Victim’s Identity And Cause Of Death Determined

On the evening of December 6th, a ranger saw a fire in the canyon and discovered a man’s body aflame near a campfire that had gone out. An investigation conducted by rangers and Cherokee County and Alabama Bureau of Investigation officers led to the discovery of a .25 caliber pistol and a fired .25 caliber casing underneath the body and a key on his person that unlocked a Jeep parked nearby. FBI agents from the Gadsden Resident Agency were contacted and joined the investigation. An autopsy was conducted on December 7th that confirmed the man’s identity – a 36-year-old resident of Chattanooga – and established that he’d shot himself.