CARTER COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — A Carter County jury has concluded the trial of brothers Jacob and Joshua Hitchcock, charged with the murder of their father, William “Bill” Hitchcock.

On Wednesday morning, the jury delivered their decision, declaring both Joshua and Jacob Hitchcock guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Jacob Hitchcock was also found guilty of tampering with evidence.

A sentencing hearing for the brothers was set for Aug. 20.

Gene Scott, the attorney for Jacob Hitchcock, expressed his belief that the prosecution failed to demonstrate Jacob’s direct involvement and intends to request a retrial.

“I’m really disappointed in the verdict,” said Scott. “The jury was out for a long time. I don’t feel like the state proved that Jacob committed first-degree murder.

“I plan to file a motion for a new trial within a week.”

Prosecutor Dennis Brooks said he believes justice was served and is not worried if the case is appealed.

“It’s been a lot of work, but it’s worth it in the end if justice happens, and I believe it did,” Brooks said. “People get shocked when people convicted of murder appeal their convictions. Every single one of them do it. Very few prevail on appeals. There will be appellate issues, I’m sure, that they’re going to bring up, and the court of criminal appeals will address those. I’m confident we’ll be fine.”

Bill Hitchcock was found dead on his Elizabethton property in 2023 by fishermen along the Watauga River. An autopsy report found he had been shot three times.

During the trial, prosecutors stated that the brothers planned to kill their father in 2023 after he planned to sell property they would have inherited.

The jury began deliberating Monday afternoon and spent the entirety of Tuesday attempting to reach a verdict. During closing arguments, Scott argued that there was not enough concrete evidence to prove his client murdered Bill Hitchcock.

“It takes evidence to convict somebody for first-degree murder,” Scott told the jury. “You all realize the seriousness of that. [It’s] the most serious crime there is. They want you to convict him based on text messages they pieced together. I’m not being critical of the investigation, really. They had suspicions, so they try to present a case to confirm suspicions, but they can’t do that. They have no proof that actually ties all of this together.”

Brooks said Jacob Hitchcock was obsessed with the property in question, which led to the alleged murder.

“The obsession about Jacob Hitchcock over that property, the sick mind, the depravity, the greed that his words, him reaching out repeatedly to his brother,” Brooks said.

During his closing arguments, Brooks presented a timeline of events leading up to Bill Hitchcock’s death. Brooks claimed Jacob Hitchcock told his brother when Bill Hitchcock left his home. According to Brooks, Jacob Hitchcock’s vehicle can be seen on surveillance footage at a church across the river from his father’s property.

Brooks argued that Jacob Hitchcock wanted the property that his father had inherited and planned to sell, and he cited text messages between the brothers in which they discussed how they would kill their father. Those messages included mention of a drive-by shooting.

“He had plans for it,” Brooks said of Jacob Hitchcock and the property. “Nothing necessarily wrong with that, is there? Nothing wrong with wanting to inherit your grandparents’ property. Take care of it. What’s wrong is when that then germinates into an obsession.”

Scott maintained there was not enough evidence to convict Jacob Hitchcock of murder and said the prosecution was relying on jurors to fill in gaps.

“I think he was there somewhere between 17 and 20 minutes, something like that,” Scott said on Monday. “He was gone. He wants you to try to fill in the blanks, to speculate. You may question my client’s innocence, but you cannot be convinced of his guilt to any degree of certainty.”

Joshua Hitchcock took the stand on Friday and testified that while he did shoot and kill his father, it was done out of self-defense. Jacob Hitchcock did not testify.

Joshua Hitchcock, represented by James “Jim” Bowman, claimed that the text messages between the brothers were a result of their being angry with their father, but they had no meaning behind them. He testified that on the night Bill Hitchcock died, he had gone to talk to his father and ask him why he was selling the property.

According to Joshua Hitchcock, his father told him to leave and then reached for a pistol. He claimed he then shot Bill Hitchcock, began crying and told no one about the incident for fear of being arrested.