The Johnson City Public Library is located at 100 W Here’s a look at what is happening this week at the Johnson City Public Library Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Account processing issue - the email address may already exist Invalid password or account does not exist Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight Johnson City’s Public Works Solid Waste Division is hosting a Great American Clean-Up City-Wide Event this Saturday The spring-cleaning event will be held from 7 a.m to noon both in the Indian Trail Middle School and Science Hill High School Tennessee residents will be able to bring building materials bulk items and trash to deposit in a safe manner Environmental Specialist of Public Works in Johnson City Theresa Carter says this is a great way for the public to take better care of the environment Acceptable items include building materials insecticides or hazardous materials including paint thinners will be accepted Assistance with unloading will be available This service is for Washington County residents only Thanks for visiting The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here Lenny Montesano drew a bases-loaded walk and later scored off an error in the ninth inning against VMI — East Tennessee State scored six runs in the top of the ninth inning and rallied for a 12-6 win at VMI on Sunday afternoon Email notifications are only sent once a day Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription (WCYB) — East Tennessee State University has announced the addition of Nadiria Evans to its women's basketball coaching staff Evans will serve as an assistant coach and director of player development head coach Brenda Mock Brown said on Monday Evans joins ETSU after two seasons at the University of Memphis where she was an assistant coach and director of basketball operations Evans spent a season at Gardner-Webb University as the director of basketball operations excelling in both basketball and track & field She was named to the Big South First Team and is the all-time leading scorer for the Bulldogs women's basketball program Evans also earned spots on the 2022 Big South All-Tournament Team and the All-Big South Second Team — East Tennessee State scored six runs in the top of the ninth inning and ral… Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Automotive light bulbs on display and for sale at a Tri-Cities auto parts store Although prices of some bulbs have increased mechanics and car dealers say they've not seen major increases in car parts prices Some local mechanics and auto dealers said they haven't seen much of an increase yet but said it likely is coming in tariffs come to pass as proposed by the Donald Trump administration KINGSPORT — Tariff increases on auto parts may not be a big deal yet many local auto dealers and insurance providers are leaning into lessons learned from the past to deal with any potential struggles Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription A former Democrat who is now a member of Republican Gov Bill Lee’s administration is scheduled to speak to the East Tennessee Republican Club on Monday Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Jordan Multicultural Center will soon be renamed the Mary V Jordan Center in response to state and federal regulations against DEI-related programming at university campuses will be joined with the Women and Gender Resource Center to become the new Dr ETSU Vice President for Student Life and Enrollment Joe Sherlin East Tennessee State University entrance from State of Franklin Road ETSU leaders plan to speak more with students and staff in the coming weeks and months to address concerns about federal and state policies that seek to eliminate diversity ETSU Vice President for Student Life and Enrollment Joe Sherlin East Tennessee State University Vice President for Student Life and Enrollment Joe Sherlin said Friday that ETSU leaders plan to speak more with students and staff in the coming weeks and months to address concerns about federal and state policies that seek to eliminate diversity Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Becoming partly cloudy after some evening light rain A representative from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security explains REAL IDs and their importance With the deadline for obtaining a REAL ID coming up the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security gave some information about REAL IDs and what makes them important the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security gave some information about REAL IDs and what makes them important for people to have Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription or search for whatever you were looking for… Lake Ridge’s Destination Imagination team will compete among 600 teams from more than 13 countries A group of Lake Ridge Elementary students will travel to Kansas City Missouri from May 22 to May 25 to compete at the Destination Imagination competition which challenges students to solve problems with creativity and teamwork Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Male Northern paroles are a member of the warbler family They are amazing vocalists producing an easily recognised trill of a song This Northern parole suffered a fatal collision with a window impacts with glass likely kill between 365 million and 1 billion birds annually in the United States Collisions with glass likely kill between 365 million and 1 billion birds annually in the United States The male Northern parula is a persistent songster once arriving on its nesting territory each spring Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Musicians returned to the sidewalks of Downtown Elizabethton for First Friday this past weekend Among the musicians were August Muse shop owner Paula Augustine (left) and guitar instructor Blue Morrow setting up in from of their store The Fun Zone was set up on Armed Forces Drive as part of First Friday The fun included free miniature golf along the length of the drive Pianist Nora Nauman added to the fun of First Friday by setting up in the middle of the sidewalk to serenade shoppers and passing cars Aaron Dinguss was one of the musicians who played on street corners during First Friday Dinguss was set up at the entrance to Hellbender Outfitters Fun and games were a part of the Riverside Taphouse experience during First Friday ELIZABETHTON — First Friday returned to Downtown Elizabethton this past weekend with “Adventure Vibes” bringing a welcome sight with it: groups of pedestrians walking on the sidewalks on Elk Avenue and shopping in the stores Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Science Hill baseball players celebrate with coach Ryan Edwards after winning the District 1-4A tournament championship Saturday The Science Hill Hilltoppers won their seventh straight district title with Saturday’s win over Dobyns-Bennett The Dobyns-Bennett Indians finished runner-up in the District 1-4A tournament having earned their first region berth since 2017 Science Hill’s Lucas Dye (14) slides home to score a run Science Hill’s Anderson Craft (27) watches the ball on his follow through after hitting a three-run double Science Hill’s Haydon Smelser (4) turns a double play after putting Dobyns-Bennett’s Andrew Reilly (3) out at second Dobyns-Bennett's Maddox Martin (left) catches Science Hill's Lucas Dye in a rundown The only thing that might need rebuilding is the Hilltoppers’ trophy case if they keep bringing home hardware at this rate Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Austin Atwood has stepped down as boys basketball head coach at Johnson County but will remain the school’s athletic director Austin Atwood has decided to wrap-up his 25-year career as the Johnson County basketball coach His son Carter is concluding his one-year career as a Longhorns basketball player Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription holding his Tennessee SkillsUSA Advisor of the Year certificate ELIZABETHTON — In addition to Hampton students winning gold and silver medals in state competition and the school’s club receiving a chapter of excellence designation at the 2025 SkillsUSA Convention in Chattanooga this year the school’s teacher was also honored at the state level the architecture and engineering design teacher at Hampton High School was named advisor of the year by the SkillsUSA/Tennessee Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription My parents named me David after President Dwight David Eisenhower (I guess they liked “David” more than “Dwight.”) Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Elizabethton High School had 18 students competing in the state SkillsUSA competition in Chattanooga ELIZABETHTON — Students from Elizabethon High School won six medals in state-level SkillsUSA competition this spring while eight students received FFA state degrees Another student finished second in state competition in FBLA and will be competing at the national level next month Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Tuition for participating private school families who qualify will be covered for up to $7,295 a year starting with the 2025-26 school year in August Parents or would-be parents of private school students in Tennessee {p class=”tncms-inline-link”}Tennessee vouchers and checklists Leaders at two schools and a school system who will take Tennessee vouchers predict minimal impact in Tri-Cities The Rogersville City School Board of Education voted to pass a resolution for teachers to receive a $2,000 bonus at Tuesday night’s meeting The Johnson City Board of Education decided Monday to accept the $2,000 teacher bonuses from the state as provided in Gov Members of the Washington County School Board will accept the $2,000 teacher bonuses from the state as provided in Gov The Kingsport board of Education Tuesday night approved the $2,000 pre-tax bonuses for public school teachers but went on record still opposes to the voucher law that includes the bonsues The Sullivan County Board of Education took both actions at its Monday meeting The plan is to have it in place and operating in time for the 2025-26 school year The Hawkins County Board of Education held a special called meeting Thursday night to discuss a resolution opposing Gov Those are two major areas of focus for Kingsport City Schools in the next week Members of the Johnson City School Board spoke out against Gov Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Act in a special-called meeting Tuesday Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Johnson City’s Fridays After 5 summer concert series returns to King Commons May 30 The concerts are free and open to all ages “Beyond the Sun” is now showing in the Bays Mountain Park Planetarium Theater through Aug telling the story of one girl’s search for exoplanets A listing of upcoming events and attractions Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in. Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password. An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account. I don’t need anything—I just called to say hi.”Cartoon by E GlennCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copied “I just immediately had this gut feeling that this was big.” Yet the officers didn’t seem inclined to pursue the rape allegations “I remember asking things like ‘Have you made contact with any other victims Have you identified any of the women on the list?’ ” Dahl said “There just seemed to be zero interest in that and hem and haw when I suggested possible tactics.” Nor did the officers exhibit much sympathy for the women involved Hilton described the black tube dress Evans had been wearing when she fell from Williams’s window I won’t say it.” (A lawyer for Sparks declined to comment Hilton did not respond to repeated inquiries.) Dahl told the officers that she would look into the case as long as her investigation was not limited to the ammunition charge often breaks into nervous laughter at her own remarks But when talking about legal matters she has a confidence that borders on intensity By the end of her conversation with the detectives the case had become her “top priority.” In the following weeks she stayed up late in her two-bedroom rental house scrutinizing Williams’s social-media accounts and financial and property records But when she urged the police to interview them they seemed to resist Dahl requested the police reports containing the two sexual-assault allegations against Williams She asked for the reports three more times before Sparks finally provided them He told her that the allegations had not been followed up on because the women were unwilling to coöperate was drinking at a bar near Williams’s apartment when she and a friend ran into Diaz Her last memory was of sitting on a barstool She told police that she woke up in Williams’s bed the next morning A friend drove her to an urgent-care clinic to obtain a drug test; it came back positive for benzodiazepines Then she went to a hospital for a rape kit (Williams has denied giving women date-rape drugs and says that any encounters with his accusers were consensual Diaz did not respond to repeated requests for comment and has not been charged with any crimes related to Williams.) When Pack contacted the Johnson City police “Other women have reported similar things there We know exactly who this guy is.” A police report filed that day refers to prior calls about Williams and asks that the case be forwarded to C.I.D Pack said that she was eager to coöperate with an investigation Sparks called Pack to tell her that her rape kit had tested positive for DNA that was not hers (Rape-kit results are often subject to extreme delays.) Pack says that Sparks also asked her what she was wearing the night of the alleged assault She was afraid that Williams might retaliate against her for going to the police but when she asked if officers could provide her with protection Sparks refused calling Williams “untouchable.” Pack nevertheless wanted to press charges “I felt like they related more with him than they did with me,” she told me The second sexual-assault allegation had been made by another twenty-two-year-old she had been out drinking in Johnson City when she encountered Diaz at around three-thirty that morning she woke up with Williams on top of her (Williams denies having a sexual encounter with her.) Officers helped her get home and offered her a rape kit she went to the police station and gave a statement An officer’s summary of the statement said that the incident had merely been an “attempted” rape and that she was declining to pursue charges because she had “learned her lesson.” When Dahl read the file and by how little detectives had done to investigate the allegations shoeless woman runs into the arms of a cop,” Dahl said On what planet does that make any sense?” She called the woman “I had this increasing suspicion that sexual-assault victims were being either scared off or treated in a way that made it unlikely for them to pursue charges,” Dahl told me The woman sounded surprised to hear from law enforcement again but she agreed to give an additional statement about the incident Dahl accompanied her to her meeting with the police because the context was more harrowing than the one brief paragraph in the report.” to an Army-veteran father and a devoutly Catholic homemaker mother and she told me that her childhood observations of military and Church bureaucracy taught her that “institutional rot can be really toxic.” She studied musical theatre in high school (“Les Misérables” was a favorite.) In 2016 after attending college and law school in Tennessee to work as a policy assistant for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and emerged from being blackout drunk to find that he was assaulting her She went to the police in nearby Arlington She says that an investigator assigned to her case was dismissive too.” The interview was so caustic that a higher-ranking officer who reviewed footage of it invited Dahl back and apologized telling her that he was “appalled.” Nevertheless she was so discouraged that she decided not to try to press charges The experience galvanized her desire to work in criminal justice when she was offered the role in Johnson City The Williams case had a personal dimension the way these victims were being questioned and dismissed,” she told me “It brought back everything I went through when I reported my assault and I couldn’t stand to see it happening again.” The Department of Justice has conducted several recent investigations into systematic failures in the handling of sex crimes by police departments published a report indicating that the Louisville Metro Police had neglected to adequately gather evidence in response to claims of sexual assault and often relied on “sex-based assumptions” and “stereotyping.” An investigation into gender bias in the New York Police Department’s approach to sex crimes is ongoing Criminologists say that police are often skeptical of women who report sexual assault if they were drinking But the Johnson City Police Department’s handling of the Williams case was hard to explain through these elements alone Dahl was especially perplexed by the response to Evans’s fall Sparks and an officer named Justin Jenkins who arrived at Williams’s apartment soon after the incident agreed to a demand from Williams that they leave and come back with a warrant even though there is an exception to warrant requirements when evidence might be tampered with The officers had photographed security cameras pointing at the window that Evans had fallen from They returned to the station with Williams They saw Williams accessing footage from the cameras on his phone which they didn’t confiscate until he left the station The police allowed Williams to return home for several hours unsupervised he received a call from an employee with law-enforcement connections who warned him that the officers were coming back He and Diaz frantically cleaned up the apartment hiding cameras in a closet and gathering drugs and firearms in a metal ammunition box that Williams threw out a window and Jenkins spent much of the day at the apartment They didn’t recover the ammo box or its contents They and their colleagues never attempted to examine the contents of some of the devices they did seize she asked Sparks for a warrant to access the remaining devices Sparks submitted a draft warrant that Dahl found so vague and incomplete that she considered it “not even usable”—she believed that either a judge would reject it or any evidence gathered under it could be challenged in court “They didn’t want to pursue the rape cases because a slew of mistakes had already been made if they were to fully dive in and investigate I think some of those mistakes would have come to light I think you would have had a whole bunch of people say A block from Williams’s garage was his apartment where he hosted wild parties.