Jessie Dotson has been convicted of killing seven people in Memphis, Tennessee, in two separate events 14 years apart. In 1994, at 19, he pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of a man named Hallie Ralph Cox and was sent to prison for 18 years. He was paroled after about 14 years. Within months of his release, on March 2, 2008, six people were killed in a small rented house on Lester Street in the Binghampton area of Memphis: his younger brother, Cecil Dotson; Cecil's fiancée, Marissa Williams; two friends, Hollis Seals and Shindri Roberson; and Cecil's sons Cemario, 4, and Cecil II, 2. Three other children survived, and were alone in the house for about 40 hours before anyone found them.
The 9-year-old survivor named his uncle. Dotson confessed to police and then to his mother, and in October 2010 a jury convicted him of six counts of premeditated first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder and sentenced him to death six times. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed in 2014. Dotson has since said that he hid under a bed while unknown attackers carried out the killings, that his confession was coerced, and that his brother's gang troubles explain what happened. A federal habeas corpus petition making those claims was filed in 2024. He remains on Tennessee's death row.
What is known of Dotson's early life comes mainly from the evidence his lawyers presented when the jury was deciding his sentence. A mitigation specialist, Glori Shettles, told the jury that his parents had married young, his mother at 15 and his father at 19, and that his father was physically abusive toward his mother in front of the children. When Dotson was about six, his mother left with the children and for months had no contact with his father. The family moved often and had little money.
Shettles described a boy with a learning disability, frequent absences and disciplinary problems, and counseling sessions his mother often did not attend. He failed fourth grade twice and was promoted anyway. He was bullied over his clothes; "the kids didn't have clothes," she said, and they "were picked on." She said he and his brother Cecil stole money from their grandmother's house to buy food and were punished severely for it, and that he was put out of his grandmother's home for stealing. He attended ten schools and left at 16 while still in the eighth grade. By 15 he had come before the juvenile court, and on cross-examination Shettles agreed that he had more than one juvenile adjudication. The only legitimate job she found in his history was work as a security guard at 18.
In 1994 Dotson was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Hallie Ralph Cox. Police said Dotson shot Cox and took 20 dollars from his body, WMC Action News 5 reported in March 2008. The Associated Press later described it as the killing of a man during a drug deal. Dotson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder under a plea agreement and was sentenced to 18 years. The Tennessee Supreme Court's 2014 opinion records that he was 19 when he entered the plea. Nothing more about Cox was reported, and the published accounts do not give the exact dates of the killing, the arrest or the plea.
WMC reported in 2008 that Dotson became eligible for parole after serving about 30 percent of his sentence, roughly five and a half years, but was not granted parole for 13 years. His parole conditions required regular reporting to a parole officer and warned that he would serve the rest of his sentence if he was caught with a weapon or drugs or took part in other crimes. Shettles told the 2010 jury that he had received write-ups for misconduct in prison, including violence, but had "thrived" in a behavior modification program, and that he was paroled after about 14 years. His mother and stepfather visited him once during those years. Shettles also said he had an ongoing relationship with his son.
The sources differ on when he came home. The Tennessee Supreme Court's opinion says he was released in August 2007, and AP reports from 2010 said he had been out for about seven months before the killings. AP reports in March 2008 said he had been released in January. The opinion says that after his release he lived with his sister Nicole at Goodwill Village in Memphis and worked as a painter with their father, Jessie Dotson Sr. Nicole Dotson testified that he held a grudge against the family because they had not visited him in prison.
Cecil Dotson was 30. He rented a small brick house at 722 Lester Street, where he lived with Marissa Williams and his children, and he did maintenance and drywall work. He was a member of the Gangster Disciples, and according to evidence at trial he had recently tried to leave the gang; a relative testified that he told her he was leaving and feared retaliation. The landlord told reporters in 2008 that the tenants had been reliable.
Marissa Williams, Cecil's fiancée, was 27 according to the court record (early reports said 26). She was the mother of four of his children. At her funeral, at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church on March 14, 2008, nearly 300 people came. A friend since seventh grade, Aneesah Miller, said she "just made you laugh" and was "like a sister." Another friend, Ameenah Nicholson, described her as outgoing and said she was the person who cheered friends up when they were at their lowest.
