'Distressed' 911 caller told police he fell off a cliff during a bear attack. Now he's wanted for murder.



A Tennessee man called police saying he'd fallen off a cliff while a bear was chasing him. However, law enforcement is now saying the 911 caller murdered a hiker and then attempted to stage the victim's death as a bear attack.

A man called 911 dispatch at 11:34 p.m. Oct. 18 to inform authorities that he was "injured and partially in water," according to a news release from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.

A manhunt is under way for Hamlett, and police said he should be considered armed and dangerous.

The "distressed hiker" told police he had fallen off a cliff while running away from a bear. The hiker told law enforcement that his name was Brandon Andrade. The call was pinged in the area of the Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherohala Skyway in Tellico Plains — a small mountain town in east Tennessee.

When first responders arrived, they searched the area and discovered a bloody corpse at the bottom of a cliff. The dead man had Brandon Andrade's identification.

But law enforcement determined that the victim was not Andrade. Investigators said the ID had been stolen and used multiple times.

Detectives with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Division and the Monroe County Violent Crimes Unit identified Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, as the suspect who had been using Andrade's stolen identification.

“Mr. Hamlett had used a false name when speaking with law enforcement in Knox County, TN after the distressed hiker call. Before his real identity had been verified, Mr. Hamlett is believed to have fled from his Tennessee residence,” the sheriff's office said.

Investigators said the man who was found dead at the bottom of the cliff was murdered. Police did not identify him; they referred to him as John Doe.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Hamlett for first-degree murder. A manhunt is under way for Hamlett, and police said he should be considered armed and dangerous.

Hamlett is 5'7" tall, weighs 170 pounds, and has brown hair and blue eyes.

Authorities said if you see Hamlett, call 911 or Monroe County Dispatch at 423-442-4357.

Apparently, this isn't the first time Hamlett has been accused of an incident like this.

In 2009, Hamlett was accused of holding a man at gunpoint, trying to hit him with a baseball bat, and attempting to bury him alive, according to AL.com. He was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping before pleading to a lesser offense of felony assault. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his crimes in 2012. In that case, Hamlett used the alias Joshua Jones. Hamlett also was wanted in Alabama on a parole violation.

As Blaze News reported earlier this month, a Montana father was so brutally mangled to death while camping that his friends thought he was mauled in a bear attack. However, detectives said the "loving" dad was not killed by a bear – but rather he was the victim of a grisly homicide.

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Cops ruled woman's death a suicide until her mother's persistence triggered murder confession: 'I knew it was foul play'



A heartbroken mother refused to accept the initial ruling that her daughter's death was a suicide because she believed it was something far more sinister.

April Holt — a 29-year-old mother of two — was found by police almost lifeless at her apartment in Antioch, Tennessee, on July 31, 2023. Officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department said they found Holt in the bathroom with a plastic bag duct-taped tightly around her neck.

'And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone.'

Holt left behind a 12-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old son, and her husband – 33-year-old Donovan Holt.

The case was later closed after an autopsy officially ruled Holt’s death a suicide.

However, Holt's mother believed her daughter's death was not by her own doing.

Jamie Dickerson, Holt's mother, said April embodied positivity, and it was apparent in her TikTok with 200,000 followers. April previously had taught middle schoolers at Believers Faith Fellowship and recently had opened her own lash studio in Nashville.

Dickerson recalled how she invited her daughter to the movies just before her death.

“We were going to go see the Barbie movie,” Dickerson told WSMV-TV. “She said, ‘Donovan has to work, I can’t go to the movie, but I’ll meet you at church at the Blast classroom tomorrow.’”

Dickerson never got a chance to respond to her daughter.

The next day, she received the call that would wreck her world.

“The phone rang, and it was Donovan, and he was upset — kind of like a panic upset,” Dickerson explained. “He was like, ‘We found April. She wasn’t breathing, and she’s in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.’”

Dickerson told Fox News, "So I jumped in my car, but even right when I got the first phone call, I was like, 'Something's not right. April's in perfectly good health.' An hour and a half ago or so, she texted me perfectly fine. So something's not right. Like I thought maybe she had passed out. Maybe she hit her head because she passed out. I didn't know. I mean, like, why would she just not be breathing? I didn't know anything about it."

"From that second on, when I got into the room at the hospital, he was just like rocking, like pacing," Dickerson continued. "And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone."

April Holt died at the Southern Hills Hospital that same day.

Once authorities ruled Holt's death a suicide, Dickerson launched her own investigation.

“They closed April’s case. DA and everyone agreed to close it," Dickerson said. "I got up, marched out of that room and said, ‘I’m not done, I’m going to keep investigating.’”

Dickerson would spend hours each day trying to determine who killed her daughter, but she had one suspect in mind.

Dickerson recalled that April said two weeks before her death, "I'm getting a divorce."

The mother said of her son-in-law, "He had an obsession with April. So the weird part is, is like you see these movies, and they love somebody so much that they're willing to do literally anything. I think that was him because she'd left him before, and he would sleep outside of her apartment. He would sleep in her car if it was unlocked."

"And it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And so I'm just, I'm not shocked," she said. "I think that when she said that this time she was very serious."

A few weeks after her daughter's death, Dickerson's grandson told her he witnessed a fight between his parents on the same day April died, according to the Independent.

The outlet also reported that Donovan pawned his wedding ring the week prior to his wife's death.

Dickerson told WZTV, "She had bruises on her wrists, her neck, her ankles, her thighs, and none of it was taken as evidence."

The mother filed complaints and eventually convinced the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department to investigate their own investigation. In the 47-page report, detectives said there were “two hits” of Donovan Holt’s fingerprints on the duct tape roll.

