Mystery on Lovejoy Road

Tucked into the rolling hills and valleys of Middle Tennessee is Sparta, a rural community where neighbors aren't strangers, and many who live here see each other every week at church. For almost a decade at the deras at Church of Christ, gospel music, and the sermons of pastor Roy Whitehead made the Sunday morning service soar. He was a good preacher, you know, he had the way with the word. Doug Watts says Roy is the reason he started going to church again, more than 20 years after he'd quit. I told him he did it and he said, "No God done it." I said, "He did it through you, you know, and I believe that." In the first week of May, 2024, something happened in Sparta that seemed almost impossible to believe. That's when 64-year-old Roy Whitehead vanished. "He's just gone like a puff of smoke, isn't he?" "Yes, sir. It's just unbelievable." For White County Sheriff Steve Page, Roy's case is personal. "I mean, Roy or friends." The sheriff is as baffled as anyone else, wondering how anyone as recognizable as Roy could disappear in plain sight. "I would die at a site 95% of the people in this county know you're Roy Whitehead, or maybe even 100%. "It is a mystery that has forced Roy's closest friends and family into the fellowship of the missing. It's a group no one chooses to join. Certainly not Roy's brother, Lynn Whitehead. "I pray, I pray, I pray that he is somewhere and we will find him because otherwise I have to think the worst." I'm Josh Mancoots and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline. This episode is Mystery on Lovejoy Road. Please listen closely because you or someone you know may have information that could help Roy's family and friends find the answers they're still looking for. Lynn Whitehead says his big brother Roy was a local hero long before he took to preaching. He was a teacher and got into coaching basketball and did really well at coaching basketball. They won the state championship two years running. Which is a pretty big deal in Tennessee. It's a huge deal in Tennessee. Tennessee's governor back then agreed. He signed a bill in 1999 congratulating the champion White County Warriors and name checking Coach Roy Whitehead. Coaching and teaching kept Roy busy, but apparently not busy enough. Barb Wittsigman remembers the day he showed up at her real estate office. Which also handles estate auctions. I was sitting behind my desk in the skinny little guy popped up and said hi, I'm Roy Whitehead and I want to apprentice under your auctioneer. Why did he want to be an auctioneer? Because Roy was loud. He didn't even need a microphone. You could hear him all over. He loved people, people loved him and he loved antiques. Was he one of those auctioneers that speaks at a hundred words a minute? Yep. Yep. Easy. Everybody loved to listen to him. That's Roy. Taking bids at one of their auctions. So he came on as an apprentice. It sounds like he worked out. Oh definitely he was like a son to me and he called me his second mom. Roy eventually secured his realtor's license, retired from teaching and bought a stake in Barb's business. The apprentice was now a partner. But his brother says it wasn't long before Roy got the call to use his powerful voice in a different way, middle-aged and married with two young sons. Roy went back to the classroom this time as a student. He went to night school and online classes and got his divended degree and started preaching. Kind of a transition for him, wasn't it? Did anybody say to him why do you want to start preaching now? Not really. He fell right into the role. He was very biblically based. It was natural of transition as far as I was concerned. Roy became a pastor at DeRosa Church of Christ, preaching on weekends, selling real estate during the week and in between, making time for congregants who needed a sympathetic ear and some guidance. People would stop in daily that went to his church to talk to him. He was just that type of guy. Barb says Roy counseled a lot of people in the community and always made time for anyone who needed his help. Then, in 2021, it was Roy who needed to lean on others. When his marriage of more than 30 years ended, Roy's sons were 17 and 22 at the time. It was painful for Roy, it hurt the children, the two boys. It was a very bitter divorce. I went through a lot with him. Doug Watts was also there for Roy during that rough time. He needed a place to stay and that's what I'm thinking about buying this place next door. He's with a few bites, I want to rent it so I bought it and he rented it. He was my next door neighbor and a best friend too. Roy's rental on Lovejoy Road was convenient, just a couple of miles from his church. Doug is a song leader there and on Sundays they'd both get there early before Bible study and before the 10 am service. It gave them time to talk, except on Sunday, May 5, 2024. When Doug walked through the church door around 8.30am, Roy was not there. Then his phone rang. It was Doug's sister-in-law who lives across the street from Roy. He said, "I think something's wrong with Roy's because his truck hadn't been moved all week. She said, "I've called him and I went over and knocked on the door and be down in the bedroom window. He just won't come out." Doug did not hesitate. He drove straight over to Roy's place. Just as his sister-in-law had said, "Roy's truck was parked in the driveway. The door to the house was