A wave of violence in Jackson, Tennessee, in early 2005 included a workplace shooting that left three people dead. Jerry Wayne Hopper, a 61-year-old Caucasian Forestry Technician with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry, was at a Tennessee Department of Transportation facility on January 11, 2005, when an assailant entered the office and opened fire. The gunman fatally shot Hopper and his estranged wife’s co‑worker, Donna Renee Jordan; two other TDOT employees were wounded.

The shooter, identified as David Lynn Jordan, fled the scene, ran a motorist, David Gordon, off the road and killed him shortly afterward. Jordan was arrested later that day, charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, and was convicted on all charges. Appeals were pursued and the convictions and sentences were upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2010.

What details about that day or about Jerry Wayne Hopper’s life might help paint a clearer picture for readers who remember the Jackson community then?