Devante Stoudemire

Three men charged in a July 2 robbery-turned-slaying will face the Hamilton County grand jury.

Police say Dustin Hayes, 18; Ronald Cosper, 18; and Devante Stoudemire, 20, participated in a robbery that escalated to the killing of 38-year-old Steven Mosley.

Chattanooga police Investigator Matthew Puglise testified in a hearing Tuesday that Stoudemire told investigators he rode in a car with Hayes and Cosper to Mosley's North Hawthorne Street home.

Puglise testified Stoudemire knew the pair would rob Mosley and he would get some marijuana and cash from the robbery.

Cosper initially told investigators he didn't know Mosley and had never been to the man's house.

Once police revealed they had matched his fingerprints to prints found on Mosley's front screen door, Cosper said he had been to the residence a few days before.

Hayes' attorney, Jay Clements, and Stoudemire's attorney, Kevin Loper, asked Puglise for names of witnesses who had identified their clients to police.

Puglise told the attorneys he was one of many investigators who had looked into the case and gave a few names from memory. He said much of the case came from what their clients told investigators.

Hank Hill represents Cosper.

The slaying occurred while Stoudemire was free on bond awaiting trial in the Nov. 19, 2010, shooting death of JerMichael Richardson.

Murder charges in that case were dropped after a July 12 hearing when evidence returned from the state crime lab didn't connect Stoudemire and after key witnesses had died in a Florida car wreck.

Recently elected Sessions Court Judge Gary Starnes found probable cause to send murder, robbery and conspiracy charges against all three men to the grand jury.

It typically takes at least four to six weeks from the time the charges are sent to the grand jury before the group reviews and decides on indictments.

Based on Starnes' reading of charges and amounts, the men are being held on the following bonds -- Stoudemire, $2.05 million; Cosper $1.85 million; and Hayes, $900,000.