Melissa Ann Patrick, Murdered March 1999, TN
COLD CASE: who killed Melissa Ann Patrick? By: Robin Murdoch, Reporter By: Katie Allison Granju, Producer Date created: 2/5/2007 8:29:37 PM Last updated: 2/5/2007 8:34:30 PM There are only two unsolved murders on the book in Grainger County. Investigators want to bring that number down. One of these cold cases has been haunting both the family of the victim and one determined detective for almost eight years. Someone took Melissa Ann Patrick away from her family forever in March of 1999. For her mother, the pain is as sharp as ever. "She was the light of my life. She was everything to me. When she died, (they) might have well just come and killed me too because I died that night too." Linda Sizemore recalls telling her daughter she loved her the night before Melissa was found dead. A driver spotter her lifeless body on the side of a rural road in Blaine, some 30 miles from her Knox County home. She had been shot in the head. "I don't know why this killing took place. It's a mystery to me," says Detective Jesse Jarnigan with the Grainger County Sheriff's Department. "It's bothere me for a long time. I want to know. This family deserves to know." Jarnigan has been working on this case since the very beginning. He believes Melissa likely knew her killer, but the motive remains unclear. Sge was found with cash in her pocket and she was wearing jewelry. "Other than killing her, they degraded her too," says Jarnigan. "It's a disgrace and someone deserves to be punished for it." "Some people decided evidently that they ddn't like her," says Linda Sizemore. "I don't know why they felt like they had to kill her and throw her down an embankment like a bag of garbage because not far from where she was dumped there was a dead dog there too, just like a bag of garbage." Little has changed in the area where Melissa was found down a deep embankment eight years ago. Since that time, investigators have interviewed roughly 75 people, but have never had enough evidence to make an arrest. "I know this family feels like they were forgotten, and they haven't been forgotten," says Detective Jarnigan. "I spoke with the mom this week and I promised I'd do what I could to bring closre to this case." Meslissa's family sometimes returns to the spot where she took her final breath, just to feel close to her again. Her mother finds come comfort in a quilt carefully stitched from Melissa's clothing. The dark purple in the quilt is from her graduation gown, while the green and white is from her work as a candy striper. "How can they live with themself?" asks Linda SIzemore. "How can they get up every mornimng and do what they do and look at themself in the mirror knowing they killed an innocent person?" Melissa Ann Patrick was a young woman who planned to become a bookkeeper. She was soon to be a bride. "She was my world," says her mother. "The biggest part of my world ended that night. Yes, I am sitting here today but with a hole in my heart that will never be filled even though i have a wonderul family and friends. It's still not the same without her." If you have any information about the murder of Melissa Ann Patrick, please call the Grainger County Sheriff's tip line at 865-828-4636. If you know of a cold case you would like WBIR to look into, e-mail us at news@wbir.com. http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=41960