Inset left to right: Jacob Hitchcock and Joshua Hitchcock (Carter County Sheriff”s Office) and Bill Hitchcock (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation). Background: The area where Bill Hitchcock was killed by his sons in Elizabethton, Tenn. (Google Maps).
Two Tennessee brothers will spend several decades behind bars for killing their father over a real estate inheritance dispute.
In May, a Carter County jury found Jacob Alexander Hitchcock, 33, and Joshua Elliott Hitchcock, 27, guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The charges stem from the April 2023 fatal shooting of their father, William “Bill” Hitchcock, Jr., 63.
The elder sibling was also found guilty of tampering with evidence.
On Wednesday, the pair were handed life sentences for the murder conviction, with an additional 15 years in prison for the conspiracy conviction. The tampering conviction carries a three-year sentence.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
On April 1, 2023, Bill Hitchcock’s body was found by a group of fishermen in the driveway of his home on Old Stoney Creek Road in Elizabethton – a small city some 15 minutes due east of Johnson City.
The fishermen, who were working on the Watauga River, called out to ask if anyone needed help. When they heard no response, they called 911. Deputies found evidence of a gunshot when they arrived, according to the Carter County Sheriff’s Office.
At the time of the arrests, law enforcement declined to reveal details or evidence linking the brothers to their father’s demise.
That story came out during the seven-day trial.
While prosecutors accused the brothers of a murder conspiracy instigated by their desire to stop their father from selling property they were due to inherit, the defendants rejected the state’s narrative.
Joshua Hitchcock admitted to shooting and killing his father but insisted he acted in self-defense, not as part of a conspiracy.
The younger brother said the property dispute was central to the confrontation. That day, he went to his father’s residence to ask him why he had decided to sell the land in question, according to a courtroom report by Johnson City-based CBS and ABC affiliate WJHL.
During the confrontation, the father told his son to leave and reached for a pistol, the defendant told jurors. Joshua Hitchcock said he fired his own gun in response.
“After I had seen him laying on the ground, I went over to him and got on my knees, and I started to cry and asked him why,” Joshua Hitchcock testified. “I was terrified and couldn’t believe the actions that had just taken place.”
Joshua Hitchcock said he failed to report the shooting because he was in denial and feared arrest. He also said he told neither his brother nor his mother about the killing.
On cross-examination, Joshua Hitchcock said he believed his father planned to open a bar with proceeds from the sale of the property.
Jacob Hitchcock did not testify during the trial.
With the shooter accepting responsibility for the homicide, the state pinned the scheme itself on the older sibling.
Prosecutor Dennis Brooks told the jury that Jacob Hitchcock obsessed over the property his father had inherited from a recently deceased relative – and wanted to make sure it stayed in the family.
“He had plans for it,” Brooks said during closing arguments, WJHL reported. “Nothing necessarily wrong with that, is there? Nothing wrong with wanting to inherit your grandparents’ property. Take care of it. What’s wrong is when that then germinates into an obsession.”
During the trial, the prosecutor placed Jacob Hitchcock’s vehicle at a church near his father’s residence. He also told his younger brother about his father’s whereabouts. Both incidents occurred at key times. While Jacob Hitchcock did not testify, he had told investigators he was at the Bible Baptist Church to reminisce about the property.
The state portrayed the property as a compelling motive.
“The obsession about Jacob Hitchcock over that property, the sick mind, the depravity, the greed that his words, him reaching out repeatedly to his brother,” Brooks told the jury.
Then there were the text messages.
Jurors saw the young Hitchcocks discuss using a motorcycle to commit a drive-by shooting against their father. The brother who took the stand had to own up to those words and said they were just venting their anger, but meant nothing by it. On the night his father died, Joshua Hitchcock did, in fact, arrive and leave on a motorcycle.
In the end, the jurors agreed with the state.
The judge overseeing the case ordered the brothers’ sentences to run concurrently, or at the same time. They are both eligible for parole.
