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August 6, 2025 34 mins

A baby is dropped off at the end of a Tennessee driveway. As witnesses call 911 to report the baby, another call is coming in from a county over about a possible quadruple homicide. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the murders of Adrianna Williams, 20, James Wilson, 21, Cortney Rose,, 38, and Braydon Williams, 15, and the man who was arrested for the crime after days on the lam, Austin Drummond. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transcribe Highlights

00:00.11 Introduction 

04:02.95 Infant dropped off at the end of driveway

08:15.20 Four dead, two are women

12:05.22 Posting photos on social media

16:14.68 Identification was fast

21:01.80 Possible concealment 

24:20.42 Austin Drummond dated the grandmother

28:45.41 Austin Drummond prison cell 

32:04.72 Austin Drummond captured

34:02.53 Conclusion 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quality dams. But Joseph's gotten more. There are a lot
of things, you know, in our history in America that
are associated with the Mississippi River. It cuts through the
center of America, essentially. I'm sure some people will dispute

(00:22):
that because it's not the absolute geographic center, but for me,
it's the center. It's actually the region that I was
born into, and I have a certain affection for it.
The landscape doesn't vary too much to get way way
way up north. It's hot, sticky, and very humid, particularly

(00:48):
in the summer. You draw flies, you draw gnats, you
draw skeeters. But something has occurred this week within almost
a stone's throw of Old Man River, and it is
an absolute horror show that police are feverishly working right

(01:14):
now up in northwest Tennessee. I'm talking about a quadruple
homicide involving four people, obviously quadruple, and also one baby
that was left abandoned in a yard. I'm Joseph Scott

(01:40):
Morgan and this is body Bags, Dave. I wanted to
cover this case. You know, I guess every case that
we cover on body Bags is tragic, but something you know,
you know how you and I love babies. I mean,

(02:02):
we do. It's it's something I can't run from. It's
something I refuse to run from. And when I heard
the story of this little angel that was left in
a car seat out in somebody, and it's been kind
of murky, been found in a car seat at the

(02:24):
end of a driveway or in a yard, and those
two things have been kind of fuzzy. And that's who
in the world would do this, Joe.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
When you have an eyewitness statement, okay, that actually says
the type of vehicle they saw dropping off the infant
in the car seat, and they are opposites. It's either
a dark colored minivan or a white suv. There's a

(02:56):
big difference between those two types of vehicles. And certainly
those two colors, even if you're color blind, you can
tell dark and light. And yet those are That shows
you how eyewitness accounts very I know that's a very
dramatic look at it, but that is the truth that
eyewitness accounts are. They're only good to give you an

(03:17):
idea of something. The one thing we do know is
that nine to one one is called Hey, a baby
is abandoned in my yard at the end of the driveway.
Here and as police show up, and you know, they
come and check out the baby, which, by the way,
baby is fine, perfect health. Yes, but this is an infant,

(03:38):
this is a newborn. And yet the first thought that
crosses a lot of our minds is, I hate to
say this, a mother dropped the baby off. You know,
you know, we hear stories of moms doing amazing things
to incredible, horrible things with babies. And that's the first

(04:00):
thought that I had in my head.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
And well, I think I think any any reasonable person
would come to that conclusion. And David, look there, I
got to tell you. Let me tell you something real quick.
There are cases that I come across that I want
to pitch to you. There's something within me when I
see them and they're so horrific. I think, well, is

(04:25):
this going to have utility for what we do on
body bags? And I guess to a certain degree. But
there's just certain these cases where I learn about, uh,
where I'll find, you know, a child that's literally I
mean I'm talking when I say child, I mean infant
that's tossed into a dumpster where they find the baby later,

(04:47):
or they'll you know, in a garbage can, dumpsters, bathrooms,
and the Internet is littered with these stories and it
happens with great frequency. But there was something different about
this in the sense that you've got a baby in

(05:10):
a car seat, which was you know, first off, it
implies and then you've got the eyewitness stuff going on
where it implies that you've got a child being conveyed
by a very kind of non specific vehicle where they
was a child actually strapped into that vehicle. And I

(05:33):
agree with you, because baby strapped into car seats that
are placed on the road, I'm automatically going to think,
like you that this is a parental abandonment kind of
thing going on. Here said abandonment, Yeah, yeah, and you
know it's but it appears that that's not what we're

(05:56):
dealing with here, Man.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
And Joe when we were dig into this. Now, yeah,
they're trying to figure out this abandoned infant, and you know,
they start with zero, who is this baby? Now, I'm
going to guess from an investigative standpoint, they're going to
I immediately recognize that the baby is in the last

(06:18):
couple of months old, So they're going to call for
birthing records in the area. They're going to call hospitals
and find out the different children who have been born.
And we're talking about northwest or Northwest Tennessee, very rural area,
so they're probably going to be able to identify fairly
quickly within a couple of different people whose baby it is.

