Oak Ridge Today

For members: Man sentenced to 14 years after taking van from woman in wheelchair

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Bradley Allan Thomas

CLINTON—A Knoxville man was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Thursday after he stole a van from a woman in a wheelchair in the parking lot of the Red Lobster restaurant in Oak Ridge last year.

Bradley Allan Thomas, 31, received a 12-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, a Class B felony. He will be required to serve 85 percent of that sentence before he could be eligible for a parole hearing. Authorities had alleged that Thomas pushed the woman out and took the van through force or intimidation while using a deadly weapon (a large knife).

For members: Man sentenced to 20 years for attempted murder

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McKinley Earl McGee, 51, of Oak Ridge, who is pictured above at right, was sentenced to the maximum 20 years in prison in Anderson County Criminal Court on Monday, Sept. 9, 2019, for an attempted murder during a stabbing last year that injured a woman so severely that she would have died if she hadn’t received medical treatment, a judge and prosecutor said. At left is defense attorney Curtis Isabell. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

CLINTON—An Oak Ridge man who has at least 15 criminal convictions was sentenced to the maximum 20 years in prison on Monday for an attempted murder during a stabbing last year that injured a woman so severely that she would have died if she hadn’t received medical treatment, a judge and prosecutor said.

Before he was sentenced Monday, McKinley Earl McGee, 51, had been convicted after a one-day trial in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton in July. At the end of that trial, the 12-person jury deliberated for about one hour before finding McGee guilty of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault that resulted in serious bodily injury.

Oak Ridge man charged with murder in drug death

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Ronald Nicholas Bunch
Ronald Nicholas Bunch

An Oak Ridge man has been charged with second-degree murder in the drug-related death of another Oak Ridge man in February.

It could be the first time that anyone has been charged with murder, rather than homicide, for a drug-related fatality in Anderson County. There has been a previous case where a man was charged with and convicted of homicide in a drug overdose death.

The man who died on February 6 was Steven Douglas Scruggs, 34.

Indicted in his death was Ronald Nicholas Bunch, 28, of West Wadsworth Circle in Oak Ridge. Bunch’s indictment for second-degree murder on June 4 said he unlawfully and knowingly killed Scruggs through the unlawful distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance, and the drug caused Scruggs’ death. Second-degree murder is a Class A felony in Tennessee.

The charge of second-degree murder, part of a three-count indictment, doesn’t specifically say what drug killed Scruggs. But the second count of the indictment charged Bunch with possessing fentanyl, a Schedule II medication, for resale.

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Oak Ridge man convicted of attempted murder

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McKinley Earl McGee

An Oak Ridge man who had been accused of stabbing his girlfriend and trying to kill her last year was convicted of attempted murder this week.

McKinley Earl McGee, 50, was convicted after a jury trial that started Tuesday morning in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton. Seventh Judicial District Attorney General Dave Clark announced the conviction in a press release on Wednesday. The 12-person jury deliberated about 58 minutes before returning with its verdict, Clark said.

McGee was convicted of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, Clark said.

McGee was convicted of stabbing and trying to kill Machel Elaine Avery on Utica Circle in Oak Ridge on January 12, 2018, Clark said.

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For members: Man sentenced to 8 years in death of son in crash

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An Anderson County man was sentenced to eight years in prison when he pleaded guilty Friday, June 28, 2019, to vehicular homicide by intoxication after a crash in Oak Ridge that killed his three-year-old son on January 13, 2017. The defendant, Jason Robert Braden II, is pictured above at center in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday, March 29, 2019. At left is defense attorney David Stuart, who represented Braden. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

An Anderson County man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Friday when he pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide by intoxication after a crash in Oak Ridge that killed his three-year-old son in January 2017.

The man told police that he had injected roxycodone about six to eight hours before the crash and was driving to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge with a man who had overdosed at the time of the two-vehicle collision at Emory Valley Road and Lafayette Drive, according to court documents.

