Jerry Wade Yates, 57, was fatally shot at his Cherry Street home in Tiptonville, Tennessee, on December 21, 2021. Yates, a co-owner of Yates & Sons Tile and Culvert and an enthusiast of cars and trucks, died in what investigators describe as a double shooting that also prompted a broader criminal inquiry.

The Tiptonville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation identified 49-year-old Willie L. Gates Jr. as a suspect and secured an arrest warrant charging him with first-degree murder, felony murder, attempted first-degree murder, especially aggravated kidnapping, especially aggravated burglary, using a firearm during a dangerous felony, and unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. Gates was located in Memphis and taken into custody by the Shelby County Fugitive Apprehension Team.

Investigators later uncovered alleged witness intimidation. Gates’s wife, Tara L. Gates, and her daughter, Cassheus U. Giles, were arrested on charges related to threatening or coercing witnesses, filing false reports and, in Tara Gates’s case, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy. Is anyone in Tiptonville able to share information about Yates, his routines, or that night on Cherry Street?