial, John Cavett and Hallie McFadden, had argued for the trial to be outside Hamilton County because of publicity associated with the first round of proceedings. In addition to local publicity, the case has been spotlighted by network TV magazine programs. ``Our preference was obviously to move the trial to another location,'' Cavett said Thursday. ``However, the fact we are going to pick a jury from another city not exposed to this case is going to mitigate some of the problems.'' Prosecutors had argued the retrial should be held in Hamilton County with an out-of-town jury, in part for the convenience of the victims' families and witnesses. Assistant District Attorney Rodney Strong declined comment Thursday on the judge's order. The jury for the first trial was selected in Loudon County and brought to Hamilton County to hear testimony.