MARYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – They were such horrific, shocking and senseless crimes that Tellico Plains educator Phillip Swanson never forgot despite the 44 years that separate then from now.
In 1978, Swanson was a senior at Tellico Plains High School. It was Feb. 27 and the community learned of a missing teen, 15-year-old Roxanne Woodson. Swanson said she wasn’t a friend of his and she had only been in Tellico Plains for just a few months, moving here from Indiana.
“She went missing and it created a huge manhunt,” Swanson remembers. “It was known that she had been with this character named Joe Shepherd. He was 25 and she was 15.”
Law enforcement went to Shepherd’s home to question him. According to police reports, upon their arrival he went into his bedroom and retrieved a shotgun; he was subsequently charged with assault. Shepherd was scheduled to appear in court on that charge 11 days later, but instead he left the area.
Because Shepherd had ties to Gastonia, North Carolina, Monroe County officials searched there and their hunches were right. Shepherd was apprehended and was eventually headed back to Tellico Plains to face that assault charge along with the heinous murders of two teens.