MEMPHIS, TN – Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons announced Friday that his office filed notice to seek the death penalty against a Memphis man indicted for shooting and killing his girlfriend last December.
The state Grand Jury for Shelby County in July indicted Tucson Biggs, 31, for the first degree murder of Angela Baker.
According to the affidavit of complaint filed in this case, on December 14, 2007, Baker was shot multiple times and killed in the courtyard area of the Briar Club Apartments near Kirby Parkway and Winchester Road. According to the affidavit, Biggs, who had been in a four month relationship with the victim, fled to Texas after the shooting, but turned himself into Memphis police on December 16. The medical examiner’s report revealed that Baker had been shot nine times in the back and chest.
The D.A.’s Office is seeking the death penalty for Biggs because the case against him meets two specific aggravating circumstances under Tennessee law: (1) the defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies, other than the present charge, whose statutory elements involve the use of violence to the person, and (2) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond necessary to produce death.
Under Tennessee law, first degree murder is punishable by death, life in prison, or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 51 years.
This case has been assigned to the D.A.’s Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit and is being handled by Assistant District Attorneys Karen Cook and Missy Branham. |