The woman who drove Japeth Gilley around for two hours with a gunshot wound in his head was sentenced to five years at the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC). 

Natasha Bryant Fults appeared in Circuit Court for a sentencing hearing Wednesday morning. Fults entered an open plea of guilty to two counts of tampering with evidence in connection to the Gilley case in February. She was indicted for the charges in June of 2023. 

Gilley was the 19-year-old father who died after being shot on Feb. 2, 2021. Gilley was inside a vehicle that night which pulled into the emergency room at Ascension Saint Thomas River Park Hospital. Hospital staff helped get him inside and the vehicle drove away. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to Vanderbilt Medical University where he later succumbed to his injury. Fults has been the only person at this time charged in relation to the Gilley case. 

During the hearing, the State called Investigator Aaron Roberts as the first witness. Roberts testified that the night Gilley was shot, there were multiple occupants in a residence at the Housing Authority in Morrison. Gilley and Fults were the only two in the living room at the time he was shot. Gilley was reportedly shot on the left side of his head. 

During the hearing, it was stated Fults was sitting to his right when he was shot. 

District Attorney Chris Stanford asked Roberts if his investigation indicated that the other occupants of the house knew Gilley had been shot. 

“Yes, sir. All occupants knew,” said Investigator Roberts. “No one at the scene called 911 or called for help. Miss Fults had a cellphone and she did not call either. She had placed calls to other individuals after this event had occurred.”

Roberts said following Gilley being shot in the head, Fults put him in her car and drove him around for approximately two hours. GPS on the vehicle revealed she headed toward Coffee County before turning around and going to the Scottish Inn on Sparta Road in McMinnville. There, Fults reportedly picked up David Caswell. The pair then drove toward the Dibrell area where they stopped at a bridge on Bluff Springs Road and emptied Gilley’s pockets. 

Roberts said when Caswell was interviewed, he stated Fults told him Gilley had overdosed. Stanford asked Roberts what was removed from Gilley’s pockets and he said it was rounds of bullets. Roberts testified that Fults disposed of the bullets. 

Once Fults and Caswell left the Dibrell area, they drove to Ascension Saint Thomas River Park Hospital where they dropped Gilley off without notifying anyone he had been shot in the head. Roberts testified that hospital staff notified the police once they saw the bullet in an X-ray. 

Fults’ attorney, Bill Cathcart with the Public Defender’s Office, then cross-examined Roberts. He asked him what happened in the residence immediately after the other occupants heard the shot. 

“They all stated separately that they had heard the ‘pop.’ They discovered that it appeared Gilley had been shot in the head. He was still alive,” said Roberts. 

Cathcart asked why no one in the residence called 911 and Roberts said he believes it was because they were at the housing authority and many people in the house already had prior offenses or were on probation. 

“There was no reason why one couldn’t have called. They all had cellphones and had an opportunity,” said Roberts. 

“Did Miss Fults give you a reason why she didn’t call 911?” asked Cathcart. 

“No valid reason in my opinion, other than she was probably scared,” said Roberts. 

Cathcart then asked about the gun. Roberts said the gun was never recovered, but Fults stated she gave it to “the man of the house,” Terry McNeil Sr. McNeil has denied having possession of the gun, according to Roberts. The gun has still not been recovered.

The defense then called Fults’ father, James Bryant, to testify. He stated he had previously been to federal prison for drug issues, but has since been sober for approximately nine years. 

“Would you describe Natasha more as a follower or a leader?” asked Cathcart.

“She is a lot like myself in that she is always finding bad people to run with,” said Bryant, 

Bryant also spoke of the times Fults attended rehab and even graduated drug court in 2018. When Stanford questioned him, he asked if prison helped him get sober. 

“Did that kind of shake you up a little and made you realize you needed to go a different direction and stay away from folks like that?” asked Stanford. Bryant agreed. 

Gilley’s grandmother, Renee Breedlove, gave a victim impact statement where she urged Fults to tell the truth. 

“My grandson was 19-years-old. I will never get to watch him get married. I will never get to watch him raise his son,” said Breedlove. “You could have called 911, Natasha. You are not that stupid. You have two sons of your own. What if I drove your sons around? Wouldn’t you want to know the truth?”

Breedlove stated Gilley was right handed and could not have shot himself in the left side of the head. She then urged Fults to tell the full story of what happened.