locked." "I had a key and as I was going out, I just called his phone and you could hear it ringing in the house and of course we hollered for him." There was no answer and Doug got an awful feeling. In the first thing I thought, "Oh no, he's dead in here." To his great relief, Roy was not lying dead inside the house. To his great concern, he was not there at all. His phone was setting right beside his bed, you know, charging. Bed didn't look like it had been slept in. It was made up. Doug did not see anything that alarmed him. In fact, nothing appeared to be out of place. Roy's sermon notes were on a table. The house looked normal. The house looked normal except no Roy. Yeah, right, exactly. When Doug took a closer look at Roy's truck, he saw nothing suspicious. It was unlocked and the keys were in the cup holder. Doug says Roy routinely kept his house and truck keys there, otherwise. He was always losing them. Even with no obvious signs of trouble, Doug was certain about one thing and it was alarming. Roy would never miss a service he was scheduled to preach. So Doug called Roy's sons and then dialed 911. Soon, Roy's truck would be seen in a completely different light by the county sheriff. We don't know that Roy drove the truck on somebody dead. We don't know that that was Roy. On May 5th, 2024, when White County Sheriff Steve Page arrived at Roy White's house on Lovejoy Road, he saw no sign of a struggle anywhere. In the house, in the driveway because we look for all that. In the yard, Roy either never was there or Roy went willingly. One thing was crystal clear. The 64-year-old pastor should have been at church leading the morning service. And he was not. His truck was parked in the driveway and his wallet was gone. So it was possible Roy went for a walk. and ran into trouble. Roy did have high blood pressure, so a stroke or heart attack was not out of the question. The sheriff issued a silver alert for a senior in danger, and deputies began searching a 3,300-acre hunting property behind Roy's house. State police and other agencies assisted with a helicopter and search dogs. We went all over that land that day, looking and looking and looking, and with no avail, we didn't find anything. New spread fast that the popular pastor was missing. Today, a community search party for the former White County high school basketball coach, Roy Whited. Around 200 people turned out to help with a second search of that hunting property. They covered the rugged terrain on horseback, on four wheelers, and on foot, and with drones. But found no trace of Roy. Sheriff Page says trail cameras throughout the property also did not pick up any sign of him. So therefore, at that point, we didn't believe he's back there. The search shifted to shoe leather detective work. Roy lived alone, and it was not clear how long he'd been missing. Investigators talked with his neighbors, his co-workers, and his relatives, and bit by bit. They formed a timeline. On Friday morning, May 3rd, Roy went to work as usual at TriStar Real Estate. He left the office around 2 p.m. to appraise a property about 15 miles away. Sheriff Page's deputies spoke with the couple. He met there. In the corner of what they've told us, you know, Roy appeared fine. He got his truck and left from the property. At about 3.45 p.m., Roy's truck turned into his driveway. A neighbor's security camera recorded it. The quality of the video is not good enough to tell who's driving. You can see that's Roy's truck, but you can't see if that's Roy in it. That's correct. So you can't say it was Roy. It seemed a big clue, but was it? After making the turn, Roy's truck continued up his long driveway out of the camera's view. Whoever got out of the truck can't be seen. Any evidence either way that the truck left his driveway after that camera sees it being parked there? No. Sheriff Page says his deputies talked with every resident on Lovejoy Road. One neighbor claimed he saw Roy walking near his house that Friday afternoon, though it's not clear when that possible sighting was. There's some variances in the times that he said he's seen him. After that, Roy's timeline seemed to stop. No one reported seeing or hearing from him on Saturday, May 4th. Barb Woodsegment, Roy's close friend and business partner, says she called him multiple times on Saturday, and he did not answer. But that wasn't unusual, because if he was preparing his sermon, you know, he didn't answer the phone. Still, Roy did not respond to the messages she left. And Barb says that was unusual. Because he always called me back. So maybe Roy was already missing on Saturday. Sheriff Page wondered maybe he never came home at all. Very may have stopped and talked to somebody and something went bad there. Who knows? And then this person might have drove the truck home. And somebody drives his truck home sort of to cover their tracks? Yeah. If you're a pastor, you are never really off the clock, especially in a town of fewer than 5,000 souls, many of whom you know by name. Barb Woodsegment wonders if Roy's generous spirit might have something to do with his disappearance. What if she imagined someone showed up at Roy's house and they went somewhere together? The idea that he might say let's go for a drive and talk about whatever's bothering you, that's not out of the question. No, because Roy never met a stranger. Could Roy's pick up a red Chevy Silverado? Be the key to solving