| Keeney sentenced to life for murder
By David Hedges, Publisher
The Times Record-Roane County Reporter
A Spencer woman was sentenced to life in prison for the death of the man she said she planned to marry.
Roane Circuit Judge Tom Evans III sentenced Tiffany Keeney, 25, Thursday on a charge of 1st degree murder.
She can be considered for parole after 15 years, but there is no guarantee she will be released. The state parole board will make that decision.
The sentence was no surprise, since the jury's verdict was "with mercy," which makes her eligible for parole.
The verdict was returned Sept. 14, after jurors heard two days of testimony and deliberated for six hours. Keeney has been held without bond since the verdict while awaiting a post-trial hearing. The hearing was rescheduled from earlier in the week because one of Keeney's attorneys was ill.
On Thursday public defenders Teresa Monk and Rocky Holmes asked Evans to set aside the verdict and grant their client a new trial.
Keeney was charged with delivering a lethal dose of methadone to Ben Murray, who was 18 when he died in March 2004 at the home the couple shared.
Monk said there was no evidence that methadone caused Murray's death. She said a coroner testified that Murray died from a combination of drugs complicated by drowning. He was found in a hot tub after a night of partying with Keeney and others.
"There was absolutely no evidence that any injection made by the defendant directly caused the death of Ben Murray," Monk said in her petition to the court.
Keeney took the stand during her trial and denied that she injected Murray with the methadone.
Another witness, Cristal Coon, who is already serving time in jail for providing the methadone, testified that she saw Keeney inject Murray with the drug. She said Keeney injected her (Coon) at the same time.
Monk said that prosecutor Mark Sergent failed to disclose that Coon told a jail psychologist she is a pathological liar and hears voices in her head. Monk said Keeney had learned that information from other inmates ...
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