“All I want is some accountability in this case,” Kat Dahl said after being fired.Other women continued to come forward with allegations against Williams she had gone to a Halloween party at Williams’s apartment Her next memory was of finding him passed out on top of her She later told me that the incident contributed to a mental-health crisis during which she surrendered custody of her children during what Murray called “the darkest period of my life,” Williams contacted her He expressed regret about his life style and told her that he wanted to reform she snorted a line of cocaine Williams offered her and blacked out The next thing she remembered was him holding her down and trying to manually penetrate her She told me that she waited until she thought Williams had passed out “because I did not trust the Johnson City Police Department,” she told me She said that she’d previously experienced sexist treatment from the department including a frisking that she found humiliating and intrusive field office to assume control of the case that no other woman had wanted to pursue charges against Williams “everyone else had been too fearful.” Murray who interpreted the comment as an effort to dissuade her She didn’t hear from the police again for five months He told her not to expect further follow-up until her rape-kit results were returned Sparks and the other detectives seemed to have no plan for pursuing Williams “I was going home and researching and combing through social media until ‘I found a possible lead,’ or ‘I think you should check this out.’ I was always given the side-eye and told we’re tired of hearing about Williams,’ ” she said “And meanwhile more victims were coming in.” At least six assaults are now alleged to have taken place between October Dahl had been investigating for almost a month when she decided that she was at an impasse she reached out to her supervisor at the D.O.J. who scheduled a meeting between Dahl and officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation a state organization that Dahl hoped might provide oversight the chief of the Johnson City Police Department furious that it had been planned without his consent in which Turner seemed indifferent to the case and rejected her suggestion that they contact women whose names matched those on the list that officers had seen at the apartment “I don’t know if that’s girls he’s raped or girls he’s had consensual sex with and he calls it whatever he calls it,” Turner said he proposed merely that they place cameras outside Williams’s garage she believed that Williams might be preying on children Dahl’s relationship with the police department was deteriorating and told him that she had exhibited poor communication skills Turner continued to complain to Taylor about Dahl Her focus on the Williams case became a running joke in the department a colleague jokingly suggested that she serve as bait why don’t you go have a drink at Label”—a bar where Williams was rumored to prey upon women—“and let him take you up to his apartment It’s not clear why officers told Dahl about the rape allegations while discouraging her from pursuing them Dahl believes that they wanted to eliminate the increasingly visible problems Williams was creating while avoiding scrutiny of their errors in policing his more serious crimes “A simple weapons charge was the way to do that,” she told me Dahl was reluctant to pursue an indictment only on the ammunition case which was not a particularly serious offense “I was very keen to avoid anything that I thought could fail and let him get away,” she said “But the flip side of the coin is the longer I wait the more opportunities he has to hurt people.” She finally decided that she could wait no longer she secured an indictment on the ammunition charge to reduce the risk that Williams might flee Dahl lodged more than thirty requests with Sparks and other Johnson City police officers She was offered various excuses—the officers were busy Legault said that he was aware only of the minor ammunition charge which was not his primary responsibility.) At one point an officer told Dahl that they couldn’t execute the warrant because they lacked the code to the front door of Williams’s building an officer was sent to knock on Williams’s door It was one single cop by himself,” Williams later told me ‘What the fuck is this cop outside of my door for?’ ” During the call an officer at the station disclosed the existence of the warrant evading the officer by rappelling out of a window Turner pressed Dahl to focus on other cases In a meeting that month which Dahl recorded Turner referred to Williams as a nuisance who had already been dealt with “I think we’ve achieved our desired outcome.” (A representative for Peters denied any wrongdoing.) But Dahl was convinced that Williams still posed a danger “I was obsessed with Williams,” she told me I am going to work on this as much as I want Turner told Dahl that her contract would not be renewed and that her job would be terminated in less than a week It was an unusually blunt firing for a prosecutor in the midst of several cases The department later argued that Dahl had brought an insufficient number of indictments before grand juries But Dahl’s productivity appears to have been roughly on par with that of her colleagues From the start of the pandemic until her firing she secured nineteen indictments; in the same period five colleagues working in the same courthouse brought between ten and twenty each Dahl told me that her job performance was being judged by the uniquely harsh standards reserved for institutional whistle-blowers “Everything that I’ve done within this job is now under a microscope,” she said Dahl wrote to me using an encrypted e-mail account and a pseudonym She told me that she was a federal prosecutor who was desperate to apprehend a serial rapist and encountering obstruction I believe there is a possibility that this person is being protected by local law enforcement,” she wrote “All I want is some accountability in this case.” Living in a community where she was at odds with the police took a toll because I’m not calling the cops,’ ” she said “just in case.” She supported herself with freelance legal-drafting work she connected with several of the women on the list from Williams’s apartment all of whom told her similar stories of being drugged and assaulted; they recalled feeling discouraged when they went to the police Even her social life was consumed by the case Drinks and meals often became opportunities to gather leads “It was usually met with something along the lines of ‘Oh are you talking about the drug-dealing rapist?’ ” she said “It became apparent pretty quickly that this was an open secret.” The day after her firing she went on a date with a man she had met on Hinge that guy is a creep,’ ” she recalled him saying “ ‘There was a girl who got into an accident and died after she left the apartment.’ ” She found an obituary for Laura Shea Trent had briefly stopped by the garage after drinks at a brewery Sedam realized that his phone was missing and returned to the brewery to look for it she was drunk but walking and talking competently But soon afterward she began placing frantic calls to family members “She was just in such distress that she didn’t even know who she had called,” her sister Stacy told me She drove around looking for Trent while she and Sarah tried to get their sister to describe where she was Minutes after her last call to her sisters Trent crashed her car into a concrete traffic island Sarah told me that both Diaz and Williams later told her that Trent had gone with them and had more to drink he didn’t deny that Trent may have been in his apartment Was there any sign of downers?” (Trent’s blood showed a high level of alcohol but exhaustive testing for date-rape drugs was not carried out.) telling them that she believed Williams had been with her sister before she died an officer told her that Johnson City lacked jurisdiction in this case and advised her to call law enforcement in nearby Elizabethton Elizabethton sent her back to the Johnson City police whom she eventually again asked to look into Williams telling them that she feared Trent had been drugged But Dahl realized that Sparks had assigned her the Williams case within a day of Sarah’s first phone call “The fact that they gave me the case a day later without mentioning any of this—it’s not a coincidence,” Dahl said Dahl had pieced together much of Williams’s history “I had a picture in my head of what he was like,” she said Williams had been brought up in a modest suburban home in Largo where a slab of concrete in the back yard still bears his child-size footprints His sister Auburn Shapiro told me that their mother was “a hustler” who “worked her ass off” to support the family taking jobs as a notary and at the reservations line at Delta and eventually doing clerical work for Williams’s business his mother remarried and moved with Williams to what he described as “redneck fucking hillbilly-town North Carolina,” where his stepfather owned property “It was almost doomed from the start,” Shapiro said a lawyer who was later disbarred for billing clients for work he didn’t perform was an alcoholic who also struggled with heroin addiction “He would make Sean sleep outside on an unheated porch in the cold “Sean doesn’t call what he went through ‘abuse.’ But I think it shaped how he sees boundaries and consent.” child-protective services took him into custody he was sent to a series of foster homes and juvenile-justice programs he fled a disciplinary camp with several other students he’d persuaded to join him a woman whom Williams described as his foster mother began a sexual relationship with him Williams started a relationship with a thirty-five-year-old woman which lasted seven years Williams grew marijuana and launched a business first cleaning high-rise windows and then expanding into waterproofing The company grew as he netted contracts on large buildings in Greensboro and other cities in the area Williams got a contract to restore a building in Johnson City and began renting the first of several apartments he would ultimately own there including the condo where much of his alleged criminal activity took place Those years were also marked by increasingly heavy drug use—eventually Williams was buying large quantities from out of state I would buy it.” Williams told me that he only occasionally sold drugs preferring to give them to friends and acquaintances but several of his associates said that they believed he had ties to traffickers She drove past his garage and his apartment His attempts to stay out of sight were halfhearted Dahl followed information in one post to a construction site operated by his company in Asheville she spoke to a manager who told her that Williams had recently been kicked out for being too rowdy and for keeping drugs in his room The manager also feared for the safety of a young woman Williams had with him Marshals with leads about where Williams might be She told them to search the area surrounding a house she had visited in Cullowhee and Dahl believed that the location was significant to Williams—and that the surrounding woods might provide a hiding place Marshals said that Dahl’s tips were taken seriously The authorities need not have looked very far For more than a year after the arrest attempt Williams spent the majority of his time in Johnson City often staying with a neighbor in the same building as his condo He seemed to have little concern about the police they fucking knew where I was,” he later told me “They didn’t want to find me at all.” He continued to conduct business openly who is responsible for overseeing the police department even entered into a contract to buy his apartment According to text messages later disclosed during a lawsuit and at one point left documents at his condo for his signature Ball told Castillo that she had chosen to withhold information about Williams from a home inspector “I did not tell him the story behind Sean.” Williams said that Ball was aware of his fugitive status: “Everyone knew.” (Before the texts were disclosed Ball said that Williams’s name “did not mean anything” to her according to a person familiar with her thinking claimed that she was never involved in the matter Both declined requests for comment after the texts surfaced A spokesperson for Johnson City said that Ball “did not know Sean Williams and she did not purchase any property from Sean Williams.”) Williams eventually pulled out of the deal and sold the apartment to a company owned by a local businessman A popular bar in Johnson City near Williams’s apartment.But Williams didn’t think that his impunity could last a security guard for Western Carolina University The drives contained thousands of videos and images that depict sex crimes against some sixty-seven victims Investigators later also found child pornography and evidence of sex crimes on the devices that the Johnson City police had failed to search The number of allegations against Williams may make him one of the most prolific serial rapists in American history Many of the photographs and videos on the drives had file names consistent with the names on the list that Dahl had sought to investigate (Williams initially claimed that the files were fabricated with artificial intelligence He recently acknowledged to me that he routinely had sex with women while they were unconscious or asleep saying that he believed this to be permissible because of prior consensual sexual encounters.) After two years on the run Williams had been found in the town that Dahl had told the U.S Williams was charged with multiple counts related to child pornography and with possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine More than twenty charges involving child sexual abuse would eventually follow who was alerted to the news by a text from MiKayla Evans was taken aback by the scale of his predation “If he hadn’t been caught at that moment in time I don’t think we would be having this conversation,” she said But Williams’s prosecution was soon delayed by improbable difficulties in keeping him confined he was accused of attempting to dig out of his cell in a county jail in Jonesborough where he was awaiting trial on some of the child-pornography charges (It was later determined that Williams had been digging a hole to exchange items with a neighboring cell.) That October while being transferred in a van to a court appearance Williams lifted a loose portion of the vehicle’s wall panelling and snapped off a narrow metal clip underneath He used the clip to pick the locks on his belly chain and handcuffs He squeezed through the window and jumped onto the road breaking his wrist but successfully escaping or was he just really slick and got out without their notice (Williams declined to answer my questions about whether he was helped saying he didn’t want to “get anybody else in trouble.”) including the television station WJHL and the Tennessean began covering Williams’s case and his Houdini-like escape intensifying pressure on state and federal authorities assigned more than a hundred people to search for him As helicopters circled overhead and sniffer dogs patrolled Williams sheltered in an abandoned house just a few blocks from the courthouse where he had been scheduled to appear He constructed a pulley system to get himself in and out of the house’s attic and scavenged for food He was able to siphon power from a neighboring house “I watched old VCR tapes of ‘The Fugitive’ and ‘U.S he survived through an almost unbelievable ingenuity and used them to work on an abandoned truck he found near the house “That truck was my ticket out,” he told me Williams said that he found a stash of thirty pounds of marijuana and saw an opportunity to sell it to sustain himself on the run—though a close associate of his cast doubt on that claim saying that Williams had previously boasted about a buried cache of money Williams drove to North Carolina and visited his daughter Dills described her father as an alternately absent and abusive figure in her life “I was six when I found out who my dad was,” she told me I was then sexually abused by him.” (Williams and Dills’s maternal grandmother saying that he had no contact with her until her late teens.) When he arrived at the discount department store where Dills worked Dills told him she would get a pen to write down his phone number “I was crying and didn’t know what to do,” she told me Williams “felt something wasn’t right,” he said He says that he sold the marijuana for six hundred dollars in cash He knocked on the door of his childhood home to see the concrete with his footprints in it Williams’s truck was found by a local police officer Williams walked barefoot into a 7-Eleven and bought a hot dog “I had goosebumps when I turned and looked at him,” she said “I’m gonna go catch a criminal,” and after Williams departed she called the police Williams was walking on a trail nearby when a police S.U.V a police dog named Voodoo sank its teeth into his leg and an officer punched him in the face before subduing him Williams was taken to Blount County Detention Facility and prosecutors brought an additional charge against him for escaping federal custody As news that Williams had been apprehended spread Dahl’s phone started vibrating with texts from friends She still felt confused about how Williams could have spent years evading arrest “I’m interested in talking with you,” he wrote through the detention facility’s messaging system “There are some facts about my case that are being kept from public ears.” In numerous video calls I had with him Williams looked thin and older than his years He made a surprising claim: that his criminal activity had been made possible because he had been paying off Johnson City police officers through Alunda Rutherford an ex-girlfriend who was involved in his businesses He also accused the officers of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from his safe during their searches after Evans’s fall Many key elements of Williams’s story remain impossible to confirm but subsequent lawsuits and investigations have lent credence to the idea that one of the most prolific and notorious rapists in American history operated unchecked because of police corruption Johnson City agreed to a twenty-eight-million-dollar settlement with victims of sexual violence.The J.C.P.D and Rutherford has not been charged with a crime “To claim that the Johnson City Police Department was complicit in any sex-trafficking venture or that its officers benefitted financially from such abhorrent activity is specious.” Rutherford told me that the allegations about her were “completely fabricated” and that there were “never any payments made.” She also said that she had had minimal