MOUNT VERNON — A Fredericktown woman was found not guilty of one count of possessing weapons under disability. The verdict was delivered by a Knox County jury on Tuesday.
According to the indictment, Shirley A. Blythe, 52, was allegedly found to possess an AK-47 assault rifle in her home on North Main Street in Fredericktown. Blythe cannot own a firearm due to 22 previous felony convictions for burglary in 2002. Blythe was sentenced to four years in prison on those charges.
According to court officials, Tuesday’s proceedings took less than 2 1/2 hours from the beginning of jury selection to the start of deliberations. The jury deliberated nearly three hours before reaching its unanimous verdict.
The case against Blythe began in April 2007 when officers investigating a stolen property case performed a consensual search of Blythe’s apartment. Officers discovered a Romanian Norenco Military Surplus AK-47 rifle wrapped in a Mickey Mouse blanket in a crawl space in the basement. The rifle had recently been stolen, along with 11 other guns, from a home on Roberts Road. The other 11 guns have yet to be recovered, according to the police report.
In her statement to police, Blythe claimed she had no knowledge of the weapon in the basement, and that she and three other people were in Columbus when the gun was allegedly placed there. Marjorie Looney, who also rented the apartment with Blythe, said in a statement to police that when she and Blythe left for Columbus, the Mickey Mouse blanket was still on a couch in the living room. According to Blythe’s attorney, Blythe had only been living in the apartment for 10 days when the weapon was discovered.
After the trial ended, one juror told the News jurors “really just couldn’t put the gun and her together.” Another juror said, “We tried to find her guilty but the evidence just wasn’t there. How could you ever prove she knew [the gun was in the basement] unless she actually said it?”
Local defense attorney Steven Hughes, who represented Blythe, said he and his client were pleased with the verdict.
“It was a case of circumstantial evidence,” said Hughes. “The jury obviously listened very carefully and found reasonable doubt she had known about the weapon.”
Thirty-nine people reported for jury duty, according to court officials.