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The dead woman has a cluster of butterfly tattoos on her right calf that could lead to her identity.Photo by Contributed Photo /Chattanooga Times Free Press.
A North Carolina truck driver has been arrested in connection with the death of a woman whose nude body was found behind a gas station in Cumberland County, according to authorities.
The woman, whose body was discovered Tuesday in Crab Orchard, Tenn., has been identified as 35-year-old Summer Nicole Nelms, of Knoxville, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm said Friday in a news release. Investigators used her fingerprints to make the identification.
The truck driver, Alan Stacy Rogers, 32, of Pines, N.C., is being held without bond in a North Carolina jail, charged with first-degree murder, Helm said.
TBI officials said an autopsy in Nashville showed Nelms “died of multiple blunt force trauma and stab wounds.”
Investigators believe Nelms was picked up in the Knoxville area, killed and her body dumped behind the BP station on Interstate 40.
Authorities also searched the truck Rogers was driving during the incident, but did not say what was found.
A special session of the Cumberland County grand jury was held Friday morning in the case and an indictment was handed down, officials said.
Gary McKenzie, 13th Judicial District deputy district attorney, said Friday that Rogers is fighting extradition from North Carolina.
“The state will seek a governor’s warrant next week,” McKenzie said. “That’s the instrument used to seek extradition.”
McKenzie said he doesn’t know whether Rogers has a criminal record but said the investigation is in progress. He said he couldn’t comment about any statements from Rogers.
A photo sent to the media showing a tattoo on Nelms’ body helped lead to identification, authorities said. The tattoo depicted a string of flowers woven between three butterflies. The names written on the butterflies’ wings were those of Nelms’ children, McKenzie said.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
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Allen is a hard working family man. He is a wonderful friend and human being. It is a shock that these charges are being brought against him. First Degree Murder, doesn't correlate with who he is. At all.
Why are you defending the killer? I was a good friend of the victims. Summer was a great person. She may have been misguided and put herself in situations that she shouldn't have but how dare you defend her killer? No woman deserves to be beaten and stabbed like that. I don't know the whole story or what went down. But there are a lot of sick people out there. And your friend was one of them.
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