A Hamilton County man who wound up on America’s Most Wanted in 2005 after repeatedly running over his landlord with a car and then fleeing the city was convicted Thursday of four counts of aggravated assault.
However, a Hamilton County Criminal Court jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether Shannon Alan Griffin is guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree murder in a May 2, 2005, incident in Chattanooga in which victim Kenneth Strickland lost his right eye and suffered multiple other injuries and broken bones.
If prosecutors decide to retry Griffin on the attempted first-degree murder charges, a new jury will have to be selected. He faces between three years and 15 years in prison on the aggravated assault convictions, according to Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern.
Defense attorney Dan Ripper, who did not put on any evidence during the trial, said there was no question Griffin hit Mr. Strickland with his car after the two met on the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.
But he argued that his client should not be convicted of first or second-degree murder because there was no evidence of premeditation.
Griffin – an ex-con with a hot temper who served more than two years on aggravated assault and arson convictions, after setting fire to an Ooltewah house while his ex-wife was inside it – was released on those charges in March 2004.
But a little over a year later, prosecutors said, he repeatedly tried to run over Strickland, his landlord, just days after learning he was being evicted from a duplex he was renting.
After that incident, he was on the run for nearly a month before turning himself in to authorities at Wayne County Jail in Detroit, the city where his parents reside.
He told authorities then that he had wanted to see his parents one last time before going back to jail.
He was extradited back to Chattanooga, where he was charged with four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Judge Stern scheduled a new hearing on Feb. 5 on the attempted murder charges.