Murder-for-hire suspect, girlfriend, jailed for threatening prosecutor

Tristan Hall and Angie Reeves

A Corbin man, who is scheduled to stand trial on Aug. 6 for allegedly offering $5,000 on a website to have someone killed, has been arrested along with his girlfriend for allegedly sending threatening phone calls to the prosecutor in his case.

About 2:37 p.m. Tuesday, Williamsburg police arrested Tristan Hall, 30, and his girlfriend, Angela Gail Reeves, 25, charging each of them with eight counts of intimidating a participant in a legal process.

"The allegations arise from a series of phone calls made to the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in which different kinds of threats were communicated to me personally and one of which was left on an answering machine," said Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble, the victim in the case.

"The calls concern the criminal charges pending against Tristan Hall."

Warren Scoville, an attorney for Hall and Reeves, entered a not guilty plea on their behalf during their video arraignments Thursday afternoon in Whitley District Court.

Scoville declined to comment on the case.

District Judge Fred White scheduled preliminary hearings for Hall and Reeves on Tuesday at 9 a.m. in Whitley District Court in Corbin before Judge Cathy Prewitt. Scoville noted that he might waive those hearings.

Bond in the case is currently set at $250,000 cash with a requirement to wear an ankle-monitoring device if they post bond.

Prior to the start of court Thursday, White told Scoville that he planned to recuse because of his friendship with Hall’s mother.

Trimble is currently prosecuting Hall in Whitley Circuit Court on a charge of criminal solicitation to commit murder.

The intimidation case stems from allegations that Hall and Reeves placed eight different phone calls to Trimble’s Williamsburg office from May 5 through June 11. The calls stated threats as a means of intimidating Trimble in Hall’s upcoming murder for hire case, according to the arrest warrant obtained by Williamsburg Police Chief Wayne Bird, who is the investigating officer.

Bird said that he was contacted about three weeks ago by Trimble’s office concerning the threatening phone calls.

"I went by and listened to a voice mail left at the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, which was a threat," Bird said.

 

Numbers spoofed

Bird said that authorities got the number off the caller ID for the threatening calls at Trimble’s office and learned that phone records didn’t match up with what was on the caller ID.

"This only leaves one other thing, which we see quite often, which is spoofing," Bird said.

"Spoofing" can either be done with an application for a smart phone or an Internet service. It manipulates caller ID.

"Some of them actually come with voice alteration software, which can alter your voice," Bird said. "Basically, I could go through this app on an Internet service and I could pay for it and I could put your phone number in and call the White House. On any caller ID, it is going to show your phone number."

The threatening phone calls had spoofed voices in addition to spoofed phone numbers, Bird said.

"On June 11, 2014, the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office issued subpoenas for a company called Spoof.com. The results of that subpoena show six phone calls placed to the Commonwealth Attorney’s office from (606) 304-9687. Subscriber is Angie Reeves, also known as Angie Hall, girlfriend of Tristan James Hall," Bird stated in the affidavit for a search warrant, which was executed Tuesday at the residence of Hall’s grandmother.

Hall had been staying at his grandmother’s residence on home incarceration pending his trial in the other case.

Bird said subpoenaed computer records trace back to Hall and his girlfriend.

One spoofed number came back to Blount Memorial Hospital in Knoxville, which is where Reeves apparently used to work, Bird said.

Another came back to a school in Dayton, Ohio. Hall previously reported being accepted to law school at the University of Dayton, and another spoofed number came back to Corbin Ice Company.

The last threatening phone call to Trimble’s office was on June 11, which led to the police investigation. It used a spoofed phone number, which reportedly belonged to Melissa Jones. She is the victim in the murder solicitation case, Bird said.

"Any phone call like that is disturbing. It is something we had to do something about," Trimble noted. "We get calls all the time about cases, but seldom do you get a threatening phone call. Those are very rare but when it happens, as in this case, it was necessary for us to do something."

Bird declined to discuss specifics about the calls to Trimble’s office, except to say they were "definitely threats and definitely intimidation."

The last call was the only one where the caller was actually recorded. The rest of the calls were direct calls to Trimble.

 

Search warrant executed

Bird said police went to Hall’s grandmother’s residence in Williamsburg on Tuesday to execute a search warrant and an arrest warrant for Hall and Reeves.

While there, Bird said he asked Hall if he knew where Reeves was at.

"He said he hadn’t seen her in months," Bird said. "I told him we had felony warrants for her as well. Again, he said he hadn’t seen her in months. When we started searching the house, she was hiding in the closet."

Bird said this led authorities to also charge Hall with second-degree hindering prosecution or apprehension.

Williamsburg police seized a black Apple I-Pad, two black HP laptop computers and a HP copier from inside the residence, according to court documents.

