Jury decides: Nurse not a killer

Dec. 9– Stoic and unmoving throughout a three-day nationally televised trial on a charge of first degree murder, registered nurse Sharron Chason smiled as she was hugged by family members moments after a Hardin County jury found her not guilty in the death of her volunteer firefighter husband Freddie Chason.

The jury deliberated less than an hour-and-a-half before returning its verdict late this this afternoon.

Hardin County Assistant District Attorney General Ed McDaniel presented around 30 witnesses in a case based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Defense attorney Dan Warlick of Nashville did not put his client on the stand or present any witnesses, but mounted an aggressive cross examination.

He repeatedly contended Sharron Chason was being tried only because she is a healthcare provider.

The prosecution attempted to prove Sharron Chason killed her husband in April 2008 by giving him an oral diabetic medication that caused his blood sugar to fall so low he fell into a coma and suffered brain damage.

He died 11 days after being admitted to a Jackson hospital when life support was disconnected in accordance with an advance directive or living will he had signed.

Testimony from medical experts was able to establish Freddie Chason died of the effects of a diabetic medication for which he had no prescription, but could not prove the manner of his death.

The amount of medication found in his blood upon admission to the hospital was at the low therapeutic level, leading to the determination the 52-year-old instead suffered a rare severe reaction to the drug.

In his closing statement, Warlick termed "offensive" McDaniel’s opening statement to the effect that the pieces of circumstantial evidence about to be presented would all come together with a "fairly strong bond."

"I haven’t seen a case to defend," Warlick said. "We’ve got a lot of innuendo...a hint, a suggestion of something that might have happened. That’s not the way our country works."

In denying a defense motion to acquit the defendant before the prosecution even completed its case, Hardin County Circuit Court Judge Creed McGinley said, "I’m constrained to agree that this is not the strongest case...it’s very tenuous."

(Ed. note: The trial concluded after The Courier’s regular weekly news deadline. See the print edition available tonight at the newspaper’s office for a story on the trial up to that point.)