Search for suspect in Tennessee killings focuses near university, source says, as 3rd arrest announced

CNN

3 hours ago

A third person has been arrested on suspicion of helping a fugitive accused of killing four relatives of a Tennessee baby who was found abandoned alive last week, authorities said Monday.
Meanwhile, authorities were scouring a wooded area near a private university in Jackson, Tennessee, on Monday afternoon as part of the investigation of into the suspect in the killings, 28-year-old Austin Robert Drummond, a law enforcement source familiar said.
As for the latest arrest: Dearrah Sanders, 23, was taken into custody Monday on warrants charging her with with accessory after the fact to first degree murder, accused of assisting Drummond after the killings of the baby's relatives, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said. Sanders will be booked into the Lake County Jail, the TBI said, and it is unclear if she has obtained an attorney.
The same charges were also filed last week against Tanaka Brown and Giovonti Thomas, both 29. Brown is also charged with tampering with evidence, according to the TBI.
Drummond remains on the lam, but authorities investigating the case were searching a wooded area Monday near Union University in Jackson, prompting a 'soft lockdown' on campus, the law enforcement source said. The soft lockdown meant people cannot enter or exit, but regular activities are occurring inside campus buildings, the source said.
Drummond is sought in connection with the deaths of James M. Wilson, 21; Adrianna Williams, 20; Cortney Rose, 38; and Braydon Williams, 15, whose bodies were found Tuesday in Tiptonville, a town in northwest Tennessee's Lake County, the TBI said.
The four were found dead hours after the baby daughter of Wilson and Adrianna Williams was found abandoned Tuesday afternoon in a car seat in a 'random' front yard near the Dyer County community of Tigrett, nearly a 40-mile drive southeast of Tiptonville, authorities had said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.