Cheyenne Patton
Note: This story was updated at 4:45 p.m.
Update:Â The teenager reported missing in Roane County has been located, the Oliver Springs Police Department said Sunday.
“Thank you all for the help!” the OSPD said. [Read more…]
An early aerial photo of Happy Valley, a construction camp that was like a small city and used to help build the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge. This picture was taken May, 22, 1944, by Ed Westcott, the official government photographer in Oak Ridge during World War II. (Photo courtesy Ed Westcott/Emily Hunnicutt)
It was once home to a large construction camp that was like a small city and housed workers building K-25 during World War II.
Now the 160-acre parcel known as Happy Valley has been sold.
Happy Valley was in west Oak Ridge, across State Route 58 from the K-25 site. One of three major sites in Oak Ridge, K-25 was built to enrich uranium for atomic weapons as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II.
Today, Happy Valley appears to be mostly a rolling tree-covered landscape between Oak Ridge and Kingston along SR 58. To the public, there is little or no obvious evidence of what was once there—homes, a grocery store, schools, a post office, recreation halls, a gas station, and a bowling alley.
But those who have walked the property have seen evidence of the small city that was once there. [Read more…]
A 20-year-old Powell woman died in a single-vehicle crash during a police pursuit on Poplar Creek Road in Roane County on Wednesday afternoon, and a 15-year-old male driver was injured, authorities said. (Photo by Tom Scott)
A 20-year-old Powell woman died in a single-vehicle crash during a police pursuit on Poplar Creek Road in Roane County on Wednesday afternoon, and a 15-year-old male driver was injured, authorities said.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol said the juvenile, a Harriman boy who was not identified because of his age, was fleeing from police in a 1998 Dodge pickup at about 3:06 p.m. when he lost control of the truck. It ran off the road and hit a rock wall or cavern opening, the THP said.
Holland Durbrow, 20, was killed in the impact, the THP said. She was not using a seat belt, according to a preliminary report.
WYSH Radio in Clinton reported that Harriman police officers tried to pull over a pickup that had been reported stolen Wednesday afternoon, but the young driver refused to stop. At one point during the pursuit, officers lost sight of the truck on Poplar Creek Road, WSYH said. Moments later, officers came upon the crash scene. [Read more…]
A Chattanooga pill mill operator was sentenced to 280 years in federal prison on Thursday, and the Roane County Sheriff’s Office was among the law enforcement agencies that participated in the investigation that led to her indictment and subsequent conviction, authorities said.
Barbara Lang, a.k.a. “Aunt Bea,†61, of Rossville, Georgia, was sentenced by the Honorable Curtis L. Collier, U.S. District Judge, said United States Attorney William C. Killian of the Eastern District of Tennessee.
After a 25-day trial that spanned almost three months, Lang was convicted of two counts of conspiring to distribute and dispense Schedule II and IV controlled substances, outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose; five counts of maintaining a premises for the purpose of distributing controlled substances; and 14 counts of structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements, a press release said.
Lang was charged along with three other people. [Read more…]
Jack Stockton
The Roane County Sheriff’s Department was one of several law enforcement agencies that took part in an investigation that led to the indictment and conviction of the owner of two pain clinics, or “pill mills,” in Chattanooga, authorities said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation were also involved in the investigation that led to the convictions of four people, including Barbara Lang, a.k.a. “Aunt Bea,†60, of Rossville, Georgia, who owned and operated Superior One Pain Clinic and Primary Care Pain Clinic in Chattanooga, federal officials said.
Lang was convicted of drug trafficking and financial crimes. [Read more…]
Information from WYSH Radio
An investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has concluded that the shooting of an armed burglary suspect in Harriman on Tuesday was justified. Officers shot and killed 28-year-old Miranda Michelle Guy inside her home on Fairchild Street on Tuesday afternoon.
According to a joint press release from District Attorney General Russell Johnson, the Roane County Sheriff’s Office, and the Harriman Police Department, Guy pointed a handgun at the officers and was advancing on one of them when they opened fire. The preliminary autopsy showed that Guy was hit multiple times in her right arm, which was holding the gun, and her front torso.
Officials said that while a Harriman Police Department officer was speaking to witnesses of a burglary at a storage building in South Harriman, a white pickup truck drove by that the witnesses identified as the vehicle that the suspect in the break-in had been driving. The release said the officer could see items in the bed of the truck that matched the description of some of the stolen items. The officer ordered the truck to stop, but the driver, who was identified as Guy, sped up and drove away.
