43 indicted in drug roundup
BLEDSOE COUNTY, Tenn. - Forty-three people were indicted Monday by a Bledsoe County grand jury on drug charges in a cases originated by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's drug investigation unit in April 2013.
According to a TBI news release, 29 of the suspects were taken into custody without incident Monday.
Those arrested were taken to the Bledsoe County Jail and received bonds in various amounts based on their individual cases, the release stated.
The Tennessee Meth and Pharmaceutical Task Force, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force and the Pikeville Police Department were among the law enforcement agencies that contributed to the investigation.
Small plane, bodies pulled from marsh
BRUNSWICK, Ga. - Investigators say a small plane carrying two people that crashed near the Georgia coastline has been recovered.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Shawn Etcher said Wednesday that the plane's two occupants, both killed in the crash, were seated and wearing restraints.
The Piper aircraft was flying from Concord, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., when it went missing from radar Monday in an area known as Wally's Leg. Etcher says the plane was registered to ATP flight school and the journey from North Carolina to Florida was part of its training program.
Etcher says a crane lifted the aircraft from a marshy area and the plane will be taken to Atlanta for storage after investigators recover perishable evidence.
The cause of the crash is unclear, and the passengers' identities have not been released.
Second victim of home fire dies
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - Police say a second victim pulled from a burned East Tennessee home has died.
Greeneville police told WBIR-TV that 49-year-old Roger Dewayne Aiken died Tuesday from injuries he suffered on Sunday.
That's when firefighters were called to the Greeneville home that he shared with his aunt, 78-year-old Elizabeth Cooter. She died at the scene.
Police say they think the fire was set to cover up a crime because Aiken and Cooter both suffered injuries unrelated to the blaze.
Dead chickens dumped on road
GADSDEN, Ala. - Officials have buried the carcasses of more than 300 chickens that were illegally dumped on an abandoned Etowah County road.
Gadsden-Etowah Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Bryant said the carcasses were reported March 18 in an area that was a county road until a bridge washed out and wasn't replaced.
Bryant says someone called the Three Corners Landfill in Cherokee County in the past two weeks asking how much it would cost to dispose of about 300 dead chickens. Authorities have said the chickens appeared to have been there for days before anyone reported seeing them.
Investigators are unsure of how the chickens died and have said they showed no signs of disease.
Bryant says the state Department of Agriculture approved of the chickens being buried on site.