A Criminal Court jury announced late Saturday that it could not reach a verdict on two murder charges in the case of Tamara Church, 40, and her daughter Aquarious, 8, who were found brutally killed and left in a wooded lot near a Greenwood Road church.
After more than seven hours of deliberation, the jury informed Judge Amanda Dunn that the only charge they could agree on was finding 49-year-old Gabriel Boykins guilty of tampering with evidence. Boykins had faced two counts of premeditated murder in the killings that took place on May 17, 2020.
Prosecutor Aaron Chaplin admitted the state had no clear motive, saying, “We don’t know why it happened,” but argued the circumstantial evidence was enough. He described the crime as “a brutal, brutal homicide. Think about all he did”, according to a courtroom report by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Autopsies revealed Tamara had been strangled and beaten, while Aquarious suffered severe blunt force injuries. Chaplin told the jury, “One of them must have watched the other one being killed.” Testimony indicated Tamara’s strangulation would have taken at least three minutes.
Investigators used Bluestar, a chemical blood detector, to find large traces of blood inside Boykins’ duplex on Foust Street, where Tamara often stayed. Witnesses said the two were no longer romantically involved but remained in contact. More blood was later discovered at a storage yard on 23rd Street, though the discovery was not reported to police immediately.
Cell phone records placed Tamara near Boykins’ home, the storage yard, and finally the wooded site where the bodies were found six weeks later. Her white Honda Odyssey was discovered burned on the night she disappeared.
Defense attorney Sam Hudson argued that no eyewitness ever placed Boykins with the victims on the day of their disappearance. He noted that none of the blood samples sent to the TBI tested positive, and no DNA evidence linked Boykins to the crime. He also said Bluestar can produce false positives.
Hudson questioned the logic of moving bodies into a secured storage yard and suggested animals could have disturbed the remains, complicating the autopsy. He also pointed out that a camouflage bandana found at the dump site, similar to one Boykins often wore, had not been tested for DNA.
The trial included testimony from Tamara’s longtime boyfriend, Ulysses Bradley, who admitted seeing her the day she vanished and said they had been intimate. His DNA was found on her clothing, but he insisted she was “very calm, very cool” when she left him that day.
Initially, two of Tamara’s children suspected Bradley, though they later changed their minds. Despite the tangled evidence, the jury ultimately could not agree on the murder charges. Boykins was convicted only of tampering with evidence, leaving the families of Tamara and Aquarious Church still waiting for closure.