CROSSVILLE CHRONICLE

Jason Crimmer's only words to Judge Bean were that he did not have money to hire an attorney. Judge Bean then appointed the public defender's office to represent Crimmer.

One day after family members laid to rest a retired farm couple found murdered in their rural Cumberland County home, the South Carolina teen-ager was arrested in Ohio in connection with their deaths.

Cincinnati Police, acting on a tip developed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Cumberland County sheriff's investigators, took Crimmer, 18, of Beaufort, SC, into custody outside a northern Cincinnati home Friday around noon without incident. They have charged him with possession of stolen property.

Police snatched Crimmer as he approached a pickup truck belonging to the elderly Cumberland County couple found shot to death in their white, wood-frame home less than two miles north of Interstate 40 on Genesis Road on Dec. 14.

The bodies of Edna Marie Carey, 69, and James Carl Carey, 72, were found in their home by Carey's brother and a nephew around 10 a.m. Dec. 15 when the relatives went to the victim's home to check on their welfare.

Edna Carey had been shot three times - twice in the head and once in the chest - and her husband had been shot once in the back. The only thing reported missing from their home was the couple's 1997 burgundy colored Chevrolet S-10 pickup.

Friday afternoon TBI Special Agent Jim Moore, Tennessee Highway Patrol Criminal Investigation Division Agent Tommy Callahan, Cumberland County Sheriff Leon Tollett and Sheriff's Investigator Bradley Nealon left immediately for Ohio, armed with two first-degree murder warrants for Crimmer.

Assistant District Attorney General Tony Craighead said there was no word on whether a weapon had been recovered with the truck.

"The truck will be brought back to Tennessee to the TBI crime lab where it will be processed for evidence, Craighead said.

The South Carolina teen did not fight extradition back to Tennessee to face the murder charges. "I have to stress that this investigation is far from being through," Craighead said. "We have a lot of leads to check out and much work to do."