A local man is facing assault charges after attacking his sister’s alleged killer in court last week.
Clay Andrew Bain, 23, was charged with disrupting a meeting or procession and two counts of assault on March 26. According to Sheriff Patrick Ray, Bain was charged after he made verbal threats and physically assaulted 42-year-old Anthony Tyrone Crews, the man accused of killing Bain’s sister, Ashley Bain, 28, who was found stabbed to death in the Cookeville Highway home she shared with Crews on Feb. 5.
The sheriff said that Bain hit Crews on the head in DeKalb County General Sessions Court Thursday. He was charged with an additional count of assault after injuring Sergeant Brian Williams’ left hand while the officer was attempting to prevent Bain from gaining access to Crews.
Witnesses said the alleged assault took place after a preliminary hearing concerning the case, in which Crews is charged with second-degree murder. Bain reportedly stood and walked toward the door of the courtroom, and when Judge Bratten H. Cook II asked him to return to his seat, he instead made his way to the defendant’s seat and struck the handcuffed Crews in the head with his fist. Crews stood up, but was quickly restrained and both he and Bain were removed from the courtroom by officers.
Bain’s total bond is $4,500 and he will appear in court on April 9.
Meanwhile, the hearing resulted in the case being bound over to the grand jury, and the judge raised Crews’ bond, originally set at $250,000, then increased to one million dollars at a Feb. 12 hearing, to two million dollars.
Two people were called to testify by Assistant District Attorney General Greg Strong, one a clerk at a convenience store near Crews’ residence who told the court that he often came bought beer at the business "two or three times a day," and had purchased beer from her on the day Bain was killed.
The other witness, TBI Special Agent and Criminal Investigator Lance Walker, said surveillance video from the store recorded Crews buying beer around 1 p.m. on the day of the murder. An empty beer bottle and a bloody knife believed to be the murder weapon were found in a bag from the store at the crime scene.
He said the investigative team procured a receipt from the store matched the footage of Crews purchasing two 24-ounce Bud Ice beers and a Steel Reserve. A plastic bag from the store containing a bent knife covered in reddish brown stains and blonde hair thought to belong to the victim was allegedly found next to an empty Steel Reserve bottle in the bedroom where the victim’s body was found. The knife was reportedly sent for testing.
Walker testified that when he arrived at the scene around 3:30 p.m. on the day of the incident he saw that there were reddish-brown stains, assumed to be blood, throughout the home, and the stains lead to the back bedroom where Bain’s body was found. An autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was multiple (at least 15) stab wounds.
The agent said that Crews was in a disheveled state, and smelled strongly of alcohol, was incoherent and repeating himself, and that his shirt, pants, shoes, and hands all had reddish-brown stains that appeared to be blood on them. His clothing was sent for testing, and blood samples were taken from inside the home and sent for analysis.
He testified that Bain’s wallet, was found between two bags of trash in the kitchen. And contained approximately $1,400 in it. Between 1,600 and $1,700 dollars was reportedly found in the bedroom.
Crews, who is represented by Assistant Public Defender Allison Rasbury West, was transported back to a facility in another county, where is being housed for his own safety, after the hearing.
