On January 1, 2019, 50-year-old Michelle Renee Smith was found dead from a gunshot wound at her home on Sunset Lane in New Tazewell, Tennessee. Initial reports suggested suicide, but Claiborne County detectives concluded the wound was likely not self-inflicted as their investigation proceeded.

Michelle worked as a paramedic for the Claiborne County Ambulance Service and had formerly been a nurse at the Claiborne County Jail. Colleagues remembered her as caring and generous, often describing her as the mother figure of Claiborne EMS; she was expected to rejoin the EMS team full time.

Suspicion focused on her husband of seven years, Bill J. Smith, then 43. After witness interviews, he was arrested on a charge of criminal homicide and held on a $1 million bond. In April 2019 a grand jury indicted him on first-degree murder in connection with an alleged altercation between the couple.

Does anyone have information about Michelle’s final hours or the relationship between her and her husband?