(06:38):
And I'm sure that's how they came about starting the investigation.
But a second nine to one one call comes in,
and this is where it really takes a left hand turn,
because now we have an abandoned baby, but we have

(06:59):
a fan family massacred found in well, we know very little.
We just know there are four dead people that have
been found in a wooded area, a very rural area,
again about forty miles now from where the baby was,

(07:20):
and they're dead. We don't know how. We just know
there's four people dead. And the question is are the
four people found dead related to the infant? I don't
know how you begin to tie that together.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well, I think actually it might be a bit more
simple than we think you. First off, you have to
consider and this is kind of an obvious one here
you have to consider is mom and nearby? Okay? And
is there a female among these man ask her victims

(08:01):
that would fall within age range of having having given
birth to a child of this age. And as it
turns out, we've got two females that are well within
the ranges. Uh, one a bit on the high end
and one kind of right in that sweet spot when
you think about uh, women giving birth and and this

(08:26):
is listen, this is a healthy baby. When you see
for people that have not seen the images of this
precious angel, this child has not missed a meal. I mean,
this child is robust looking. Uh. Somebody has cared for
this child along the way. And you you know, you're
going to try to connect the dots here and try

(08:48):
to understand, well these people that have died have when
you begin to get them identified, you go out and say, hey,
is you know this young lady given birth in the
last year or so last two years, and you begin
to put that together. You know, I guess you know,

(09:10):
let's just say, let's go back to the idea that
this was an abandoned child and you didn't have the
four bodies. Then you get off into this idea, well,
how are you going to get this child identified? And
there have been cases in our history day where there
are abandoned children that they never knew. You know who
the parents were. The children were just abandoned, and you

(09:35):
know where you know all these old stories of babies
being left on the stoop of a church or on
a door. You know, there's a quick knock and then
the person flees into the darkness. It kind of envelops them, you.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Know, Joe, as as you and I have done these
shows and I figured out and investigat techniques that you
guys used to have to use. I'm wondering how quickly
social media comes into play. Because if you've got a
child an infinite less than a year old, ye, and

(10:13):
you have an idea of who the person is that
might have given birth, you go online. You're just searching
names now and on social media, you know, pictures are
going to pop up. A mom in this day and
age has baby pit photos on site and everything else
and other family members. So that just kind of hit me.
You know that this is one of those things where

(10:33):
social media actually can an aside to helping identify the family, And.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, it can, and I think that you know, and
now investigative agencies have entire sections that are devoted to
searching social media. Oh yeah, I don't think people truly
understand depth and breadth here, Joe.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
You know what, when we're doing researching for journalists too,
back in the day, we would like, you get a
name of somebody. And I'm not kidding when I tell
you this. A lot of times when you're trying to
find a family member, you actually would go to the
phone book that was this huge thing that was really
thick and had a lot of pages half of yellow,
and you're at and we're looking there and identical and

(11:21):
you find names that are similar. It's like watch the
First Terminator movie, and that's how we used to find
to find names. I'm looking for Joseph Scott Morgan. I
got a js Morgan. I got a Joe Morgan. I
got a Scott Morgan. You just start calling all of
them until you find the person you're looking for. Now
you're at your desk and in five minutes time, you
can have somebody's credit history pulled.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
You know. Yeah, it's an amazing tool and it plays
a big role I think in this case. And I
am you know, I'm guilty at charge here because I
put up images, you know, on my social media. But
one of the things I have done when my granda
because we're really young. Was uh, you know, I put

(12:04):
pictures of them sitting in my lap, okay constantly, and
that's just me. That's not like my daughter or my wife,
you know who really you know, poured those pictures in
And that's where you have to start. I think in
a case like this, given the tools that you have today,

(12:24):
because here's the reality, whatever prompted this massacre. You've got
a community in a region that has been rocked by this.
But let's not forget there's a baby out there who

(12:45):
was left abandoned and their life is forever changed. Well,
one mystery solved, Dave. You know, we were talking about

(13:09):
social media, how exactly did this go down? Because this
is this is not just about getting a baby identified.
This is following investigative bread crumb's at this point in time,
and this baby, oh lord, I hate to say this,
but this baby is a big, big clue here and

