[Shannon] It's absolutely heartbreaking
that something like this could happen. You feel like your family's been forgotten about, that the case has been forgotten about. [Robin] A family thought it would be an open-
and-shut case after Roger Hooper was killed. There was evidence; there was even suspects. Well, 29 years ago this month,
the killing remains unsolved. WBIR 10News reporter Leslie Ackerson takes us to Cocke County in tonight's Appalachian Unsolved. [Music] [Robert] This is a good community. It's just down home. [Shannon] It's a small town where
absolutely everybody knows everybody. [Leslie] It's a cinematic cliché also
true in the mountains of Cocke County. [Shannon] 90% of the time everybody
knows everybody's business also. [Leslie] But in a place where there seems to be no secrets, there's one that's remained unspoken. [metal drawer opening] [Leslie] It was the night of February 22, 1991 [wheel squeaks] when 26-year-old Roger Hooper was shot dead. [Derek] As he's going up and he's
on the porch, he's ambushed. He suffered several shots across his body. [Leslie] A murder heard two doors down. [Shannon] Oh yeah, we heard the gunshots. It was extremely loud. I was 13. [Leslie] Roger wasn't just a neighbor
to young Shannon Hooper, he was family [Shannon] To me, of course, he's like a big brother anyway. Roger is the kind of guy that it's absolutely impossible to be in a bad mood if he was around you. [Leslie] Hooper was returning home from
a Cosby High School basketball game. [Shannon] I was with him literally less than
two minutes before he was murdered. [Leslie] And investigators believe the killers were waiting, hiding in a nearby cemetery. [Derek] There was no confrontation in the driveway. So the shots were fired from a high-ground position, which would have been directly behind their
house up an embankment is a cemetery. [Leslie] Inside at the time, Hooper's wife made the discovery. She was pregnant with their first child. [Shannon] Of course, they never got to meet his son. [Leslie] In a rural county, response time
to the Hooper home wasn't quick. [Derek ] In those days, the new stretch wasn't completed so that drive from Newport to Cosby is 30 minutes. In 1991, maybe three deputies
working a shift, if they're lucky. [Leslie] Retired detective Robert
Caldwell was on scene that night and worked the case for years. [Robert] We talked about it a lot up to the time I retired. And there's things that you don't want to give away but probably only the person that pulled the trigger knows. [Leslie] Roger's death wasn't the
end of trouble for the Hooper family. Shannon's home was targeted too. The walls still bare the marks. [Shannon] Two different drive-bys on this house, on our house. Fortunately, the first time there was no nobody home, but the second time, our whole family was here
and it could have turned out extremely bad. [Leslie] They're convinced they know who is responsible. [Shannon] Without a doubt. Without a doubt, we know. [Leslie] According to these records we obtained, months before his death, Roger Hooper had
been shot at by Donny Webb on the interstate. Webb was charged and convicted of
trying to shoot Roger in that case. In this small town, people talked, Rumors flew but no answers 29 years later. [Derek] It's time. There are people out there that know things about this case that have never told it. There are people that have been asked and didn't tell it. [Shannon] People that wouldn't talk then, I'm sure now they've got kids, they've got grandkids, people they don't want to leave and go to prison for. I don't care if you offer them immunity. Somebody can and will talk. I really believe that. [Leslie] In Cocke County, Leslie Ackerson 10News [Shannon] We live and die with this every single day. You know, it never goes away for the family. [Robin] TBI agents say there has been activity
in this case in the last three to four months. They do have evidence that they can re-analyze
as, of course, DNA technology has advanced. However, agents reaffirm
it's going to take someone talking that gets this case into a courtroom. If you have any information about the death of Roger Hooper, you can contact 1-800-TBI-FIND.
