BLOUNT COUNTY, Tenn. — Connie Branam and Tommy Griffin were murdered in The Smokies in 1992, and one of the men on death row convicted of killing them is asking Governor Bill Lee for a second chance.
Gary Wayne Sutton and his uncle James Dellinger were sent to death row in 1996 by a Blount County jury. Dellinger died on death row in Jan. 2023, but once executions resume in Tennessee – Sutton could be up next to die.
Sutton's loved ones have been fighting for a meeting with Lee, and some answers could be on the way for them.
Lee was in Knoxville a few weeks back and appeared at the L&N STEM academy, where he spoke with students learning about different technologically-focused skills. He spoke with reporters at the event who asked about the state's work to resume the executions of death row inmates.
"I think it's important as we move as quickly as we can, but take as long as we need to to make sure we get it right," Lee said.
Lee said he has a team of people working on a lethal injection protocol. Executions were effectively paused about two years ago.
In April 2022, Lee paused the executions, right before death row inmate Oscar Smith was scheduled to die. Lee cited issues with the state's lethal injection process after an "oversight" was found right before Smith's scheduled execution.
The Associated Press reported that Tennessee noticed issues with lethal injection chemical testing and storage.
"I suspect we are closer from further from having a protocol in place, and we'll be able to continue that process," Lee said at the event in Knoxville.
News reports from the 1990s set the scene for what police thought happened when Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam were killed.
Blount County's newspaper, The Daily Times, and Sevier County's newspaper, The Mountain Press, reported Tommy Griffin, James Dellinger and Gary Sutton all went out to a bar in Feb. 1992.
All three men got drunk, and Griffin got arrested. Both Sutton and Dellinger went to bail him out of the Blount County Jail. Griffin wasn't seen alive again, his sister went looking for him, and she ended up dead, too.
Veteran East Tennessee journalist Jamie Satterfield covered this case from the moment Connie Branam went missing, through the trial proceedings, to appeals both Sutton and Dellinger made to state and federal courts after being convicted.
"One thing you've got to understand is this was 1992, we didn't have social media, I don't even think we had cellphones," Satterfield said. "In the community, I live in Sevier County, where all the folks really lived that were involved in this case, so the only information that was coming out was not much. And so, the first word we get is that, we were alerted more as a media organization...to the fact that Connie Branam had gone missing after she went in search of her brother Tommy Griffin."
Satterfield said it was unusual to hear about someone going missing, and people being murdered, in Sevier County at the time.
"So people were worried, we didn't know exactly what was going on," Satterfield said. "This was very strange."
Well-known Tennessee private investigator Heather Cohen took on Sutton's case for exoneration.
Cohen said Sutton had an alibi and was with his friend, Carolyn Miller, at the time of the killings.
She also said she had some problems with the evidence in the case, including a key piece of testimony in the trial.
Witness Barbara Gordon identified a white truck the prosecution said James Dellinger owned during the trial. That truck placed Dellinger at the crime scene.
Cohen said she interviewed Gordon, who told her she's not sure she actually saw Dellinger's truck at the scene.
A crime scene photo shows two spent shotgun shells in a crime scene photo that were side-by-side, and Cohen said that's not possible.
"They have this other photo, where they went back after they'd done their search of Dellinger's trailer coincidentally enough, then all of the sudden, there's these spent shotgun shells that match shotgun shells of Dellinger's," Cohen said. "They weren't there before, but they are there now, and they're laying perfectly side-by-side."
Former Tennessee Medical Examiner Charles Harlan was a witness for the prosecution in Sutton's trial and testified that Tommy Griffin died on Feb. 21, 1992.
According to Cohen, Harlan claimed Griffin's body was in full rigor mortis when it was found on Feb. 24, 1992, and that a body won't stay in rigor mortis for 36 hours.
Harlan has since died. He lost his license medical license in the early 2000s when the state's medical board determined he messed up several autopsies.
Cohen's investigation has the attention of a Tennessee lawmaker whose district is 300 miles away from East Tennessee.
Congressman Page Walley said he's approached Lee's office after talking to Cohen, citing concerns with evidence in the case used to convict Sutton, including the crime scene photo featuring the side-by-side spent shotgun shells.
"If we're going to have a death penalty, and we are going to actually put someone to death, we damn well better be certain the verdict was just," he said.
Walley said the governor's office told him they won't be investigating any death row cases until executions resume, but Walley is pushing for Sutton's case to get a second look.
"If it was life in prison, I might not have had the same level of concern, obviously," Walley said.
Connie Branam's daughter, who is also Tommy Griffin's niece, said she's sure that James Dellinger and Gary Sutton killed her mom and uncle.
Sandy Branam told 10News she feels like she's stuck in 1992, the year when the killings happened.
She remembers her mother as a good person who loved spending time with her family. She remembers her uncle, too.
"He always enjoyed company, was the life of the party, would always welcome people in his home that didn't really have anything," Branam said. "He would help anybody. He was one of those giving persons, too. He was just a really good guy."
Although she wanted the death penalty for Dellinger and Sutton nearly 30 years ago, her mind has changed.
"I was 15 when this happened, that's how long we've dealt with it," Branam said. "It's like every few years something's coming up, something's coming up. My recommendation if somebody kills your family member, get them life without (parole), so you don't have to deal with it. And you may have to deal with that too, I don't know how this process works, but this one is rough."
Branam said she thinks Sutton should remain behind bars.
"I'm sorry he's in there where he's at, but he has to admit to his wrongdoing," Branam said. "I think James didn't, I think he's in hell because he never would."