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Julian Durrell Summers murdered his roommate, Bruce Jefferies, and left his body near this intersection in Memphis, Tennessee. (Mug shot: in inset Shelby County Jail; screenshot of the scene: WMC)
A Tennessee man was convicted on Friday of murdering his roommate — beating the sleeping victim with a hammer, decapitating him with a knife, and then stuffing the body in a suitcase during a failed attempt to throw it in a dumpster.
Julian Durrell Summers, 32, is set to be sentenced March 7 for first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Bruce Jefferies, 63, was apparently alive and sleeping during his final moments when Summers attacked him.
Authorities say surveillance footage showed the defendant dragging the heavy suitcase through the Broadmoor Apartments in Memphis.
As Law&Crime previously reported, a witness described seeing a man — later identified as Summers — dragging the suitcase through the alley the morning of Dec. 12, 2021. According to the witness’ account, the suspect failed to throw the suitcase in the dumpster. He dropped it and ran off upon realizing he was being watched, officers said.
Police responded that night regarding the body-in-suitcase being found near a dumpster in an alley behind a bank. A blood trail linked this scene to the apartment where Jefferies and Summers lived, cops said. There, they found no signs of forced entry and the keys were in the door’s lock, authorities said. According to cops, there were signs of a struggle inside, including broken glass, a broken mirror, blood in different parts of the bedroom, and signs of someone attempting to clean up that blood.
“During the trial, the jury viewed a recorded statement in which Summers confessed to the murder,” prosecutors wrote in a statement released Tuesday. “However, he provided a conflicting testimony during the trial, offering a different version of events than his initial statement to the police three years earlier. The defendant raised the issue of his mental state at the time of the confession. In response, the state presented a rebuttal witness from West Tennessee Mental Health Institute who attested to the defendant’s competency and asserted that Summers was malingering — exaggerating mental health symptoms.”
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