KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In early July, Katrina Spurlock, 67, was dropped off at a Knoxville Fire Station 15 in Fountain City. She was unconscious.
It's been heartbreaking for her granddaughter, Emily Bates. She spent time with Spurlock, her grandmother, the day before she died.
"The day before she passed, she was over at my house, she babysat my two kids," Bates said. "When I came back, we sat on the front porch. And we just talked."
That night, Spurlock drove away, and Emily never saw her alive again.
"She looked at me and waved, and then I waved at her, and she drove off. So, that is something nice that I have to hold on to," said Emily Bates, her granddaughter.
The next day, July 2, just before 2 p.m., Spurlock dropped a family friend off at work. Spurlock also agreed to pick up that friend from work.
"She never showed up to pick her up from work," Bates said. "We knew something was going on because she was very punctual. She never missed an appointment."
At that point, the family filed a missing person report.
Spurlock told her family she was picking up some friends to go grocery shopping. The next time Spurlock was seen was by firefighters.
According to a report from the Knoxville Police Department, an unknown woman knocked on the door of Knoxville Fire Department Station 15 on Jacksboro Pike around 4:35 p.m. The woman told the crew there that she needed Narcan for her friend in the parking lot. The crew followed the woman to a four-door sedan with an unknown man at the wheel.
The police report said Spurlock had an unknown female and an unknown male in her vehicle. The names of those two individuals are not included in police reports, and police have yet to name suspects in this case.
Spurlock was unresponsive in the backseat. She was pulled out of the car, and while doing CPR with her on the floor, the other woman closed the door and told the crew they had to leave. The two unknown individuals did not answer any questions and immediately left the scene.
"She had no shoes. No shoes on her feet," said Bates.
That was the first major red flag for Bates. The car was later found by police at the Exxon gas station in Corryton.
"The car had, to our knowledge, had been stolen from my grandmother after they dropped her off at the fire station. So, the keys were under her seat. The doors unlocked. Her phone was sitting up where she always kept it, which had multiple missed calls and text messages," said Bates.
Bates said police took the phone into custody for investigation purposes. But, it was what they found next that perplexed the family.
"Behind the driver-side, there was a needle cap in the floorboard of the passenger or driver floorboard, in the backseat," she said.
Bates said her grandmother did not use drugs and especially did not inject drugs. She said her grandmother was terrified of needles.
However, even after locating the car and all her personal items, Spurlock's family still could not find her.
KPD's report said Spurlock did not have any forms of identification or cell phone on her when she was pulled out of the car at the gas station. She was pronounced dead at the North Knoxville Medical Center emergency room, according to KPD's report, after staff tried to revive her.
She stayed at the hospital until around midnight, when they were able to identify her and notify family members, like Bates.
The family buried Spurlock days later. They held a funeral - and that's when Bates noticed another red flag.
She said that her grandmother had her nails professionally done the day before dying. When they were making funeral arrangements, they discussed showing her hands.
"The funeral director said, 'Her hands are in really bad shape,'" said Bates. "One of her nails are completely broken off, and her other hand, her other fingers — there's some broken places too. And we were just like, 'How could this happen when she literally just had her nails professionally done yesterday?'"
It is rare, and painful, for acrylic nails to break off within 24 hours of application.
When looking at the circumstances of her grandmother's death, Bates can't help but feel like there's more to the story than just an overdose.
"She was dropped off at a fire station, and her car was stolen, and there was money stolen, and she had no shoes on and her nail was broken. You know, it's just so many things, like so many factors," Bates said. "It's just something out of a nightmare. It really is."
Tennessee has a death-by-distribution/drug-induced homicide law. Under this law, an individual can be charged with second-degree murder if they sell or give someone any drug or controlled substance (per the Tennessee Drug Control Act of 1989) and that person dies because of those drugs.
The case is being investigated by the Knox County Sheriff's Office's Drug-Related Death Task Force.