his case? Well maybe it could have been. But the sheriff says unfortunately it could not be processed for Prince or DNA. By the time law enforcement got to the house, there were already people in the house and people had already been in this truck. You know, looking for him trying to figure out what happened. This is not unusual. People who discover that someone is missing are not necessarily thinking about preserving potential evidence. It might have been possible early on to dust the truck and exclude fingerprints or DNA from people who touched it that morning. But those tests can be expensive. Sheriff Page said after Roy went missing, his younger son came and got the truck. Investigators considered another possible explanation. Could Roy have just wanted to disappear? Agents from the TBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, checked cameras and flight logs at nearby airports, but found no evidence of Roy coming or going. They also analyzed Roy's electronics. Anything on his phone or computer point you in any direction? No, we done a thorough search of both. Nothing. There's no text message saying, you know, meet me at three in the morning. No, and we had that phone downloaded by the TBI. Soon another clue surfaced, one that seemed to suggest Roy did make it home on May 3rd. Electricity records for Roy's house showed that at midnight, on that Friday, his power usage dropped to a level consistent with just the refrigerator running. Roy's brother Lynn says that tracks with Roy's normal routine. That was Roy's habit. He would study and he would read and about midnight, he would go to bed and that's when he would turn all the lights off and everything. The clue really came the next morning when the power usage did not go back up. It stayed at that minimal level. That's why it just doesn't make any sense. If he got up that morning, he would at least turn lights on and make coffee, fixed his breakfast and the power would have went up from there. But it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Which would suggest something happened there overnight. Right. Except when you look at the house, there's no sign of anything. Nothing was out of place. His cell phone is sitting there charging. Correct on his nightstand. His sermon is laid out. Yep. What would have gotten him out of the house at that hour, I don't know. Sheriff Page and Roy are friends and fellow car buffs. Two weeks before Roy went missing, they caught up over dinner at the annual Rod Run, a car show in eastern Tennessee. He was no more Roy, you know, laughing, cutting up with me and he looked tired like he always does. We had a good supper together and said our goodbyes. Now Sheriff Page was replaying that day, looking for signs he might have missed. And he was hearing competing accounts from the people closest to Roy. Lynn Whitehead says the week before his brother went missing, they talked almost every day. Roy was helping Lynn sell a piece of property he owns. He was excited about what he could do for me and how he could help me and nothing ever to me came out that he was depressed or that he was worried or anxious. And you've probably examined all of those conversations a bunch of times. Multiple times, yes. Lynn's description of Roy's state of mind was consistent with that of the sheriff. But others had a very different impression. Listen to Doug Watts, Roy's next-door neighbor and best friend. To him, Roy seemed stressed in the days before he went missing. He was worried about one of his sons when he was tore up. I mean he's not a bad boy, he was worried about his future, you know. Doug says that like many parents, Roy wanted to make sure his younger son was on track with his career. He was also concerned about a friend who was going through a divorce. Other people's problems weighed on Roy. For a pastor, it is an occupational hazard. I hate to use word burned out, but I believe he was ready to maybe step back, you know. You think handling other people's problems is finally taking a toll? That way, oh yes. There was something else to consider. At the time of his disappearance, a rough patch in Roy's personal life was still pretty fresh. In a case like his, a bitter divorce naturally comes under scrutiny. And Roy's definitely qualified. The divorce was very nasty. It was painful for Roy. It had hurt the children, the two boys. They've pretty much sided with the mother. It was legally resolved as far as you know? Yes, yes. Maybe some feelings were left unresolved, but nobody out to hurt anybody as a result of that. Right, I would say yes. The divorce became final almost two years before Roy's disappearance. Barb saw up close, the fallout, from the split. That divorce left some people feeling bruised. And the chance that his disappearance is related to that, in your opinion? I don't think so. My gut says no, but who knows? Was this infidelity or was this something? No, nothing like that. No, they just didn't get along. There's no love triangle here. No, no, nothing, no. For law enforcement and for everyone who loved Roy, an obvious question was who would want to hurt him or who might stand the benefit from his death? Lint told us Roy said he had a life insurance policy, but no one has been able to find it in Roy's house or his office. And there was another crucial question. Where might this clue fit into the picture? It turns out Roy's wallet wasn't the only thing missing