In the small community of Luttrell, Tennessee, a long and bitter feud between two neighboring families culminated in the death of 45-year-old Michael Woodby on the night of September 16, 2013. For three years, the Woodby family and their neighbors across the street, the Waggoners, had been locked in a tense dispute that involved hundreds of calls to law enforcement, multiple court filings, and the constant recording of each other's actions.
The conflict, which reportedly started over either a refused gun sale or a request for quiet after Michael Woodby had a heart attack, had escalated to a point of no return.
On that Monday evening, at approximately 10:05 p.m., a call about a fight and possible shooting came into the Union County E-911 Center. When deputies arrived at the 500 block of State Route 370, they discovered the body of Michael Woodby in a ditch along the highway. He had been shot four times, with the bullets damaging his heart and right lung. The man who made the 911 call was his neighbor, Kevin Lee Waggoner, a 42-year-old Knox County Schools security officer. An altercation had occurred between Woodby and Waggoner, who was walking along the road with his 21-year-old son, Kolton.
In the hours immediately following the shooting, Kevin Waggoner was taken into custody. He claimed he shot Woodby in self-defense, alleging that Woodby had followed him and his son down the road with a large wooden stick and had struck Kolton with it. However, investigators questioned this narrative. Evidence at the scene seemed to contradict Waggoner's account; Woodby’s body and all the shell casings were found on the opposite side of the road from where Waggoner claimed the attack happened. Furthermore, the downward trajectory of the four bullets suggested Woodby may have been in the ditch when Waggoner, who was shorter, fired at him from above.
The investigation, led by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, resulted in an indictment against both father and son. Kevin Waggoner was initially charged with criminal homicide, a charge that was later upgraded to first-degree murder before he was ultimately indicted for second-degree murder. His son, Kolton Waggoner, was indicted on a charge of facilitation of second-degree murder. Kevin Waggoner's first trial in 2015 ended with a hung jury, leading to a mistrial. However, a retrial was held, and in August 2016, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was subsequently sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