(13:31):
what kind of transpired relative to to how this went down?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Law enforcement says the baby was identified with the help
of community members. So you know, an abandoned baby is
going to have they're going to have a picture posted online.
Help us identify this this baby. And it didn't take long.
So they just said community members responded. So that's that's
how they saw it. Now they knew right away, okay,

(13:59):
from the community members that they knew they wanted to
speak to three different people. Courtney Rose, Matthew Wilson, and
Adrianna Williams. Those were the three names closely associated with
this child. Adriana and Matthew are the parents biological mom

(14:20):
and dad. Adriana's twenty, Matthew's twenty one. Courtney Rose is
thirty eight. She is the grandmother of the little baby
found and the mother of Adriana. And that's how when
you started off at the top and we're talking about
the ages of the people found and how they could
have been. You know, you've got Courtney Rose at thirty eight,

(14:43):
certainly within the realm of possibility at thirty eight year
old would have a baby, and Adriana at twenty certainly
right there. So that's where the investigation. And again something
that I was going to say twenty years ago, but
really twenty thirty years ago wouldn't have happened this way.

(15:04):
It would have taken longer, I would think, to identify
the baby, you know, and who the variants were.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, isn't that amazing Because listen there and I'll go
ahead and you know, do a big reveal here, Dave.
These individuals that are found, these massacre victims, for lack
of a better term, I think that there was specific

(15:33):
intent to conceal them, okay, and it just so happens
that they're found and that the baby is identified. This
I think that the idea of concealing the bodies so
that a perpetrator or possible perpetrate tours and keep that
in mind here have an opportunity to put as much

(15:55):
distance between themselves and what they have left behind. Now
that timeline for this individual has been completely thwarted because
this was kind of quickly resolved as far as identification goes,
and once you can you know, I've always I've always

(16:15):
held to this proposition, Dave, in death investigation that some
people I think that they believe that they believe that well,
if you can tell me what happened to the dead,
that's going to help us expedite solvent of the crime.

(16:36):
I submit to you. More important to that than that
and what Trump's everything is identification of the dead, because
if an investigator is armed with information about a subject,
relative to their id All of a sudden, particularly when
you're talking about homicide, all of a sudden, all those
little pieces begin to fit together relative to who is

(16:59):
in the intimate circle. You know, it's all finding good
to try to diagnose things and and draw conclusions of
physical evidence. You know that the physical evidence leaves behind
the scene. But more importantly, I think, is who is
this person? Okay? Because if you can figure out who
it is, and Dave, we're you know, the term massacre

(17:20):
keeps getting thrown out there. And also they're using the
term execution style. I've read that when you begin to
think about who who has this much anger that they're
going to point it at directed at these four souls,
and how are these four souls connected to the one

(17:42):
individual that may have may have been the executioner? If
you will. I think that that's that's an important point here.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
And one of the things, you know, two of the
things that we're still hanging on the breeze right now
and trying to cover this story because it's a curren.
We've been told two different things about the vehicle that
drop the infant off, either you know, the dark minivan
or the white suv. But then different reports say that

(18:14):
the bodies the massacre, the bodies were found in a home.
We are talking outside of Memphis, Tennessee. To give you
an idea baby is found about twenty five miles north
of Memphis. The massacred family members about forty miles from

(18:35):
that site. So just to give you a I'm good,
I'd like to picture a map in my head of
where we're talking about. And the thing is is that
when the police go to investigate the family members that
they believe are related to this infant. Remember, at the
time they're looking for the family members, they only have

(18:55):
a baby that's been abandoned in one hundred degree heat
and then three o'clock in the afternoon, hottest part of
the day. Smell, yes, in a seven month old baby.
So they're trying to find mom, dad, grandma. Where are
these people who supposedly take care of this infant. And
so they go to the house the address they have. Now,

(19:19):
do they find the bodies in the house or do
they find the bodies in two vehicles that we saw
being removed from the woods at a dead end road.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, yep, And anytime I hear dead end road, Dave,
oh buddy, and a deposit of this magnitude at the
end of that dead end road that just screams familiarity
to me. Yes, because I got to tell you, I
don't know how many dead end roads you've driven down,

(19:55):
and I don't want to know metaphorically because you and
I could match stories relative to in reality. You know,
if you're driving, if you're driving along and do you
you know you hit a dead end, Well, unless you
know somebody that lives on that road, or maybe you're
considering buying property out in a rural area, you have
no reason to go down to dead end road. Maybe

