The trial started Tuesday for a White Settlement man accused of murdering a woman, dismembering her body and dissolving her body parts in a barrel in his backyard, according to Tarrant County court documents.
Kevin Wayne Powell, 50, faces a capital murder charge for the December 2015 death of Kasey Rae Nutter, according to an indictment dated Sept. 28, 2018.
According to the indictment it is unclear how Nutter died, and the state's evidence is based on hearsay, according to the defense attorneys. The attorneys said the account of Nutter's death the state will present is not based on witnesses with first-hand knowledge and shouldn't be admissible in court.
The brief states that Nutter went missing in December 2015, and that prior to her disappearance, she'd lived with Powell at a residence in the 8000 block of Downe Drive in White Settlement.
Nutter's grandmother filed a missing persons report with the Fort Worth Police Department in April 2016, the document said.
The missing persons report ultimately made it to the desk of a Fort Worth police sergeant who personally knew someone who lived with Powell and knew Nutter. The court documents state that that person eventually told the sergeant he thought Powell had killed Nutter.
The person who knew the sergeant personally has asked to remain nameless and is referred to below as "known person."
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Powell's defense wrote that in an interview with White Settlement police the "known person" told investigators that Powell said "he dismembered Nutter's dead body with a table saw in his bedroom, and then dissolved the body parts in a barrel in the backyard."
The "known person" also said Powell painted his bedroom walls and ceiling to cover blood spatter, according to the document.
Powell's defense said the "known person's" account is heresay and shouldn't be admissible in court.
