BY SARAH STEPHENS
ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
Top Photo: Original booking photo when Hunter Tatum was first arrested in October of 2021. He has remained in jail since his arrest. He now faces a 198-year sentence for killing his wife Summer and infant son Everett. (Original Autauga County Metro Jail photo)
Jurors were set to begin hearing closing arguments this morning in Autauga County in the Capital Murder trial of Hunter Tatum. A plea agreement, which took Capital Murder off the table, was agreed to by both the prosecution and defense, ending the trial. However, Hunter Tatum pleaded guilty to two counts of murder.
Senior Circuit Judge Ben Fuller presided over the case which began with jury selection last Monday, and opening statements beginning last Thursday.
This morning, Judge Fuller brought Tatum to the front of the courtroom with Tatum’s defense attorneys present to make sure Hunter understood his guilty plea. He also asked Tatum if he understood he would be pleading guilty to two counts of murder.
When it was clear Tatum did, and he admitted to shooting his wife Summer, causing her death and the death of the child she was carrying, Judge Fuller immediately imposed his sentence.
In the plea agreement, Tatum gave up his right to all appeals in this case. Judge Fuller ordered him to serve 99 years for each count consecutively, meaning a 198-year sentence. He will serve that sentence with the Alabama Department of Corrections.
Tatum will still be eligible for parole, but District Attorney C.J. Robinson said if there is ever a parole hearing, “As long as I have a breath in my body, I will be at that hearing to fight for Summer and Everett.”
Because the sentence is consecutive, this means the earliest Tatum could apply for a parole hearing would be 15 years into his first sentence in Summer’s murder. If that case is paroled, he still faces the second murder charge of Baby Everett and would have to serve a minimum of 15 years on that case as well. At a minimum, Tatum would have to serve 30 years. “And it isn’t likely he would get early parole on these two murder cases,” Robinson said. “It is two separate counts.”
So, in theory, Hunter could live out his life in the Department of Corrections.
Robinson praised his staff, saying that it took a great team, working together, to handle this case. “The majority of my entire team helped with this case, from logistics, to jury questionnaires, preparing for trial, covering for other cases and much more.”
The prosecution team was made up of Josh Cochran, Sarah Speaks and Caroline Gray.
The defense team was Jay Taylor and Branch Kloess.
“It is a huge relief for Summer’s family for this case to be over,” Robinson said. “But the family will never really get over it. This is just the first chance to begin closing this chapter. Now the family has to learn how to live without Summer and Everett.”
With Tatum’s admission of guilt, it denounces the defense team’s arguments, and Tatum’s earlier claims, of self-defense. Summer was on her knees in the dark morning hours of October 2021. Audio evidence played for jurors included her begging for her life, and saying she would stay. Hunter Tatum admitted he fired two shots into his pregnant wife’s head as she screamed from the floor, eventually causing her death and the death of their son, Everett.
In the days just before the murders, Summer had learned Hunter had been having an online “sexting” relationship with a woman named Shannon, who lived in England. Hunter had met her while playing video games online, and the two began conversing in a chat room known as Discord. Summer had begun packing a bag, presumably to leave Hunter. Her suitcase was still in the bedroom of their home when the first officers arrived on scene and found her barely clinging to life. With her death later at a Montgomery hospital, doctors conducted an emergency surgery to remove baby Everett, but he did not survive.
“This was a very tough case, very emotional for everyone involved,” Robinson said.
Robinson praised the excellent work of investigators with the Prattville Police Department, and the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.
