The jeans that first-degree murder suspect Christopher Padgett was wearing at the time of his arrest during the wee hours of April 19, 2012, showed traces of gunshot primer residue, a micro analyst for Tennessee’s state crime lab told a Hamilton County jury Wednesday.
Padgett is charged with the April 18, 2012, fatal shooting of Millennium cab driver Nathan Deere.
Prosecutors contend he was a passenger in the vehicle when he shot the victim in the back of the head.
Micro analyst James Russell Davis said tests showed a microscopic particle of GSR embedded on the surface of Padgett’s blue jeans. Further, he noted, gunshot primer residue also was found on the right rear passenger seat in the taxi.
Mr. Davis said the finding indicates that Padgett’s jeans either were present when a weapon was fired, or that they came into contact with that weapon after it had been fired.
In other evidence, a cellular records analyst for the Chattanooga Police Department presented detailed usage records of the cell phones of both Mr. Deere and his accused killer.
Mark Hamilton said the records show that Padgett – a Cricket customer – dialed Mr. Deere’s number three times starting at 5:12 p.m. on the day of the murder. At 5:27 p.m., the CPD analyst said, Mr. Deere – who was then in the Brainerd Road area – used his Sprint phone to return Padgett’s calls.
Following that call, which the analyst said lasted 42 seconds, Sprint and Cricket records showing the locations of the two men’s respective cell phones reveal that the taxi driver headed out of Brainerd, toward Padgett, who was in East Chattanooga.
Based on those same cellular records, Mr. Hamilton said, “I cannot say they were together, but they would have had to be very close” by 5:41 p.m.
Starting four minutes later, at 5:45 p.m. – and from then on, he noted – all calls made to Mr. Deere’s phone “went unanswered.”