Cold Cases in Tennessee
ColdCaseIndex documents 17 cases in Tennessee, dated 1969 to 2024. 8 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Dennis Lloyd Martin (1969) and the most recent is Anthony "Big Jook" Mims (2024).
- Unsolved 8 (47%)
- Partly resolved 1 (6%)
- Solved or convicted 7 (41%)
- Closed without conviction 1 (6%)
Homicide clearance in Tennessee, 1965 to 2024
A homicide is "cleared" when police make an arrest or close it by exceptional means, so an uncleared case is not always an unsolved one. Source: Murder Accountability Project analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Report data, as published by Project: Cold Case. These are statewide totals and are separate from the ColdCaseIndex entries listed below.
By type
All Tennessee cases
Anthony "Big Jook" Mims
Anthony "Big Jook" Mims, a 47-year-old music executive and the older brother of Memphis rapper Yo Gotti, was fatally shot on January 13, 2024, outside Perignon's Restaurant and Event Center on Winchester Road in Memphis, where…
Sebastian Rogers
Sebastian Wayne Drake Rogers, a 15-year-old boy with autism, vanished overnight from his family's home on Stafford Court in Hendersonville, Tennessee, between the night of February 25 and the morning of February 26, 2024.
Tyre Nichols
Tyre Nichols, 29, died on January 10, 2023, three days after he was beaten by Memphis police officers following a traffic stop; the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. Former officers Desmond Mills Jr.
Eliza Fletcher
Teacher and heiress Eliza Fletcher was abducted while jogging near the University of Memphis and murdered. Cleotha Abston, who had a prior kidnapping conviction, was sentenced to life.
Summer Wells
Five-year-old Summer Wells was reported missing on June 15, 2021 from her family's home on Ben Hill Road in the Beech Creek community of Hawkins County, Tennessee. A statewide AMBER Alert issued the next day is still active.
Young Dolph
Memphis rapper Young Dolph (Adolph Thornton Jr.), 36, was shot dead outside Makeda's Homemade Butter Cookies in Memphis on November 17, 2021.
Evelyn Boswell
Fifteen-month-old Evelyn Mae Boswell of Sullivan County, Tennessee, was reported missing on February 18, 2020, about two months after she was last seen.
Emma Walker
Sixteen-year-old Emma Walker was fatally shot in her bed at her family's Knoxville, Tennessee, home on November 21, 2016, by shots fired through her bedroom wall from outside.
Joel & Lisa Guy Sr.
Joel Guy Sr., 61, and Lisa Guy, 55, were stabbed to death and dismembered at their home in west Knox County, Tennessee, over Thanksgiving weekend 2016.
Lauren Agee
Lauren Agee, 21, was found dead below a cliff at Center Hill Lake near Smithville, Tennessee, in July 2015. Officials ruled the death accidental, but her family disputes that finding and believes foul play was involved.
Holly Bobo
Twenty-year-old nursing student Holly Bobo was abducted from her home in Darden, Tennessee, on April 13, 2011. Her remains were found in September 2014, about three and a half years later.
Karen Swift
Karen Swift, a 44-year-old Dyersburg, Tennessee mother of four, vanished after a Halloween party in late October 2011 and was found beaten to death six weeks later.
Tabitha Tuders
Tabitha Danielle Tuders, 13, vanished on the morning of April 29, 2003, while walking roughly one block from her East Nashville home to her school bus stop at 14th and Boscobel Streets.
Blair Adams
Robert Dennis Blair Adams, a 31-year-old construction foreman from Surrey, British Columbia, was found beaten to death on July 11, 1996, in the lot of an unfinished motel off Interstate 40 in east Knox County, Tennessee.
Cayce Lynn McDaniel
Fourteen-year-old Cayce Lynn McDaniel vanished from her home in Milan, Tennessee, on August 16, 1996, after a church back-to-school party.
Teresa "Trenny" Lynn Gibson
Trenny Lynn Gibson, a 16-year-old Bearden High School student from Knoxville, Tennessee, vanished during a class field trip in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Clingmans Dome on October 8, 1976.
Dennis Lloyd Martin
Dennis Lloyd Martin, a 6-year-old boy from Knoxville, Tennessee, vanished on June 14, 1969, while playing with other children at Spence Field in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during a Father's Day weekend camping trip.