Hollis Seals was 33. His aunt, Annette Mallory, told the jury in 2010 that he had been like a younger brother to her and that he had three children whom he loved and supported.
Shindri Roberson was Seals's girlfriend. The court record and 2010 reports give her age as 22; reports in March 2008 gave it as 20 or 25. Family and friends called her "Moosey." Hundreds of people attended her memorial service and burial on March 11, 2008. Her cousin Vanessa Jones described her as sweet, polite, friendly, loyal and honest. "She was my girl," Jones said.
Cemario Dotson was 4 and Cecil Dotson II was 2. Both were Cecil's sons; Cemario was also Marissa Williams's son, and Cecil II was the son of another woman, identified in the court record as Ms. Smith. Three more of Cecil's children lived in the house: a boy of 9, a boy of 5 and a girl two months old. All three survived.
The Tennessee Supreme Court's opinion gives the sequence of the last evening. On Saturday, March 1, Jessie Dotson, his father and a friend, William Waddell, gathered at Cecil's house to watch a basketball game, but the television could not pick up the broadcast. Jessie Dotson Sr. left at about 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. and never saw Cecil alive again. Waddell left at about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. Both men later said they had seen a gun at the house that evening, and other testimony showed that Jessie Dotson had a blue revolver; his sister said he carried one.
Keaira Jones, at whose home Dotson spent that night, testified that he and Cecil came by her home at about 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. and appeared to be intoxicated. In his first account to police, Dotson said that he, Cecil and Seals went to the apartment of Willie Boyd Hill, bought marijuana at the Kimball Cabana Apartments and made several other stops. Jones said Dotson came back between 3:00 and 4:30 a.m. and was in her bed when she got home at about 5:00 a.m. She later noticed bleach spots on the bathroom rug and a bleach bottle out of its usual place, and said she had heard water running in the bathroom that night.
Phone records presented at trial showed that calls to Cecil's phone at 1:30 and 1:37 a.m. went unanswered.
On Sunday, March 2, Jessie Dotson Sr. could not reach his son for work, and Waddell and Ms. Smith could not reach Cecil. Neighbors later told reporters they had heard gunshots at different times over the weekend but had not called the police, because gunfire was common in the area. On Monday, March 3, Dotson rode to work with his father; the job stopped at 11:00 a.m. because of rain. Keaira Jones said he seemed "kind of upset and shaking" that day.
At about 3:00 p.m. that Monday, Ms. Smith went to the Lester Street house, found the door partly open and got no answer. She called the police in the early evening. Officer Randall Davis was the first to go inside. He found the four adults dead, and then the children. The two younger boys, Cemario and Cecil II, had been killed. The three other children were alive, and firefighters and paramedics took them to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital. The surviving children had been alone in the house for about 40 hours, according to CBS News and The Commercial Appeal.
Sergeant Anthony Mullins of the Memphis Police Department led the processing of the house and testified at trial as an expert in crime scene investigation and bloodstain analysis. He concluded that the scene had been staged: the bodies had been moved, shell casings had been gathered into a bag and handles had been removed from the knives. Two handguns had been used, a 9mm and a .380, and neither was ever found. Investigators also said drugs had been left at the scene. Officers recovered a shotgun, knife blades and broken boards. Mullins testified that the weapons came from inside the house.
A police lieutenant called it a sensitive investigation, and said little in public. The Associated Press described it as the worst single shooting in Memphis in at least 33 years.
The surviving children were kept under police protection at the hospital from March 3 through March 8, and no family members had contact with them in that period.
On March 4 two sergeants interviewed Jessie Dotson at the police station. He was not under arrest and was treated as a possible witness. He described his movements on March 1 and 2 and told the officers that Cecil had trouble with the Gangster Disciples: he said gang members, Willie Boyd Hill among them, had written Cecil up for calling the police on a fellow member. Police began looking into gang involvement. They spoke to a confidential informant, Cedric Atkins, and to others, and received reports that Cecil owed money to a drug dealer. Hill later testified about the gang's internal discipline and denied that he or his associates had ordered any killing.
