UPDATED: Postal Worker Tips Police to Murder/Suicide

UPDATE: East Ridge Police have identified the two people found deceased from an apparent murder/suicide on Shelby Circle. Joseph (Charlie) Yates and Ellen McKenzie were found after a mail carrier found a note on the mailbox and notified police. The victims were taken to the Hamilton County medical examiner’s office an investigators are waiting for a report.

A note left in the mailbox of a home on Shelby Circle led to the discovery of two bodies inside a home in the 3500 block, Tuesday morning.

East Ridge Assistant Police Chief Stan Allen said that a postal worker found the note just before 9:30 a.m. and alerted authorities to a possible murder/suicide. When officers responded to the house there was no an answer at the front door. Police forced the door and discovered the body of a man and a woman inside a bedroom in the home dead from a gunshot wound.

Chief Allen said investigators found a more lengthy note inside the home. They also discovered a firearm. Chief Allen said the incident was a “pretty clear” case of murder/suicide.

Authorities are not releasing the names of the victims until family can be notified. Chief Allen said there have been no previous interaction between law enforcement and the people who lived at the address.

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.