The officer started a pursuit, which was joined by a HPD investigator and two Roane County Sheriff’s Department deputies. The four officers followed Guy to her house, where they saw her run inside. The officers split up, with two going to the back of the house while the other two followed Guy inside through the front door. [Read more…]
A large standing-room-only audience attends an election forum for Roane County candidates on Tuesday at Roane State Community College in Oak Ridge. (Photo by Sara Wise)
Roane County candidates in four contested races—county executive, sheriff, circuit court judge, and circuit court clerk—discussed issues ranging from federal funding for U.S. Department of Energy work to anti-drug D.A.R.E. programs in local schools during a standing-room-only forum in Oak Ridge on Tuesday.
The forum was at Roane State Community College. Freelance reporter Sara Wise covered it for Oak Ridge Today. Here’s a summary of what the candidates said.
County Executive
County executive candidates Mike Farmer and incumbent Ron Woody both attended the forum.
When asked about the Plateau Partnership Park, Farmer said Roane County has “several million dollars†invested in the Roane Regional Business Technology Park. He said that this technology park, as well as the Plateau Partnership Park, is important to the county from an economic standpoint. [Read more…]
An Oneida woman driving the car above was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville after a collision with a truck on Tri County Boulevard in Oliver Springs on Monday afternoon. (Photo by Oliver Springs Police Department/Kenneth Morgan)
For the third time since about noon Saturday, a Lifestar medical helicopter on Monday afternoon picked up a patient injured in a car crash in Oliver Springs.
The 1 p.m. Monday crash involved an Old Dominion truck driven by Steven Mayfield and a car driven by Lyndsay Phillips of Oneida. The truck was turning from eastbound Tri County Boulevard onto Knoxville Highway, or State Highway 62, headed toward Morgan County, Oliver Springs Police Chief Kenneth Morgan said. He said the car was traveling west toward Harriman on the Boulevard.
Phillips was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center by Lifestar, Morgan said. [Read more…]
Federal officials on Thursday announced they had dismantled a Knoxville-based cocaine ring that is accused of trafficking $17.5 million worth of drugs and distributing more than five kilograms of cocaine and 280 grams of crack cocaine.
A federal grand jury returned a 58-count indictment on Dec. 3 against 21 Knoxville residents, charging them with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and cocaine base, money laundering, and gun charges, U.S. Attorney William C. Killian said in a press release.
The 21Â members of the alleged drug ring appeared in court before U.S. magistrate judges this week and entered pleas of not guilty to the charges in the indictment, Killian said. All of them have been ordered held without bond pending trial, which has been set for Feb. 11 in U.S. District Court in Knoxville.
Among the law enforcement agencies participating in the investigation were the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, Clinton Police Department, Oak Ridge Police Department, and Roane County Sheriff’s Department, Killian said. [Read more…]
Tennessee officials last week announced $21.1 million in grants to Tennessee agencies to support highway traffic safety efforts, with more than $350,000 designated for local law enforcement agencies.
The grants include about $180,000 to the Anderson County District Attorney General’s Office for driving-under-the-influence abatement and prosecution, and roughly $40,000 to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department for reducing fatalities in the county. The Oak Ridge Police Department received about $25,000 for alcohol saturation and checkpoints. [Read more…]
A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted two brothers who were tried twice but never convicted in the 2006 shooting deaths of a Roane County Sheriff’s Department deputy and his ride-along partner, authorities said.
AÂ 14-count indictment was returned against Rocky Houston, 52, charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms, according to the office of U.S. Attorney William C. Killian in the Eastern District of Tennessee.
A one-count indictment was also returned again Leon Houston, 54, for possessing firearms while being an unlawful user of controlled substances, a press release said.
Information from WYSH Radio
Two brothers who were tried twice but never convicted in the 2006 shooting deaths of a Roane County Sheriff’s Department deputy and his ridealong partner are now facing federal charges.
Rocky and Leon Houston were both arrested Friday on federal firearms charges at the family’s home in the Ten Mile community after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Roane County Sheriff’s Office; and other agencies executed search and arrest warrants.
U.S. Attorney Bill Killian says that Rocky Houston is charged with being a convicted felon in possession of firearms and that Leon Houston is charged with possession of firearms while being an unlawful user of controlled substances.
