Year in review: WBBJ’s top stories of 2016
JACKSON, Tenn. — From the search for a missing toddler to a school bus crash on a busy Nashville interstate, we wanted to revisit the seven biggest stories to shake West Tennessee in 2016.
“We have found Noah Chamberlin. He was located about one and a half miles from his home, where he went missing from,” Chester county Sheriff Blair Weaver said in a January news conference.
The announcement marked a devastating end to the beginning of 2016.
For seven days in January, first responders and thousands of volunteers from across the country searched the Pinson community for missing toddler Noah Chamberlin.
Investigators determined the 2-year-old wandered away from his grandmother while on a family nature hike.
Nearly a month later, firefighters respond to one of the deadliest fires ever in the city of Jackson. The house fire at 214 B Street in Bemis would take the lives of three people, including a child.
When investigators searched through the debris, they determined there were no working smoke alarms at the home.
Fast forward to August, when Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent De’Greaun Frazier was fatally shot during an undercover investigation on Brianfield Cove in Jackson.
TBI Director Mark Gwyn said Frazier’s apparent murder is the first line-of-duty death for the agency.
“I have agents all across the state doing what agent Frazier was doing, and all you can do is pray they go home safely,” Gwyn said in a news conference. “Today, that prayer wasn’t answered.”
That same month, police say David Lee Allison, a disgruntled Black & Decker employee, fired gunshots and slashed tires in a parking lot at the manufacturing plant.
The act of workplace violence caused the plant to cancel a few shifts. At last check, Allison faces 15 counts including attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Two months later, a former Gibson County sheriff finds himself on the other side of the law.
Chuck Arnold entered a guilty plea to multiple counts of theft, official misconduct and trying to get prescription pills. Arnold was sentenced to 10 years of probation and won’t serve any time behind bars.
In November, a frightening scene unfolded in Nashville where a Chester County school bus crashed.
“I was watching a movie on my phone and all I saw was the bus take a really sharp turn and hit one of the sides and then flipped over on its other side,” a witness to the crash on Interstate 65 said in a 911 call.
In total, all 46 students and adults on board would be transported to Nashville hospitals to be treated for various injuries. None of those were fatal.
Then in December, a Decatur County judge makes a decision about the highly anticipated trial for one of the suspects accused of killing nursing student Holly Bobo.
Zach Adams will be the first of three suspects to be tried, and the case will be moved to Hardin County in April.
Click here to vote in our poll and let us know what you consider the 2016 story of the year.