from his house. There was a gun box under his bed that was empty. Suggesting that he might have taken it with him? Now he was, Roy was known to carry a gun. In Sparta, Tennessee, Roy Whited was long known as the quintessential people person. Someone who could and did talk to anyone. The gregarious guy who loved to tell stories when he wasn't listening to others tell theirs. Perhaps that's why Doug Watts has such vivid memories of a very dark chapter in Roy's life. His divorce. It was a disaster to him. He felt like I didn't even want to go to Walmart. I was just ashamed to go to town, you know. He felt that way. He felt ashamed. But I mean, his wife wanted it, he didn't want it. And I don't know why you don't know anybody to live with him. I can't blame either one. Whatever the cause was, he was pretty hurt by that. Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. At the time of his disappearance, Roy had been divorced for 21 months. Had his emotional wounds healed? Or were they just one more stressor in his life? Had it all just become too much for Roy? Could suicide explain his disappearance? Sheriff Steve Page says when deputy search Roy's house, a gun box under his bed was empty. Roy was known to carry a gun. Because, you know, he was in the real estate and I'm sure there were times when he had quite a bit of money with him. Like a lot of people in this county, they carry guns. Sheriff Page says that gun has not been found. But he doesn't think Roy's case is a suicide. I don't believe the man killed himself. I just don't. I mean, he was a preacher. You know, not to say preachers don't kill themselves sometimes or commit suicide. I'm sure they do. But I don't see Roy as well as I knew him and knew the kind of man he was doing something like that to himself. And you would have found him. I would have found him. The end of summer was approaching and the man who once seemed to be everywhere in Sparta, Tennessee, selling houses, overseeing auctions, delivering sermons, was still nowhere to be found. Roy Whiteett had been missing for more than four months. On September 17, 2024, around a hundred people gathered in the White County High School gym for an update on his case. It was Roy's 65th birthday. Among the crowd were some of the basketball players he'd coached more than two decades earlier. Sheriff Steve Page was also there and so was a private investigator. Roy's brother Lynn had hired him. Because you thought the sheriff wasn't working on or you just thought. I felt we were getting nowhere. Every time I asked, every time I made a phone call, we have nothing new. And I just, I couldn't, I can't deal with it. I hear that a lot from the families of the missing. And I do understand where they're coming from. I'm also familiar with a hard truth about this kind of case, as I told Lynn. One of the problems with all missing person's investigations is you can get all the cameras in the area. And you can talk to everybody who knew the person and you can check the camera at the bus station and the airport. And you can look at their passport and see whether they left the country. You know, credit card activity and bank activity and their phone and things like that. If all of that goes nowhere and nobody's seen the person, those investigations tend to slow down. Right. And that's exactly what's happened. The sheriff's a friend of Roy's? Yes. I mean, this certainly isn't any other, just any other case to him. I would hope not. This dynamic happens pretty often between families and law enforcement. Sheriff Page says he gets that Lynn and others in the community may feel frustrated. But his priority is getting to the truth of what happened to Roy. Everybody wants me to tell everything, but I can't do that. I don't want to jeopardize the case. You know, and they need to understand that it's me doing my job. In law enforcement, you see a lot of terrible things. But that's different from looking for somebody who's a friend here, isn't it? Absolutely. I've been looking every day since. We have a case file that's about a foot thick. What's your gut tell you? Is Roy still alive? My heart hopes so, but my gut says I don't know because it's been too long. There's too many cameras in the world. There's a lot of people that's looking for him. The private investigator Lynn hired told us his investigation has convinced him. Roy is not just a missing person. He is a homicide victim. The investigator says he's spoken with multiple people who had dealings with Roy. And believes there's a lot more to Roy's case than just one person going missing. That is strictly his opinion. And so far he admits he does not have the proof to back it up. However, he has heard some stories, including one Doug Watts is familiar with. On Friday, May 3rd, the last day anyone reported seeing Roy. Doug got the sense Roy needed a friend to confide in. So he drove over to TriStar Real Estate. He had called me earlier and he was kind of worked up over trying to help somebody, you know. And I decided to go up to his office and so I went up there and talked to him a little. Doug says Roy was upset about a real estate transaction involving a family in the community. Roy thought it looked as if a signature might have been forged. In his capacity as a minister and friend, he was helping to sort out that dispute. He was trying to deal with it. I don't know what extent. After talking with Roy for about a half