Nicholas Todd Sutton

Nicholas Todd Sutton
Born	(1961-07-15)July 15, 1961 Morristown, Tennessee, U.S.
Died	February 20, 2020(2020-02-20) (aged 58) Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Cause of death	Execution by electrocution
Other names	"Nicky"
Conviction(s)	Tennessee First degree murder (2 counts) North Carolina Second degree murder (2 counts)
Criminal penalty	Tennessee Death North Carolina Life imprisonment
Details
Victims	4
Span of crimes	1979–1985
Country	United States
State(s)	North Carolina and Tennessee
Date apprehended	December 25, 1979

Nicholas Todd Sutton (July 15, 1961 – February 20, 2020) was an American serial killer who was responsible for murdering two acquaintances and his own grandmother in North Carolina and Tennessee from August to December 1979. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for these crimes, Sutton, among three others, later participated in a 1985 prison killing over drugs. For this final crime, he was sentenced to death and executed in 2020.

Early life

Nicholas Todd Sutton was born on July 15, 1961 in Morristown, Tennessee. His mother abandoned him at birth, while his father, a mentally-ill and verbally abusive alcoholic, was constantly detained in either mental institutions or various jails. As he grew up, Sutton was taught to use drugs by his father, leading to a drug addiction that would last up until his incarceration.

When he was still a teenager, Sutton's father died and he was adopted by his grandmother, Dorothy Virginia Sutton, a schoolteacher living in Lowland. He dropped out of school due to frequent fighting with classmates and spent money given to him by his grandmother on weekly purchases of cocaine and maintaining his pit bulls. He resold a pickup truck and a land plot in North Carolina which his grandmother had given to him as a gift.

Discovery of murders

On Christmas Day 1979, Sutton went to the Morristown Police Department to report his grandmother missing. He claimed that he had last seen her three days prior in the company of an unknown male. An examination of the family house revealed signs of foul play, most notably blood spots on the carpets, walls and floors. Sutton was detained for questioning, while investigators tried to locate Mrs. Sutton's body. Eventually, Sutton said that he had stuffed his grandmother's body in a bag, weighed it down with a cinderblock and then thrown it into the Nolichucky River. After a two-day long search, the 58-year-old's body was found at the bottom of the river. A forensic autopsy determined that she had been hit in the back of the head with a blunt instrument, but later drowned after being thrown into the river. Sutton was charged with the murder and his bail set at $100,000.

Sutton claimed that while he had disposed of the body, he was not the killer. He said that he found Dorothy lying on the floor upon returning home. Thinking she was dead, he decided to get rid of the body to avoid being accused of her murder.

Sutton was convicted of his grandmother’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Following his conviction, Sutton claimed that the actual killer was 46-year-old Charles Pomery Almon III, a Knoxville contractor who was pressing him for money. Sutton alleged that Almon killed Mrs. Sutton in an attack before Sutton shot him in self defense. Sutton said he threw both bodies in the river. While police and prosecutors were skeptical, Almon had been missing for over two months, with his gold Jaguar found abandoned in front of a Holiday Inn in Newport.

Sutton confessed to yet another murder: that of his 19-year-old childhood friend, John Michael Large, with whom he shared an apartment in Knoxville. He claimed that some time between August 10 to 22, he had set up a meeting with Large at his aunt's remote farm in Waterville, North Carolina, where he kept a stash of marijuana and white liquor. The two friends had been involved in a bitter argument over money. Sutton claimed that after arriving, Large opened fire on him and the pair got into a physical fight. In the ensuing scuffle, Sutton said he beat and choked Large. He then dragged the body to a slope near Mount Sterling, where he buried it in a shallow grave among sumac groves.

Police quickly located Large's burial site, exhumed the body and sent it to Chapel Hill for an autopsy. The coroner determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, and an object found in Large's mouth was a piece of plywood. W murder warrant was issued from the state of North Carolina for Sutton, as the killing had occurred in their jurisdiction.

