TIPTONVILLE, Tenn. (Court TV) — The man accused of murdering four members of a family and abandoning an infant on a stranger’s lawn has asked for his upcoming trial to be moved.
Austin Drummond, who is charged with murdering four people in rural Tennessee and abandoning a baby, appeared in court for a preliminary hearing. (Court TV)
Austin Drummond has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, in the deaths of James Wilson, Adrianna Williams, Braydon Williams and Courtney Rose.
In a motion reviewed by Court TV, Drummond’s attorney has asked that the trial be moved out of Lake County, Tennessee, citing the area’s small population and the pervasive media coverage of the case.
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The shootings on July 29, 2025, sent shock waves through the rural west Tennessee community where the victims lived and prompted a weeklong search for a suspect. The victims were the parents, uncle and grandmother of an infant that was later found abandoned at a “random individual’s front yard” approximately 40 miles from the site where the bodies were found. Drummond was arrested on Aug. 5, 2025, approximately 70 miles away in Jackson, Tennessee. Drummond’s girlfriend was the sister of the infant’s grandmother.
“Lake County is among the least populous counties in Tennessee, such that ‘everybody knows everybody,'” Drummond’s attorney wrote in the motion, which proposes the trial move to Shelby or Davidson Counties.
Prosecutors filed a document indicating they have no opposition to moving the trial.
If he’s convicted, Drummond, 29, faces a potential death sentence for the killings. He has previously served prison time for robbing a convenience store and threatening jurors in a case. He was also previously charged with the attempted murder of a prison guard while in jail and was out on bond at the time of the alleged killings.