(20:17):
if you're a deer hunter and you're going to pull
off at the end of it. But what what do
you gain? What do you gain by going down to
dead end road? And why why this? Well? I think
that a big part of this, Dave, is concealment. It's
to take take someone and or some people and dump

(20:39):
them in this particular area. My thing is, and what's
so curious about this case, Dave, is that if you've
got two vehicles, and each vehicle has two bodies, and
you have got a baby that was in another vehicle

(21:05):
and that baby is dumped out of said vehicle on
vehicle speeds away. How do you pull that off? You say, yeah,
how do you pull that off? By yourself? So I
think that probably in my estimation at least uh, there

(21:26):
is going to be a lot more revealed about potential
perpetrate tours, again in the plural sense as opposed to singularly,
because I just don't see this as being an event
that one individual could pull off. The question is, of course, why, Lord,

(22:00):
I just misspoke, Dave, I used the I used the
Y word, and I hate why? Maybe what? What's the motivation?
What happened? Because I'm thinking about these these vehicles, every
every bit of this area where and it's the TBI

(22:22):
of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which by the way,
is a gam up organization. I mean they they for
years and years they had to conducted investigations with fewer
resources and a lot of state police, and they've kind
of jumped ahead now. They're very, very good at what

(22:43):
they do.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I will tell you, Joe. They also are very accessible
to the media. They have their own have their own
PR machine, and I mean that in a good way,
because one of the best ways to solve anything is
to get the word out to get pictures out that
people can identify with. And that's exactly what happened here. Now,
at this point, beyond local sheriff's departments, you've got the TBI,

(23:07):
the FBI, and US Marshall Service because they have identified
a suspect. And you and I were talking about the
suspect a little while ago off the air, and I'm
to be perfectly clear, I believe in second chances. I
believe in people turning their lives around.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
But this person of interest suspect now, his name is
Austin Drummond. Austin Drummond if you start at the end here,
starting at the end, we have Austin Drummond is a
friend of the family. Austin Drummond dated the all. But

(23:54):
this is going to get so confusing, and I apologize
for that.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
But no, no, it is confused. It's layered.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
My mother's name is Courtney Rose. He's thirty eight. Austin Drummond,
who is twenty eight, dated Courtney Rose's sister. He became
familiar with the family due to that relationship, and now
that he's been named a suspect in this the family

(24:21):
is just beside themselves so family members are saying, he's
the nicest guy. We love him, we thought he loved us.
We know they are just dumbfounded, Joe. They really are
looking at this and saying, what happened? We don't know,
but we know that a couple hours after the baby

(24:45):
was identified, you know, police are knocking on the door
in Tiptonville, Tennessee, and they either found the victims in
the house or they found the victim in two vehicles
down the road in the woods.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Now I say that because again, right before we started taping,
you were talking about Kim has really been focused on this.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
She had. Yeah, and I'll go right up front, Yeah,
that woman loves babies, probably more than I do. But yeah,
and that's that's a lot. But go ahead.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well, she and I both noticed this when we saw
Kim and I noticed the same thing when we saw
video of the vehicles being pulled out of the woods.
We saw them trailered on the back of vehicles. I
was looking to see if they had them covered, if
they had tarps over the cars, and I didn't see that.

(25:44):
I didn't see any sign of blood on the vehicles.
I didn't see windows blown out. I didn't see anything.
So the way it's been explained to us is that
the bodies were discovered in a home. That's what's been said,
is being reported. I don't know, it doesn't it does
matter in the grand scheme of things, but right now

(26:07):
they had they being The police haven't told us any
real specifics other than they're looking for a convicted fella
in Austin Drummond and they have already charged him with murder,
attempted murder, and drug crimes. And there are some weapons
charges here too. One of the charges is having a
weapon during the commission of a felony. So, even though

(26:30):
they're not telling us how the victims died, I don't
believe it's a big leap to believe they were shot,
and the fact that it's been mentioned execution style, I'm
thinking shots to the head. Is that a fair assumption,
Joe or really going to I.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Think that it is, because I don't know. I mean,
I guess you could. You could come up with other
methodologies for, you know, ending someone's life. Obviously that's an
obvious statement, but it's seems to be the most expedient.
And I'm still amazed that we only have one at

(27:10):
this point in time, suspect that, by the way, as
of this recording, he is out out there somewhere. It's
a terrifying set of circumstances. Even though the police have said,
and I saw this early on, they said that the
public are not to be alarmed by this, and that's

(27:35):
that's Morgan's phraseology. I think you should be alarmed about
this because if this individual is associated with a massacre
and they are out running the streets at this point
in time, first off, they're desperate, and they're probably armed.

