Second Man Charged With Murder Of Missing Tennessee Student

[April 30, 2014]  By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) — A second man was charged on Tuesday with murder and aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of a Tennessee nursing student from the driveway of her rural home three years ago.

Jason Wayne Autry, 39, who is in custody on an unrelated aggravated assault conviction, was indicted by a special grand jury in the disappearance of Holly Bobo, a cousin of country music singer Whitney Duncan.

Autry and the first suspect, Zachary Rye Adams, 29, were close friends, said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. He said investigators believe there are other people who have information about, or were possibly involved in, Bobo's disappearance.

Autry and Adams both are from Holladay, Tennessee, about 16 miles from the Bobo house. Adams has been charged with the murder and aggravated kidnapping of Bobo and with coercion of a witness.

Bobo was last seen in April 2011 by her brother, who told investigators he saw a man he mistook for her boyfriend lead the then 20-year-old woman away from the family home in Darden, Tennessee, about 90 miles southwest of Nashville. Her body has not been found.

When Adams was arrested in early March, prosecutors said authorities believed they could prove Bobo was taken from her home forcefully.

(Reporting by Tim Ghianni; editing by David Bailey and Mohammad Zargham)

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