By Bob Allen
A March 16 deadline for a former Union University student charged with murdering his fiancée on campus in February 2014 to accept a plea bargain has been extended until April 27 because of a backlog in evidence at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Charles Pittman, charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in the death of 21-year-old Olivia Greenlee, was arraigned Nov. 10 on charges formally handed down a week before by a grand jury. He was given a four-month window to change his plea to guilty before the case goes to trial May 12-14.
According to the Jackson Sun, ballistics testing has been completed and is under peer review, but results for forensic testing of seized computers, DNA and blood-spatter analysis are still outstanding.
Pittman’s lawyer, Public Defender George Googe, told the newspaper the backlog could eventually postpone the trial, because the three weeks between the plea cutoff and trial date might not be enough time for the defense to review the state’s evidence.
Greenlee, a 21-year-old music education major, was found dead from a gunshot wound in her 2001 Toyota Corolla on the parking lot behind Luther Hall at the edge of campus on the morning of Feb. 12, 2014.
Pittman, a Christian ministry major and former member of the golf team at the Tennessee Baptist Convention-affiliated university, initially reported Greentree as missing, but came under suspicion when police asked him to turn over the clothes he wore on their date the night before and the color of what he gave them didn’t match what he was seen wearing on the restaurant security video.
When confronted, Pittman allegedly told investigators that he needed to tell the truth. He said after dinner he and Greenlee drove to Luther Hall and that while sitting in the car with her he provided her with a 9mm handgun and she shot herself in the head.
Pittman claimed he panicked and fled the scene because he didn’t want people to think he was responsible or that his fiancée was “a psychotic person who was planning on killing herself.”
Investigators said physical evidence at the scene suggests that Pittman pulled the trigger and then staged the scene to make it look like a suicide. Pittman provided police with the clothing seen on the video, but it had been laundered and bleached.
Pittman has been held in jail without bond for 13 months.
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Union University student charged with murder
Union University murder suspect gets mental evaluation
Court date set in murder of Union University student
Union University murder case headed to grand jury
Trial date set for Union University murder suspect
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