Thompson Guilty in Ballard Slaying

A jury found Khyree Thompson guilty of the 2015 slaying of Reginald Ballard, Friday, in Hamilton County Criminal Court.

The jury in Judge Don Poole’s courtroom found Thompson guilty of First-Degree Felony Murder and Attempted Especially Aggravated Robbery in the February 2015 killing of Ballard at the Cascades Motel.

Prosecutors made the case that Thompson shot Ballard in the chest and neck after plotting with Verronta Page and Tabitha Garrison to rob Ballard of $4,000.

During the four-day trial, Page testified that Ballard sent a photo of $100 bills to Garrison saying that he wanted to spend money on her. The photo of the cash gave the three the idea of robbing the man.

Garrison left a party with Ballard on Feb. 19 and went to the Cascades Motel on Ringgold Road. The prosecution successfully argued that Garrison sent a text to Thompson and Page about having gone to the motel, then led the two men to the room.

Thompson and Page then burst into Ballard’s room where Thompson told Page to get the cash. Page told the court he didn’t take the money and ran out of the room. Page said that Thompson then shot Ballard twice with a 9 mm pistol, once in the neck and once in the chest.

Page and Garrison face separate trials in the case.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.