(27:56):
And if it's this fellow who they suspect that it
might might be associated with this, This Drummond fellow, Dave.
He just got out of the joint.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Last year, last September, last.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
September, and he got out. He had been I think
it was armed robbery.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
It was.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
He had served time for he was.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Convicted on twenty fourteen of armed robbery and he just
got released last September.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, and he was a very young person when he
went into the joint for that.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
He's only twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Now, yeah, he's only twenty eight, so you figure, you know,
you do the arithmetic here, but yeah, I mean, he
was very young. When he went in and now he's out.
In twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Four, Joe, two months after he got out, Yeah, he
was arrested again. And before I get into that, you
actually have seen pictures of Austin Drummond's prison cell. Yeah,
as an investigator, what does his prison cell tell you

(29:03):
about the convict that occupies as a base.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Well, he's uh, he's obviously got access to a commsary
and funds. Because there's one image and the image actually
that I saw comes from the Sun. Wink wink on
you know the Sun, and uh, he has access to commsary.

(29:28):
H he's got stuff just stacked in there, I mean food,
other items. But the one disturbing image that he that
the Sun has published is he's standing there with I
guess a fella selly. I guess it's in there, and
he is there and I never know how to pronounce this,
this name of this this vodka. But they're holding actually

(29:52):
a bottle of vodka in the joint and you, well.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's not it's not like you're saying it's vodka, but
it's in a clear bottle. It's actually a vodka bottle
with a label on it.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And so that's that's one of the things
you know that. I mean, look, you got to do.
What you got to do is survive in the joint.
But I'm thinking about this, and I'm thinking, well, he's
not afraid of breaking rules, particularly if he's allowing himself
to be photographed with this. This is a contraband and so.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, I think about that. Totally totally went past me.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Joe. Yes, it's problematic.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
So he handed one to ten with Forrest Gump over here,
I mean he's below.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
That, Yeah, yeah, exactly. He just he he just doesn't
care coming Joe. Yeah, that's that's the thing about it.
He just has nothing left to you know.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah. Two months, two months after he's released, he completed
his sentence. He charged. Two more months again after his release,
he's charged with attempted murder and drug crimes. The allegations
he was out on parole are out on probation. No,
what is it parole? Right?

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yea po.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
And he was out on bond on those charges. That's
what I was trying to get to. So you've got
a guy who completed his sentence ten years he was
a charge, is convicted in twenty fourteen. It's out last
September of twenty twenty four, after ten years, and then
two months later he's charged again with trying to kill
somebody and he's out on bond on that charge. When

(31:39):
he is the suspect now not could be somebody different.
It could be bad timing on his part. Maybe he is.
Maybe he just took off and he's actually gambling in
Vegas or doing whatever. You know, he's on the beach
somewhere chilling, and somebody else did this. Hain't his crime.
Now all of the family members of the massacre victims

(32:01):
are saying, we liked him, thought he liked us, didn't
know there was a problem. So they're all shocked by
this as well. No telling what happened. The police are
not telling us how the victims were murdered. Joe. But
based on what you've been told and the charges, the
fact that he's charged with a convicted felon in possession

(32:23):
of a firearm during the commission of a felony, is
that lean in the direction they were shot?

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Well, I don't know, you know, does he have access
to a firearm? And I guess, going back to what
you had said, Dave, one of my big questions here
is What the hell is he doing walking the streets
because he's violated at this point in Tom, he's a
convicted felon and you're looking at he's been hooked up
on charges as a suspect in an tempted murder. And

(32:53):
why is he breathing free air? I don't understand, and
that's a question for another day.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
But I know you're talking sucking in generalities. Why was
he out at all? But Joe, Austin Drummond has been caught.
He's accused of killing the four people we've been talking
about and dumping the infant off in a driveway. While
Austin Drummond was on the LAMB, authorities had arrested three
other people who are all charged with the same thing,

(33:20):
accessory after the fact, the first degree murder. Dearra Sanders
was arrested Monday before that, to Knock A. Brown and
Giovanni Thomas were arrested, and finally Austin Drummond has been captured.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
We're going to keep you up to speed on this
case as it develops. I got to tell you, I'm
incredibly intrigued about this. I want to know more about
this baby, in particular, I want to know that the
I want to be reassured that the baby is okay.
I'm sure that the baby is, but I want to

(33:54):
know how the baby plays in to this horrific set
of circumstances, because this is I think probably a family's
worst nightmare come to fruition. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and
this is body Backs.
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Joseph Scott Morgan

Joseph Scott Morgan

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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

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