RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TN - A 60-year-old man from Murfreesboro, who was arrested and later convicted after a female worker was attacked at a tanning bed business in Rutherford County, recently appealed his conviction. The results of that appeal were released and confirmed by the Clerk of the Appellate Courts this past week.
On April 25, 2005, the manager of Hot Spot Tanning in Smyrna, Tennessee, was cleaning a tanning bed when she heard the doorbell indicating someone had entered the store. Awaiting was a customer, whom she helped with information about tanning packages. The man then asked to see a tanning bed, which she led him to in the back room and explained how it worked. However, when she turned around, the man was blocking the door and demanded that she take off her clothes.
When the female victim refused to follow his orders, he moved closer, and she tried to stop him by putting her hand on his chest. The man, later identified as Alonzo Fishback, grabbed her wrist and threatened her with scissors, which she initially thought were a knife. As the attack unfolded, the doorbell rang again, and Fishback, who was 40 years old at the time, took a step back. The victim seized the opportunity to bang on the door of a neighboring tanning room. Tanning beds are loud and have a fan spinning, which drowns out surrounding noise. However, the person tanning heard the banging and replied that the room was occupied. The victim then demanded the attacker leave. Amazingly, he did. After exiting, she quickly locked the door and called the police. The suspect was later identified and arrested.
The jury found Fishback guilty of especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and possession of a weapon during a felony. In court, it was determined that he was a career offender, leading to a sixty-year sentence for the kidnapping charge and a fifteen-year sentence for the assault charge, served consecutively. He received an additional two years for the weapon charge but would serve that sentence concurrently, giving him a total sentence of seventy-five years.
A jury in Rutherford County found Fishback guilty of especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony, sentencing him to 75 years in prison. Fishback filed an appeal, arguing that his sentence was illegal because he believed he did not meet the requirements for the kidnapping charge. The trial court rejected his appeal, as did the Criminal Appeals Court, which sided with the original trial court. His request for a new trial was denied on February 27, 2025.
According to the Tennessee Department of Corrections, Alonzo Fishback who is now 60-years-old, will be eligible for release in 2072. At that time, he will be 107 years old. Reports indicate that he is currently being held in the Whiteville Correctional Facility in Whiteville, Tennessee (Hardeman County). The prison holds 1,536 medium-security inmates and is listed as a privately operated prison contracted by the state. As of 2016, it was classified as one of four privately operated prisons in Tennessee.
A previous conviction was tied to a 1991 aggravated robbery charge when he was 26 years old. That case was investigated and tried in Knox County, Tennessee, ultimately resulting in a 10-year sentence.
