Police: East Nashville couple admit to killings

Metro police now believe a lingering dispute and the use of heroin led two East Nashvillians in their early 20s to beat to death another young couple who shared an apartment with them and that the two bludgeoned to death their victims while they slept.

Investigators also believe the suspects continued to live in the apartment for days after committing their crimes, with the victims’ bodies hidden in a utility closet.

Officials announced the suspected motive Monday after the arrest of 20-year-old Brandon Griswold and his 21-year-old girlfriend, Whitney Gray, in a parking lot on Trousdale Drive.

Police say both suspects confessed to plotting to kill the couple and to killing them after being taken into custody for questioning.

The discovery

The bodies of Preston Claybrooks Jr., 24, and Alexandra Grubbs, 23, were found early Sunday morning inside a unit at Howe Garden Apartments at 1921 Greenwood Ave.

Family members reported the couple missing on Thursday, but police say Claybrooks’ mother had not seen her son since Sept. 18.

Police said the mother went to the apartment early Saturday morning, knowing her son lived there, then called police when she smelled the odor of decomposition coming from inside.

When police arrived, they smelled a foul odor and, during a search of the home, found a large amount of blood stained on a mattress in one of the bedrooms and other evidence of blood throughout the apartment, according to an arrest warrant.

As the search continued, police found the lifeless bodies of Claybrooks and Grubbs stuffed in a closet and covered under boxes and debris, the warrant continues. Police say the physical trauma to their bodies was so severe their cause of death could not be determined until an autopsy Monday.

Detective Mike Roland, who is heading the investigation, said detective work has led police to believe Claybrooks and Grubbs were killed Sept. 21.

Griswold and Gray were arrested at Harding Place and Trousdale Drive on Monday after several units of Midtown Hills detectives pulled into a parking lot on the 4600 block of Trousdale Drive, near a Mapco gas station and the Italian restaurant Mamma Mia’s.

Police had gathered intelligence from members of the local homeless community that Griswold and Gray were traveling through the area by foot.

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“We were going to marshal up in this parking lot, to go and search the area,” Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said. “When we pulled up, guess who was standing here in front of Mamma Mia’s.”

Aaron said Griswold and Gray were standing in the parking lot and that a homeless man was with them. All three were taken to police headquarters for questioning, and a few hours later police announced that Griswold and Gray would be booked on two counts of criminal homicide after their confession.

A devastated family

Claybrooks’ 63-year-old grandmother, Elizabeth Fletcher, said Monday morning she hadn't slept well since her grandson and his girlfriend mysteriously disappeared late last week.

When news broke Sunday night that two bodies were found in an East Nashville apartment, she prayed to God neither of them belong to the man she helped raised or the woman he loved.

"I just can't think of anyone who would want to harm my grandson," Fletcher said Monday from her home on Fain Street, where Claybrooks grew up and later attended Glencliff Comp High School with Grubbs.

She said Claybrooks and Grubbs have a little girl and a little boy and that the last time she spoke with her grandson was Sept. 20 when he made his weekly call to her.

"He said he just got an apartment," Fletcher said. "But we later found out it was in another person’s name, so I don’t know what kind of deal they had worked out.

"We just sat outside and waited. It seemed like it was all day long until the police came out," Fletcher said. "They just said there was a lot of blood in there. I was just in a daze. They said they wouldn't really know whose blood it was until they do a DNA test."​

An autopsy conducted Monday revealed both victims died as a result of blunt force trauma, police said.

Reach Natalie Neysa Alund at 615-259-8072 and on Twitter @nataliealund. Reach Jordan Buie at 615-726-5970 and on Twitter @jordanbuie.