Paul Hagerman vividly remembers a big break his team made in December 2017.

Hagerman was prosecuting Randall Freeman in the killing of his wife, Keila Ashford Freeman, who had been missing since September 2016. Hagerman and his teammates managed to convince Freeman to lead investigators to the location of his wife’s body more than a year later.

“I remember how quiet it was, how you can almost hear his heartbeat in his chest,” Hagerman said. “And he drew us a little map about where he put her.

Deputy DA Ray Lepone retiring, chief prosecutor Paul Hagerman successor

“Me and a couple of homicide detectives and coworkers … in the middle of the rain, drove out to where he said. We checked around these woods next to the street for a little while, and we found her.”

Nearly six years later, Paul Hagerman is still fighting legal battles. He wants to keep fighting those battles as deputy district attorney, the No. 2 job in the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, where he’s worked in many capacities for 22 years.

That includes carrying out Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy’s reforms while focusing on violent crime.

Hagerman currently is the DA’s Crime Strategies Unit chief prosecutor and is known for his work on several high-profile cases. He will take over for Ray Lepone, who steps down as deputy DA on Aug. 31. 

Beginning Sept. 1, Lepone will work for the state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office, handling appeals to trials from the Shelby County DA’s office.

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For Hagerman, the move is also bittersweet because Lepone has become his great friend — almost like a brother. His eyes teared up as he reminisced on working with Lepone, who was already in the DA’s office when Hagerman started.

“We grew up in this office together,” Hagerman said. “We became great friends, and we fought battles with each other in the gang unit for years.”

They fought life battles as well. When The Daily Memphian and Hagerman visited Lepone’s office Thursday, the two recalled old times, including when Hagerman came to visit a hospitalized Lepone who was battling cancer. 

‘He is so good and so cool, that defendants are confused as to what side he’s on.’

Hagerman started as a line prosecutor in Shelby County Criminal Court Division X, where he prosecuted everything from suspended licenses to first-degree murders. He developed a strong relationship with then-Shelby County Criminal Court Division X Judge James C. Beasley Jr.

Beasley, who graduated from high school with Hagerman’s dad, passed away in 2021 after retiring from the bench in 2017: “It was sort of like having your dad on the bench as the judge.”

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Hagerman moved to the DA office’s gang unit and then became a division leader for Shelby County Criminal Court Division IX before being embedded as a prosecutor in the Memphis Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit for about 18 months.

Hagerman said his “number one mission” there was to help MPD get its wiretap program off the ground.

He subsequently started the DA’s Organized Crime Prosecution Unit, which was run alongside its gang unit and then in Shelby County Criminal Court Division IV.

In that courtroom, he got to know Shelby County Criminal Court Division IV Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett’s humor. 

Blackett expressed admiration for Hagerman, saying he is experienced, fair and respected: “He’s all about doing the right thing,” Blackett said. 

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She said Hagerman puts people at ease when he walks into a courtroom, and stays level-headed, even in the most heated moments. 

“He is so good and so cool, that defendants are confused as to what side he’s on,” Blackett said. 

Hagerman said it’s about treating people right. 

“We’ve fought battles against dangerous people,” Hagerman said. “But we always did it in a fair way.”

Hagerman’s career path through the DA’s office kept winding. After a few years in Division IV, he moved to Criminal Court Division VI, the upstairs drug court, as a division leader.

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He still works in that courtroom and General Sessions Criminal Court Division VIII. He also works with “crime driver” cases, including homicides and aggravated assaults. 

Hagerman has gotten to know all the judges, prosecutors, attorneys, public defenders and even the bailiffs in the various courtrooms he has worked in. 

“It’s a little family in the courtroom,” he said. 

But Hagerman credits his blood family for where he is now. 

Hagerman, who is divorced, gets by with a little help from his sons, 12 and 17. They enjoy watching movies and watching and playing sports together.

