Separate shootings left two men dead in Meigs County, and both are under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and involve self-defense claims, officials said.
Jason Burnett, 46, was fatally shot around 3:30 p.m. Sunday at a trailer park on Peakland Road in Decatur. The gunfire erupted within sight of Uncle Gus’s Mountain Pit Bar-B-Que restaurant, according to Bob Edwards, an assistant district attorney for Meigs County. Edwards was at the scene of both incidents.
“The occupant of the trailer believed that the other person was trying to break in,” Edwards said in a phone interview, “and he had to shoot him in self-defense.”
Burnett allegedly attempted to enter the residence of Chad Lankford, 45, before Burnett was killed, Meigs County District Attorney Russell Johnson said in a press release.
“According to what was relayed to me relative to the interview of the occupant of the residence, he and the now deceased victim were in some sort of dispute,” Johnson said. “The victim came to the residence against the occupant’s wishes and was trying to enter the residence when he was shot multiple times, resulting in death.”