For members: Woman pleads guilty to homicide in death of son

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Ashley Marie Ann Braden

CLINTON—A Clinton woman pleaded guilty Thursday to a homicide charge in the death of her three-year-old son in a crash in Oak Ridge in January 2017.

Ashley Marie Braden, 24, pleaded guilty to a single charge of criminally negligent homicide in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton during a 15-minute hearing Thursday morning.

Clinton man charged with attempted murder

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Terry Lee Crawford

The Clinton man who allegedly shot at two people before one of them, his son, shot back, has been charged with attempted murder, according to court records.

The Anderson County Grand Jury indicted Terry Lee Crawford, 62, on two counts of attempted second-degree murder on June 4. Those charges allege that Crawford tried to kill Joshua Crawford and Ashlee Crawford. The alleged shooting was reported at a home adjacent to Crawford’s on Lee Lane in Clinton on December 26.

Crawford was also charged with two counts of aggravated assault and two counts of reckless endangerment. The aggravated assault charges allege that Crawford caused Joshua and Ashlee Crawford to fear imminent bodily injury because of the gun, and the reckless endangerment charges allege that Terry Crawford engaged in reckless conduct that placed Joshua and Ashlee Crawford in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury through the use of a deadly weapon.

Crawford faces two other charges as well: being a convicted felon who possessed a handgun and vandalism between $1,000 and $2,500. The vandalism charge alleges that Crawford damaged the exterior of Joshua and Ashlee Crawford’s home, causing more than $1,000 in damage.

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For members: Man charged with attempted murder of deputy has two homicide convictions

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Charles Edward Mason

Note: This story was last upated at 7 a.m. May 31.

CLINTON—The Anderson County man charged with attempted murder after allegedly pointing a gun at a deputy and pulling the trigger twice in April has previously pleaded guilty to homicides in Kentucky and Tennessee.

For members: Man sentenced to 10 years in shooting death of girlfriend’s mother

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William James McMillan

CLINTON—An Andersonville man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend’s mother four years ago.

The charge against William James McMillan, 52, was reduced from second-degree murder, a Class A felony, to voluntary manslaughter, a Class C felony, as part of the plea deal.

DA: Granddaughter in murder case was malnourished, smothered

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Valerie Stenson

The young granddaughter who died in Oak Ridge in 2011 was malnourished and had been smothered, District Attorney General Dave Clark said Friday, after the child’s grandmother pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last Tuesday.

Emergency workers and law enforcement officers responded to a 911 call at Teller Village Apartments around 1:30 p.m. Monday, April 11, 2011. The grandmother, Valerie Stenson, now 54, was trying to revive her granddaughter, Manhattan Inman, using cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, Clark said in a press release Friday.

“An autopsy reveled that the child was malnourished, and the cause of death was smothering,” said Clark, who is DA in the Seventh Judicial District (Anderson County).

Manhattan was two years and nine months old when she died, Clark said.

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Grandmother sentenced to 30 years in murder plea deal

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Valerie Stenson

A grandmother pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder in the death of her young granddaughter in Oak Ridge eight years ago, and she was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Valerie Stenson, 54, who has an address listed in Knoxville, was ordered to serve 100 percent of her sentence.

Stenson had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of her granddaughter, Manhattan Inman, who was 18 months old when she was found dead in a home on Teller Village Lane on April 17, 2011.

The first-degree murder charge was reduced to second-degree murder as part of the plea deal entered in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on Tuesday.

Prosecutors had once sought the death penalty against Stenson, but it was withdrawn in March 2018. Prosecutors cited mental health issues, expense, and the strain put on the local court system in death penalty cases.

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For members: Drug case involved thousands of pills, overseas apprehension, possible deportation

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Moshin Agha

CLINTON—A drug case that started with an online search for Xanax ended with a police search that found more than 10,000 pills in an Anderson County home, an overseas apprehension, three plea deals, and a possible deportation.

The third and final plea deal was entered during a hearing in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton late Friday morning. The defendant, who had been brought to the United States after being detained at an airport in Dubai in July, wants to be deported, his attorney said.