TOM SHARP, Associated Press
LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) -- The arraignment for a 21-year-old Maryville woman accused of murdering two police officers by crashing a stolen Mercedes Benz into them was delayed three weeks on Monday to give her time to hire a lawyer.
Fallon Tallent made a brief appearance in a Wilson County courtroom, wearing a white jail suit, her ankles chained, her wrists shackled at her waist.
She stifled a smile just before she entered the courtroom after peeking through a door window and seeing members of her family in the audience. Also there were family members of one of the dead officers.
Mount Juliet Police Sgt. Jerry Mundy, 43, and Wilson County Sheriff’s Deputy John Musice, 49, were killed instantly on Wednesday when the car driven by Tallent rammed into them. The two men had just placed a spike strip on Interstate 40 at Mount Juliet in an attempt to bring a safe end to a high-speed chase that originated about 30 minutes earlier after state troopers in Cookeville received complaints of a reckless driver.
Earlier that day, 150 miles to the east, Knoxville police said they briefly chased Tallent after she backed into a patrol car that was trying to pull her over.
Tallent faces two counts of felony murder, two charges of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. Her bond was left at $4 million during Monday’s hearing.
Judge John Wootten Jr. asked Tallent if she had an attorney, and she replied that her family was “trying to get up the funds to hire one.”
Tallent’s grandmother, Cleva Carroll of Sevierville, affirmed this to Wootten.
Wootten gave the family three weeks, until Aug. 4, to hire their own attorney. If it has not done so by then, he told Tallent, he’ll appoint her one that day.
District Attorney General Tommy Thompson said no decision has yet been made on whether to seek the death penalty.
“We have a pretty intricate policy on that,” he said outside the courthouse after the 10-minute hearing had concluded. “We’ll discuss it with the officers and the family. We try to have some structured process.”
Thompson also said no decision has been made yet on whether to charge 33-year-old Dorothy Cash of Knoxville with any crime.
Cash was a passenger in the 1986 Mercedes. She remains in Vanderbilt University Medical Center with unspecified injuries.
Carroll told reporters outside the courtroom that her granddaughter didn’t intend to strike the officers. State investigators are still trying to determine if Tallent lost control of the car while trying to avoid the spike strips or if she deliberately swerved toward Mundy and Musice.
Thompson said Tallent will be transferred to a state prison. She was moved from Wilson County to Macon County shortly after her arrest because she broke the glasses of one Wilson County jailer she hit with a telephone and struck another officer.
Nearly 1,000 fellow officers, friends and family members paid their respects at Mundy’s funeral Saturday. Musice was cremated Thursday, and a memorial service for him was held Friday.
Tallent has a criminal record that includes charges of reckless driving and evading arrest, which were dismissed in 2002, and convictions for drug offenses, driving with a revoked license and criminal impersonation.