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Cody indicted in Costner murder
A Cocke County Grand Jury has indicted McKinley Cody, 19, Lane Road, Newport, in the death of Lora Elizabeth Hale Costner, 42, who went missing on January 7. The Grand Jury returned indictments, charging Cody with First Degree Felony Murder, Robbery, Second Degree Murder, and Abuse of a Corpse. He is in the Cocke County Jail on a $1,000,000 bond. Ms. Costner had reported her car had a flat tire and sge would be late in picking up her son from school. She never showed at the school however the auto was found with a flat tire parked at a church on Bogard Road later that day. Her body was found on March 10, under a tree on the Jerry Cody property on Bogard Road. The decomposed remains were found by Mr. Cody, the grandfather of the suspect. After the body was found just outside of the residence, forensics personnel spent time processing the suspect's bedroom in his grandfather's home. The teenaged suspect shared time in the home and in the home of his mother, Kathy Cody Williams, across the road. Investigators were told Cody and Lora Costner were seen together earlier the day that the victim went missing. Special Agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, working alongside investigators with the Cocke County Sheriff’s Department obtained the indictment. The teen has a troubled past with ten arrests since July, 2014...resulting in seven convictions. The cases include theft, vandalism, criminal trespass and probation violations as well as criminal conspiracy which lodged in early March of this year. In another recent arrest, five persons including the suspects mother, a former Director of Cocke County E911, are charged in a conspiracy to smuggle Suboxone into the Cocke County jail to McKinley Cody who was being held on a probation violation.
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Return to Today's News Stories - Front PageThursday, April 29, 2021
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Mill Creek Wildfire Update
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