MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A judge has denied a petition for a new trial in the kidnapping and murder a nursing student from Tennesseecrushing an attempt by a key witness to recant his testimony that led to the conviction of a man in 2017.
Hardin County Circuit Judge J. Brent Bradberry has granted a state motion to deny a petition for a new trial against Zachary Adams, who was convicted of raping and murdering Holly Bobo after he sexually assaulted her in 2011 had kidnapped her home in West Tennessee. The body of Bobo, 20, was found more than three years later, ending a massive search by authorities and her family.
Adams and two other men were charged with kidnapping, rape and murder. But the only trial in the case was against Adams, and that was it convicted in 2017 on all charges and sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld Adams’ conviction in 2022. But a sparsely used legal docket emerged last January, when Adams asked for a new trial based on testimony from Jason Autry, a key trial witness who said he retracting the testimony that helped a jury convict his friend.
Bradberry ruled on September 10 that the witness, Jason Autry, had failed to provide an alibi for Adams or evidence of another person’s guilt in the case.
“Sir. Autry’s new statements do not leave this Court without serious or substantial doubt that Mr. Adams is factually innocent,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
During the intense, emotional trial, Autry spoke in a calm, measured manner as an attentive jury listened to him recount the day Bobo was kidnapped, raped, wrapped in a blanket, placed in the back of a pickup truck and driven to a river. and murdered.
Autry told the jury he was serving as a lookout when Adams shot Bobo under a bridge near a river.
‘It sounded like: boom, boom, boom, under that bridge. It was just one shot, but it echoed,” Autry testified. “Birds went everywhere, all under that bridge. Then it was dead quiet for a while.”
Investigators have found no DNA evidence linking Adams to Bobo. Instead, they relied on testimony from friends and inmates, who said Adams talked about harming Bobo after she died. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the investigation was the most extensive and expensive in the agency’s history. Witnesses painted a disturbing picture of drug life in rural West Tennessee, and the trial brought high emotions: Bobo’s mother Karen collapsed on the witness stand.
Autry was also charged with kidnapping, rape and murder, but was granted leniency for his testimony, which the judge praised as highly credible. Autry pleaded guilty to lesser charges, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was released in 2020, but he was arrested about two months later and charged with federal gun violations. In June, Autry was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison in the gun case.
Adams’ brother, John Dylan Adamsalso pleaded guilty to Bobo’s murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
The petition for a new trial, filed by Zachary Adams, said Autry is now recanting his testimony, claiming he made up the story to avoid spending life in prison. For the petition to be successful, Adams must prove he is presenting new evidence.
The petition said Autry met with a forensic neuropsychologist in December and admitted he made up the story after his attorney told him before the 2017 trial that he was “95% confident of a conviction” of the charges in the Bobo case.
Autry claimed he made up the entire story in his jail cell before the trial while studying the discovery evidence. Autry used extensive cell phone data to create a story, the petition said.