CLEVELAND — The identification of skeletal human remains found recently in McMinn County has cleared a 7-year-old cold case from Fort Oglethorpe, where a man believed to be suffering from some medical issues vanished in 2016.
The remains found Oct. 19 by hunters in a wooded area off Highway 30 west of Athens, Tennessee, have been identified as those of David Dewayne Abbott, who was 43 when his loved ones last heard from him on June 22, 2016, McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy said during a news conference in Cleveland.
Steve Blevins, a retired detective from the Fort Oglethorpe Police Department, was on top of the case as soon as the body was found and sent for a forensic autopsy at the Knox County Regional Forensics Center in Knoxville, Guy said. The sheriff arranged the news conference in Cleveland to keep Blevins from having to drive all the way to Athens.
“On Monday, we were contacted by retired Fort Oglethorpe Detective Steve Blevins about the possibility of the person being related to a case Detective Blevins had worked in 2016,” Guy said. “Detective Blevins contacted the forensics center about his cold case, and they were able to confirm the identification as David Abbott, of Fort Oglethorpe.”