Michael Curtis in court on Monday... Photo by Wayne Thomas with the Tullahoma News
The Tullahoma man accused of murdering Kayla Qualls appeared in Coffee County General Sessions Court Monday morning (Dec. 3, 2012).
Michael Curtis informed Judge Jere Ledsinger that he did not have an attorney. “I talked with an attorney but he isn’t here,” Curtis told the judge. The judge appointed Jess Stockwell of the Coffee County Public Defender’s Office to represent Curtis. Curtis accused of killing Qualls Monday Nov. 26 at his residence on General Street in Tullahoma and then placing her body in her SUV and driving it to an area on Spring Creek Road in Franklin County. According to Franklin County Sheriff Tim Fuller Qualls died of blunt force trauma to the head. Curtis was arrested last Wednesday after investigators from the Franklin and Coffee County Sheriff Departments, the Tullahoma Police Department and agents from the TBI conducted a search of his residence. Investigators say that they seized several pieces of evidence from the residence, which was sent to the TBI Crime Lab in Nashville for analysis. After the public defender was named to represent Curtis, he was returned to his cell in the Coffee County Jail where he is being held under a $1 million bond. A preliminary hearing for Curtis will be held January 22.
