Dorothy Virginia Sutton, 58, a retired schoolteacher raising her grandson, was murdered in Morristown, Hamblen County, Tennessee, around Christmas 1979. Family concern grew after she failed to attend the family’s Christmas Eve dinner; her grandson Nicholas Nicky Sutton, then 18, arrived with scratches on his face and presents Dorothy had wrapped but without her. When Dorothy remained missing on Christmas Day, relatives alerted police. Four days later her body was recovered from the Nolichucky River.

Investigators determined Dorothy had been struck unconscious with firewood at her home, wrapped in a blanket and trash bags, chained to a cinder block and thrown into the river to drown. Nicky Sutton first gave inconsistent accounts, then blamed a Knoxville contractor, Charles Almon III, claiming self-defense; a jury rejected that narrative and convicted him of first-degree murder, sentencing him to life. Sutton later admitted to two additional murders, led police to another victim’s body, and was implicated in other killings; he also took part in a fatal prison stabbing in 1985.

Does anyone have information about Dorothy’s last days at home or about the family’s contacts in late December 1979?