KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Joel Guy's lawyers want to prevent Knox County jurors this month from seeing crime scene photos and video depicting the graphic killings and dismemberment of his parents in their West Knox County home.
Defense attorneys filed a request Wednesday afternoon asking Knox County Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword to prohibit prosecutor Leslie Nassios from presenting the "gruesome" images to the panel.
The scenes are so bad they will prejudice the jury against Guy, John Halstead and Jonathan Harwell argue.
Sword may take up the motion Thursday morning during a previously scheduled hearing.
Guy faces trial Sept. 28 on first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse charges.
It's the highest profile trial Knox County has seen this year. The COVID-19 outbreak upended the 2020 judicial calendar.
Guy, 32, has been held in the Knox County jail since the killings in November 2016.
The state is not seeking the death penalty. Nor is Guy claiming he's mentally ill.
Prosecutors allege Guy plotted to murder Joel Guy Sr. and Lisa Guy during a Thanksgiving 2016 visit to their Goldenview Lane home. Guy was at the time a 28-year-old perennial student living in Baton Rouge. La.
According to authorities, the parents were selling the home and ready to stop financially supporting Guy.
He began buying chemicals, a knife and other equipment in Louisiana that he'd need to carry out the crimes before heading up to Knox County, the prosecution alleges. He spent the holiday in an upstairs bedroom and shared Thanksgiving with family.
The state theorizes Guy likely killed his parents Saturday, Nov. 26. Evidence in the home suggests he killed Lisa Guy around lunchtime when she returned from a grocery shopping trip.
Authorities allege Guy cut up his parents' bodies. Body parts were found in two plastic bins upstairs in the home. Lisa Guy's head was found in a pot on the stove, the state alleges. Other body parts were found on an upstairs floor.
Evidence indicates Guy bought more chemicals at a Knoxville area Walmart the afternoon of Nov. 26 after the killings to help dispose of the bodies.
In the process of dismembering the bodies, however, Guy may have suffered cuts of his own.
The investigation showed he left the home, with thermostats running at high heat, during the weekend and drove back to Louisiana to get medical treatment for the cuts.
Knox County officers discovered the crime scene Monday, Nov. 28, after a deputy was sent to check on Lisa Guy's welfare and found signs that something was wrong.
Guy drove to Knox County that day, testimony has shown, but when he saw law enforcement, he headed back to Louisiana in his 2006 Hyundai. He was arrested hours later at his apartment in Baton Rouge.
As part of their investigation, authorities filmed and took photos of what they found in the home. Defense attorneys routinely try to keep out images of violence and dead bodies, but the Guy killings were particularly graphic.
The defense sought last month unsuccessfully to delay the trial, arguing the virus pandemic put everyone in peril and made conducting a fair trial impossible.
Sword, however, has ruled it will go forward.
Jurors will be wearing masks and they'll be spread out in the courtroom to help avoid the threat of catching the highly contagious disease.