Terry Alvin Hyatt was convicted in North Carolina of the murders of two women in 1979, and he pleaded guilty in 2005 to the murder of a third woman, killed in 1987. A Buncombe County jury sentenced him to death in 2000 for each of the two 1979 murders. The third case was brought in Mecklenburg County, where he pleaded guilty after DNA evidence led Charlotte police to name him. His three known victims were Harriett Delaney Simmons, Betty Sue McConnell and Jerri Ann Jones.
His childhood, schooling and work are not on record.
The Buncombe County indictment was returned on May 3, 1999. It charged Hyatt in two cases, one for each woman, with first-degree kidnapping, first-degree rape, first-degree murder and robbery. The first case concerned Harriett Delaney Simmons, and the offenses were alleged to have taken place on or about April 15, 1979. The second concerned Betty Sue McConnell, with offenses on or about August 25, 1979.
Both cases were years old when they reached a grand jury. The investigation that led to Hyatt began in 1998, when two men gave Buncombe County sheriff's officers accounts that implicated him. One described the McConnell case. The other, later, described events connected to the Simmons case. Both became important witnesses for the State.
On November 19, 1998, a State Bureau of Investigation agent and a sheriff's detective met Hyatt, then 41 years old. At the sheriff's office they read him his rights and he agreed to talk, but first asked to see his father.
His family later became part of the legal dispute over the interview. His father testified that Hyatt had asked him to get a lawyer. The officers testified that they had not heard such a request, and the state courts accepted their account. His brother contacted a lawyer after Hyatt was taken away, and his girlfriend testified at the hearing on whether his statements could be used. When questioning resumed, Hyatt ended the interview and officers arrested him.
The trial judge refused to suppress his statements. The Supreme Court of North Carolina agreed, holding that his remarks about his father's wishes were not an unambiguous request for a lawyer and that he had validly waived his rights.
Hyatt was tried on both cases together at the January 2000 session of Buncombe County Superior Court. The trial judge consolidated the two cases for trial after finding a common pattern and close timing between the offenses, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina later upheld that decision. On the fifth day of trial Hyatt asked to discharge his appointed lawyers and replace them with retained counsel. The judge refused, reasoning that a change of counsel would require a continuance in a complex capital case.
The State also put before the jury evidence of a separate incident in October 1979 involving a different woman, who survived. Hyatt had pleaded guilty in that matter to kidnapping and robbery. The judge admitted her testimony for limited purposes, to show motive, intent, plan and identity, and told the jurors to consider the two murder cases separately.
The judge refused a request to instruct the jury on second-degree murder, because the evidence supported premeditation and deliberation and Hyatt's defense was a denial.
The jury found him guilty on every charge in both cases. It returned first-degree murder verdicts on two grounds, premeditation and deliberation and the felony murder rule. At the sentencing stage the jury recommended death for the murder of Harriett Delaney Simmons and death for the murder of Betty Sue McConnell. It found four aggravating circumstances for each murder: that the murder was committed during a first-degree rape, during a robbery, and during a first-degree kidnapping, and that it was part of a course of conduct involving other crimes of violence against other people. Thirty-three nonstatutory mitigating circumstances were submitted for each murder; one or more jurors found twelve of them. The jury did not find the statutory mitigating circumstances of age or the catchall. The trial court entered two death sentences and six consecutive life sentences for the offenses other than murder.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina decided State v. Hyatt on June 28, 2002. It rejected each of his claims, found the aggravating circumstances supported by the evidence, held that the death sentences had not been imposed under the influence of passion or prejudice, and held that they were not disproportionate. Its conclusion was that Hyatt "received a fair trial and capital sentencing proceeding, free from prejudicial error." The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in 2003.
Hyatt filed a motion for appropriate relief in the trial court on October 31, 2003, and amended it on December 23, 2003. The court denied it on January 23, 2004, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina denied review. He filed a second motion on April 15, 2005, which was also denied. On July 15, 2005, the state Supreme Court allowed him until September 9, 2005, to file a petition for a writ of certiorari. A petition filed on November 7, 2005, was denied on December 6, 2007.
On December 10, 2007, Hyatt filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the Western District of North Carolina. The district court denied relief but allowed several issues to go forward on appeal. On June 23, 2009, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in Hyatt v. Branker. It rejected his claims that his statements to police should have been suppressed, that the refusal to let him change lawyers during trial violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice, and that the jury should have been instructed on second-degree murder. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on March 29, 2010.
Jerri Ann Jones was 19 when she died in Charlotte in July 1987. Her case stayed open for years without a suspect, and a reward was offered. In 2003 the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's homicide cold case unit reopened it, and DNA evidence led detectives to name Hyatt.
Hyatt was charged in January 2005. At the time he was already on North Carolina's death row for the two 1979 murders. He confessed to killing Jones, and on August 2, 2005, he pleaded guilty to her murder in Mecklenburg County. The sentence imposed on the plea is not on record.
The courts left both Buncombe County death sentences in place, and no later ruling altering them is on record. When Governor Roy Cooper commuted fifteen death sentences on December 31, 2024, Hyatt was not among those named. His present place of custody is not on record beyond the state level, and no Racial Justice Act ruling in his case is on record.
No charge, confession or conviction for any death other than these three is on record. The three women for whom he was convicted are Harriett Delaney Simmons, Betty Sue McConnell and Jerri Ann Jones.
April 15, 1979 (on or about): offenses against Harriett Delaney Simmons.
August 25, 1979 (on or about): offenses against Betty Sue McConnell.
October 1979: separate incident involving a different woman, to which Hyatt later pleaded guilty (kidnapping and robbery).
July 1987: Jerri Ann Jones dies in Charlotte.
1998: two men give sheriff's officers accounts implicating Hyatt; he is questioned and arrested in November.
May 3, 1999: Buncombe County indictment on two sets of charges.
January 2000: capital trial in Buncombe County; convictions on all charges and two death sentences.
June 28, 2002: Supreme Court of North Carolina affirms.
2003: United States Supreme Court denies certiorari; Hyatt files his first motion for appropriate relief on October 31.
January 2005: charged with the Jones murder.
August 2, 2005: pleads guilty to the Jones murder in Mecklenburg County.
December 6, 2007: state Supreme Court denies certiorari on his later petition.
December 10, 2007: federal habeas petition filed.
June 23, 2009: Fourth Circuit affirms denial of habeas relief.
March 29, 2010: United States Supreme Court denies certiorari.
December 31, 2024: Governor Cooper commutes fifteen death sentences; Hyatt is not among them.