Over March 4 and 5, Gangster Disciples members entered the home of Dotson's mother, Priscilla Shaw, the opinion records, and the family was moved to a safe house under police protection. On the way, according to the court's account, Dotson pointed a gun at his own head before an officer persuaded him to let police in. At trial Dotson said he had tried to take his own life after his first interview.
On March 7 a nurse told police that the 9-year-old was awake and rational. In an interview with Lieutenant Mason and staff from the Child Advocacy Center, the boy said that "Uncle Junior" was responsible. Formal forensic interviews of the children followed on August 13, 2008.
Police arrested Dotson the same day. He was read his rights and signed a written waiver. In a first session with Lieutenant Mason and another sergeant he repeated his earlier account. Then Deputy Director Toney Armstrong came into the room and played the recording of the 9-year-old's identification.
According to the Tennessee Supreme Court's summary of the evidence, Dotson then told Armstrong that he and Cecil had gone out to get a gun, that they argued and kept arguing on the drive back, and that at the house Cecil reached for a shotgun and Dotson began shooting. He said he had then turned on the children with knives from the kitchen drawer, to "get rid" of them because they had seen him. "The kids saw me," he was reported to have told detectives. When Armstrong began asking detailed questions about the scene, Dotson asked for a lawyer and the questioning stopped.
Early on March 8, at Dotson's request, police brought his mother to the station. In a private conversation he told her that he "did it," and that Cecil had been arguing and "just talking and swinging" a gun. He also told her he had ridden away from the house on a child's bicycle.
Mullins testified at trial that the interview had not been recorded by police, transcribed or typed up, and that investigators relied on officers' supplemental reports. The A&E series The First 48 was filming with the Memphis Police Department at the time, and portions of Dotson's statement to Armstrong were broadcast in an episode on July 15, 2008. Mullins said the confession matched the scene.
On Saturday, March 8, 2008, Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin announced the arrest. Dotson, then 33, was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police said the killings grew out of a fight between the brothers, and that Dotson had then killed the others to eliminate witnesses. "He tried to kill everyone in the house. He thought everyone in the house was dead," the homicide lieutenant Joe Scott said. Godwin said investigators had first suspected gang retaliation. "I know the fear that gripped this community," he said. "I think we all felt it." The arrest warrant affidavit said that a surviving child had implicated Dotson and that he had made an oral admission.
The funerals were held that week. Shindri Roberson was buried on March 11. Marissa Williams and Cemario were mourned at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church on March 14. WMC reported that Cecil, Cecil II and Hollis Seals were to be buried that Saturday.
On December 4, 2008, a Shelby County grand jury indicted Dotson on the six murder counts, the three attempted-murder counts and a charge of illegally possessing a handgun. District Attorney General Bill Gibbons said his office had identified seven factors that made the case eligible for the death penalty, including mass murder, the killing of children under 12, a prior conviction for a violent crime and killings that were especially cruel. Dotson's lawyer, Gerald Skahan, said the defense had not yet seen the evidence.
In July 2010, before trial, Judge James C. Beasley Jr. ruled that prosecutors could not show the jury the taped confession broadcast on The First 48. He said he was uncomfortable that many hours of footage of the interrogation, which might have helped the defense, were no longer available, and that the tape was not controlled by the police or prosecutors. "It's in the control of Hollywood," he said. Skahan had argued that the show's recorded interviews with gang members might support the defense theory that the killings were retaliation over a drug debt, and that those recordings were also unavailable. The officers could still testify about what Dotson had told them. "We've been doing that for centuries in our system without the backup of a television show," Beasley said.
Because of the intense local coverage, the jury was chosen in Nashville and brought to Memphis, where the jurors were sequestered. Sixteen were selected, including four alternates; the 12 who decided the case were nine women and three men. Opening statements were given on Monday, September 27, 2010. Dotson pleaded not guilty.
The prosecutor, Ray Lepone, told the jury that Dotson shot his brother during an argument and then attacked everyone else in the house, and that he did it because he was not going back to prison. "He wasn't going back to jail, ladies and gentlemen," Lepone said. He said Dotson's own mother would testify that he had confessed.
For the defense, Marty McAfee said the killings were a gang hit. He told the jury that Cecil had ties to the Gangster Disciples, had fallen out with a member and called the police to that man's house, and had taken 300,000 dollars from a gang leader. He said no DNA connected Dotson to the scene and that police had found unidentified fingerprints and hair. He also criticized the police for working with The First 48, saying that detectives were eager to close the case for the cameras. "This kind of attention corrupts, it influences, it interferes with good solid police work," he said.
