Tiptonville, TN: Murder-Suicide Stuns County

Evan Jones, Banner Editor
Posted: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:55 am

Officers talk with persons on the scene. Vehicle at right is the one in which Mathina shot and killed his estranged wife.

The quiet of a lazy, late summer afternoon was shattered on Wednesday, August 12, when a murder-suicide took place around 2:30 p.m. on Moss Street in Tiptonville.

Scotty J. Mathina, 48, shot and killed his estranged wife, Melody Mathina, 44, as she stopped her vehicle on Moss Street. He then turned the gun on himself.

Both city and county officers rushed to the scene, only to find Melody Mathina dead in her vehicle, which had idled across a yard and come to rest against a shed. Scotty Mathina was lying face up in the street. Both had single gunshot wounds to the head.

Scotty was transported by the Lake County EMS to Dyersburg Regional Hospital and then later flown to The Med in Memphis, where he died at 6:18 p.m. that night.

Tiptonville police chief Norman Rhodes said the couple had been having problems and that Melody had taken out a court order of protection against her husband on July 24.

“They had been having trouble,” said Rhodes. “They had some confrontations, but officers had not been called.”

Rhodes said Mrs. Mathina was shot once just below the left ear with a .22 caliber long rifle pistol. He said she died at the scene.

According to two witnesses who saw the incident, Mathina then turned the gun on himself and shot himself once under the right ear.

Rhodes said the witnesses, who were riding motorcycles, both hit the ground when the shooting started, but then one of them went over and kicked the gun from Mathina’s hand. The pistol was lying a few feet away from him when he was moved to the ambulance.

Rhodes said Melody had stopped the car when she saw her husband, who was on foot. He reached in
and fired.

Her sister, Lori Tate, said Melody was going to the Meadows to eat lunch with a friend when she was shot.

“They had been having trouble,” Tate said. “She had her cell phone (number) changed. I thought he might beat her up again. Nobody thought he would kill her.”

City and county officers said they could not remember a murder-suicide in recent Lake County history.

Both on and off-duty police officers from Tiptonville and deputies and officers from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department rushed to the scene.

A one-block section of Foster Street was cordoned off during the investigation.

It was the third suicide in the past six months in the county with two in Tiptonville and one near Ridgely.

Rhodes said the investigation has been closed.

He said the pistol used was a classic “Saturday night special” with the firing pin brazed and the serial numbers ground off.

Lori Tate said her sister loved to crochet and draw but her real joy was her grandkids, a girl, four, and an eight-month-old boy. “They were her pride and joy,” she said.