Despite the new evidence, Dickerson claimed police told her, "They said they still didn't have enough evidence to convict him."

Dickerson said when she saw that key piece of evidence, she confronted Donovan Holt.

“I told him he had a choice,” she said. “He could tell me what happened, or I was going to go to the cold case department.”

Dickerson said Donovan admitted that he strangled April, dragged her into the shower, and taped a bag over her face to make it appear that she had committed suicide.

Dickerson reportedly recorded the conversation — and then she notified police.

Last month, Donovan was arrested in San Antonio, Texas.

Nashville Police said in a news release that Donovan confessed to detectives with the MNPD's Cold Case Unit in July that he had strangled his wife.

On Sept. 19, a grand jury indicted Donovan Holt for reckless homicide, evidence tampering, and false reporting.

Holt was extradited back to Nashville where he is being held on $75,000 bond in Davidson County Jail awaiting his Oct. 23 arraignment.

"The person you were supposed to love, you killed, and then you put a trash bag over her head and ate lunch? Like she wasn't in the other room dead? And then you sent your son in there to be traumatized for the rest of his life. It's just bizarre," Dickerson said.

Despite her daughter's murder, Dickerson is praying that Donovon Holt's "heart gets right."

"As a Christian woman, I pray that his heart gets right. That's what I would want for him. I know it's what April would want. And even after killing my daughter, that is what I'd want for him," Dickerson said. "And I would want anybody to be able to have everlasting life."

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Dad is in the dark that he won $1 million jackpot until detectives explain to him that his lottery ticket had been stolen



A Tennessee father had no idea that he had won a $1 million jackpot until the moment detectives told him that his lottery ticket had been stolen, according to authorities.

A lucky dad recently purchased two scratch-off lottery tickets at a Shell station in Murfreesboro. He reportedly asked the clerk to check if the tickets — $20 Diamond and Gold tickets — were winners.

'The feel-good side of this story is the [Antioch father] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money.'

The clerk — identified by authorities as 23-year-old Meet Patel — allegedly told the dad that he had won $40 on one ticket, but the other ticket was not a winner.

Lt. Detective Steve Craig told WTVF-TV the ticket the dad was told was not a winner ended up "on top of the trash." Then when the dad departed the store, Craig said Patel "took the trash outside, and if you follow him on camera, you can see him grab the ticket and put it in his pocket."

However, the "losing" ticket was a million-dollar winner — and Patel allegedly attempted to claim the prize.

Craig noted, "He went to the lottery commission to claim the ticket as his own, but there were red flags, and they held onto the ticket."

Tennessee Lottery officials reviewed security footage from the Shell gas station and determined that the winning ticket was stolen.

Detective Dennis Ward told NBC News, "Mr. Patel is then seen later in the video celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner."

Craig explained, "It's pretty obvious. Good enough to put in front of 12 jurors, and they'll reach the same conclusion."

Patel was accused of stealing the million-dollar lottery ticket — a Class A felony — and was being held in the Rutherford County Jail on $100,000 bond after his arrest. Patel is scheduled to appear in court July 30.

Craig added, "The feel-good side of this story is the [Antioch father] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money."

The dad requested that his identity not be revealed.

Craig gave some advice to those who play the lottery: "If you scratch off the front bar code, it will tell you if it’s a winner or not, regardless of whether you scratch off everything showing how much you won."

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Mom of missing Georgia woman, 20, finds out on Mother's Day her daughter's skeletal remains located in Tennessee woods



A distraught mother is begging the public to come forward with any information regarding her daughter's death after the 20-year-old Georgia woman went missing. The grief-stricken mom was informed her young daughter was dead on Mother's Day.

Maury-Ange Faith Martinez, of Alpharetta, was last seen leaving Gwinnett County Jail around 2:20 p.m. on Aug. 28, 2023, according to WSB-TV. A further investigation by police determined that her last known location was in unincorporated Cobb County, according to Cobb County Police Sgt. Eric Smith.

The Martinez family reported the woman missing on Aug. 28, 2023. At the time, police issued an alert for the public to be on the lookout for the missing woman.

On Jan. 5, 2024, human skeletal remains were discovered in rural Chattanooga, Tennessee. The location is approximately 100 miles from where Martinez was last spotted.

Last month, the Hamilton County Medical Examiner in Tennessee confirmed the remains to be those of Maury-Ange Faith Martinez, according to a statement by the Cobb County Police Department.

Anita Darling, Maury-Ange's mother, was notified on Mother's Day that her daughter's skeletal remains were discovered in a wooded area of Tennessee after gone missing for more than 250 days.

'Step up and say something.'

Darling is desperately pleading with the public to come forward with any details that will help bring some bit of closure to her daughter's tragic death.

"I want to know what happened to my daughter. It doesn't cure the loss by any means, but it fills a hole that my brain doesn't haven't to make up what happened for the rest of our lives," Darling told WAGA-TV.

The heartbroken mom said, "Someone has to know something. She was a noticeable girl. She was a gorgeous girl with an energetic, magnetic personality. If anybody has information, step up and say something."

Sgt. Smith explained, "There are more resources, but it requires a lot of coordination among each other to make sure they're sharing information and things of that nature to hopefully find out what happened."

Anyone with information on the disappearance and death of Martinez is urged to contact the Cobb County Police Department at (770) 499-3945. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at (404) 577-TIPS (8477).

Darling said of her daughter, "She was very loving, funny, quirky, sing at the top of her lungs doesn't care if anybody's listening type of person. Just a fantastically loving human being, and that's the thing I can be most proud of."

The mother added, "Funny little things that we see, or we notice that remind us of Maury."

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