The first witnesses were the officers, firefighters and paramedics who went into the house on March 3. Mullins was on the stand for more than three days. Under cross-examination he agreed that Dotson's DNA had not been found on any item collected at the scene, and that no blood from anyone other than the victims had been found. Unknown male DNA was found on the bicycle Dotson had admitted riding away, but no blood from the victims. Testing of Dotson's clothing found only his own blood. Mitochondrial DNA testing excluded Dotson as the source of a hair found on Shindri Roberson, and a hair found on Cemario could have come from Marissa Williams or her children. An FBI firearms examiner found that the .380 casings had all come from one gun and the 9mm casings from another, but could not say whether there had been one shooter or more. Mullins said the hair evidence could have been left at other times, because Dotson often visited the house, and that the scene fit Dotson's confession better than a gang killing.
Dotson's mother, Priscilla Shaw, testified that he had confessed to her. His sister Nicole testified about his time living with her and said he had stayed away from her apartment until Sunday evening. Both surviving boys testified, the older one by then in fifth grade and the younger one 8. "Those kids know who stabbed them," Lepone said later.
The defense called Cedric Atkins, who said Cecil had told him about a week and a half before the killings that he owed about 300,000 dollars to "the mob," which Atkins described as linked to a gang. Markel Vester, a former Gangster Disciples member, said he knew Cecil from the gang and had spoken to him by phone two or three weeks before the killings. A phone company witness said a call from Cecil's phone had gone to Vester's number at about 12:38 a.m. A police sergeant testified about what Waddell had told him on March 4 about the gang. Dr. Nancy Aldridge, an expert in forensic interviews of children, criticized how the surviving boys had been questioned and said their memories might have been contaminated, though she conceded that she did not know whether the identification was wrong.
Dotson took the stand on the twelfth day of the trial. He said he had spent the day at his brother's house and had volunteered to make up a bed so two guests could stay the night. When he heard gunshots, he said, he hid under a bed in the master bedroom. When the noise stopped he went to the front of the house, believed everyone was dead and left on a bicycle. He said he threw up and later cleaned himself with bleach. He said he never called the police because of his gang ties and fear for his own life. "If I called the police, I'd be just like my brother," he said. He denied killing anyone.
He said the police had questioned him for hours, yelled at him, pounded the table and threatened to let other inmates hurt him. "So yes, I confessed," he said. He asked jurors to see the whole recording of the interview. On cross-examination Lepone pressed him on why he had never called the police or told his family, and Dotson agreed that he had lied to his family about the last time he saw his brother, and that he had told his mother he killed the others because they had seen him. Beasley barred both sides from mentioning his prior murder conviction while he testified.
On Monday, October 11, 2010, after more than two weeks of testimony, the jury found Dotson guilty of six counts of premeditated first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder. AP reported that jurors deliberated less than two hours. Skahan said afterward that the mother's testimony about the confession had probably weighed heavily. "I think it hurt him a lot," he said.
The penalty hearing began the next day. The parties stipulated that Dotson had a prior conviction for second-degree murder, a violent felony, and the State showed the jury three photographs it had not seen before. Ida Anderson, Marissa Williams's mother and Cemario's grandmother, whose identity had been kept from the public during the trial, testified that she had lost her job, that the family was in counseling and that she was now helping to raise the surviving children. "At this point in my life, I didn't expect to be raising children, but they are a joy," she said. Annette Mallory spoke about Hollis Seals.
Shettles presented the defense's mitigation evidence about his childhood. "A prior convicted murderer who's in society for five months kills six more people, including children," Lepone told the jury. "If not this case, what case?" McAfee asked for life without parole. "With that, he never walks free again, and you've taken all he's got left," he said.
