Contributed photo by McMinn County Sheriff Office / Esau C. Kelley, 24, is charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the Sept. 18, 2021, slaying of 54-year-old Mary Denise Dalton and the nonfatal shooting of 31-year-old Jonathan C. Burger.A shooting Saturday in McMinn County, Tennessee, led to arrests of an Ooltewah man and an Etowah woman in an incident that left one dead and another injured.
Esau C. Kelly, 24, of Ooltewah, is charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, while Melissa K. Pueirtt, 45, of Etowah, is charged as an accessory after the fact, according to records at the McMinn County Sheriff’s Office in Athens, Tennessee.
The pair are charged in the fatal shooting of Mary Denise Dalton, 54, and the nonfatal shooting of Jonathan C. Burger, 31. Both victims lived at a residence on County Road 202, officials said in an earlier statement. Burger was taken to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
There were no new details on what led to the incident when the arrests were announced Monday. Sheriff’s deputies and investigators from the 10th Judicial District Attorney General’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation assisted in the probe over the weekend.
Contributed photo by McMinn County Sheriff Office / Melissa Pueirtt, 45, is charged with being an accessory after the fact in the Sept. 18, 2021, slaying of 54-year-old Mary Denise Dalton and the nonfatal shooting of 31-year-old Jonathan C. Burger.Sheriff Joe Guy said three people went to the home on County Road 202 where Dalton and Burger lived around 8 p.m. Saturday. One member of the visiting party produced a firearm and fired the shots that killed Dalton and injured Burger, Guy said.