Would-be criminals not only have to worry about detectives analyzing their revealing cell phone data, but they also could have their online searches used against them.
Cell phone extraction expert Mark Hamilton testified in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Thursday about searches Gabriel Boykins used shortly after a mother/daughter he knew were savagely killed and their bodies tossed in a wooded lot by a Greenwood Road church.
Boykins is standing trial in the courtroom of Judge Amanda Dunn in the case in which he is charged with the grisly murders of Tamara Church, 40, and Aquarious Church, 8.
Specialist Hamilton said there were no searches on Boykins' two phones on the couple of days surrounding the murder.
However, he said they started up the next day including requests about how to take a Megabus or Greyhound bus out of Chattanooga and how far it was from Chattanooga to Nashville and to Louisville, Ky.
Boykins wanted to know about the homeless shelter in Louisville
He googled, "Can a pacemaker put you at the scene of a crime?" and could it "put you in front of a Criminal Court." Boykins has a pacemaker.
He also asked about methods of committing suicide, including which wrist was it preferable to slash.
It is the second trial for Boykins in the case. The first jury in November 2024 deliberated over seven hours before telling Judge Dunn they could only agree that Boykins was guilty of the minor charge of tampering with evidence.
Defense attorney Sam Hudson told that jury that the state presented no motive for the killings, and he said no one saw Boykins with the two victims at any time on May 17, 2020, the day the victims were last seen.
Prosecutor Aaron Chaplin acknowledged, "We don't know why it happened," but he said there was enough circumstantial evidence to convict Boykins.
He said, "This was a brutal, brutal homicide. Think about all he did."
An autopsy found that Tamara Church had been strangled and beaten around the head. Her daughter had extensive blunt trauma injuries to the head and facial area.
Prosecutor Chaplin said, "One of them must have watched the other one being killed."
He said it was testified that it would have taken Tamara Church at least three minutes to die from the strangulation.
Detectives said the blood detector Bluestar chemical found a large amount of blood in the shotgun-style duplex on Foust Street where Boykins lived and where Ms. Church often stayed. Witnesses said they had not been romantically involved in a long time, but were still friendly.
There was also testimony about a large puddle of blood and many blood splatters found at a storage yard at an electric business on 23rd Street. The supervisor who found the blood did not report it to police, who only learned of it later.
Prosecutor Chaplin said cell phone records from May 17, 2020, show Ms. Church in the vicinity of the Foust Street home, then in the area of the electric supply firm, then at the location where the bodies were found by police some six weeks after the deaths.
Ms. Church had bought a white Honda Odyssey van, and it was found burned the night of the disappearance.
Police found grainy video of a man walking in the vicinity of 23rd Street the same night. Two children of Ms. Church said they could identify the man as Boykins. Boykins denied it was him.
The prosecutor said Boykins had left town not long after the disappearance, going as far as Oklahoma. Attorney Hudson said he had returned to Chattanooga, picking up a son of Ms. Church to continue on the "road trip."
The defense attorney said initially Boykins had kept the children of the Church daughter, Tyquavius, while she was out searching for her mother and sister. He said he left town after she turned against him and would no longer let him in her unit at East Lake Courts.
Attorney Hudson said it did not make sense that someone would drag a body inside the fenced electric lot.
He said animals scavenged the bodies by Greenwood Road and may have broken off chips of bone. He said that would affect the autopsy results.
The defense attorney said there can be "false positives" with Bluestar. He said none of the items sent to the TBI lab from the Boykins living room showed any trace of blood. And he said there was no DNA evidence found against Boykins.
Prosecutor Chaplin noted that a camouflage bandana of the type often worn by Boykins was found at the dumping site. Attorney Hudson said there were hairs on the bandana, but they were never tested.
The first jury heard from Ulysses Bradley, a boyfriend of Tamara Church, for some 15 years. He said she came by his house the day of the disappearance and they had sex. There was semen from Bradley inside the jeans of Ms. Church that were found near her skull.
Bradley, who said he has four daughters, seven sons and "seven baby mamas," said that day Ms. Church "was very calm, very cool." He said she was driving the white van. He said just before she left, he gave her $25 to buy an air mattress for Aquarious.
Two children of Ms. Church initially said they thought it was Bradley who had carried out the killings. They said they later changed their minds.