Murphy – A jury convicted a local man of voluntary manslaughter in Cherokee County Superior Court on Feb. 5 in the 2018 shooting death of his mother’s boyfriend.
Jadon Luke Spivey, 22, of Marble, faced four possible outcomes from his jury trial: guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of voluntary manslaughter and not guilty. The trial and jury deliberations were completed on the same day, with a jury verdict of guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Spivey was sentenced to 64-89 months in the N.C. Department of Adult Correction. He was also ordered to pay his attorney, Leo Phillips, $17,500, a $6,500 fine and other incidental court costs.
Spivey informed the court that he plans to appeal his conviction.
Assistant district attorney John Hindsman prosecuted the case. Superior Court Judge Gary Gavenus presided over the jury trial.
Alexander “Andy” Bryant, 27, of Andrews, was found dead on Dec. 11, 2018, when a 911 call led town police officers to the Broadway Villa mobile home park around 9 p.m. Cherokee County sheriff’s deputies and State Bureau of Investigation agents were called to assist with the case.
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Spivey, then 17 years old, was identified as a suspect and arrested on a charge of murder with no bond. Then-sheriff Derrick Palmer said the victim was the boyfriend of Spivey’s mother, but he did not comment on what kind of altercation led to the shooting.
Palmer said Spivey, his mother and two younger siblings were interviewed by authorities, and the district attorney was consulted, before the decision was made to execute a charge of murder. After the interviews, it was decided that there was no obvious “justifiable cause” of the shooting, he added.
Spivey was arrested on Dec. 22, 2018. Initially held without bond, it was later set to $20,000 with restrictions, including an order to not contact the victim’s family.
According to court documents, Bryant was in a bed that he shared with Spivey’s mother the night of the shooting. Spivey said he was watching television with his younger siblings when he heard sounds of a fight coming from his mother’s bedroom.
Spivey told an investigator Bryant had been abusive in the past, and he saw Bryant choking his mother. He said he yelled at Bryant to release his mother, then fired several rounds at Bryant from a handgun that he recently obtained but seldom used.
“He wasn’t my favorite person in the world,” Spivey told the investigator. “It wasn’t like every day I wanted to kill him. It’s just like, ‘Man, I got to put up with this guy again today.’ ”
Spivey told the investigator that Bryant was a truck driver, but Spivey’s mother was the primary breadwinner in the family. Bryant would lounge around for days at a time and sometimes borrow money from family members.
“… I didn’t shoot him because he was a deadbeat,” Spivey told the investigator. “I thought that, like, he was trying to strangle my mom.”
The investigator noted that Bryant was either semi-conscious or passed out at the time of the shooting. He asked Spivey whether he thought the shooting was legal or justifiable. Spivey responded that it was neither legal nor justifiable.
“I just lost my head,” Spivey said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Phillips made a motion to suppress Spivey’s statement, saying he was a minor at the time and his parents were not present during the interrogation.