A Shelby County man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2021 killing of Reginald Palmer Jr., closing out a case that stretched across two district attorney administrations and more than five years of legal proceedings. Jeffery Boyle was found guilty of second-degree murder in May 2026 following a four-day trial, and a judge added a five-year sentence for tampering with evidence, to run concurrently with the murder term.
The shooting happened around 3:30 a.m. on April 12, 2021, when deputies were called to the 7200 block of Easterly Lane near East Holmes Road in southeast Shelby County, according to WREG. Palmer, 30, had been wounded in a shooting and was later pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators with LocalMemphis reported that Boyle shot Palmer in the 7200 block of Blue Grouse Lane, after which the wounded Palmer drove away with his girlfriend before the car struck a curb and came to a stop on Easterly Lane, where deputies eventually found him.
A Dropped Phone Led Deputies to the Suspect
Palmer's girlfriend identified Boyle as the suspect, per WREG's reporting. While deputies were still processing the crime scene on Easterly Lane, Boyle reportedly returned to the area to retrieve a cell phone he had dropped before fleeing to a residence in Cordova, the same LocalMemphis report states. Deputies arrested him there and recovered the phone, along with a pistol and marijuana, at the Beech Bend Trail address.
Shelby County Sheriff's Office detectives had determined that Palmer and Boyle were involved in an ongoing personal feud before the shooting, the sheriff's office said in a statement. Detectives from the Multi-Agency Gang Unit assisted the sheriff's office in locating Boyle and executing the search warrant at the Cordova home where he was ultimately apprehended, according to the same statement.
Charges Reduced After Five-Year Wait
A Shelby County grand jury originally indicted Boyle in November 2021 on charges including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, employing a firearm during a felony, and drug possession with intent to sell. He was released on a $125,000 bond following that indictment and remained out of custody for part of the five-year stretch before trial, per the LocalMemphis report from that time.
The case eventually resulted in a conviction on the reduced charge of second-degree murder rather than the original first-degree murder count sought at indictment. Multiple witnesses testified against Boyle during the trial, the Shelby County District Attorney's Office reported. Assistant District Attorneys JD Hamblen, Sarah Poe and Dijahanua Jones represented the state during the four-day proceeding that ended in Boyle's May 29, 2026 conviction.
Case Spanned Two DA Administrations
The prosecution began under former Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich in 2021 and finished under current District Attorney Steve Mulroy, who took office in 2022, illustrating just how long the case wound through the local court system. Because the crime occurred in April 2021, the sentence falls under older release eligibility rules rather than Tennessee's Truth in Sentencing Act, which took effect for offenses committed on or after July 1, 2022 and requires 100% service of second-degree murder sentences without early release, according to the Tennessee Bar Association.
The homicide took place in an unincorporated part of southeast Shelby County near the intersection of East Holmes Road and Riverdale Road, an area outside Memphis city limits that falls under the sheriff's office jurisdiction. With sentencing now complete, the case brings a close to a legal process that began in the pre-dawn hours of a spring morning in 2021 and ran through a change in Shelby County's top prosecutor before reaching its conclusion this year.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)