contact with Williams in recent years and few financial interactions with his company though these claims were contradicted by multiple people who knew them as well as by financial records reviewed by The New Yorker She initially told me she had never had any contact with police but subsequently claimed that she had been told of Williams’s flight by them and had later contacted them to offer to entrap him One thing that is certain is that Williams dated Rutherford he granted her one-per-cent ownership in his construction company “She was the smoother-over—a problem solver,” he told me problems and insurance audits and things like that.” People who knew Williams and Rutherford during their relationship claim that both of them were selling cocaine as Rutherford was turning in to her driveway a Johnson City officer pulled up behind her The officer said that he knew she was carrying drugs and cash He made her hand over five thousand dollars and the cocaine (Williams says that Rutherford told him about the incident at the time and that he saw security-camera footage of it.) “No charges They were extorting her.” He says that Rutherford at his direction and using money she was provided by his company began periodically giving officers large sums of cash starting at two thousand dollars and eventually climbing to as high as eight thousand dollars—though Williams claims he did not keep close track of the amounts or frequency He said that he was making five hundred thousand dollars a year and considered it a modest business cost the police apprehended a ring of more than twenty-one local drug traffickers Rutherford had been telling him that officers were threatening action against him Now Rutherford warned him that officers were closing in on him Allegations of assault against Williams were multiplying “She gave me the impression that they had a bunch of dirt on me,” Williams recalled “She indicated that she was holding them at bay for my benefit.” For a while “I figured it was because of the payments.” Williams says that he kept five hundred thousand dollars in his home safe and that Rutherford was aware of this money because they knew about the cash in it,” he told me and the other four hundred and nineteen thousand dollars had been stolen He said that the police department’s apparent reluctance to pursue a full investigation stemmed from the theft He also said that police had planted evidence including the baby-doll sex toy photographed among the safe’s contents “There wasn’t cash.” Other eyewitnesses told me that Williams’s safe typically held stacks of hundred-dollar bills—potentially in line with an amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars.) Williams claims that the scheme involved several Johnson City police officers “They teamed up to extort me.” But several people close to Williams said that they believed he was trying to deflect focus from his role in any corruption “The city did not seize any money from Sean Williams.”) and told me that she did not believe officers were protecting Williams “I don’t think that they were being too serious about things,” she said I don’t believe anyone was paid off.” She said of the alleged encounter in her driveway and the ongoing bribery scheme “None of that is true.” She also denied making withdrawals from Williams’s company accounts while he was on the run though numerous bank statements seem to contradict this claim whose name appeared on the list from Williams’s apartment said that she had been part of his pattern of assault A civil lawsuit was initially brought against the police department by a group of nine plaintiffs with accusations about Williams and it eventually grew into a proposed class-action suit encompassing all of his accusers which raised similar claims about police corruption and forced Johnson City officers to produce private financial records contended that the records show Jenkins and Sparks had access to funds that didn’t accord with their incomes The picture they present is not conclusive Between 2018 and 2022—a period in which Rutherford was seemingly making regular withdrawals—the two officers’ bank accounts show a pattern of cash deposits; in Jenkins’s case they were generally in increments of between a thousand and five thousand dollars and home loans totalling more than four hundred thousand dollars significantly more than his total police-department income In a filing submitted as part of the lawsuit Jenkins’s attorney said that the deposits and loans highlighted in the suit came from vehicle trade-ins a necklace that Williams claims was stolen from his safe was consigned by Rutherford in what it described as a form of payment by Sparks to insure her silence as investigations mounted Rutherford said that Williams gave her the necklace he took seven boxes of financial records with him He hoped that they might serve as an insurance policy should he ever need to prove that the police were being paid off who was set up on a blind date with Williams in 2018 told me that they never became romantically involved but that she came to consider him a close friend Moody was contacted by officials at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation She defended Williams against allegations of rape explaining that “there were definitely girls that went up there to get fucked up shit happens when you’re fucked up.” They interrupted her do you wanna see your pictures?’ ” she told me The investigators then showed her photos and videos of Williams raping her while she was incapacitated like I’m a dead body.” Williams had arranged the files on his hard drives systematically often bearing head shots that he had taken from their social-media accounts “This was somebody I considered my friend,” Moody said “And I was somebody he raped and then pretended like it didn’t happen.” Moody ultimately turned over the boxes of financial records to state authorities because she believes that there has been little effort to pursue the corruption allegations She was one of several people close to Williams who recalled seeing officers visit him without any official or social explanation “Sean is telling the truth about the police-accountability part and how there is multilevel corruption,” she told me “The police absolutely did allow him to continue what he was doing.” She was one of several people who said that they had witnessed a rapport between Williams and Johnson City officers which they believe may suggest that he was giving information to the police about drug activity locals started to refer to Johnson City as Little Chicago owing to a thriving criminal underworld in the city and in a surrounding swath of Appalachia Moody was one of numerous residents who said that they believed the Williams case was part of a wider phenomenon in which the police in the region turn a blind eye to The area is connected to multiple major highways mountainous terrain has historically made law enforcement challenging and allowed criminal groups to flourish a series of news reports prompted the arrest of numerous law-enforcement officials on charges including extortion and bribery Further probes in the following decades uncovered the involvement of law-enforcement officers in drug-related crimes including cocaine distribution and smuggling drug money the Johnson City police officers David Hilton and Jeff Legault were both promoted from sergeant to lieutenant who served the search warrant after Evans’s fall Captain Kevin Peters and Police Chief Karl Turner have both retired Toma Sparks and Justin Jenkins are still employed by the Johnson City Police Department Dahl sued Turner and the Johnson City Police Department for retaliation and wrongful termination alleging that she was punished because she reported their handling of sexual-assault cases and raised allegations of corruption Although friends and family had urged her to move on rather than endure a bruising legal battle she told me she wanted to hold accountable a police department that she believed was endangering the community “To go through the rest of my life and be questioning Are more people being hurt because I didn’t say something the suit has already had significant repercussions Johnson City hired a law firm to investigate the police department’s approach to sexual crimes The resulting report identified systematic deficiencies including “practices that discourage female victims of sexual assault from collaborating with law enforcement,” such as conducting interviews in a manner “more appropriate for an interrogation of a suspect.” Of a hundred and five recent reports of rape with an identified suspect police had interviewed the suspect in only thirty-six cases The department commonly closed sexual-violence cases quickly sometimes because a victim expressed reservations about pressing charges; officers often cited uncoöperative victims as a reason for closing cases even when they had in fact been unable to make contact with the victims The report raised other questions about Johnson City officers’ handling of cases involving Williams It made pointed reference to “police corruption” allegations though the subject was beyond its formal purview The report stated that “the Department should have moved forward with an internal investigation to address the misconduct allegations.” who were labelled Jane Does in legal filings but who gave me permission to use their names took money from Rutherford and from the safe “with either the