Sheriff's office investigating New Year's death

BY DAMON LAWRENCE

Roane Newspapers

The Roane County Sheriff's Office is investigating the death of a 23-year-old man found lying in a ditch on New Year's Day.

According to sheriff's office detective Bryan Walker, the body of Travis Daniels was discovered off of Black Jack Road in Rockwood around 1 p.m. The death is being treated as a homicide.

“Whenever we have a suspicious death we treat it as a homicide until we can prove otherwise,” Walker said.

Walker said the body had no visible trauma. The body was sent to the University of Tennessee Medical Center for an autopsy. Investigators hope to learn the actual cause of death from the autopsy report.

“Until we get the autopsy results back, we really don't know what we're looking at,” Walker said.

For more on this story, read Friday's edition of the Roane County News.