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Jamie May Smith (Hamilton County Jail)
A 44-year-old woman in Tennessee was arrested last weekend for allegedly stuffing the remains of a 30-year-old dead man into a barrel and leaving it at a motel, then explaining to police that she “just wanted the body out of her room.” Jamie May Smith, who also goes by the name Jamie Holland, was taken into custody on Saturday and charged with one count of abuse of a corpse and one count of possession of methamphetamine, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a report from the Chattanooga Times Free Press, officers with the Chattanooga Police Department on Saturday, June 3 responded to an anonymous tip stating that there was a dead body in a room on the second floor of a Motel 6 located in the 7700 block of Lee Highway.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders were reportedly directed to two rooms next to each other on the second floor. In one of the rooms, officers reportedly located the body of a deceased male which had been stuffed into a metal barrel and covered with a blanket inside of room 216. The deceased was quickly identified as Jose Heredia Lopez. In the second room, officers reportedly found about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine.
Investigators reportedly said that the hotel’s records showed one of the two rooms had been rented by Lopez and the other had been rented by Smith. Footage from the motel’s surveillance camera reportedly showed a woman with long blonde braids leaving room 216 prior to police arriving at the location. Motel management reportedly identified the woman as Smith.
Chattanooga ABC/Fox affiliate WTVC reported that later in the day on Saturday, an officer returned to the motel to retrieve the surveillance footage and while he was speaking with an employee at the front desk, Smith walked into the room.
Police say they read Smith her Miranda rights and questioned her regarding the body found in room 216. She reportedly told investigators she knew Lopez and that the two of them would do meth together in their rooms “all the time.”
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by WTVC, Holland told police that about four days ago, she went into her room and saw that Lopez was lying on the bed and “appeared to be breathing.” Smith then left the room, but when she came back, she said that Lopez was “unresponsive.”
“[Smith] stated that she freaked out, so she went to the baseball fields down the road and grabbed a barrel. She stated she brought the barrel back up to her room, and put it on its side. She then placed Mr. Lopez on the ground, and put him inside of the barrel,” the affidavit reportedly states. “Smith stated that she then put a blanket over the barrel. She stated she just wanted the body out of her room, she did not want to call police, and that she did not want to go to jail.”
Smith is currently being held in Hamilton County Jail on $10,000 bond. She is scheduled to appear before Judge Christie Sell in County General Sessions Court on June 15, records show.
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