In the quiet town of Cleveland, Tennessee, the story of Sue Kelley Liner, an 84-year-old woman, concluded in a manner that would ripple through the community for years to come. On Sunday, November 13, 2016, she and her husband of 59 years, Max Liner, were found deceased in their home from gunshot wounds. The initial investigation led authorities to believe the tragedy was a murder-suicide.
Their son, Craig Liner, was the one to make the devastating discovery.
For years, the case was publicly viewed through the lens of this initial assessment. Sue was remembered as a dedicated member of the North Cleveland Church of God and a loving grandmother. She was born on May 6, 1932, and her life was deeply rooted in the Cleveland community. The narrative of her death, however, took a dramatic and unforeseen turn nearly a decade later.
In a stunning development in January 2025, Sue Kelley Liner's son, Craig Liner, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and felony murder in connection with her death. This shocking turn of events reopened the wounds of the past and cast a dark shadow over the long-held assumptions about that fateful day in 2016. The investigation was also re-examining the deaths of Sue's husband and her parents in light of these new charges. The once-closed chapter of a presumed murder-suicide was now an active and complex homicide investigation, leaving a family and a community to grapple with a profoundly altered and tragic story.