implied or explicit understanding that they would shield Williams.” It argues that Williams—who had allegedly given money in exchange for their recruitment of women he raped—had been involved in sex trafficking and that his payments to officers made them parties to a trafficking conspiracy (Rutherford told me that she had not helped Williams recruit other women.) Johnson City agreed to a twenty-eight-million-dollar settlement with victims of sexual violence “The amount will likely prompt skepticism about their denials,” Kelly Puente who has written about the case for the Tennessean A lawyer connected to the case told me that the sum “is far more than the cost of defense—perhaps this victims’ settlement will finally get the agencies’ attention.” The confidential settlement a version of which was obtained by The New Yorker includes strict provisions that the victim should “not discuss this settlement or disparage the JCPD or any investigation of her sexual assault.” A statement from the plaintiffs’ lawyers cited a “substantial risk of not meeting the applicable burdens of proof” in their decision to dismiss their claims and settle In response to questions about the allegations a city spokesperson referred to the statement People involved in the case told me they stood by its strength and feared that the city had paid its way out of accountability and the circumstances uncovered during discovery deserve to be acknowledged rather than buried.” If a deeper investigation is ever undertaken wide trail of money that’s gonna be easy to find.” But federal and state officials have mostly refused to say whether the corruption allegations are still being pursued but an official involved in the Williams case told me that he was aware of no ongoing inquiries by either agency Dahl believes that a culture of mutual protection and deference among law-enforcement agencies may have contributed to the apparently limited efforts “The fact that the Johnson City community is no closer to transparency about what happened and who enabled Williams to operate as long as he did is a disgrace,” she said interviews with officers accused of corruption were “in some cases only three minutes long agents asking the officers whether or not they stole money None of the officers were confronted with evidence never bothered to subpoena important documents like bank records.” A T.B.I agents investigated this one fully and to the best of our ability.” The F.B.I The Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section the office responsible for investigating police-corruption allegations like the ones in the Williams case is being reduced by the Trump Administration to just a handful of employees Williams walked into a hearing room in a courthouse in Greeneville with his hands cuffed and chained at his waist to be sentenced for production of child pornography and for his escape As he was transferred to court that morning marshals had discovered him hiding razor blades in his shoe A jury had found him guilty of escaping from the van a conviction with a potential five-year sentence after volatile relationships with four different attorneys a court-appointed attorney named Mark Brown Dahl’s warnings that Williams might be a pedophile had proved prescient Two weeks after she brought the sex doll to Turner’s attention Williams had victimized a boy of less than a year old described reams of evidence gathered from Williams’s devices that showed he had assaulted mothers and gained access to their children whom he then recorded in pornographic photos and videos sat a few feet from Williams and quietly wept through the proceedings “I just needed to see him walk out of the room for the last time and know he wouldn’t come back,” she told me at the time a twenty-one-year-old new mother working at a restaurant and financially struggling met Williams through a friend who knew Diaz Williams struck her as charismatic and flashy and at one point she saw the stacks of hundred-dollar bills that filled his safe because of his connections with law enforcement “the police aren’t going to come up here.” He offered her a job as his housekeeper but within weeks he told her she was “too pretty to clean,” and asked her to be his informal personal assistant A few months after she started working for him she looked at his phone and saw sexual images of children Anderson told the Johnson City police about the images of children asking about her history of substance abuse “like he was speaking to a criminal not a victim.” (Higgins disputes using an accusatory tone.) In his report Higgins did not make clear that the images of children were pornographic federal and state officials showed Anderson images of Williams assaulting her along with sexually explicit photographs of her then nine-month-old son It’s enough to kill somebody.” (Williams said that the relationship with Anderson was consensual and denied the allegations about her son who was among the plaintiffs in the civil suit was one of several women who told me they felt that police made an effort to intimidate them during proceedings a group of police officers lined up opposite her “He had all of his police friends on the back wall of the room,” she said “They didn’t break eye contact with me the whole time.” Johnson City has been known as Little Chicago owing to its history as a thriving criminal underworld.J called Williams a “psychopath” and a “dangerous predator.” Williams seemed to thumb his nose at the proceedings that “with the exception possibly of a serial killer these offenses are among the most serious offenses that can be committed,” Williams blurted out that it was “shocking” that “taking a picture of a young girl would be compared to murder.” Greer alluded to Williams’s history of abuse during his childhood had cited research indicating that victims of abuse are predisposed to become abusers themselves Williams at times seemed to have a distorted understanding of what constitutes abuse “Maybe I’m just a monster.” Greer sentenced Williams to ninety-five years in prison The judge appeared to refer to the unresolved questions of police corruption to engage in the conduct he has engaged in without detection and has pleaded not guilty to the additional charges he faces related to child pornography and drugs said that he plans to bring more charges related to Williams’s alleged assaults A further civil suit has been filed by Evans against Johnson City police “They cared more about money than the people they were supposed to serve and protect,” she told me on her way out of the sentencing hearing Williams claims that he fears for his safety because he represents a loose end in the corruption case “I’ve been a liability ever since MiKayla’s fall,” he told me “It’s starting to look like a possible Epstein ending.” wearing a neat black suit that she’d purchased at Macy’s she spent time “grieving over the job that I thought would have maybe been my dream job.” In early 2022 she had moved in with her parents in Alabama She felt “hollow” after seeing Williams’s sentencing despite her indispensable role in the case I told some of the victims I was going to try and find them answers and find them accountability for what happened A long-ago crime, suddenly remembered A limousine driver watches her passengers transform The day Muhammad Ali punched me What is it like to be keenly intelligent but deeply alienated from simple emotions? Temple Grandin knows The harsh realm of “gentle parenting.”  Retirement the Margaritaville way Fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Thank You for the Light.”  Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. The Brothers Doobie are set to perform at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center on May 9 Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Homeschool students attended Blountville’s Extra Credit: Escape the Library where they used computers to solve puzzles in a virtual escape room Our next Extra Credit will be held on Friday where we will be learning about chemistry while making bouncy balls Here's a look at what's on tap this week at the Sullivan County Public Library's five locations The Sullivan County Public Library has five locations to serve the community Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Kolby Jones of Unicoi County is safe as Tennessee High first baseman Preston Feagins takes the pickoff throw on Saturday in Johnson City JOHNSON CITY — After dropping four games to Tennessee High already this season Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Elizabethton’s Bugs Meadows grounds an RBI single into left field in the first inning against Tennessee High on Friday Tennessee High pitcher Gage Graziano delivers a strike during Friday’s District 1-3A Tournament game Sullivan East’s Zach Johnson high-fives head coach Mike Breuninger as he rounds third base following his first-inning home run against Unicoi County Blue Devil second baseman Manny Chavez looks to throw to first base to complete a double play on Friday night For the first time since the days of Evan Carter Elizabethton baseball has earned consecutive berths in the region tournament JOHNSON CITY — For the first time since the days of Evan Carter The University High Buccaneers baseball team advanced to the District 1-1A championship and Region 1-1A tournament with Friday's win over Nort… Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Pictures shows David Corenswet in a scene from "Superman." This image release by 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios shows Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in a scene from "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." This image released by Paramount Pictures and Skydance shows Tom Cruise in a scene from "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning."  