Local officers have avoided recent tragedy

Warren County officers have avoided tragedy in the line of duty for over 60 years, a blessing local residents can appreciate as a Grundy County woman and her five children grapple with the loss of their husband and father.
However, a handful of local officers have died while serving the community.
‘There have been five that we know of, the last being Sheriff Charles Conlin in 1943,’ said McMinnville Police Major Bryan Denton who, along with county historian James A. Dillon, have researched the history of law enforcement in Warren County.
While five officers have been killed in the line of duty, one officer, who was in Grundy County helping in the manhunt Thursday, knows first-hand what it’s like to be wounded in the line of duty. He is Warren County Sheriff Jackie Matheny.
‘It felt like I’d been hit by a sledgehammer,’ recalled Sheriff Matheny as he and other Warren County officers helped with the manhunt near Monteagle yesterday.
Matheny was shot in 1986 when, as a rookie patrolman with McMinnville Police Department, he pursued a suspect back to his home. The man came back out with a gun and opened fire.
The bullet struck Matheny in the upper left arm, leaving him to take cover in a ditch. The suspect was arrested a short time later.
As for lawmen who have fallen in the line of duty here, Major Denton said the most recent, Sheriff Conlin, was shot as he was helping stop an AWOL soldier in 1943 in the Earleyville community.
Just eight years earlier, in 1935, part-time city officer Herman Kirby was killed by a drunk who was at a restaurant at the present site of Cook’s Pawn Shop downtown.
‘It was The Depression and the man was waiting on a bus which was going to take some workers to the CCC camp down in Tullahoma,’ Denton noted, saying Kirby had warned the man an hour earlier not to be disorderly. ‘When he returned he tried to take the man into custody but the man took away his night stick and beat him to death with it. He actually died a couple of days later.’
A revenue officer named Jim Davis of the Tennessee Department of Alcohol was ambushed in 1882 near the area which is now Forest Nursery. No one was ever charged in his murder.
Just nine years earlier, one of the most famous cases occurred when Enoch Cooksey was murdered outside a night spot in Depot Bottom. Well-known local resident Fletch Woodard was convicted of the crime but later appealed his conviction to the state Supreme Court and was exonerated. It was later learned he had been set up for the conviction, and the actual killer was never brought to justice.
A fifth officer, Logan Molloy, who had served as sheriff, officer and marshal here over the years, was killed returning from a moonshine still bust in the early 1930 when his vehicle crashed and killed him on Hurricane Bridge.
‘We have been very fortunate over the years since law enforcement can be a very dangerous business,’ Denton said.