NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & SportsBody Exhumed After More Than Four Decades

Body Exhumed After More Than Four Decades

LEBANON, Tenn. - For more than 40 years, the family of Butch Cooksey thought there was something wrong with his death. Investigators agreed and they've reopened the case. On Wednesday, they exhumed his body.

Cooksey was killed by a hit and run driver as he walked down Highway 70 near Lebanon.

Police already have a couple of suspects, and they're hoping tests on the corpse will help them solve the case.

Sisters Sue Cooksey and Connie Cooksey Minick watched investigators exhume their brother's body.

"It's awful. You're going through it twice. We've been through it twice now," said Minick.

They buried Butch Cooksey in 1969. A newspaper article in the Wilson County archives described what happened then.

Cooksey was 19-years-old when he was killed walking down Highway 70 just east of Lebanon.

"To say that he was run over multiple times in the middle of the highway out there would be an understatement," said Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe.

For Ashe the case is personal. He knows the family and went to elementary school with Butch. The incident occurred a couple of years after Ashe returned from serving in Vietnam.

"I hadn't been back long when this occurred, so now 40 years later - I'm the sheriff and I'm looking into it," said Ashe.

Ashe said the decision to exhume the body came after investigators uncovered other evidence in the case.

"There was no traffic out there, so you have to assume he was run over multiple times by the same car, and we think we know who owned that car," said Ashe.

The body will undergo a series of tests by police in Lebanon and forensic scientists at the University of Tennessee.

"We've got to go inside the casket and try to retrieve some things, and then we'll let the real experts examine this body in Knoxville," said Ashe.

The Cooksey family hopes what they find will lead police to the truth after hearing lots of rumors over the years.

Sheriff Ashe would not elaborate about new evidence in the case. He does say there is new technology that was not available in 1969 that should help police find what they're looking for.

Ashe said there are two suspects in the case, and both persons have hired lawyers.

The sheriff said he and Wilson County District Attorney Tommy Thompson made the decision to exhume the body. After the body undergoes a series of tests it will be reburied in another Lebanon cemetery.