A December night in White Pine ended in a family tragedy when 48-year-old Christa Marla Tipton Hicks was found dead of a gunshot wound inside a car parked in the driveway of a home on Hardy Road. Officers responded shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Monday, December 13, 2021, after a man called 911 and admitted he had just shot his mother.

Responding deputies located the caller, 26-year-old Anthony Hicks, sitting on the front porch and took him into custody without incident. The White Pine Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation joined the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation, and Anthony Hicks was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and booked into the Jefferson County Detention Center. No motive or detailed account of events leading up to the shooting has been released.

Are there witnesses or neighbors who saw or heard anything that night, or anyone who knew the family and can shed light on what happened?