This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon." This image released by Marvel Studios shows Florence Pugh and Wyatt Russell in a scene from "Thunderbolts." Superman already has a lot on his broad shoulders It seems unfair to add the fate of Hollywood to his worries Pictures shows David Corenswet in a scene from "Superman." in a scene from "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." This image released by Paramount Pictures and Skydance shows Tom Cruise in a scene from "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning."  This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon." Florence Pugh and Wyatt Russell in a scene from "Thunderbolts." Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Unicoi County’s Lela Byrd (00) strides to deliver a pitch earlier this season JONESBOROUGH — Unicoi County pitcher Lela Byrd struck out 15 while pitching a one-hitter against her former team JONESBOROUGH — Unicoi County pitcher Lela Byrd struck out 15 while pitching a one-hitter against her former team as the Blue Devils defeated Elizabethton in the District 1-3A softball tournament Friday night at David Crockett Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription David Crockett’s Madelyn Dulaney delivers a pitch JONESBOROUGH — The David Crockett softball team broke out of a slump at the plate on Friday – not that it needed to Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription University High’s Knox Poston (12) gets the barrel on the ball during Friday’s win over North Greene JOHNSON CITY — The University High baseball team just keeps rolling against district opponents Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription University High’s Graham Mefford returns a backhand during the boys’ singles competition at Friday’s District 1-A tennis championships The University High boys tennis team pose with the District 1-A championship plaque for the team match they won earlier in the week The Bucs are the defending Class A state champions University High’s Brady Weems gets ready to return the ball during Friday’s District 1-A individual tennis championships University High’s Gavin Olsen reaches for a return in Friday’s District 1-A individual tennis championships at Milligan University Unicoi County's Kenya Reyes eyes a return in Friday's District 1-A individual tennis championships Unicoi County's Katie Adams returns a shot during Friday's District 1-A individual championships The University High boys have proven whether they compete as individuals or a team Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Gregg Popovich speaks during his enshrinement at the Basketball Hall of Fame as presenters David Robinson Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili (from left) listen on Aug Gregg Popovich stepped down as coach of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday ending a three-decade run that saw him lead the team to five NBA championships become the league’s all-time wins leader and earn induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Tipton-Haynes Historic Site will be hosting a gala to support two AmeriCorps representatives that lost employment due to DOGE The Tipton-Haynes Historic Site will hold a gala to help fund positions for two AmeriCorps representatives that lost employment due to DOGE Two AmeriCorps employees with Tipton-Haynes Historic Site no longer have employment due to the effects of DOGE on AmeriCorps Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Johnson City experienced a 37% increase in homelessness from 2024 into 2025, according to policy strategist Opal Frye-Clark. Read moreStrategist: Homeless population increased 37% from 2024 to 2025 The Johnson City Police Department has arrested two people after a false robbery report. Read moreJCPD arrests two people after false report of robbery A migration researcher from Hungary said Monday he believes President Donald Trump’s “agenda is what the United States needs after f… Read moreHungarian researcher says Trump could end war in Ukraine JOHNSON CITY — Elizabethton gave it the ole college try when it hired Mike Corn, and he’s successfully graduated to the high school level of b… Read moreCyclones fight past Unicoi County, repeat as District 1-3A champs The Washington County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Saturday that remains found Thursday in the Nolichucky River were those of Steven Cloyd. Read moreHuman remains found near Nolichucky identified ELIZABETHTON — First Friday returned to Downtown Elizabethton this past weekend with “Adventure Vibes”, bringing a welcome sight with it: grou… Read moreDowntown Elizabethton welcomes back First Friday Austin Atwood has decided to wrap-up his 25-year career as the Johnson County basketball coach. His son Carter is concluding his one-year care… Read moreAtwood steps down as Johnson County basketball coach, will remain AD University High took its first step trying to get back to the TSSAA Class 1A baseball state championships on Sunday afternoon. Read moreUniversity High wins fourth straight District 1-A baseball title The Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association office is now in the same building many would call the gateway to the region. Read moreNortheast Tennessee Tourism Association lands new airport office According to officials, evidence at the scene indicates this is a flood-related death. Read moreWCSO: Human remains found along Nolichucky River believed to be flood related State Rep. Renea Jones, R-Unicoi, has secured $20 million in state funding for the Erwin Utilities Authority to replace its wastewater treatme… Read moreRep. Renea Jones secures $20 million for Erwin Utilities Authority Johnson City Schools officials will soon select a contractor to help build the new Towne Acres Elementary School. Read moreJohnson City Schools leaders get set to select Towne Acres contractor A migration researcher from Hungary said Monday he believes President Donald Trump’s “agenda is what the United States needs after four years … Read moreHungarian researcher says Trump could end war in Ukraine With the deadline for obtaining a REAL ID coming up, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security gave some information about REAL… Read moreTDOSHS explains REAL ID, what it is, its importance A former Democrat who is now a member of Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is scheduled to speak to the East Tennessee Republican Club… Read moreFormer Democratic lawmaker to speak to local Republican club A group of Lake Ridge Elementary students will travel to Kansas City, Missouri from May 22 to May 25 to compete at the Destination Imagination… Read moreLake Ridge Destination Imagination team headed to Global Competition ELIZABETHTON — Some people certainly seem to handle success well. That certainly seems to be the case with Elijah Stines. He had just won a go… Read moreUnaka students learn success comes with hard work JONESBOROUGH — Tennessee High looked like a different team than the one which took the field four days earlier in the District 1-3A softball t… Read moreTennessee High bounces Elizabethton from 1-3A softball tournament Diego Silva helped carry the David Crockett boys soccer team to new heights last spring. He and the Pioneers might climb even higher if they k… Read moreNET soccer stats: Silva leading Crockett on another historic run JONESBOROUGH — Unicoi County took advantage of two costly errors to get by David Crockett in the District 1-3A softball tournament winner’s br… Read moreUnicoi County defeats Crockett in 1-3A softball The Atlantic Coast Conference promises high drama over the final two weeks of the regular season with just 1 1/2 games separating first-place … Read moreCollege baseball notebook: FSU moves to 1st in tightly bunched ACC FORT WORTH, Texas — Joey Logano quickly flipped the script for Team Penske. Read moreThis win by Logano flips script, reduces pressure for Team Penske Lamar Alexander Rocky Fork State Park will host a Trout Madness fishing tournament on Saturday, May 10. Read moreRocky Fork to host benefit fishing tournament for Crockett Birthplace Sycamore Shoals Historic State Park spent a few months without their walking trail, but its now open to the public, along with all the other f… Watch NowThe Appalachian Adventurer: Sycamore Shoals Historic State Park Update Take a moment to get to know the editors of our three weekly newspapers; Marina Waters (Jonesborough Herald & Tribune), Bryan Stevens (Erwin R… Watch NowWord on the Street: Meet Our Weekly Editors The Groovy Grover's 2nd Annual Lot party aims to bring Walnut Street patrons together and celebrate spring and the beginning of a season outdo… Watch NowGroovy Grover's Celebrates with 2nd Annual Lot Party In this edition of Word on the Street, meet Gene Cossey, the President & CEO of the Tri-Cities Airport Authority. Watch NowWord on the Street: Gene Cossey and Tri-Cities Airport 2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the Town," Mayor Chuck Vest speaks about Jonesborough, its current successes and the hurdles it faces