Category: News

On Saturday the City of Manchester held its final Cruise-In Downtown Style. City leaders have announced that the monthly event would end with the August event. No word if the cruise-in’s will be held in the future.

Great weather with temperatures in the 80’s brought several cars, trucks and visitors to the downtown square.

A special reception will be held this afternoon (Aug. 13, 2012) from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. the first for Miss Tennessee, Tullahoma’s own Chandler Lawson at the Tullahoma Events Center N.W. Atlantic Street. There will also be a reception at 5 p.m. at City Hall, for re-elected Alderman Jimmy Blanks and newly elected Alderman Sandy Lindeman who is returning to a position she held from 2006 to 2009. Also honored will be Board of Education newcomer Kim Uselton and returning Chairman Pat Welsh and board member Vickie Shelton. The newly elected officials will give their oath of office when the Board of Aldermen meets at 5:30 p.m.

A hearing in the sentencing of the former treasurer of the Coffee County Fair Board was reset Wednesday until Oct. 3. 37-year-old Kimberly Ann Mullins was arrested last year on charges of theft of over $60,000 from the Coffee County Fair Board without approval after she was indicted by the June 2011 Coffee County Grand Jury. The indictment came following a three-month investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The investigation came about after allegations were made of the missing money from the fair board. Mullins pled guilty to the charges in May of this year and repaid $10,000 to the fair board. During Wednesday’s hearing, Carolyn Long, representing the Coffee County Fair Board, testified for the prosecution. While fair board member H.D. Crosslin testified for Mullins’ defense. After Wednesday afternoon hearing, Coffee County Circuit Court Judge Craig Johnson set sentencing for Mullins on Oct. 3. In the meantime, Judge Johnson is expected to review testimony presented by both sides and the various aspects of the law before determining a sentence. Judge Johnson ordered Mullins to pay $65,000 by the end of business yesterday. Mullins is represented by Shelbyville attorney John Norton III while assistant district attorney Marla Holloway is prosecuting the case.

Strong winds and heavy rains moved through the Coffee County area around noon Thursday. The storm dumped 1.15 inches of rain at the National Weather Service monitoring station located at the Tullahoma Waste Water Plant. Because of the heavy downpours, the National Weather Service placed Coffee County under a flood alert. According to the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department, there were a number of trees downed in the northern section of the county. “There was damage to areas around the Beech Grove and Lakewood Park area,” Coffee County Sheriff Capt. Frank Watkins stated. He noted that deputies found a house with part of the roof blown off. According to the national weather service, radar shows just strong wind around the noon hour in the Beech Grove area.

The Coffee County Grand Jury met Tuesday to review 87 cases, and Sheriff Steve Graves is concerned about where he will incarcerate anyone who might be named in sealed indictments.
As of Tuesday there were some 289 inmates in the Coffee County Jail which was designed to house 196 inmates.
During a tour of the county lockup Wednesday, Tullahoma News and WHMT Radio reporter Wayne Thomas saw that there were 30 inmates housed in cells designed to house only 16 inmates.
Prisoners were having to sleep on the floor and having to step over sleeping inmates to move around.
Meanwhile, the Coffee County Commission’s Jail Review Committee is still working on plans for a new jail.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said a man was found murdered inside his Bedford County home on Wednesday. A woman called 911 on Wednesday afternoon after finding the body of her husband, 55-year-old Larry Walls, inside their ransacked home on Ennon Church Road in Shelbyville.
An autopsy found homicide to be his cause of the death, but the TBI did not release the manner in which he died. The TBI is working with the Bedford County Sheriff’s office during the investigation.

Authorities in Hickman County said an extremely dangerous mental patient who escaped a halfway house has been arrested in Marshall County.
The Hickman County Sheriff’s Department said 35-year-old Kenneth Ryan Mallady was arrested Thursday. Authorities said he resisted arrest, but no other details about his arrest were known.
Mallady was last seen on July 26, but his escape was not reported to authorities until July 30. Police said he is schizophrenic and has not been taking his medication. Mallady had been found not guilty by reason of insanity of the first degree premeditated murder of his mother and attempted murder of his stepfather in Hickman County in 2003. Authorities said Mallady decapitated his mother and poked out the eyes of his stepfather.

A portion of the National Guard’s 1175th Transportation Company in Tullahoma is scheduled to leave on Saturday for a nine-month deployment. The 39 soldiers will depart the Tullahoma armory at 9 a.m. The servicemen will first go to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for a short time for specialized training before going to Afghanistan. Tullahoma’s armory is located at 1402 East Carroll Street.

Rescue personnel spent more than an hour Wednesday afternoon rescuing a young woman who had fallen from the Machine Falls in the Short Springs area. According to rescue personnel, the woman was walking along the fall and fell. Members of the Coffee County Rescue Squad, Coffee County Ambulance service, deputies from the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department and the Tullahoma Fire Department worked for nearly an hour and half to get the young woman up to the top of the falls and to a waiting ambulance. She was transported to a Manchester hospital for treatment of her injuries.

The director of Warren County Animal Control faces charges after marijuana was found growing on county property behind the animal shelter on Paws Lane. Tammy Webb was arrested Monday evening following a grand jury indictment on charges relating to the manufacture, delivery and sale of marijuana. Sheriff’s investigator Bo Ramsey said text messages between Webb and her son, Jonathan Ewell Smith, led to the indictment. Smith was arrested four weeks ago when deputies confiscated 36 marijuana plants found in the field.-WKRN-