On Tuesday, October 12, 2010, after again deliberating less than two hours, the jury chose death on each of the six murder counts over life without parole or life with the possibility of parole. Dotson showed little reaction and appeared to nod as the sentences were read. Relatives of the children bowed their heads. District Attorney General Gibbons said the system had worked. Beasley set an execution date of March 2, 2012, which appeals were expected to delay. On the attempted-murder counts, at a separate hearing that AP reported was set for November 12, the court classified Dotson as a Range II multiple offender and imposed 40 years on each count, to run consecutively to one another and to the death sentences.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences. On September 30, 2014, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed them unanimously in State v. Dotson, 450 S.W.3d 1, in an opinion by Justice Cornelia A. Clark; Justices William C. Koch Jr. and Sharon G. Lee wrote separately in a concurrence. The court took up five issues and rejected each. It held that admitting Dotson's custodial statements was not plain error; that testimony about his request for a lawyer did not deny him a fair trial or due process; that testimony about a surviving child's statements to other people did not violate his right to confront witnesses; that testimony about his history of imprisonment did not deny him a fair trial; and that a pathologist could testify about autopsies performed by a colleague without violating the confrontation right. In the review required in every Tennessee death case, the court found that the sentences were not arbitrary, that the evidence supported the aggravating circumstances and outweighed the mitigation, and that the sentences were not excessive or disproportionate. WMC reported that the court called the killings some of the most horrendous ever committed in Tennessee.
Dotson then sought post-conviction relief in Shelby County, arguing that his trial lawyers had been ineffective. Represented by the state Office of the Post-Conviction Defender, he asked for public money to hire four experts: two psychiatric or neurological experts to examine possible mental health defenses and mitigation; Dr. James S. Walker, a neuropsychologist whom trial counsel had retained but not called; and Dr. Richard A. Leo, an expert on false confessions whom trial counsel had also consulted. The post-conviction judge approved all four requests. Under the Tennessee Supreme Court's Rule 13, which governs such payments, the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Chief Justice cut the rate for one expert and refused approval for the other three. Dotson went ahead under protest.
At a hearing on October 1 to 4, 2018, at which Dotson did not testify, trial counsel explained their choices. A psychologist they consulted could not support a mental health defense. Walker found Dotson competent, saw no viable insanity defense and described antisocial personality traits, which counsel feared would hurt more than help. Leo had assessed the confessions, but counsel had succeeded in keeping the First 48 recording out of the trial and feared his testimony would open the door to it. The post-conviction court accepted that these were strategic decisions and denied relief in a 109-page order. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on March 23, 2022.
On July 7, 2023, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed again, in Dotson v. State, 673 S.W.3d 204, in an opinion by Justice Sharon G. Lee; Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins, who had been Chief Justice when the funding was refused, did not take part. The court held that the Rule 13 approval process was an administrative funding decision, constitutional as applied, that Dotson had no protected property interest in the limited funds, and that he had received a full and fair post-conviction hearing.
On January 26, 2024, lawyers from the Federal Public Defender's office filed, over the signature of Kelley Henry, a 249-page petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, in the case Dotson v. Pounds (named for the Riverbend warden). It asks the court to declare the convictions and sentences unconstitutional, to hold an evidentiary hearing and to vacate them. It raises 50 claims.
The petition says Dotson is innocent and that no DNA, hair, fiber, footprint or other physical evidence links him to the scene. It argues that the killings were a gang "blackout," an order to kill a target's whole family, carried out because Cecil had crossed several members of the Gangster Disciples, and that police and prosecutors ignored or withheld evidence pointing that way, including an FBI view that the crime looked cartel-related.
It alleges that the confession was false and coerced. According to the petition, Dotson was questioned for about seven hours with an ankle cuffed to a chair, was short of sleep and food, said repeatedly that he was innocent and asked to remain silent; officers threatened to arrest his mother and sister, threatened that he would be harmed in jail, falsely told him his footprints in blood had been found at the scene and played the child's recorded identification to him. It says police then told his mother he had confessed before sending her in to see him, and that the details of his statement did not match the physical evidence.
The petition also challenges the child's identification. It says the 9-year-old was heavily medicated and injured when he named his uncle, that he had named two other people in earlier interviews, that an officer suggested the name to him, and that reports from a forensic interviewer, an FBI expert and the boy's treating psychologist questioning his readiness or the reliability of his memory were never given to the defense. It argues that trial counsel failed to obtain a May 2008 neuropsychological evaluation showing serious memory problems. "The District Attorney General had those records, but counsel did not request them," the petition says, as quoted by The Commercial Appeal.
