MEMPHIS, Tenn.– A Memphis man is facing charges after police say he tried to discard a body that was found in a suitcase near a dumpster in Midtown two weeks ago.
Around 10 p.m. on December 12, Memphis Police responded to a suspicious call at Pine and Eastmoreland after someone found a body stuffed in a suitcase in Midtown and called 911.
Police identified the victim as 63-year-old Bruce Jeffries on December 20, eight days after the suitcase was found.
Police said when the suitcase was opened, it was discovered that Jeffries died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Investigators said 30-year-old Julian Summers beat his partner to death and put his body in the suitcase and got rid it — near where Josh Moore lives.
“It’s a little bit too close for home but I think crime happens everywhere. It’s happening in Germantown, it’s happening everywhere. With COVID, I didn’t like that it’s in my neighborhood but I think everywhere all over the city,” Moore said.
According to police, a witness told investigators that he saw Summers dragging that same suitcase through the alley at about 10 a.m. and said Summers tried to throw the suitcase in the dumpster but it was too heavy. The witness said when Summers saw that he was being watched, he dropped the suitcase and ran through the alley toward Union Avenue.
Video from the apartment complex also showed Summers attempting to throw the suitcase in the dumpster and cameras spotted him again outside a bank, where it was eventually found.
Investigators said the suitcase left a blood trail that lead to the Broadmoor Apartment complex on South Cleveland. They searched the apartment and found signs of struggle and blood throughout the apartment.
Authorities also said Summers and Jeffries lived together for the past two years.
Marquiepta Odom, Executive Director of YWCA Greater Memphis, said they have seen a nearly 40% increase in male clients fleeing violence.
“A lot of the people who end up in fatalities have never even reached out for help before and many of them don’t even know that they’re really in a domestic violence situation,” Odom said. “That is a clear, I guess a better statement that we need to you know, get to the community that if you’re being called out in your name, if you’re being you know, hit harassed, you know, financial abuse where they’re withholding funds, you are in a situation that could end up possibly being fatal.”
Summers was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. He is due in court on December 29 and being held on a $750,000 bond.