'Crucial' missing witness delays murder trial

Nov. 8– The alleged eyewitness to the fatal shooting of a Hardin County man failed to show up this morning to testify in the first degree murder trial of Carl Couch.

With a jury already selected, Hardin County Circuit Court Judge Creed McGinley ordered that the absentee witness, Travis Hardy, be arrested for contempt of court and held without bond.

McGinley told jurors only that "there’s a crucial witness that is under subpoena that failed to appear. We have yet to locate that particular witness, despite some pretty good efforts by law enforcement."

Jury members have been told to avoid any media accounts of the trial.

In hopes that Hardy may be found without undue delay, the judge has recessed the trial until 1 p.m.

Couch, who was briefly named to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s "top 10 most wanted" list following the April 2, 2008 shooting, allegedly killed Sammy Gary in the parking lot of T-Bone & Sallie’s, a Bruton Branch convenience store.

Hardy, who goes by the nickname T-Bone, told The Courier then that as he started to close the store the night of the incident, Couch drove up, waved a two-shot derringer and threatened to shoot Gary. When Gary stopped his pickup truck at the intersection in front of the store, Couch pulled up close and shot Gary, 37, once in the chest with the small pistol, he said.

Hardy said Gary’s vehicle rolled slowly into the store’s parking lot, where Gary got out and collapsed on the pavement.

Couch then put the gun close to Gary’s head and said, according to Hardy, "Look inside the barrel, mother (expletive deleted). I told you I was going to shoot you."

Couch then allegedly fired the fatal shot.