Rutherford County Sheriff's Office Partners With Othram to Identify the Victim of 1978 Tennessee Murder

Summary

In August 1978, Rutherford County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a boat ramp fire at the Poole Knobs Campground in LaVergne, Tennessee and made a gruesome discovery. What was initially thought to be a pile of burning trash was in fact the remains of an unidentified male. The homicide victim was wrapped in a blanket and had been shot four times, twice in the face. Investigators suspect he was shot at another location before being dragged to the campground and burned.

The victim is described as a white male between 30 and 40 years old. He stood 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed approximately 160 pounds and had medium length brown hair. The only clues to his identity were a partial set of dentures and scars on his chest from a possible heart surgery. He also had a quarter-sized mole on his torso, about two inches from his waistline.

Over the last several decades, many leads were exhausted. Fingerprints, from one hand that was not burned, were collected but generated no matches to an identity. His DNA profile has not produced a match in CODIS. In 2018, a facial reconstruction and sketch of the victim were generated but, to date, have failed to produce leads. Now, over forty years later, investigators are still looking for leads that might point to the identity of the victim or those that might be responsible for his death.

Although there was no match in CODIS, detectives are hopeful that advanced DNA testing and searches in genealogical databases might help identify the victim's family and perhaps the victim, himself. The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office has partnered with Othram to identify the 1978 Rutherford John Doe using these advanced methods. Anyone with information about the victim is encouraged to contact the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office at 615-898-7770. A fund has been established to cover the costs of testing for this case. This case is logged in NamUs as #UP1585.