A man was charged with homicide Tuesday after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said it had matched his shoe to bloody prints found at the scene of a slaying.
Gary McPherson was last seen on the afternoon of July 22, a Sunday. His body was found the next evening at his home in the 5400 block of School Street in Ooltewah, lying in a pool of blood in the middle of his living room floor, court records show.
Rodney GearingA family member had gone to check on him that evening and found a broken window in the back of the house.
While the incident took place within the Chattanooga Police Department’s jurisdiction, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office took over the investigation because McPherson was the brother of retired Assistant Chief Edwin McPherson, police spokesman Rob Simmons said.
Because of that relationship, Chattanooga police contacted the district attorney’s office about the handling of the investigation, and the DA assigned it to the sheriff’s office, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office confirmed.