Middle Tennessee Mysteries is dedicated to shining a light on cold cases, unsolved murders and missing people in Tennessee.

Marshall County: Ronnie and Linda Clark

Oct 15, 2018 at 12:00 pm by Michelle Willard

Ronnie and Linda Clark

What are the chances that a child loses not one but both parents to separate unconnected murders?

The chances are probably slim, but that's exactly what happened to one Marshall County family.

On Easter weekend 2012, Kenneth Colvett fatally stabbed Kay Colvett, his wife of three years, to death.

The community thought "How tragic for her daughters: now both of their parents have been murdered." 

Kay and Kenneth had been married for about three years when he stabbed her 52 times and hid her body in a shed until found by Lewisburg Police officers.

Kenneth Colvett told police he killed his wife because she "was an assassin working with the TBI as part of a conspiracy to kill him." He told a friend he had killed her to take over the rental properties she owned.

A Marshall County jury didn't believe his insanity defense and convicted Kenneth Colvett of premeditated first degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Read the case against Kenneth Colvett here

But, before Kay was married to Kenneth, she was married to Ronnie Clark, the father of her daughters.

Ronnie Clark and his wife Linda are the victims of a 20-year-old unsolved murder.

Anyone with information about these unsolved murders is asked to call the Marshall County Sheriff's Office at 931-359-6122.

The Victims

Ronald "Ronnie" Wilson Clark and Linda Miller Clark had only been married a few months when they were shot and their home set ablaze to cover the crime.

Both had children from previous marriages.

Ronnie was a self-employed carpenter from the Belfast community in Marshall County. He was survived by his parents, daughters and siblings.

Linda was a mortgage consultant for Trans Financial in Tullahoma. According to her obituary, she was survived by a son and daughter, as well as her father and siblings.

The Murder

Marshall County 911 received a call around 3 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 24, 1998, for a house fire in the Belfast community, according to the Marshall Tribune

When first responders arrived, they found the cabin-style home of Ronnie and Linda Clark fully engulfed in flame.

It took firefighters more than six hours to extinguish the blaze and allow the site to cool enough to retrieve the remains of Ronnie and Linda from among the ashes.

The only press coverage available about the newlyweds reported they "were murdered and their house and bodies burned Saturday in an effort to make the deaths appear accidental."

According to an article from The Tennessean, autopsies revealed Ronnie and Linda had been dead before the fire started. Also K-9 officers detected traces of accelerant at the scene, meaning the fire was intentionally set.

Their deaths were ruled a homicide.

The Investigation

In May 1998 then-governor Don Sundquist offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the subjects responsible for the deaths. But investigators were unable to drum up any credible leads.

In 2012, Marshall County Sheriff Norman Dalton told the Marshall Tribune investigators ran down leads and followed clues for years but nothing solid came from any of them.

He also said there "was no chance that the bodies in the house were not Ronnie and Linda Clark and no chance that the shooting and fire had been accidental."

He also ruled out a murder-suicide.

Sections: Unsolved Murders