Family offers reward after deer is killed illegally on their land

McNAIRY COUNTY, Tenn. — Landowners Anthony Wright and Pamela Mansfield have raised animals on their more than 40 acres in Adamsville for as long as they can remember.

They said they never worried about the safety of their livestock until a deer was shot and killed Christmas Day on their property.

“It could have killed us, our grandchildren and whoever was out here,” Mansfield said. “There just was no sense in someone doing that.”

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is investigating the incident. The landowners are offering a $1,000 reward for information about the suspect.

“All of a sudden we heard a gunshot, and I knew what happened because we were entirely too close,” Wright said. “So I look up and see a dark car on the side of the road.”

Wright says the suspect was in what appeared to be a late-model, black Ford Mustang.

He says the buck grew up on their property and got along with their livestock and that many people in the area knew the buck as the “community deer.”

“We have deer hunters behind us and deer hunters beside us. They could have killed this deer at any given time, but they chose not to,” Wright said.

Sam Bedwell with the TWRA says though it’s not common, riding around and killing deer is a method some poachers use.

“It’s an illegal way to hunt, and the danger of it is what we are really concerned with,” he said.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the TWRA at 731-423-5725.