Woman and her 5-year-old were stalked, kidnapped by ex-boyfriend in TN, feds say
A Tennessee man kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, made her travel across states and fired shots at her and her family, authorities say.
On April 5, a jury found Keatron L. Walls, a 37-year-old from Clarksville, guilty of kidnapping, interstate stalking, and carrying or using a firearm during or in relation to interstate stalking, court documents obtained by McClatchy News show.
It began in November 2016, when the man drove more than 200 miles from Clarksville to DeSoto County, Mississippi, to his ex-girlfriend’s home where she lived with family, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Tennessee.
Walls fired “at least 10 shots from the front yard into the home’s living room window,” authorities said in the release, hitting four of the seven people inside the house — including one who lost his leg due to the injury.
Prosecutors said Walls then fled the area before law enforcement arrived, with no one seeing who fired the shots.
A year and a half later, in April 2018, Walls is accused of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend, her 5-year-old daughter and her boyfriend at gunpoint from their home in Memphis, authorities said. After a short detour to a nearby location and back, Walls forced the woman to lock her daughter inside the apartment by herself before making her drive him and her boyfriend to Mississippi, according to the news release.
“During the drive, Walls threatened to kill both victims and hit them with one of his two pistols,” the U.S. attorney said in the release.
They drove to Walls’ relatives house, where the man made his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend get out of the car and onto their knees before he fired three gunshots “past their heads,” authorities said.
He then made the couple drive back to Tennessee where deputies were able to intercept the vehicle and arrest Walls. He was found with a gun that matched evidence left behind at the 2016 shooting, prosecutors said.
“The cooperative efforts among federal and state partners made it possible to bring a violent stalker and kidnapper to justice,” Douglas M. Korneski, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Memphis Field Office, said according to the release.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 2022, and authorities said Walls faces up to life in prison without parole.
Walls’ defense attorney, Alexander Wharton, told McClatchy News that while they don’t believe a life sentence would be appropriate, they believe new information to be offered in the hearing will allow the court to “impose a sentence that is fair and reasonable in light of the evidence before it.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Woman and her 5-year-old were stalked, kidnapped by ex-boyfriend in TN, feds say."
