Two fatal shootings in Knoxville on May 18, 2024 appear to be connected. The first victim, Claude Sampson E. Johnson Jr., 55, was found with at least one gunshot wound at Anderson Automotive and Towing on Cooper Street and later died at UT Medical Center. Investigators say he was responding to a business alarm when a suspect shot him and left in Johnson’s black Kia Sorento.

Shortly afterward police located 37-year-old Dennard Darren Davis shot in the 400 block of North Broadway; he was pronounced dead at that scene. Officers later spotted the stolen Kia, briefly lost it during a pursuit, then relocated it on Morningside Drive. A nearby driver, identified as 28-year-old Robert Scruggs, was taken into custody as a person of interest, questioned by Homicide Unit detectives and charged in both killings with first-degree murder and felony murder.

Are there witnesses who saw the Kia Sorento leave Anderson Automotive or anyone with information about movements on Cooper Street or North Broadway that morning?