Police Investigating Body Found at Cascades

East Ridge police are investigating the discovery of a body at the Cascades Motel, Saturday afternoon.

According to records from Hamilton County dispatch a call was received of an unconscious party at the motel at 3657 Ringgold Road. ERPD officials confirmed with NewsChannel9 that a person had died. Police officials said that the person appeared to have died from an overdose.

The Cascades Motel was also the scene of a death in October, 2016. During this incident police were called to the motel on the morning of Oct. 16, when a female caller who did not give her name told dispatchers that there was a man dead in a bathroom in one of the rooms. Police officials at the time said the body was found in the bathtub with the shower running.

The man’s death was later ruled a homicide. The man, Gino Picket of South Pittsburg was found with several injuries that were suspicious but not apparently life-threatening. According to a press release regarding the incident, these injuries and prior health issues led to his death.

East Ridge News Online will update this story when more information becomes available.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.