War vet freezes to death inside home in Dunlap

Sequatchie County Detective Chris Walker walks past the front of the house trailer where Bradley Sutter was found dead Wednesday in sub-freezing weather. Sutter allegedly died from exposure.

DUNLAP, Tenn. -- After surviving two wars, frigid weather took the life of Bradley Sutter this week. Police found the 85-year-old dead in his rural mobile home with nothing but electric blankets for heat.

With temperatures in the single digits this week, concerned neighbors asked the Sequatchie County Sheriff's Office to check on Sutter, whom neighbors hadn't seen in several days. Deputies found him dead of hypothermia Wednesday afternoon inside his squalid mobile home, which is tucked away in some woods off of state Route 111 near Dunlap.

Deputies found an electric furnace in the home, but it was either broken or not turned on. Sutter's only source of heat came from two electric blankets -- one on top of him, the other underneath. A piece was missing from the bottom of the front door, plugged up with grocery bags.

"It was 16 degrees outside when we arrived," said Sequatchie County Sheriff Ronnie Hitchcock. "It didn't feel any different inside."

Officials couldn't immediately confirm Sutter's military history, though the sheriff said he served in World War II and the Korean War. Mickey McCamish, chairman of the Southeast Tennessee Veterans Coalition, said coalition members were saddened by the situation and working Friday to help hunt down his military records.

"He survived the wars and then lost out to weather," McCamish said.

The veterans coalition, which serves 13 counties in the Chattanooga area, could have easily helped find Sutter a heater, said McCamish.

"He just had a basic need," he said. "He gave so much for us and we would have loved to have had the opportunity to give back to him by helping him."

Hitchcock gathered from neighbors and family members that it didn't seem like Sutter wanted help.

"He was a loner," Hitchcock said.

When neighbors and relatives came to visit Sutter, Hitchcock said, he would meet them at the end of the long, thickly wooded driveway that obscured his home from view.

The sheriff wasn't sure how long Sutter had been dead, and said it could have been anywhere between one and five days.

After days of searching for family members, investigators tracked down Sutter's son through an ancestry registry, though the sheriff said the two hadn't been in touch for some time. Sutter's son, who traveled from Englewood, Tenn., on Friday to sort through his father's things, declined to comment.

The winter storm that swept through the country this week has so far claimed the lives of 18 Tennesseans. Nine of those deaths were hypothermia-related, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. One of those hypothermia-related fatalities was local 64 year-old Douglas King, who was found Tuesday morning near the railroad trestles at 600 E. 11th St., just a block from the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

With more cold weather coming this weekend, Hitchcock encouraged people to check on their neighbors, especially if they're infirmed or elderly. People in need should utilize the resources in the city and county available to them, including food pantries, clothes closets and local shelters, he said.

Hitchcock even offered to put people up at the sheriff's office.

"If need be, people can come here," Hitchcock said. "We don't have a huge budget, but we've got space, we've got a kitchen. If it means saving somebody's life, we'll put them up."

Contact Will Healey at whealey@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6731. Contact staff writer Kevin Hardy at khardy@times freepress.com or 423-757-6249.