GUILTY TN - Desheena Kyle, 26, found deceased, Knoxville, 23 Jun 2021 *arrest*

Trial for man accused of killing ex-girlfriend underway

WATE News - May 10, 2023

 

WBIR - May 16, 2023

"John Bassett took the stand Tuesday and asked Knox County jurors to believe a long string of facts that fly in the face of common sense.

He testified the righthanded Desheena Kyle, 26, put a gun to the left side of her head and deliberately or accidentally pulled the trigger in June 2021 while backing up in a moment of duress.

The 30-year-old told jurors he then "panicked", cleaning up blood in her apartment, ditching her phone, ditching the gun, hiding evidence, wrapping and binding her body in sections with duct tape and garbage bags before deciding some six days later -- on her birthday -- to hide her body in the crawl space of a Sam Tillery Road home once occupied by his great grandmother.

"There's a lot I did," he testified.

But he didn't kill her, he said. And as the months passed that summer he never told anyone where she was or what happened to her."

"Bassett said he couldn't let anyone know what had happened to her because no one would believe him. He was a felon on probation for cocaine sales whose story would be dismissed by everyone, he said."

"On cross-examination, prosecutor Rachel Hill started pulling at his testimony as if it were an afghan of loose yarn. Repeatedly, Bassett was unable to explain conflicts in his story or details about what he did after Kyle died.

Bassett's testimony Tuesday consisted of "lies, lies and more lies," Hill said.

The prosecutor, who tried the case with Joanie Stewart, reminded jurors that the medical examiner discounted the possibility based on medical evidence that Kyle took her own life.

"Use your common sense, use the evidence we've shown you, and find him guilty -- because he's guilty," she said."
 
Jury to decide the fate of John Bassett in June 2021 death

WBIR Channel 10 - May 16, 2023

 
Justice for Desheena !


Man found guilty on all counts of killing girlfriend, hiding her body under great-grandmother's house

"KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — UPDATE (MAY 17): A jury found a man guilty on all counts in the murder of Desheena Kyle.

Bassett was found guilty of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence on Wednesday. The prosecution wants the jury to proceed to a second, penalty phase to determine if what Bassett did was so horrible that he should be held in prison for the rest of his life with no chance for parole."
 
Knox County Assistant District Attorney Rachel Hill argued Bassett went to Kyle's Wilson Road apartment, shot her in the head and then stuffed her body in a tool box before hiding it in an abandoned home owned by his grandmother. But Bassett's attorney, Joshua Hedrick, tried to convince the jury the 27-year-old woman was mentally unstable, was sometimes the aggressor and that she had killed herself.

Bassett testified on the last day of the trial, laying out the course of his relationship with Kyle from the time they met as young teens. The couple had an on-again, off-again relationship that turned toxic at times.

“I remember thinking she was pretty cute,” he said.
 
Kyle was reported missing on June 28, 2021. WVLT News spoke with Kyle’s family, who said she and Bassett were high school sweethearts, but their relationship could be toxic at times. The two split up before Kyle went missing, which was when the family learned Bassett was back in her life.

“Unbeknownst to us, he was back in her life, and by the time we had heard of anything, we were getting the stories he was stalking her and it was getting really bad,” Kyle’s aunt, Rita Turner said at the time.
 
September 29, 2023

WBIR
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Knox County jury has already given John Bassett a life sentence with no chance for parole in the killing of his former girlfriend. On Thursday, Knox County Criminal Court Judge Scott Green tacked on another 18 years.

"You are clearly a person who does not need to be out of custody ever again," the judge said.

 

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