By TERENCE CORRIGAN - Special to the T-G
The third person charged in the murder of 37-year-old Artenchius Wainwright pled guilty and was sentenced on Oct. 17 to serve 20 years in prison. Colby Ray Watford, 27, of Dowelltown in DeKalb County, took a plea deal that could result in him walking free before age 40.
Watford pled guilty to a single count of facilitation of felony first degree murder. He will have to serve at least 30% of his sentence (6 years) before he will be eligible for parole.
Other charges against Watford (especially aggravated robbery, two counts of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit especially aggravated robbery) were all dismissed.
The victim, Wainwright, died at his Shelbyville home on March 18, 2020, as a result of a beating with an aluminum baseball bat. He had also sustained at least two severe blows to his head from what is believed to be the butt end of a handgun.
Dr. Randy Tashjian, who performed the autopsy on Wainwright, testified that he had never performed an autopsy that resulted in such a long list of injuries.
In his career, Tashjian said he has performed over 2,000 autopsies (over 100 were homicides.) The list of lacerations and bruises Wainwright suffered fills nearly three pages of tightly spaced lines of small type.
The autopsy shows that Wainwright took blows from the bat over his entire body. His liver, spleen, and right kidney were cut and four of his ribs were fractured.
The other two defendants
Charles Edward Young, 50, the primary aggressor in the murder, was found guilty at trial here in February. Young has been determined to be the one who actually wielded the bat in the attack. He has been deemed a “career criminal” based on his extensive criminal history, including multiple convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated assault.
Young will never again walk free. He was sentenced to the following in the Wainwright murder: 60 years for especially aggravated robbery, life (51 years) for first degree murder and 30 years for conspiracy to commit especially aggravated robbery.
The sentences are to be served consecutively, meaning Young is to be incarcerated for 141 years. As a “career criminal,” he must serve at minimum 60% of the sentences (84 years.) The Tennessee Department of Corrections lists his release eligibility date as June 3, 2140 (128 years.)
On Aug. 18, Cristalia Dawn Ford, 51, accepted a plea deal in which she pled guilty to a single count of facilitation of 1st degree murder. She must serve at least 105 months (almost 9 years) before she will be eligible for early release. The time she will serve in state prison is also reduced by the 7 months she has been incarcerated in Bedford County.
Ford was originally charged with two counts of 1st degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree especially aggravated robbery and aggravated robbery. If she had gone to trial and been found guilty, she faced a possible life sentence (51 years) or the death penalty on each murder charge. She would have also faced a possible sentence of 15 to 60 years each on the charges of especially aggravated robbery and conspiracy to commit especially aggravated robbery.
The crime
According to prosecutors, when Wainwright was murdered, in March 2020, Ford was living with him at his home on Chestnut Drive in Shelbyville. At the time, Ford allegedly told Young that Wainwright owed her a considerable sum of money and she didn’t think he was going to pay her back. Ford asked Young to help her get the money Wainwright owed her.
Prosecutors stated that Ford told Young that Wainwright had a large sum of money and marijuana at their home. Prosecutor Mike Randles said that Ford knew Wainwright “would not hand over the money and drugs without a physical altercation.”
Ford took Wainwright out to dinner the night Wainwright was killed, to get him out of the house. Ford conspired with Young to be sure Wainwright was not at home and a back door was left open, giving Young easy access to the home where he and Watford lay in wait.
Initially, investigators had little to go on in trying to determine who murdered Wainwright. The break in the case came 71 days after Wainwright’s murder.
Break in the case
On May 28, investigators received a phone call from Donna Watford who lived on South Mill Street in Dowelltown. Watford told investigators that her husband, Colby Ray Watford, had participated in the killing and robbery of Wainwright. Colby was arrested that day. He had just turned age 25, two weeks earlier.
Colby Watford agreed to talk to Shelbyville police 6 days after his arrest and gave them a detailed statement about what had happened the night Wainwright was murdered. He confessed to his participation in the crime and told them Young enlisted him to help with the crime. An arrest warrant was issued for Young that day.
In his statement to Shelbyville investigators, Watford also implicated Ford. Watford told police that he was told by Young that Ford got Young involved in the plot to take $30,000 in cash and a large stash of marijuana from Wainwright.
Ford allegedly told Young that Wainwright owed her $30,000 and was not paying it back. In court testimony, it was revealed that Ford was engaged in romantic relationships with Young and the victim, Wainwright, and was married to a third man.