Authorities were unable to find Alton’s body in the river, leading them to believe that Sutton had buried him somewhere else. With Sutton changed his story yet again, claiming that Almon and an unidentified accomplice had robbed a bank in the Asheville area, and that they gave him $1,500 in exchange for acting as their getaway driver.

Investigation, trial and imprisonment

On April 29, 1980, Sutton was arraigned for Large's murder in North Carolina, while authorities back in Tennessee continued to search for Almon's body. On May 14, scuba divers investigating an old rock quarry near Newport uncovered the remains of at least four bodies, one of which was thought to belong to Almon. It was wrapped in bags, weighed with cinderblocks and sunk at the bottom of the quarry. The other bodies were determined to be unrelated to the case.

Upon hearing of the discovery, Sutton spontaneously confessed to two additional victims: an Alcoa teenager he had killed in July 1978 and buried in North Carolina, and a supposed drug buyer from Atlanta he had buried on the family farm. As a result of these confessions, the search at the quarry was temporarily called off.

Police in both North Carolina and Tennessee obtained search warrants to locate the new alleged victims, whose identities Sutton never disclosed. In an effort to locate them, prosecutors offered a plea deal with the convict, sparing the death penalty in exchange for him telling the burial site locations. After numerous failed searches, it was ruled that the "undiscovered victims" were made up by Sutton. In June 1980, he was additionally charged with Almon's murder.

In a bid to avoid a possible death penalty, Sutton pleaded guilty to both murder charges, subsequently receiving two more life imprisonment terms. At his sentencing, Sutton claimed that he had done the killings in a fit of anger and willingly accepted his sentence.

Prison murder

After his conviction, Sutton initially served his sentence at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary before being transferred to the maximum security Morgan County Correctional Complex in Wartburg. While in prison, he continued using and dealing drugs to fellow inmates, one of whom was 44-year-old Carl Isaac Estep, who was serving a life term for raping a 9-year-old girl in Knoxville. In early January 1985, the pair got into a dispute over drugs, with Estep threatening to kill Sutton using a homemade knife. Sutton and three other inmates (23-year-old Charles Arnold Freeman; 33-year-old Thomas Street and 22-year-old David Wesley Stufflestreet) decided to arm themselves with knives and take revenge on Estep. On January 15, the quartet went to Estep's cell and stabbed him 38 times. None were charged until May 20, with Sutton, Freeman and Street being charged with first-degree murder while Stufflestreet was charged as an accessory. In March 1986, the jury found Sutton and Street guilty on the murder charge, sentencing the former to death and the latter to life imprisonment; Freeman and Stufflestreet were each acquitted.

Appeals and execution

In the decades following his death sentence conviction, Sutton and his lawyers launched repeated appeals to various courts, arguing that his troubled personal life and good behavior after the incident were mitigating factors. These claims were backed up by several correctional officials at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, who said that Sutton was a Christian convert and model inmate who cared for the sick inmates on death row, and had even saved guards' lives during prison riots. Reportedly, five of the jurors who had originally given him the death sentence now supported his bid for commutation, as well as several of his victims' relatives. This sentiment was not shared with the sister of John Large, Amy Large Cook, who said that he deserved to die and she would visit the prison on the day of his execution. Likewise, his uncle Thomas Davis said in an interview that he had broken all contact with him, and that Sutton was "[...] totally somebody who shouldn’t even be part of society."

Governor Bill Lee rejected his clemency application a week before the scheduled execution date. This was soon followed by a refusal from the Supreme Court to issue a stay of execution.

On February 20, 2020, Sutton was executed via electric chair at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. In his final statement, Sutton spoke at length about his faith, love and gratefulness to his family, friends and Jesus Christ. After having his spiritual adviser serve communion, Sutton ate his last meal of fried pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy and peach pie with vanilla ice cream. His last words were "I’m just grateful to be a servant of God."

See also

• Capital punishment in Tennessee
• List of most recent executions by jurisdiction
• List of people executed in Tennessee
• List of people executed in the United States in 2020
• List of serial killers in the United States