He inherited his work ethic. His father owned an engineering business; his paternal grandfather worked three jobs, including one on the railroad; and his maternal grandfather was a Marine and a football player.

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Hagerman can’t forget his role models from his younger years: local wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler and Dan Marino, former quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. 

‘A very worthy adversary’

Hagerman had not always planned on becoming a legal professional. 

He graduated from Memphis University School in 1992 and from Vanderbilt University with a psychology degree in 1996. 

Faced with the choice between continuing his education or getting a real job, he made what he considers a crazy decision and applied for law school. He was accepted to and graduated from New York University Law in 1999.

After graduation, he moved away from the hustle of New York City to Huntingdon, Tennessee, a town of about 4,000 people, to work as a clerk for Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals Justice John Everett Williams of the Western Section. 

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He also worked for Baker Donelson law firm, but after a year there, he landed in the DA’s office, where he’s stayed.

Among his high-profile casework, Hagerman prosecuted:

• Zach Adams, the man convicted in the 2011 kidnapping and murder of Holly Bobo, from Darden, Tennessee.
• Cleotha Henderson, the man accused in the killing of school teacher and jogger Eliza Fletcher.
• Billy Ray Turner and Sherra Wright, who were convicted in the murder of former Memphis Grizzlies player Lorenzen Wright.
• Multiple suspects accused in the killing of Memphis rapper Adolph Thornton Jr., better known as Young Dolph.
• Ray Coleman, who was found guilty of shooting and killing a man outside Villa Castrioti in Cordova in 2009.

John Keith Perry represented Turner in the Wright case and said he has worked numerous murder cases against Hagerman. More recently, Perry is representing Taddarius Bean, who’s among the five MPD officers charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of Tyre Nichols. Hagerman has been on that prosecution team. 

Perry said Hagerman is an effective advocate who is passionate about his job.

“I’ve always found him to be a very worthy adversary at trial,” Perry said. “But I’ve found that he’s also always professional, and a person that I’m proud to be a member of the same profession.”

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Hagerman said cases that don’t get media attention are just as important. 

“Most of the time, there’s a family that loved this person and are in this fight with you,” he said.

He also pointed to the importance of teamwork.

In 2019, he and his colleagues — lead prosecutor Jennifer Nichols, Eric Christensen, Stephen Ragland, and victim witness unit director Amy McCullough — won a President’s Award from the Tennessee District Attorney General Conference for their work on the Bobo case. 

“They shouldn’t give awards to single prosecutors, because this should be a team effort,” Hagerman said. 

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Sometimes, it’s small moments that are more meaningful to Hagerman. Like when Bobo’s mother hugged him with tears in her eyes after the guilty verdict. Or when Lorenzen Wright’s mother did the same.

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Mulroy has eyed Hagerman for the No. 2 position since he took office in September 2022, although he did not expect Lepone to leave.

“I got input from senior staff here in the office, including Ray. I went back to the folks on my transition team. And there were members of the defense bar who called me up unbidden, providing their input and based on that, I made my decision,” Mulroy said of hiring Hagerman.

Mulroy is optimistic about Hagerman helping him carry out reforms. He said the two have conferred about the office’s priorities.

“I’ve been consistently impressed with his broad knowledge of the office and openness to change and creativity and coming up with effective ways of implementing our ideas,” Mulroy said. 

Mulroy has not yet decided who will take Hagerman’s job in the Crime Strategies Unit.

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But Hagerman said he is looking forward to some changes — including leveling out the bail-setting process and offering more rehabilitative services — while zeroing in on violent crime. 

“The city we live in matters,” Hagerman said. “I shouldn’t have to be afraid when I go to a gas station. You shouldn’t be afraid when you take a walk after work. People shouldn’t have to be afraid when they’re out doing their jobs. That shouldn’t happen. 

“We recognize there’s a crime problem. But this violent crime problem, we need to get on top of, and at the same time, we’ve got to fix what’s broken with the system.”