Robert Lee Conner

Manchester Police Investigator Stuart Colwell has charged 19-year-old Robert Lee Conner of Manchester with solicitation of child rape and sexual exploitation of a minor who is age 12. He is currently being held in Franklin County jail on a violation of probation charge stemming from 2 convictions of statutory rape. He is being served warrants from Manchester while in the Winchester jail. Conner’s bond was set at $200,000.

Rescuers look over the wreckage of the car in which Morris Parker and Mary Motlow were killed. Our thanks to David Melson of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette

Three people lost their lives in a head-on crash south of Shelbyville late Tuesday afternoon. According to State Trooper Dallas Rife, both drivers died at the scene on Highway 82 South approximately two miles south of Shelbyville. They were identified as Morris Parker of La Vergne, who would have turned 72 Thursday, and Eric Holestak, 46, of Murfreesboro. According to the Shelbyville Times Gazette a passenger in the Parker car, 62-year-old Mary Motlow of Lynchburg, died at a Nashville hospital later Tuesday night. She had been airlifted to Nashville for treatment of multiple injuries, Rife said. Holestak crossed the centerline and struck the Parker car head-on. The trooper stated that it appeared that the driver may have fallen asleep and that alcohol was involved. According to the trooper, Motlow died of multiple “blunt force” injuries. He noted that the cars came to an almost instant stop upon impact. No skid marks were visible. All involved were wearing seat belts. Both drivers had to be cut from their vehicles.

Visits to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are up by nearly 8% over last year for the year to date. A park spokeswoman said November visits to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border totaled 657,935 people. That was up 8.6% from November 2011. After revising October’s figures, which were slightly ahead of the same month last year, year-to-date visits to the Smokies through November totaled 9,204,736 people. That’s up 7.8% from January through November 2011. October is a big month for visits because of the fall foliage. The revised figure for that month is 1,133,604.

A new Vanderbilt University poll shows a strong preference among Tennesseans for a state-run health insurance exchange over one run by the federal government. The poll of 829 registered voters released Wednesday showed 53% favor the state-run exchange, while 33% prefer the federal approach. The results contrast with Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s decision earlier this week not to pursue a state-run exchange. Vanderbilt officials said the governor was not aware of the poll results before Wednesday’s release. Haslam’s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Meanwhile, a pending decision over whether to expand Medicaid was much more evenly divided among poll respondents: 47% said they support an expansion, while 46 oppose it. Haslam has said he will decide the Medicaid issue sometime in the spring.

Tennessee has shown marked improvements in 12 measures of overall health in the last five years, according to a newly released report, but with a ranking of 48th in sedentary lifestyle among all states, most Tennesseans need to “get moving” to make more progress. The United Health Foundation’s 23rd annual America’s Health Rankings report lists Tennessee at 39th overall this year. The state moved up two spots from a recalculated 41st in 2011 in the foundation’s evaluation and measures of how states perform in different categories. Tennessee did show significant improvements in the rankings over a five-year period. During the last half-decade Tennessee moved out of the bottom ten in four measures: smoking, obesity, high school graduation rates and infectious diseases. The state also recorded statistically significant improvements in the areas of infant mortality, low infant birth weight, preventable hospitalizations, cardiovascular deaths, cancer deaths, air pollution, occupational fatalities and violent crime. In addition to the low ranking for sedentary lifestyle, Tennessee was rated 35th for obesity and 44th for the closely related prevalence of diabetes. The data also show, despite improvements over the past five years, some 11.2 percent of the state’s adult population has been diagnosed with diabetes, compared with 9.5 percent nationally.