Austin Drummond, the suspect linked to a quadruple murder last week, has been arrested after a four-day manhunt, according to police in Tennessee.
Reports of the abandoned infant in neighboring Dyer County on July 29 sparked a search for her guardians, leading cops to discover the bodies of the child’s parents, James Matthew Wilson, 21, and Adrianna Williams, 20. Her maternal grandmother, Cortney Rose, 38, and maternal uncle, Braydon Williams, 15, were also found dead, officials said.
Tanaka Brown and Giovonte Thomas, both 29, were charged over the weekend with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. A third “associate,” Dearrah Sanders, was charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree on Monday, the bureau announced.
Deputies from the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office responded to reports at about 3.10 p.m. last Tuesday that a dark-colored minivan had dropped off the child in a car seat at a “random individual’s front yard” in the unincorporated community of Tigrett.
That set off a scramble to find the baby’s caregivers, Stephen Sutton, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s offices in Lake and Dyer counties, said at a news conference Friday.
Just before 10.30 p.m., Rose and Williams were reported missing, according to audio of a 911 call obtained by NBC affiliate WMC-TV.
The bodies of Wilson, Rose and the two Williamses were found nearly 40 miles away later that evening in a wooded area along Carrington Road in Tiptonville, authorities said.
Authorities have not revealed how the four people died, but have ruled their deaths homicides. It was not immediately clear what led authorities to name Drummond as a suspect.
Records show that Drummond has a lengthy criminal history, with the suspect out on bond for a previous conviction of aggravated robbery at the time the family of four was found dead.
