Reports: Second child's remains recovered in connection with Roane County child abuse case
HAYES HICKMAN , TRAVIS DORMAN | Knoxville News Sentinel
Authorities have recovered a second child's remains in a horrific child abuse case that now involves five children and spans two counties, according to media reports.
Knox County investigators searched the home at at 6416 Cedarbreeze Road in Halls and found the buried remains of a boy who is believed to have died in 2015 or 2016 while in the legal custody of Michael Anthony Gray Sr., 63, and his wife, Shirley Ann Gray, 60, according to local media reports citing an affidavit for a search warrant.
The couple previously lived there with five adopted kids and their adult son, Michael Anthony Gray Jr., who has owned the home since 2009, according to the reports.
In June 2016, according to arrest warrants, Michael Gray Sr. and his wife moved with four children to a home in Ten Mile, a small community in Roane County that sits 55 miles southwest of Knoxville.
It was there that Roane County authorities last weekend found bones belonging to an 11-year-old girl buried behind the Grays' home on Dry Fork Valley Road. Three other children were found living in the home, including a 15-year-old boy who investigators believe had been locked in a squalid, unfinished basement for several years.
Michael Gray Sr. told investigators the girl also had been confined to the basement in 2017 and left to subsist on bread and water until she died months later, according to arrest warrants.
He and his wife were arrested and face charges in Roane County including aggravated child abuse, especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated child neglect and abuse of a corpse.
No one has been charged in connection with either child's death, pending the results of autopsies.
A staffer with the Knox County Criminal Court Clerk's Office told Knox News on Friday morning the affidavit for the search warrant had been sealed by a judge's order and was not available, despite copies already having been provided to multiple media outlets.
Warrants: Children locked in basement, fed bread and water
The investigation into Shirley and Michael Gray Sr. began the evening of May 22 when passers-by told authorities they found a child walking alone along the road near the Grays' home in Ten Mile.
A caller reported that "someone dropped a little boy off and he doesn't know (where his) parents are or where he's at," arrest warrants read.
Roane County Sheriff's Office deputies responded, found the boy and learned he lived at the Grays' home. The deputies took the boy home and called the Tennessee Department of Children's Services.
Michael Gray Sr. then traveled to the department's office in Kingston and told officials he had a 15-year-old child in his basement, and that another child was buried in his backyard, according to the warrants.
Michael Gray Sr. gave the same information to sheriff's investigators and signed a document saying they could search his property. Both he and his wife repeatedly waived their right to remain silent and spoke to police over two and a half days.
The Ten Mile house smelled of urine and feces, Roane County investigators wrote in the arrest warrants. The basement was unfinished and partially flooded. It lacked electricity and running water. It was full of human and animal feces — one cage contained a guinea pig — as well as garbage, mold and exposed wires.
A 15-year-old boy, the oldest of the four children, was still in the basement and apparently had been kept there for four years. He was locked in the basement in 2016 as punishment for "stealing" food from the pantry and refrigerator, according to the warrants. He was given only bread and water.
In early 2017, a girl who was about 11 years old was locked in the basement, also as punishment for "stealing" food, the warrants state. She died within a few months. Michael Gray Sr. said he kept her body in a cardboard box and later buried her in a pole barn in the backyard.
Deputies found human bones there early May 23, and the remains were taken to the Knox County Regional Forensic Center for an autopsy.
At least one other child periodically was kept inside a wire dog cage in the basement before the Grays built a small concrete room, measuring less than 3 feet by 4 feet, under the stairs for confinement, according to the arrest warrants.
The three surviving children were taken into state custody. Investigators wrote in the warrants that they appeared to be "stunted in growth." None of the children had seen a doctor for at least six years.
"(Two of the children) appear to have no formal education," according to the warrants, "and were, in fact, amazed by what a refrigerator does when they observed one in their foster home."
Investigation at Knox County home
On May 23, the same day Roane County authorities found the remains behind the Grays' Ten Mile home, Knox County Sheriff's Office investigators went to the home on Cedarbreeze Road in Halls.
The sheriff's office returned to the Halls home Thursday morning and executed a search warrant. Investigators worked into the afternoon removing bags of evidence, electronic devices, paperwork and more from the house.
Deputies stood watch at the front door as officials worked in the backyard. The Roane County Sheriff's Office also was on the scene.
Neither the Knox County Sheriff's Office nor the Knox County District Attorney General's Office would comment on the investigation.
Michael Anthony Gray Jr., who owns the Halls home, was seen coming and going from the house throughout the day Thursday.
Authorities have not announced criminal charges against the Grays' adult son, and after investigators left the house Thursday afternoon, he packed up a vehicle and drove away.
Shirley and Michael Gray Sr. each remained jailed Friday on a $500,000 bond. A preliminary hearing in the case tentatively has been set for June 9.