Residents react after suspect in deputy’s death arrested

DICKSON COUNTY, Tenn. — After a nearly three day manhunt, the man accused of killing Dickson County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Daniel Baker was taken into custody this morning in Hickman County.

Wiggins was arrested this morning on Stinson Road, about a mile from Dawn Cox’s home.

“Wednesday morning, it was very chaotic. They locked the roads down. They were checking everybody going in and out, coming door to door searching,” Cox said.

And while Cox and her fiance stayed home during the manhunt, another resident, Sandra Dudley, left.

Dudley lives less than a mile from where Wiggins was arrested and where Baker’s patrol vehicle was found Wednesday morning.

“It’s been quite unsettling. We’ve been advised by police officers not to stay at home. Everyone on this road. Almost everyone on this road has chosen to stay elsewhere until the suspect was apprehended,” Dudley said.

Officials say a new trooper with the Tennessee Highway Patrol spotted Wiggins on Stinson Road, in Hickman County, Friday morning about a mile from where Sgt. Daniel Baker died Wednesday while responding to a suspicious vehicle report.

“He observed a subject that was near the woodline, and he got out to approach this individual and as he approached this individual, he noticed that he had tattoos, and he met the overall description of the gentleman that we had been looking for,” THP Col. Dereck Stewart said.

But after an emotional week, when deputies found a brother in blue dead, they continued to search for the man accused of killing him.

Dickson County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe said they saved one item of the fallen deputy’s Wednesday after his body was found, waiting to make an arrest.

“Sgt. Baker’s handcuffs were immediately taken into our possession, and they are on the suspect at this time, and he will be taken into the Dickson County Jail with those,” Bledsoe said.

There was a heavy police presence at TriStar Natchez Emergency Room, where officials say Wiggins was taken for treatment after his arrest.

Wiggins is expected to be charged with first-degree murder in Baker’s death. A woman, Erica Castro-Miles, is already in custody and charged with first-degree murder in connection with Baker’s death as well.