In the early morning hours of October 9, 2023, a single-vehicle crash on Skyline Drive in Cookeville, Tennessee, led first responders to a more disturbing discovery. The driver, 55-year-old Rodney Lee Morgan, was found dead in the vehicle; investigators determined his death resulted from a gunshot wound, not the crash. The Cookeville Police Department opened a homicide investigation.

Friends and family remembered Morgan as hardworking and compassionate, with a love of hunting and horses and an affable, joking nature. Investigators say he had been a frequent patron of several local establishments, including Scooter’s Biker Bar, The 19th Hole, Bar on the Green and Misty’s Suds and Buds, and have asked anyone who saw or interacted with him in the hours before his death to come forward. No arrests or public identification of suspects have been announced and the case remains unsolved.

If anyone has information about Rodney’s movements or contacts the night before he was found, please share what you know with the Cookeville Police Department.