In addition, they seized 23 .380 caliber shells and a Smith and Wesson BodyGuard .380 black handgun with clip from Hall’s vehicle, according to court records.

Is there any chance Hall or Reeves computers or cell phones were spoofed too in an effort to make it appear as if they made the calls?

"I don’t think so, but that is the purpose of seizing the cell phones and the computers," Bird said. "We will forward those cell phones and computers to probably the attorney general’s cyber crimes unit for forensic analysis and they will analyze them and we will know for sure but I doubt it."

 

Prosecutor recusing

Trimble said Thursday afternoon that he plans to recuse himself as the prosecutor in both cases.

An Aug. 6 trial date is set in the murder solicitation case, but the trial will likely be postponed because of the need for a special prosecutor in the case.

Trimble said that the law probably requires him to recuse himself as the prosecutor in both cases but even it if doesn’t he would be recusing any way.

"I want to avoid any appearance that this is a personal vendetta," Trimble said. "Criminal cases need to be tried on the facts, not on personality. Any prosecutor, who becomes personally involved in a case needs to recuse."

After Trimble writes a letter to the Kentucky Attorney General recusing himself, then the Attorney General’s Office will then contact other area prosecutors and find one to handle the case.

As a general rule, another commonwealth’s attorney in the area is chosen so that they will not have to travel as far for court hearings.

 

Additional charges unlikely

Bird said that the investigation is ongoing but at this point he doesn’t anticipate further charges.

"The bottom line is don’t try to intimidate the commonwealth attorney. It’s a bad idea," Bird added.

"It’s also a bad idea to think that you can spoof someone and there not be a record of it. There are records of it for those spoofers out there. If you spoof with the intent to do harm to someone just be aware that the records are there. We can get them."

 

Case so far

According to his indictment, on Jan. 10, 2013, Hall allegedly advertised on the popular website Topix that he would pay someone $5,000 cash for the murder of Melissa Jones Davis and the concealment of her body.

During an April 29 hearing, Circuit Judge Paul Winchester advised attorneys for both sides that on April 23, a young lady rang his doorbell and handed him an eight-page stack of documents telling him, "that is for your information."

Winchester said that the woman then left.

"I really believe this was from Mr. Hall," Winchester said during the April 29 hearing noting that he didn’t see Hall there. "This document doesn’t relate to any other case I have had."

The first page was a story from a website that discussed how police broke down the door of an Evansville, Indiana, woman after someone used her wireless router to post anonymous online threats on the website Topix.com.

The other seven pages dealt with a federal court decision dealing with Internet IP addresses.

In Hall’s case, Kentucky State Police Trooper Jay Sowders, from Post 10 in Harlan, began the investigation when troopers were contacted by Jones about the post that appeared on the popular Topix website on Jan. 10, 2013.

The post, which was made by an individual who identified him/herself as, "serious as a heart attack," offered the money in exchange for the murder of Jones and concealment of her body.

According to the arrest warrant, the individual, whom police say was Hall, offered to pay half of the money up front and the other half, "once the job is complete."

At a preliminary hearing last year, KSP Detective Richie Baxter testified that a search warrant was issued for the IP (internet protocol) address of the individual who posted the message. The IP address came back to a Time Warner Internet account owned by Hall.

Also during the April 29 hearing, Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble provided the court with a picture of a message written on his office window that said, "SCR 3.130(A) – T.H."

The "SCR 3.130" reference left Trimble’s office window coincides with a Kentucky Supreme Court Rule regarding Kentucky rules of professional conduct and the practice of law, according to the Kentucky Bar Association’s website.

During a May 6 hearing, Winchester agreed to restrict Hall to home incarceration and ordered him to wear an ankle-monitoring device.

During a June 16 hearing, Winchester ordered Hall’s bond conditions changed again.

The representative of the monitoring service told Winchester that Hall had left home recently and for about 15 minutes was nowhere to be found, but it was determined that he went to the circuit clerk’s office without permission.

"He needs prior approval for everything. He should not have come here," Winchester noted.

Hall was still being required to wear an ankle-monitoring device but the type of equipment was changed.

Instead of a monitoring device that required Hall to carry a box when he left his residence, Hall had a self-contained system that had to periodically be recharged.

The monitoring company representative said this would simply require Hall to sit in one place for about an hour while the system is plugged in and recharged.

Winchester also warned that failure to charge the device could be considered a violation of Hall’s bond conditions and lead to his bond being revoked.

Trimble filed a motion Wednesday to have Hall’s bond in the murder solicitation case set aside because of his new arrest.

A hearing in the case has been scheduled for Monday morning at 9 a.m. in Whitley Circuit Court.