Bloody scene described as North Hills murder trial opens

Robert Pittman was running a sweeper at a North Hills apartment construction site not long after sunup on May 14, 2013, when he noticed a little girl in a nightgown, barefoot and crying at the metal fence.

“She told me she tried to wake her mother up and couldn’t, that she had blood all over her face,” Pittman testified Tuesday on the first of a death penalty murder trial that opened in Wake County Superior Court. “She told me she needed to get dressed, that she needed to go to school.”

The scared and emotional girl was the 8-year-old daughter of Melissa Huggins-Jones, 30, who was found bludgeoned to death inside her apartment on Allister Drive. Travion Devonte Smith, 23, is one of three people accused of playing a role in a homicide that left communities in two states unsettled and grief-stricken.

Huggins-Jones had recently moved to Raleigh from Tennessee to start anew after splitting up with her husband. She had gotten a new job at a bank in Raleigh and her daughter, Hannah, was living with her at the time. Her son planned to join them after finishing out the school year in Tennessee.

Smith was arrested eight days after Huggins-Jones was discovered dead in her bedroom and charged with murder.

The trial of Smith, 23, holds out the possibility of capital punishment at a time when the national trend has been to move away from such trials. There were no new death sentences in North Carolina last year, and the 49 issued across the United States in 2015 represented the lowest number since the 1990s, when the possibility for capital punishment was reinstated.

Lorrin Freeman, the Wake County district attorney, declined to discuss the specifics for proceeding capitally in the Smith case, but she outlined the many details that play into prosecutors’ decisions to hold out the death penalty as an option.

“We’re looking at a number of factors, but we’re also keeping in mind we have not obtained a capital murder sentence in some time,” Freeman said.

Prosecutors consider “aggravating factors,” such as whether the crime was particularly heinous, done for pecuniary gain or committed in the commission of another crime. They also look at them over an “arc of time” and consider whether their pursuit of capital punishment in one case is consistent with what they have done in others.

When investigators homed in on Smith as a suspect in the case, they also brought charges against Ronald Lee Anthony and Sarah Rene Redden of Wake Forest.

They turned their attention to them after a laptop stolen from the apartment of a downstairs neighbor of Huggins-Jones showed up in Wake Forest.

DNA evidence from that computer led investigators to the trio, who had been breaking into cars in the North Hills area of Raleigh, according to police and court testimony.

Anthony pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in September as part of an agreement with prosecutors to avoid the possibility of capital punishment. There has been testimony in previous court hearings that Smith was offered a similar plea option but decided to fight the charges at trial.

Redden, who has been described as the getaway driver, also faces charges related to the case.

In opening statements Tuesday, prosecutor Melanie Shekita told jurors they would hear from witnesses who describe Smith’s movements on May 13-14 almost three years ago. She contends that though some of those witnesses might have questionable pasts – such as jail time of their own – the details they will share are consistent.

Shekita contends that Smith struck the first of many blows that Huggins-Jones suffered. She told jurors that prosecutors planned to argue that he was acting in concert with others and that made him just as culpable.

“They started the events that day, completed the events that night and afterwards even remained together,” Shekita added.

Jonathan Broun, a defense attorney representing Smith, described the defendant as someone who, indeed, was breaking into cars and doing things he should not have done.

But Broun described Anthony as the man responsible for the murder.

“This trial is about Travion Smith, but this crime is about Ronald Anthony – Ronald Anthony who is already serving a life sentence,” Broun said.

‘Follower’

Broun described Smith as a “follower” who had fallen prey to a “charisma” and “charm” that Anthony exuded. Women loved Anthony, Broun said, and Redden was one of those who was taken by his charms, even though Anthony had a live-in girlfriend.

Anthony “also had a dark side,” Broun said in his opening statement. “He could manipulate people.”

After Smith was kicked out of his home at age 15, Broun said, he gravitated to Anthony.

“He became the perfect target for Ronald Anthony,” Broun said. Anthony “befriended him, gave him a place to live and started to manipulate him.”

Broun urged jurors to listen for conflicting evidence about what happened in that apartment and on those May days before the arrest.

Redden and Smith, Broun contends, “never planned anyone’s death,” nor intended for anyone to be killed.

“Travion did a lot of things wrong that night and in the days following the death of Melissa Huggins-Jones,” Broun acknowledged.

But he contends that Smith did not commit first-degree murder.

‘Senseless’

Broun said in his opening statement that though there will be conflicting narratives from the defense team and prosecutors for jurors to sort through, there was “one thing that nobody is going to dispute.”

“The death of Melissa Huggins-Jones is tragic, horrible and senseless,” Broun said. “It is absolutely heartbreaking that her daughter Hannah is the one who discovered her mother’s body. No child should have to go through that. … But we are here today to decide who is responsible for Melissa Huggins-Jones’ death.”

Pittman, a carpenter who first encountered Hannah on that May morning, became emotional as prosecutors asked him to view a photo of the crime scene. He described clasping Hannah’s hand as he walked with her from the construction fence back to the apartment, calling his supervisor along the way.

They called emergency dispatchers.

Pittman said any attempts to revive Huggins-Jones that morning were too late.

Hannah opened the apartment door for Pittman and his supervisor, Tom Finn. Then as Pittman proceeded into the room, Finn kept the little girl away from further view of her mother.

Finn leaned over the body in the bedroom and put fingers on her wrist. “No pulse,” he said. “She was as cold as a block of ice.”

This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 12:16 PM.