ATHENS, Tenn. — Prosecutors seeking murder indictments against two men in the shooting death of Athens businessman Jeff Beene will present evidence to a McMinn County grand jury today.
Daniel Lankey, 30, and Jeff Coleman, 49, are being held on unrelated charges, but authorities said they are suspects in the Jan. 29 slaying of Mr. Beene. The victim had called 911 to say he was holding a burglar at gunpoint at one of his Plastic Industries sites, but when police arrived he was lying in a pool of blood and the burglar was gone.
Mr. Lankey is being held without bond on an escape warrant from Meigs County. He was in jail there on a rape charge when he and two other men escaped Dec. 19.
Mr. Coleman was being held on a $500 bond on a drug charge. Police said he was huffing paint when they caught up with him at a homeless camp near Athens on Friday.
Athens Police Chief Chuck Ziegler said Mr. Coleman had a history of arrests for “lower classes of crimes.”
Both men have given statements about the crime, according to the McMinn County sheriff’s investigators and Athens police.
Both also have been linked to the homeless camp on private land near Plastic Industries. It was unknown to police until the shooting investigation began.
“That was a surprise to us because it is on private property,” Chief Ziegler said. “There is also a little misconception about Lankey staying at the site. He had been there but was living elsewhere (since his escape).”
Investigators learned about the site from another man, Adrian Hall, 36, who was picked up Friday as a suspect in the Beene slaying. Police later decided Mr. Hall was not involved in the slaying.
District Attorney Steve Bebb said investigators believe that while Mr. Beene was holding one of the burglars at gunpoint, the other surprised him from behind, and the first then shot him.
Authorities say Mr. Lankey admitted he shot Mr. Beene with a pistol he had stolen from a home in Niota, Tenn. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation matched a .22-caliber shell casing found at the crime scene with a pistol found on Mr. Lankey.
No information from the grand jury proceeding will be released until next week, though, unless additional charges are filed against the suspects, authorities said.