Other claims allege that raw footage held by The First 48 and police crime-scene video were lost or never disclosed, that the show's presence pressured the police, that Dotson has an intellectual disability and neurocognitive deficits that bar his execution, and that he received ineffective assistance from his trial lawyers on 39 separate points. No response from prosecutors was reported in the coverage found.
Dotson is on Tennessee's death row. The Tennessee Department of Correction's list of death row offenders, updated October 5, 2026, includes him (offender number 241710), with an offense date of March 2, 2008. Reports in 2024 said he was held at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. No execution date has been set for him. He was not among the prisoners given execution dates for 2026 when the Tennessee Supreme Court set them in October 2025, and no later order naming him was found. No ruling on the federal petition was found in the sources available when his status was checked on October 19, 2026.
Proven and final: the 1994 second-degree murder of Hallie Ralph Cox, by Dotson's guilty plea.
Proven by jury verdict and affirmed on direct appeal: the six murders and three attempted murders on Lester Street. State post-conviction relief has been denied. The federal habeas case was pending at the latest report found.
Disputed by Dotson: his guilt of the 2008 killings. The prosecution's case rested on the 9-year-old's identification and the 5-year-old's testimony, on Dotson's statements to police and to his mother, on his admission that he had been in the house and ridden away on the bicycle, and on Mullins's view that the scene fit his confession. The defense pointed to the lack of his DNA on any evidence, the unidentified hair, fingerprints and DNA, the unrecovered guns, Cecil's gang troubles and debts, the conditions of the interrogation and the questioning of the children. The jury rejected the defense, and the courts have so far upheld the verdicts.
Allegations not yet tested in court: the claims in the 2024 federal petition, including coercion, withheld evidence about the child's memory, the FBI's view and gang involvement, and an intellectual disability claim.
Details that vary between sources: the ages of Shindri Roberson (20, 22 or 25) and Marissa Williams (26 or 27); the age given for Cemario in one funeral report (2, against 4 in the court record and other reports); and when Dotson was released (August 2007 according to the Tennessee Supreme Court and seven months before the killings according to AP in 2010, against January 2008 in AP reports of March 2008).
December 19, 1974: Jessie Dotson is born (TDOC).
About age six: his mother leaves his abusive father, taking the children.
By age 15: first juvenile court cases.
1994: at 19, pleads guilty to the second-degree murder of Hallie Ralph Cox; sentenced to 18 years.
After about 14 years: paroled (August 2007 per the Tennessee Supreme Court; January 2008 per AP).
March 1, 2008: an evening gathering at Cecil Dotson's house at 722 Lester Street.
March 2, 2008: six people are killed and three children are left injured.
March 3, 2008: the scene is found in the early evening; the survivors are taken to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital.
March 4, 2008: Dotson is interviewed as a witness and points police to Cecil's gang problems.
March 7, 2008: the 9-year-old names "Uncle Junior"; Dotson is arrested and confesses to Deputy Director Armstrong.
March 8, 2008: he tells his mother he "did it"; police announce the charges.
March 11 and 14, 2008: services for Shindri Roberson, and for Marissa Williams and Cemario; the other victims are buried the same week.
July 15, 2008: The First 48 broadcasts part of the confession.
December 4, 2008: indicted; prosecutors announce they will seek death.
July 2010: Judge Beasley excludes the televised confession tape.
September 27, 2010: trial opens before a jury chosen in Nashville.
October 2010: Dotson testifies that he hid under a bed.
October 11, 2010: convicted on all nine counts.
October 12, 2010: sentenced to death six times; execution date set for March 2, 2012, later stayed by appeals.
November 2010: 40 years on each attempted-murder count, consecutive.
September 30, 2014: Tennessee Supreme Court affirms (State v. Dotson).
October 1 to 4, 2018: post-conviction hearing.
March 23, 2022: Court of Criminal Appeals affirms the denial of post-conviction relief.
July 7, 2023: Tennessee Supreme Court affirms (Dotson v. State).
January 26, 2024: federal habeas petition filed in the Western District of Tennessee.
October 5, 2026: still listed on Tennessee's death row.
October 19, 2026: no execution date set; no federal ruling found.