Morgan County Sheriff Wayne Potter’s investigators have prepared a warrant charging 50-year-old Wayne C. Lindsay of Sunbright with the first-degree premeditated murder of John Hammond, also of Morgan County. Lindsay evidently shot and killed Hammond at Lindsay’s 145 Herbert Shannon Road home in November 2018 as Hammond slept. The shooting was precipitated by an earlier argument between the two men.

The murder charge follows an investigation into the discovery of human remains beneath rocks at the bottom of an embankment in the woods, not far from Lindsay’s home. An individual who had been living with Lindsay contacted a Morgan County sheriff’s deputy Wednesday, to say Lindsay had discussed the murder with him recently.

Investigators aided by prosecutors from the District Attorney General’s office were led to the location of the remains by the informant. District Attorney General Russell Johnson contacted the Regional Forensics Center to send an anthropology team of forensic specialists to examine and exhume the remains believed to be Hammond’s.

When investigators and a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent interviewed him, Lindsay – already in custody on an attachment from another case – confessed to killing Hammond.

An autopsy will be conducted to determine the exact cause of death and positively identify what is believed to be Hammond, based on statements made by the informant and Lindsay. Hammond’s family has been contacted by the sheriff’s office. Records indicate a missing-person report for Hammond was never filed.