Julian Summers: Tennessee man convicted for beheading roommate and hiding body in suitcase

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE: A man has been convicted of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence after he was arrested for killing, decapitating, and stuffing the victim's body in a suitcase, per True Crime Daily.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office reported on December 12, 2021, that Julian Summers struck the victim Bruce Jefferies, who was his roommate in the head with a hammer while he slept in their apartment on Cleveland Street in Midtown.

What happened to Bruce Jefferies? 

On December 12, 2021, at approximately 9:50 p.m., officers with the Memphis Police Department responded to the area of Pine Street and Eastmoreland Avenue, where they found a suitcase with Jefferies’ body inside.

Investigators found that Summers had hit his roommate in the head while he slept with a hammer, according to the district attorney's office. He decapitated Jefferies with a knife following the attack, cleaned up the scene, and then put the victim's body in the suitcase.

Surveillance footage reportedly showed Summers pulling the heavy suitcase through Broadmoor Apartments and to a dumpster, "leaving a trail of blood in his wake."

Summers had to move the suitcase to a different place because he was unable to fit it in the first dumpster. Police tracked the blood trail to the Broadmoore apartment building.

The apartment unit had signs of struggle, including broken glass, a broken mirror, and blood in the bedroom, but officers did not find any evidence of forced entry. Additionally, it was alleged that bloodstained clothes were waiting to be cleaned in the washing machine.

Summers confessed his crime to Police 

Authorities arrested Summers in 2021 and he confessed to his roommate’s slaying sixteen days after the attack.

He and the victim had lived together for two years before Jefferies’ death, Fox 13 reports.

During the trial, Summers' recorded confession was played for the jury to view. The district attorney's office asserts that Summers' testimony differed from his original statements to police in 2021.

Upon his admission to the crime, Summers brought up his mental health. However, the West Tennessee Mental Health Institute, a rebuttal witness for the state, "attested to the defendant's competency and asserted that Summers was malingering, exaggerating mental health symptoms."