Three days.
Three accounts.

In May 2023, Katrina accused Lyon of throwing her to the ground. Prosecutors brought a domestic-assault case. On September 11, 2023, that charge was dismissed; Katrina was killed on September 14. NewsChannel 5 reported that prosecutors blamed her missed court appearances for the dismissal. 1

That explanation should anger anyone who has watched domestic violence play out in real life. A woman does not become safe because she misses court. What did the office do to find out why she was absent? What photographs, officer testimony, statements or other evidence were already available? Why was closing the case the answer?

People who knew Katrina have described their own warnings. Becca Adams said she offered Katrina refuge. Cheyenne Collard described earlier concerns involving Lyon. Their accounts reinforce the human reality behind a case file: people were afraid for Katrina before she died. 8

Authorities charged Lyon with reckless homicide and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, setting his initial bond at a reported $125,000. NewsChannel 5 reported that he gave investigators three different accounts of the shooting. Those statements demanded close comparison with the physical evidence. 1 2

NewsChannel 5 also reported that Lyon had his parents come to the house to retrieve his and Katrina’s baby before the emergency call. The sequence of calls, physical evidence and shooting accounts warranted the highest level of scrutiny. 1

What did the autopsy show? What did the gunshot evidence show? Which account matched the scene? What did messages, phone records and witness statements reveal? And most importantly: why did prosecutors settle on reckless homicide rather than pursue second-degree murder?

Katrina’s father, Alfred Blackburn, says Northcott told him to expect a second-degree-murder charge. That charge never came. Blackburn also says Northcott stepped back after Brent Keeton took Lyon’s defense. Why did the promised tougher prosecution disappear—and who made that decision? 8

As late as March 5, 2025, the Circuit Court docket still named Northcott as the homicide prosecutor and Keeton as defense counsel. Accountability for the prosecution cannot be shifted away from the office identified in the official record. 3

The Original Docket Pages

Two case dockets. Two prosecutors.

Official docket excerpts identify the prosecutors and charges. Select either document to inspect it.

March 5, 2025 — Homicide caseCraig Northcott • Case 49249 • Reckless homicide February 28, 2025 — Assault caseMarcus Simmons • Case 49913 • Two counts

Here is what the actual General Sessions docket shows. Judge Gerald L. Ewell was listed as the assigned case judge. A September 18, 2023 entry was rescheduled. A November 6 preliminary-hearing entry was rescheduled. Both are listed under Ewell. Then, on December 5, 2023, the case went before Judge Greg B. Perry, who bound Lyon over to the grand jury. The docket identifies Brent Keeton as Lyon’s primary attorney. 15

Why Perry? Keeton and Perry were not strangers who happened to practice in the same town. They ran Keeton & Perry together for approximately 13 years. Perry left that partnership to become a judge in 2020; Keeton continued the law practice. They are also brothers-in-law: Keeton is married to Perry’s sister, Tiffany. The law firm itself describes the partnership and family relationship. 6

When Perry took the bench, Keeton carried on the practice they had built. Where did Perry’s former clients, referrals and longstanding professional relationships go? Were any business ties left unresolved? Those questions matter when the successor firm’s lawyer appears before the judge who helped build that firm.

The case had already been rescheduled twice under Ewell’s name. It could have been continued again or assigned to a judge without these connections. Instead, Perry—Keeton’s brother-in-law and former law partner—heard the decisive preliminary hearing. The public deserves an explanation of that assignment.

Primary Evidence · General Sessions Docket

The assigned judge — and the judge who heard the case

These are the original court screenshots. The General tab names Judge Ewell; the hearing history shows two reschedulings before Ewell followed by the December 5 hearing before Perry. The Attorneys tab lists Keeton as primary counsel.

I.Sep. 15, 2023Case filed · Gerald L. Ewell named case judge

II.Sep. 18 / Nov. 6Two hearings rescheduled · Judge Ewell

III.Dec. 5, 2023Preliminary hearing · Judge Greg B. Perry

Exhibit 01 · Assigned case judgeSelect to enlarge ↗

Exhibit 02 · Hearing history: Ewell to PerrySelect to enlarge ↗

Exhibit 03 · Defense attorney of recordSelect to enlarge ↗

Tennessee’s judicial-disqualification rule addresses a judge presiding when the spouse of a close relative is acting as counsel. What disclosure or properly recorded waiver permitted Perry to hear this case? That is not a technicality. It goes to whether the public can trust the court that moved Lyon’s prosecution toward indictment. 16

Alfred Blackburn says the broad outlines of a plea were already being discussed while the case was in General Sessions. No plea was accepted there; the case was bound over. But that account adds weight to the question of what decisions were being made, and by whom, before the Circuit Court proceedings stretched out for another 19 months. 8

The case was bound over to the grand jury on December 5, 2023. Lyon was indicted January 9, 2024, but Circuit Court did not resolve the charges until August 12, 2025. The difference in the speed of those two proceedings speaks for itself. 5 15

In Circuit Court, 13 scheduled hearings included seven continuances and three other reschedulings. Trial settings came and went. No jury decided the homicide charge; the case ended in a guilty plea. 5

Lyon was held locally during the drawn-out proceedings: Sheriff Chad Partin publicly identified him as a Coffee County Jail inmate in April 2025, and the family reports continuous detention since his September 2023 arrest. 14 8

There was also an April 2025 Coffee County Jail disturbance. The sheriff named Lyon among seven inmates involved and announced no new criminal charges for that episode. The separate October 2024 corrections-officer assault case is reflected in his later sentencing record. 14 4

The firearm conviction resulted in no incarceration, and the separate corrections-officer assault reportedly added no time to the four-year term. One original assault-on-officer count was dismissed. These were decisions made while Katrina’s father was demanding more serious accountability for her death. 4 13

Numbers cannot describe what the Blackburn family lost. Katrina was a daughter, a mother and a young woman whose future ended at 22. Her daughter will grow up without her. Alfred Blackburn lost his child.

Blackburn’s family also describes the devastation of being separated from Katrina’s little girl after her death. According to the family’s account, the child was placed with members of Lyon’s family. For Alfred Blackburn, the loss was not confined to one funeral: he lost his daughter and, as he describes it, his relationship with his granddaughter was profoundly disrupted. 8

The harm did not stop with Katrina’s death. Each new hearing date meant another period of waiting for a father who could not bring back his daughter—and who says the connection to his granddaughter was profoundly disrupted.

Victims and their families have statutory rights to consultation about certain prosecution decisions. But no consultation replaces the need for a district attorney to publicly defend the choices his office made in a case this consequential. 7

Northcott’s office must account for what it chose to prosecute, what it chose to dismiss and what punishment it was prepared to accept. Court records show the results. Citizens are still owed an explanation of the decisions. 3 13

The judge imposed the sentences, but the prosecutor chose what charges to pursue, what agreement to accept, and what punishment to ask the court to impose. Katrina cannot challenge those choices. Her father—and the people of Coffee County—can.