ahead. Watch Now2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the Town," Mayor Chuck Vest 2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the County," Mayor Joe Grandy speaks about Washington County, its current successes and the hurdles it fac… Watch Now2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the County," Mayor Joe Grandy 2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the City," Mayor John Hunter speaks about Johnson City, its current successes and the hurdles it faces ahead. Watch Now2025 Johnson City Chamber "State of the City," Mayor John Hunter Today's Words of Comfort message comes from Rev. Will Shewey, the pastor of Shades of Grace United Methodist Church in Kingsport. Read moreTennessee winters With sunny days, warmer weather and blooming buds, bees are beginning to buzz around Tipton-Haynes Historic Site’s flower gardens. Read moreBees are abuzz as Tipton-Haynes gardens begin blooming A common way we get overweight dogs is from overfeeding them, whether through putting too much in their bowls or handing out too many treats. Read moreHow obesity shapes a dog’s health at the cellular level These pets are available from Petworks Animal Services in Kingsport and Bridge Home No Kill Animal Rescue. Read morePets of the Week Warm-season vegetables require warm soil and air temperature to germinate, grow and mature. For most people, tomatoes are the most popular of … Read moreAsk A Master Gardener: Tips for growing warm-season vegetables If you enjoy a tasty, refreshing summer cocktail or mocktail, why not grow your own?  Read moreThe secret to a refreshing cocktail or mocktail might be growing in the garden A listing of upcoming events and attractions. Read moreMusic, plays, new planetarium show and more on tap this week in region Pope Francis has died, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienat… Read moreThe Latest: Pope Francis dies at age 88 CAMPO, Calif. — Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a challenge, especially for adventurers making the entire run from Southern California to Ca… Read moreFederal cuts disrupt repairs to two of America's most iconic trails DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people, including over a dozen women and children, local heal… Read moreIsraeli strikes on Gaza kill 32, mostly women and children University High’s Knox Poston leans back at the batter’s box during Sunday’s District 1-A baseball championship game at TVA Credit Ballpark The Bucs defeated North Greene 11-1 in the game The University High baseball team poses with the District 1-A championship plaque University High pitcher Sam Duncan gets ready to throw a pitch for a strike in Sunday’s championship game against North Greene University High shortstop Knox Poston tags North Greene runner Jake Duffy in the first inning of Sunday’s championship game University High's Cooper Stevenson comes into score with Sam Duncan close in tow during Sunday's District 1-A championship game against North Greene Watauga Valley Conference award winners: Offensive Player of the Year Walker Gouge from Cloudland Defensive Player of the Year Daxon Letterman from UH and Pitcher of the Year Cooper Stevenson from UH Members of the All-Watauga Valley Conference team pose for a photo after the District 1-A championship game University High took its first step trying to get back to the TSSAA Class 1A baseball state championships on Sunday afternoon Elizabethton defended its District 1-3A title with Sunday's win over Unicoi County at Thomas Stadium Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription If you are a Northeast Tennessee parent wanting to send your child to private school using a new state universal voucher program so far you have five choices in two counties if you are approved Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Florida State infielder Alex Lodise (1) bats against Florida in Jacksonville on March 25 The Atlantic Coast Conference promises high drama over the final two weeks of the regular season with just 1 1/2 games separating first-place Florida State and the teams tied for seventh Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription (WCYB) — There are still no answers to some of the top questions about Johnson City's handling of the Sean Williams case Commissioners approved a $28-million settlement with alleged Williams rape victims City officials said the allegations in the lawsuit are “unfounded,” but they said there were “shortcomings” in police investigations It was two weeks ago on April 16 that Mayor John Hunter agreed to an interview with News 5's Caleb Perhne on calls for a town hall on the issue Hunter then canceled the morning of the interview but did not offer to reschedule PREVIOUS STORY | Johnson City mayor cancels interview with News 5 amid calls for town hall on Sean Williams Wednesday, Caleb asked to interview someone about volunteer board applications since we ended up canceling our last interview are we going to address Sean Williams or do we want to talk about that?” Caleb asked “Will there be a later date?” Caleb asked as Hunter removed his microphone but I thank you,” Hunter answered as he stood up and left the room Tri-Cities Mutual Aid members said they're still in talks with city leaders about a town hall and hope to get one scheduled for the end of May Year 1952 | Acres 500 (Lake is 150 acres) Lake Johnson has a paved greenway and natural surface trails Park Office - Thomas G. Crowder Woodland Centerljwoodlandctr@raleighnc.gov919-996-3141 Waterfront Center919-996-3141 Lake Johnson Pool919-233-2111  Lake Johnson Park has a dual designation of metro park and nature preserve. Lake Johnson Park utilizes prescribed burns as a way to manage the park's natural resources. Learn more about prescribed burns in Raleigh Parks. AccessibilityLake Johnson has an assortment of accessible amenities in the park  See our park map for general wayfinding and facility locations.  ParkingLake Johnson has 3 accessible parking spaces located in the parking lot at the waterfront center off Avent Ferry Road as well as 4 accessible parking spaces located in the parking lot at the Thomas G Crowder Woodland Center located off Jaguar Park Drive  There are 2 accessible parking spaces at the “South” parking lot along Avent Ferry Rd and 1 additional parking space at the Lake Dam Road parking lot.  Access to the Waterfront CenterThe accessible entrance to the Waterfront Center is located at the front of the facility  A ramp leads patrons directly to deck Restroom Facilities and Lake OverlookRestrooms with accessible features are located at the Waterfront Center  The deck and veranda provide a covered area to enjoy the view of Lake Johnson Restrooms with accessible features are also located at the Thomas G The deck at the Woodland Center provides views of the surrounding Forest at approximately 15 feet above the ground Accessible Fishing DockThe accessible fishing dock is located behind the waterfront center  The access ramp is located off the sidewalk between to waterfront center and the boardwalk across the lake For more information about access at the park please call 919-996-3141. Boat Rentals are now available through a third-party vendor Wake Rack. Kayaks and Stand Up Paddleboards (SUPs) are located near the Waterfront Center in lockers. Reserve Equipment Online.  Want to know more about the process and how to reserve boats?Visit Wake Rack's website and learn everything there is to know about the process. And don't forget to check the Lake Wheeler location as well 5611 Jaguar Park Drive919-996-3141ljwoodlandctr@raleighnc.gov 4601 Avent Ferry Road919-996-3141ljwoodlandctr@raleighnc.gov This feedback widget is not intended for customer service issues This feedback is reviewed monthly to help us improve our site. For immediate customer service please refer to our staff directory Marsh Regional Blood Center is teaming up with first responders across the region in the “Battle of the Badges” blood donor competition KINGSPORT – Marsh Regional Blood Center is teaming up with first responders across the region in the “Battle of the Badges” blood donor competition Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Greeneville’s Carson Norris races home in front of Science Hill pitcher Sam Royston earlier this year GREENEVILLE — Make it 14 in a row for the Greeneville baseball team which has reigned supreme in District 2 every year since 2011 Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Johnson City has seen more than its fair share of headlines in the news Please disable your ad blocker, whitelist our site, or purchase a subscription Share on FacebookShare on X (formerly Twitter)Share on PinterestShare on LinkedInJOHNSON CITY (WBNG) -- Several roads in the Village of Johnson City will be closed until further notice from Roberts Street to Sherman is also closed for the same reason Officials ask drivers to seek alternate routes if possible Johnson City is taking volunteer applications for a variety of city boards (WCYB) — Johnson City is taking volunteer applications for a variety of city boards Mayor John Hunter says it's important to get a variety of perspectives to get engagement from the community "They recommend and advise and help us steer policy in how we make decisions as a commission and having volunteers do that from the community gives us the voice and the input from the community that we serve," Hunter said For more information, click here.