hour, Doug left the office. I wasn't really worried too much about him because I've seen him get stressed before. He's wanted, tries to go at everything 150% to know. Roy's business partner, Barb Witzigman, was aware that Roy was troubled by that property dispute. He was a little depressed, a little upset. He had talked about it all week. If Roy's suspicions were correct and someone had forged a signature, that would be a crime. Roy might have felt it his duty to report that to police. Could someone involved in that real estate deal have wanted Roy to just mind his own business? Barb says the real estate issue was resolved three months after Roy's disappearance, just as he had hoped. We asked Sheriff Page if he had spoken to the people involved in that dispute. He declined a comment. However, after a year of investigating the case, the sheriff does have an unofficial theory. I think somebody has probably, I mean this is just speculation, picked him up and taken him somewhere and who knows what happened from there. The scenario sounds a lot like the one Barb Whitzigman described to me. Since his truck was there, I figured maybe somebody pulled up that he knew, and he got in the car with him, and from there it went south. Maybe someone didn't take kindly to the guidance Roy was known for giving, or maybe someone carried a grudge about a business deal, or something completely unrelated to any of the many hats Roy wore. At this point, it's all speculation. The sheriff says he's found no evidence of foul play. However, he also told me this. There's a few suspects, possible suspects, let me put it that way, possible suspects in the case. People who had an issue with Roy. Well, I don't know that, I've heard it, but I don't know it. I've talked to a couple of those people, and according to them, they didn't really have an issue. He is careful not to name any names, but one thing he is sure about is that someone somewhere holds the key to the truth. I believe somebody knows something, they just haven't come forward yet. In December 2024, seven months after Roy went missing, Roy's family and friends with help from local churches offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to his recovery. The reward's no longer in effect, and it didn't generate any tips. It produced nothing. Nothing. You'd think that would shake something loose if there were something to be shaken loose. Right. Sheriff Page says he will not rest until he finds Roy. You're not going to stop, are you? This is your friend. No, sir. No, sir. How will you not stop? Outside the Rossett Church of Christ, Roy Whited's smile beams from a yard sign, besieging all who pass by to help find him. Several yards away, a portable basketball hoop stands at the edge of a driveway. Doug Watts says, "Roy bought it years ago for the local kids to use." There is a new pastor in the pulpit now, and Doug is grateful for that. Even so, there is a void. We all loved him, and it's just different, it's just the emptiness, but we have to move on. He's learned that moving on is not a simple thing. Not knowing what happened to Roy, the next door neighbor and friend Doug says he loved like a brother, still haunts him. I think about it every day, you know, if he was close, and sometimes you don't sleep, you wake up in the middle of the night, the first thing you think about or is, you know, you try to go through different scenarios and nothing makes any sense. Nothing. Barb Whitzigman is reminded of Roy's absence, every time she walks into Tri-Star real estate. What's it been like to not have him around for a year? It's been terrible. For a long time we couldn't go back in his office. She shared a story that she said captures what made Roy so special. It's about what he did when Barb's father died, and it still makes her smile. We're from Pennsylvania, and the day of the funeral I was sitting in the chapel, and I heard this commotion out front, and sure enough Roy had flown in that morning to be with me. That's the kind of guy he was. He was a good friend. Yes, very, and I miss him. Lynn Whited had his lost track of the number of times he's made the six-hour drive to Sparta from his home in Montgomery, Alabama. He comes a couple of times a month and plans to keep doing so until Roy's case is solved. We've done billboards, we've done over 100 yard signs throughout four or five counties. I went and bought a phone just for anybody that would want to give a anonymous tip. It feels like you and your family have done everything you can. I don't feel that way because Roy's still not here. Here is how you can help. Roy Whited is 5.11 and 175 pounds, with brown eyes and all-burned hair that is graying. He was 64 at the time of his disappearance in 2024, and he was wearing a beige shirt and either cowboy boots or tennis shoes. If you have any information on Roy's whereabouts, please contact the White County Sheriff's Office at 931-836-2700. On our website, you can see photos of Roy. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelinemissinganamerica.com There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Friday's on dateline on NBC. Missing in America is a production of dateline and NBC News. Kate Vidak is the producer of this episode. Marshall Housefeld is the audio editor. Anna Turning is associate producer. Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory and Katie Lau. Rice and Barnes is head of audio production.