WARREN COUNTY, Tenn. (WGNS News) - The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the convictions and 26-year prison sentence of a Warren County man found guilty in the 2009 shooting death of Rebecca Mooneyham, a case that remained unsolved for approximately a decade before his arrest. (Scroll down to see larger photos of Judd below, showing his 2019 mugshot at age 51 alongside a more recent prison photo taken at age 58.)

58-Year-old Marty Lynn Judd was convicted in a Warren County Circuit Courtroom of second-degree murder and possession of a prohibited weapon. The jury returned the murder conviction as a lesser-included offense of the first-degree murder charge contained in the indictment. Following a sentencing hearing, Judd received an effective sentence of 26 years in prison.

The case arose from the Aug. 28, 2009, shooting of Mooneyham at her Lawson Mill Road home in McMinnville. According to the appellate opinion, 46-year-old Mooneyham was sitting in a recliner inside her living room when a bullet was fired through the home’s picture window and struck her in the head. She was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, placed on life support and removed from life support the following morning. An autopsy determined that she died from a gunshot wound to the head and classified the death as a homicide.

Investigators initially considered whether the killing may have been a drive-by shooting. However, one investigator testified that he disagreed with that theory because only one shot was fired, rather than the multiple shots and linear pattern he associated with drive-by incidents. Forensic reconstruction later concluded that the bullet was fired from the front of the home, passed through the picture window, struck Mooneyham in her recliner and came to rest in a kitchen desk.

The appellate court said investigators developed evidence of a possible motive connected to an October 2008 juvenile proceeding. That case involved an allegation that Mooneyham’s son had taken motorcycles and other property from Judd. Mooneyham, who was not an attorney, acted as her son’s counsel during the juvenile proceeding. The petition was dismissed without prejudice, and witnesses testified that Judd became extremely upset following the dismissal.

The shooting remained a cold case until Judd’s Oct. 17, 2019, arrest. That same day, investigators executed a search warrant at his home. Warren County Sheriff Jackie Matheny Jr. testified that Judd was present and acknowledged owning “two or three” Mosin-Nagant rifles. Officers instead recovered six Mosin-Nagant rifles, a substantial quantity of 7.62x54R ammunition and a Colt AR-15 that had allegedly been modified to fire automatically.

Testing showed that fragments recovered from Mooneyham’s home were consistent with a 7.62x54R round fired from weapons that include Mosin-Nagant rifles. A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation firearms examiner later testified that the seized rifles were functional, but their heavily rusted barrels prevented him from determining whether any of them fired the fatal bullet. The ammunition recovered from Judd’s home was described as similar to the fragments found at the murder scene.

The case also relied heavily on testimony from Judd’s son, Dennis Judd. According to the opinion, Dennis told investigators that his father had confessed during a conversation about “making mistakes.” Dennis said Judd told him he approached Mooneyham’s home, saw her sitting in a chair through the window, shot her once and returned home. The court documents quote Dennis as saying he believed his father was “angry over the whole theft thing.”

Following the search, investigators interviewed Dennis. Sheriff Matheny testified that, after that interview, the district attorney instructed him to obtain warrants charging Judd with criminal homicide. Matheny acknowledged that investigators would not have had sufficient evidence to charge Judd with Mooneyham’s killing before Dennis was interviewed.

A Warren County grand jury indicted Judd in December 2019 on one count of first-degree murder and one count of possessing a prohibited weapon. The weapons charge stemmed from evidence recovered during the search of Judd’s home. His trial began Sept. 30, 2024.

At trial, a TBI firearms expert testified that the Colt AR-15 had been fitted with an “auto sear,” allowing it to fire fully automatically and function as a machine gun. Tennessee law prohibits the intentional or knowing possession of a machine gun.

On appeal, Judd challenged whether the evidence was sufficient to support either conviction. He argued that the ballistics evidence was inconclusive, that no seized firearm was directly identified as the murder weapon and that key witnesses were not credible because parts of their previous statements differed from their trial testimony. He also challenged the admission of his son’s testimony about the alleged confession and objected to what he considered leading questions by prosecutors.

The appellate court rejected those claims. The judges concluded that questions involving witness credibility and the weight assigned to testimony were matters for the jury, not the appellate court. The opinion noted that the jury heard the defense’s challenges to the witnesses and rejected them.

The court also found sufficient evidence supporting the murder conviction, citing Judd’s reaction to the earlier juvenile case, the firearms and ammunition recovered from his residence, the forensic evidence and his son’s account of the alleged confession. The modified AR-15 and testimony that it could operate as a machine gun were deemed sufficient to uphold the prohibited-weapon conviction.

Regarding the hearsay challenge, the court determined that Judd’s alleged confession to his son was admissible as a statement by a party opponent. The judges also concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it allowed the prosecution’s disputed questions because Judd had not demonstrated that the questioning prejudiced his defense.

“Following our review of the record and based upon the foregoing analysis, we affirm the judgments of the trial court,” the Court of Criminal Appeals stated in its concluding ruling. According to Tennessee Department of Correction documents, Judd's sentence officially ends in April of year 2043.

Below: Photo of Marty Lynn Judd when arrested at age 51 in 2019,
next to the more current photo captured in prison at age 58.