First defendant in Cobra Bar murders found guilty: 'Nothing short of chilling'

A Davidson County jury on Tuesday returned a guilty verdict on all charges against Horace Palmer Williamson III, one of two men charged with murder in the deaths of a man and woman outside the East Nashville bar The Cobra in August 2018.

Sentencing will begin Wednesday morning. Williamson could face life imprisonment. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The jury found that Williamson, 32, participated in the robbery of a group of four friends in the bar’s parking lot in the early morning of Aug. 17, 2018, that ended in the deaths of Jaime Sarrantonio and Bartley Brandon Teal.

Bartley Teal Sr., Teal's father, said he'd waited five years for that verdict.

"It was heart-wrenching," Teal said. "We were so scared. We didn't know what they were going to come back with. So hopefully we can start some kind of closure for ourselves, for all the victims. For all my son's (and) Jaime's family and friends and such."

Steve Harrington, the surviving male victim in the case, said he was elated at the decision and thanked the District Attorney's Office and Metro Nashville Police Department. He called Sarrantonio and Teal "bright shining lights in this world" and that they "spread a lot of love."

Bartley Teal Sr. remembered his son as a wonderful man, a hard worker and someone who respected others regardless of their background.

"He didn't care what race you were, what background, if you were rich, if you were poor. If you gave him respect, he'd give you respect back," he said.

Prosecutors said that Williamson, while armed with a handgun, did not shoot the rifle that killed Sarrantonio and Teal. The state’s theory is that Demontrey Logsdon, the other defendant in this case who is being tried after Williamson, pulled the trigger while Williamson drove the two away afterwards.

Under Tennessee law, "when one enters into a scheme with another to commit a robbery, all defendants are responsible for the deaths regardless of who actually committed the killing and whether the killing was specifically contemplated by the other," according to Assistant District Attorney Megan King.

Williamson also sexually assaulted Sarrantonio and the surviving female victim during the robbery, prosecutors said.

Video of the crime was played several times throughout the trial, eliciting sniffles from the gallery filled with friends and relatives of the victims. The state spent most of the trial trying to prove that Williamson and Logsdon were the men in that footage, whose faces were covered by hats and bandannas.

During the state's opening statement, King said that the evidence of Williamson's actions before and after the crime fit together "like a puzzle" to prove his guilt. Prosecutors presented several pieces of circumstantial evidence to link Williamson to the killings, including a set of Williamson’s fingerprints on a phone stolen during the robbery, fingerprints on the stolen getaway car, and phone location data that tracked him to gas stations and a fast food restaurant where a debit card stolen from one of the victims was used.

"The actions of these men after committing these cold blooded murders is nothing short of chilling," King said during her closing argument. "Both of these men knew what they did. And what did they do afterwards? They went to McDonald’s and got something to eat."

Sarrantonio, 30 at her death, was a client manager for a Nashville-based software company and part-time assistant for a company promoting unsigned musical artists. Teal, who turned 33 the morning he was killed, was the guitarist and vocalist for Nashville band Terrestrial Radio, which played one of its first gigs at the Cobra. The two met through mutual friends for the first time just hours before their deaths.

In all, Williamson faced 13 charges that included two counts of first-degree felony murder; two counts of first-degree premeditated murder; two counts of aggravated sexual battery; two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping as it relates to the two surviving victims of the robbery; two counts of aggravated robbery as it relates to the robbery of the surviving victims; and two counts of especially aggravated robbery as it relates to Sarrantonio and Teal.

Logsdon will be tried once Williamson’s sentencing concludes.

More:Here's how the state built its case against Horace Williamson

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @EvanMealins.