News:

County gets murder case back

Forest Service survey puts body found on Unaka Mountain back in Mitchell County jurisdiction

Nathan Hall

News-Journal Staff

William Nidiffer has been dead for four months.

Dead from a shotgun wound to the chest, his body was found Jan. 8 in the area known as Ephrum Gap, near Unaka Mountain.

Since then, experts have disagreed on whether the crime scene is in North Carolina or Tennessee, and the investigation has been passed back and forth between Mitchell and Unicoi County Sheriff's Departments.

No charges have been filed.

This week Mitchell County Sheriff Ken Fox said the murder investigation has been given back to his department.

Nidiffer, 58, was a resident of Elizabethton, TN.

At the time the body was discovered, officers believed it was lying in Mitchell County.

A forest ranger at the scene told authorities that the body was several hundred feet within the North Carolina boundary.

Later, SBI Agent Ken Razza told Fox that the body was actually in Tennessee. Mitchell and Unicoi County Sheriff's Departments reviewed maps and aerial photographs, and both concluded that the body was in Tennessee.

That was three months ago.

Fox said a recent survey done by the U.S. Forest Service places the body back in Mitchell County.

Now Mitchell County officers must pick up a cold trail.

But Fox said he doesn't think his department will find any answers in Mitchell County.

Due to the relatively small amount of blood at the scene, officers believe he was killed in another location, Fox said.

"It didn't occur here," Fox said. "There is no doubt that the body was carried here and dumped."

Fox said whoever is charged with the crime will be tried where the murder occurred. He said if the location of the murder is never determined, the suspect will be tried in the county where the body was found.

"Until we can prove where he was murdered, we will be investigating," Fox said.

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