David Ivy was sentenced to death by the State of Tennessee for the murder of Lakisha Thomas
According to court documents David Ivy was physically abusive towards his girlfriend Lakisha Thomas. Lakisha Thomas would get a restraining order against Ivy however before police could serve it Ivy would murder Lakisha Thomas
David Ivy would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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| Supervision Status: | INCARCERATED | Assigned Location: | RIVERBEND MAXIMUM SECURITY INSTITUTION |
| Combined Sentence(s) Length: | DEATH | Supervision/Custody Level: | MAXIMUM |
| Sentence Begin Date: | 06/27/2001 | Sentence End Date: |
David Ivy Case
In June of 2000, the defendant, David Ivy, was released from prison and placed on parole. Thereafter, he began dating the victim, LaKisha Thomas.
The relationship was marked by Ivy’s violence against Thomas. For example, Jackie Bland (“Bland”), the victim’s cousin, testified that she once saw Ivy pull Thomas’s hair and that on another occasion, Thomas told her that Ivy had kicked in her door and broken her furniture. Deborah Kelley (“Kelley”), another cousin, testified that she also saw Ivy grab Thomas by her hair; when Kelley intervened, Ivy said, “I told you about playing with me, bitch.” Andrea Hunt (“Hunt”) testified that Thomas told her that Ivy “had her on 23 and 1,” because he would only allow her to leave her apartment one hour per day.
In May of 2001, Officer Alvin Clark of the Memphis Police Department responded to a call at Thomas’s apartment on Millbranch Road. Thomas told Officer Clark that Ivy had forced his way into her apartment and threatened to kill her. Thomas said that Ivy had been threatening to harm her because she wanted to end the relationship. Officer Clark testified that Thomas was “very shaken up and afraid.”
Similarly, on the morning of June 6, 2001, Officer Steve Cummings responded to a call at Jackie Bland’s apartment, where he found a bleeding and bruised Thomas. Thomas told Officer Cummings that her “ex-boyfriend,” Ivy, had attacked her at a nearby convenience store and had struck her in the head “with a black Uzi type pistol.” Thomas told Officer Cummings that Ivy, who was also known as “Day Day,” told her “he wasn’t going back to jail” and “he would ․ kill her.” Officer Cummings testified that Thomas had a two-inch laceration on her head, bruising on her chest, and a black eye on the right side of her face.
Deborah Kelley and Jackie Bland also saw the victim after she was attacked on June 6, 2001. According to Kelley, she arrived at Bland’s apartment and found that Thomas was bleeding and bruised. Bland said, “Look what [Ivy] did․” Kelley testified that Thomas told her she had been attacked by Ivy and that Ivy wanted to kill her. Bland called the police. After Officer Cummings responded to the call, Kelley and Bland drove Thomas to the Criminal Justice Center to swear out a warrant against Ivy. While en route, they saw Ivy following them in his car. Kelley pulled over and called police, but Ivy was gone when the police arrived. The women then continued to the Criminal Justice Center where Thomas swore out a warrant for aggravated assault against Ivy
After leaving the Criminal Justice Center, Thomas, Kelley, and Bland drove to a liquor store. Ivy, who again had been following them, appeared in the parking lot and approached the car. According to Bland, Ivy told Thomas, “Bitch, if you put the police in my business, I’m going to kill you.” Similarly, when Kelley returned to the car from the liquor store, Thomas told her that Ivy threatened to kill her “if she put the police in his business.”
Ivy’s conduct in the liquor store parking lot was captured by a surveillance camera and was witnessed by two employees. One employee, Terrance Hibler, heard Ivy tell Thomas that “it wasn’t over” and that “[h]e was going to get her.” According to Hibler, Thomas, who was “shaking real bad,” said, “I know he’s going to kill me.” Similarly, another employee, Frank Sullivan, noticed that Thomas was “shaking” and “bruised pretty badly.” He too heard Thomas say that Ivy was going to kill her. The police were called; when they arrived at the liquor store, Thomas was taken to the Criminal Justice Center, where she obtained an ex parte order of protection against Ivy.3
Two days later, on the morning of June 8, 2001, Thomas and Hunt were outside Bland’s apartment complex in Thomas’s car. According to Hunt, Ivy ran up to the car while wearing a black cap and a towel over part of his face. Ivy pulled the towel from his face and said, “Oh, bitch, you want me dead, huh?” He shot Thomas five times and fled. Bland, who was outside her apartment, likewise saw someone wearing a black hat, sunglasses, and a towel over his mouth run up to the car and “open fire.” Although the shooter’s face was partly covered with a towel, Bland said that he resembled Ivy. Similarly, Deborah Kelley, who was inside Bland’s apartment, heard a gunshot followed by screaming. According to Kelley, Bland said, “Call the police. Day Day shot [the victim].” Kelley then heard the noise of tires in the parking lot
Gregory Kelley, the brother of Deborah Kelley and Jackie Bland, was working as a maintenance supervisor at the apartment complex when he heard gunshots and screaming. He ran to a green car and saw that Thomas had been shot. He pulled Thomas from the car and applied pressure on her wounds while shouting for someone to call 911. He then saw a “white car speed up out of the apartments” that resembled Ivy’s car.
Officer Alvin Clark arrived at the scene and saw a white car speeding from the apartment complex. He found that the victim had no pulse. Spent shell casings, bullet fragments, and live rounds were found at the scene.
Dr. O.C. Smith, the medical examiner for Shelby County, Tennessee, conducted an autopsy on the victim. The victim had five gunshot wounds that entered the right side of her body from a distance of no more than two feet away. Although Dr. Smith could not determine the sequence of the gunshots, he concluded that two of the gunshots struck the victim’s heart and that the gunshots affected all of the victim’s major organs except her spleen. Dr. Smith concluded that the multiple gunshots caused the victim’s death and that the two gunshots to the victim’s heart would have “ended her life the quickest.”
Ivy was arrested on June 27, 2001, and he was incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail pending trial. He escaped from jail in May of 2002. Two months later, Ivy was captured in San Diego, California, after diving through a window and fleeing from police officers for several blocks.
After the prosecution rested its case in chief, Vickie Crawford testified on the defendant’s behalf. She stated that she had lived with Ivy and that Ivy was the father of her daughter. She learned that Ivy was dating Thomas in October of 2000, but she had heard of no problems in their relationship
The jury convicted Ivy of premeditated first degree murder. The trial then moved into the sentencing phase to determine the punishment.
