Authorities investigate body found near old coal mine
Authorities in Sequatchie County, Tennessee, hope a forensic examination of skeletal remains found Monday in a remote area near an old coal mine on the Cumberland Plateau will lead to a positive identification.
The initial report from a passerby went to the Grundy County Sheriff’s Office Monday, then the discovery was relayed to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office as authorities worked to determine in which county the body was found, Sequatchie County Sheriff Coy Swanger said Wednesday. Finally, authorities used GPS location and Sequatchie County’s 911 office to make sure of its location.
Sheriff Swanger said the investigation, assisted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, is being conducted as a homicide probe until officials know more about the likely cause of death. The remains were found on CC Road, just off state Highway 108 near the Sequatchie-Grundy-Marion county line, Swanger said.
The large search area was in very dangerous terrain, so searchers didn’t get to look long Monday before it started getting dark, Swanger said. But on Tuesday officials found and collected remains from the scene that were transported to Nashville for forensic examination on Wednesday, he said.
The part of the plateau where the body was found was once crisscrossed with coal mining operations, old mine sites and access roads winding throughout the landscape near the three counties’ borders.
Mike Taylor, 12th Judicial District attorney general for the six-county district that includes Sequatchie, said the body had been exposed to the elements for a long time and may or may not be related to some of the missing persons cases in the area going back years. The remains were scattered across a large area, according to Swanger and Taylor.
Taylor said it’s possible the body could be someone reported missing or visiting from somewhere else, “or unconnected to any of those.”
Teeth found with the skeletal remains might offer some DNA and forensic evidence to help with identification, Taylor said.
“Certainly, if it’s one of the people that we have missing from our area, I think we have a good chance of an ID. If the body was brought from somewhere else unknown to us, we’ll just have to keep checking,” Taylor said. “We’re hoping the forensic anthropology people can give us an answer.”
Missing persons cases in the 12th Judicial District of Bledsoe, Franklin, Grundy, Marion, Rhea and Sequatchie counties include three men who vanished in 2016 and another who disappeared in 2012, according to Taylor and Times Free Press archives.
Those missing men include 31-year-old Wesley Ridge, who went missing in Marion County in March 2016, 29-year-old Matthew Tyler Henry, reported missing in Sequatchie County in April 2016, and 25-year-old Mackenzie Cory Kuehner, who was last seen camping in the Monteagle, Tennessee, area in November 2016; and another man, 54-year-old Roger Tant, who went missing in the South Pittsburg Mountain area of Marion County in 2012.
Taylor said he didn’t believe the remains found Monday would be connected to 31-yearold Josh Day, last seen riding his tan Honda Recon 250 allterrain vehicle on July 24 near the Grundy-Marion county line near Tracy City, Tennessee.
Taylor noted the terrain in the area has been challenging for investigators, who conducted a large ground search this week for clues in Monday’s grisly discovery.
Taylor said people who haven’t visited the mountainous landscape in the Cumberland Plateau parts of Sequatchie, Grundy and Marion might not realize how difficult the terrain is to search.
“There’s some of that territory that you could literally be standing 15 feet from a body and not see it,” Taylor said.
Anyone with any information about the ongoing investigation of the body found Monday in Sequatchie County is asked to call the Sequatchie County Sheriff’s Office at 423-949-7750.