A Tennessee jury took just three hours Friday to find Joel Guy Jr guilty of killing his parents and dismembering their bodies in a gruesome crime committed because he wanted their money, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reports.
Knox County Sheriff’s deputies found the remains of Joel Guy Sr and Lisa Guy inside their home after Lisa Guy failed to show up for work on the Monday after Thanksgiving 2016, as CrimeOnline previously reports.
Lisa Guy’s head was found boiling in a pot on the kitchen stove in a crime scene so macabre that one investigator called it the “most horrific thing I’ve ever encountered in law enforcement, in life.”
The jurors saw a five-page “book of premeditation,” as prosecutors termed it, detailing Guy Jr’s plans, from how to dismember his parent’s bodies to how much he stood to inherit from their deaths, all in his own handwriting.
“$500,000 would be all mine,” Guy Jr wrote in his notes.
Prosecutors presented the case that Guy attacked his father while his mother was out shopping.
The attack took place in an exercise room in the home, where detectives found his severed head, the News-Sentinel said. They found two tubs with body parts floating inside, in the upstairs master bathroom.
“Kill him with the knife. Clean up mess before she gets home,” Guy Jr. wrote in his notebook.
Police said that Guy Jr stabbed his mother 31 times in the back and buttocks and his father more than 40 times. that Lisa Guy had been a doting mother to her son. In turn, he stabbed her 31 times in the back and buttocks, police said.
The day after the murders, Guy abruptly left the Knoxville and drove to his home in Louisiana, prosecutors said, leaving the body parts behinds. Authorities arrested Joel on November 29. He’s been behind bars since 2016, awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said that the Guys planned to stop financially supporting their son, as they had for years while he lived in Louisiana, and Guy Jr was determined to keep that from happening. They said he drained what money he could from their bank accounts after killing them and planned to collect life insurance.
Knox County Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword sentenced Guy Jr to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 51 years, for each murder counts. A separate hearing on November 19 will determine if the sentences should be served consecutively.
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[Feature Photo: Joel Guy Jr./Police Handout]
