BAY MINETTE – Convicted murderer David Coombs wanted a new trial based on the discovery of audio recording equipment in the Baldwin County Courthouse, an effort that District Attorney Hallie Dixon dismissed as “nothing more than a classic fishing expedition.”

In a Tuesday hearing, Circuit Judge James Reid ruled against Coombs’ motion for a new trial. The judge delayed ruling on a defense request to review the tapes until after a federal inquiry on the recordings is completed. Reid also ordered that all evidence from the tapes be preserved.
“The defendant has been lawfully convicted of capital murder for the cold-blooded killing of William ‘Bil’ Grunden, whom he lured out onto a remote, dead-end dirt road, shot in the head and robbed,” Dixon said. “The evidence of the defendant’s guilt was so overwhelming that the jury returned its guilty verdict in less than an hour and a half.”
Dixon provided the court with sworn affidavits from all Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office employees involved in the prosecution of Coombs for the murder of the Pensacola gold dealer. The affidavits asserted that they had not listened to or heard from anyone who had overheard conversations between or involving the defendant, his attorneys, witnesses, jurors, family members or other interested parties.
“Whether recordings were in fact made as part of a security system is absolutely irrelevant to the validity of this conviction unless the state had knowledge of, access to, or information derived from such recordings,” Dixon said. “At no point has that been true.”
Prosecutors had no knowledge of the audio recordings until after the trial was finished, Dixon said, and upon learning of that capability, the district attorney “promptly instructed all such devices be disabled.”
Coombs is merely trying to avoid paying for his crimes, Dixon said. “He is a cold-blooded killer making a last-ditch effort to get away with it,” she said.