Matt Hamilton/Daily Citizen-NewsJay Burlison testifies during his trial for the murder of Earnest Griffin at a Rocky Face convenience store in 1984. 

DALTON, Ga. — The jury in the murder trial of 75-year-old Jay Thomas Burlison was sent home and ordered back at the Whitfield County courthouse this morning at 9 after failing to reach a verdict after more than five hours of deliberation Wednesday.

Testimony in the trial ended shortly before noon with the state and defense counsels resting their cases. After hearing closing arguments from both District Attorney Bert Poston and Assistant Public Defender Micah Gates, the jury was sent for deliberations.

Roughly two hours into the deliberations, the jury sent a note to the court. Whitfield County Superior Court Judge Scott Minter shared the contents of the note with Poston and Gates, but did not read the note in open session. However, he called the jury back into the courtroom and gave a brief admonishment to the jury.

“I have received your note,” Minter said. “I instruct you now to return to the jury room and continue deliberations.”

Neither Poston nor Gates would comment on the contents of the note.

Burlison, who was discovered by authorities when his family applied for medical benefits for him earlier this year and was taken into custody in Whitfield County in July, is on trial for the death of Earnest Griffin who died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Burlison is also charged with two counts of aggravated assault for shooting his then wife Mary Burlison — now known as Mary Mealer — and pointing a pistol and dry firing it at convenience store worker Ron Harris on Nov. 12, 1984.

The shootings were at the current location of a Circle-K convenience store on U.S. Highway 41 in Rocky Face. At the time, the store was part of the Golden Gallon chain.

Griffin died from a single shot to the head. Mealer said she was shot four times — once in the chin and three times in her side and lower back.

After roughly three hours of deliberation, the jury sent minter about note. In a conference with Poston and Gates at the bench, Minter showed the note to both attorneys and could be heard saying, “How ’bout I just say no?”

The jury was then brought back into the courtroom and Minter addressed them.

“I have received your note which reads, ‘Can we see Ronald Harris’ statement from 1984?’” Minter said. “No, you may not. Return to the jury room and continue your deliberation.”

Harris’ statement was never entered into evidence in the trial, but Harris referenced it in his testimony on Tuesday.

Around 8 p.m., the jury was brought back into the courtroom and sent home.

Burlison and Mealer were going through a divorce at the time of the murder. Mealer’s oldest daughter Ann Kendall testified that Burlison told her the night of the shooting that he was going to “kill (Mealer) and anyone with her” the next time he saw her.

While Burlison and Mealer were separated, Mealer said she started a relationship with Griffin, then 44. Mealer testified she and Griffin had dinner at Griffin’s house on Nov. 12 and went back to the Golden Gallon to get her car around midnight. She said Burlison pulled in behind their cars, hit Griffin in the head and shot him before shooting her through the driver’s side window of her car.

Burlison testified in his defense, saying he had made up his mind to leave the area the night he went to the convenience store. Contradicting the testimony of his step-daughter, Burlison said he told Kendall when they met that he was going to go to the store and “just leave.”

He testified when he got to the store Mealer was there with two men, and said he felt like he was under attack.

“She said, ‘That’s him’ or ‘Get him.’ I don’t know know which,” Burlison said. “The guy she was talking to come charging at me. I ducked down and come up and when I did, I heard a shot go off, or it sounded like a shot, and then blam, blam, blam, blam. I started running, and Mary passed me like a bat out of Chicago, that woman could move.”

He said he ran into the convenience store and was followed inside by someone with a gun.

“I got a gun stuck in my stomach and then I wheeled and run out,” he said. “Everybody was up and alive when I left, and I left in a hurry.”

Gates called Burlison’s brothers — Homer and James Bradley — as part of the defense. Homer Bradley said Burlison came back into his life in 2017, but that he hadn’t heard from him in decades and thought he was dead.

Both brothers testified that Mealer was a liar and had cheated on bother Burlison and her previous husband. James Bradley said he had an affair with her during her first marriage and Mealer approached him while she was married to his brother and she wanted Burlison out of her life.

“She attempted to seduce me, but I was late to pick up my wife that day and she kept pulling me to her,” James Bradley said. “She was a pretty strong woman. I was always kind of puny. I heard her make threats against my brother. She told me when she tried to seduce me that she was going to get rid of him one way or another.”

Burlison said before he and Mealer moved to Dalton, he thought she was trying to kill him by grinding glass up and putting it in his food.

“We was living in Tennessee and, uh, I started getting belly cramps,” he said. “We didn’t have an inside toilet. I had to use a five-gallon bucket. There was just blood, I don’t know, what’s the right word. … it felt like my insides was coming out. I was (expletive) my guts out. Glass was in my food. Only one I could think of would have been Mary.”