After only one witness in the preliminary hearing for three men charged with beating another man to death in Union City, a judge dismissed the second witness and sent the case to the grand jury.

Sean Woodruff, Tyler Woodruff, and Lee Edmaiston sat emotionless in the courtroom as Kelly Cranford, David's brother, described what he say the night of October 5 a the Pop-A-Top Bar.

"They was wrestlin' him, slingin him around," Cranford said.  "They were stomping him and kicking him, and I tried to help him up."

Cranford said he saw both Tyler and Sean Woodruff beat his brother to the floor, and then saw Lee Edmaiston stomp his head.

"He was laying unconscious," Cranford said.  "One of them took a swung at me.  I went to the ground, and they took off running," Cranford said, speaking of the Woodruff brothers.  Cranford said Edmaiston stayed at the bar.

Cranford told police his brother chose not to go to the hospital when police and an ambulance showed up, because he was not bleeding.  But after complaining of nausea and a headache, Cranford said David ended up in the hospital, where he later died of brain injuries.

After hearing Cranford's testimony, Judge Smith chose not to listen to a second witness who was also at the Pop-A-Top Bar that night.  He also chose not to watch surveillance video from the business.  Instead, he bound the case over to the grand jury, who will meet again in February.

Cranford's family is thankful that the case was bound over to the grand jury, but said that justice will not bring their beloved David back.

"It still hasn't sunk in," David's stepmother, Jeannine Cranford, said.  "It's probably not going to sink in until we have Thanksgiving.  And then, we'll all be together, but there'll be an empty plate."


The three men charged with the October 5 beating death of David Cranford, 45, appeared before a a Judge Jimmy Smith, Thursday.