“You need to tell the truth! Why do you want to go down by yourself? There were other people in that apartment, Natasha,” she said. “Don’t go down by yourself today, Natasha. You know exactly what happened. You know my grandson did not commit suicide. You know how I know that? Because the medical examiner told me it was undetermined.” 

Gilley’s aunt Donna Turner gave a victim impact statement next. She said, “Japeth was a son, a grandson, a nephew and a new father. His son will grow up without a dad and I will never have another nephew. His mother’s, father’s and grandmothers’ lives have been traumatized because of what was done to him that day. My mother recently passed away after years of waiting to see justice that she never got to see for her grandson.” 

Turner also did not understand why no one called for help. She said, “An innocent person with any character would have called 911 immediately and not try to cover up the events of that day.” Turner said the programs and probation apparently did not help Fults get better and asked for the maximum sentence allowed. 

Fults then went to the podium and apologized to Gilley’s family and claimed she was Gilley’s friend until the end.

“I would just like to say that the truth did not change. I take full responsibility for what happened after Japeth shot himself. What I told the investigators when I first talked to them and now is exactly the same. I understand that puts me in the situation I am in right now and it doesn’t make it any better or right,” she said. “I was Japeth’s friend and I felt like was being his friend until I took him to the hospital. I wish I could go back and change my actions and decisions that night. I was in shock to the fullest. I had never been in that kind of situation before and I was very, very scared.”

She said she takes full responsibility for her actions and that she is trying to get better and “get past this.” 

The State argued against mitigating factors to lessen the sentence such as if she acted under strong provocation, had substantial grounds to excuse criminal conduct or assisted the authorities. Stanford said, “I think the strongest argument for that was stated by our second victim impact statement and that any reasonable person would have picked up the phone and called 911 rather than drive around with a body with a gunshot wound for two hours prior to dropping him off at the hospital.”

The State argued enhancing factors were necessary such as her previous history of criminal conduct. Stanford said she has four failure to appear violations, eight misdemeanor convictions and three guilty pleas for violation of probation. 

“We see what probation and what very little jail time does for Miss Fults. We see what Adult Recovery Court (did) and I think I counted two other recovery programs that she has completed and she wants you to send her to reform after a young man is shot in the head and she decides to do the unspeakable for two hours,” said Stanford. 

The State asked for a total of six years in Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) to serve for both tampering with evidence charges. 

Cathcart said, “The defense would ask that the court consider the least necessary sentence,” said Cathcart. “We would ask that the court consider alternative sentencing in this case. Miss Fults has never had a previous felony conviction.”

Judge Bart Stanley considered the mitigating factors and enhancing factors in his sentence. He said Fults did not act under provocation because she was not forced to do what she did and he took her guilty plea as acknowledgment of that. He also found the substantial grounds to excuse criminal conduct does not apply. Stanley said, “It is hard to imagine what is in somebody’s head that would not lead you to call either law enforcement or an ambulance or 911 or somebody to deal with this situation.”

Stanley also said she did the opposite of assisting the authorities and actually hindered them. He said she did not act under duress. He sentenced her to five years as a range one offender. 

Stanley then had to determine if she would get split confinement or alternative sentencing. 

“At some point you have to put on your big boy and big girl pants and take responsibility for yourself. You can’t go to rehab 19 times over a 30-year period and keep committing crimes and say, ‘oh I need help.’ At some point you have to figure out how to get the help and make that help work. This lady knew she had addiction issues and continued to remain around people who were in the same circumstances. I know without a doubt you are taught in rehabilitation programs that you have to distance yourself from people who would be involved in that sort of behavior because it will lead to relapse,” said Stanley. 

Stanley determined she would not be able to be rehabilitated. 

“I do not think she will reasonably be expected to be rehabilitated. I think she has proven over and over again she will not be rehabilitated. I cannot say she will abide by the terms of probation. To some degree, I think the interest of the community to be protected by future criminal conduct is very serious. I want people to understand when something happens and you have an obligation to call law enforcement to seek help for someone, covering your own behind is not something you can do without consequences,” Stanley said.

He found that Fults should not be granted split confinement or alternative sentencing at this time and sentenced her to serve five years in TDOC. Cathcart requested an appeal bond and Stanley set it at $75,000. Fults was put in handcuffs following the hearing.