The murder of April Duncan
April Duncan was a law enforcement officer at the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, assigned as school resource officer at Scott High School, who was murdered by her husband, Tommy Duncan, on Jan. 31, 2022, to cover up allegations of rape. Her husband was later sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Precursor to murder
April Duncan was employed by the TN Dept. of Corrections in 2015, and later began a career at the Scott County Sheriff’s Office in 2019. She initially worked as a correctional officer at the Scott County Jail, and was promoted to correctional sergeant after one year. In August 2021, she was assigned as SRO at Scott High School, and attended the law enforcement training academy at Walters State Community College, where she graduated with honors on Dec. 3, 2021.
A girl — who is deliberately unidentified on this page to protect her privacy — would later report that Tommy Duncan, husband of April Duncan, raped her in 2014, when she was seven years old. He continued raping her on other occasions across a span of nearly nine years until he was arrested in 2023.
One of those rapes occurred on Jan. 31, 2022. April Duncan learned what had happened.
Jan. 31, 2022
On Monday, Jan. 31, 2022, April Duncan learned that Tommy Duncan had allegedly been raping the underage girl. She confronted him about it, and demanded that he leave their home. She sent her children to her mother’s home for their safety, and sent her husband a message telling him to collect his belongings from the home.
At 2:36 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2022, 911 dispatchers in Huntsville received a call from Tommy Duncan, saying that his wife had shot herself during an argument between the two of them at their home on Locust Lane in Oneida.
When the first officer — Jason Perry of the Scott County Sheriff’s Office — arrived on the scene, Tommy Duncan reportedly told him, “I tried to stop her.”
The Investigation
One of the first officers to arrive on the scene, Scott County Sheriff’s Department deputy Chris Russell, noted that Tommy Duncan’s calm demeanor and lack of noticeable blood on him made him immediately suspicious of Duncan’s story that his wife had shot herself.
Later, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Bill Miller noted that the death scene appeared to have been staged. Specifically, he noted that April Duncan’s body was moved after she was shot, and that her .40 Glock service weapon and taser had been placed near her head after the fact.
Duncan reportedly gave conflicting accounts of what happened, saying both that he had not been near his wife when she shot herself, and later saying that he and his wife were fighting for control of the handgun when she shot herself.
TBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Denise Woodby later prepared an expert bloodstain analysis report which the office of 8th Judicial District Attorney General Jared Effler said proved that Tommy Duncan shot his wife with her .40 caliber Glock service weapon, after which he moved her body and placed the service weapon and taser “in a position to attempt to lead investigators to believe April had shot herself.”
Dr. Darinka Mileusnic, who prepared the final autopsy report at the Regional Forensic Center, was prepared to testify that April Duncan had been pistol-whipped with her service weapon prior to being shot with it.
Rape Allegations
On April 3, 2023, the rape victim told representatives of the District Attorney’s Office that Duncan had raped her on a number of occasions, including on Jan. 31, 2022. She said she was scared to disclose it at the time, based on April Duncan being shot to death.
Investigators then concluded that Tommy Duncan’s motive for shooting his wife was “to prevent the rape…from being detected and allow him to continue to rape her.”
Grand Jury and Conviction
On May 12, 2023, the District Attorney’s Office presented the case to a Scott County grand jury, alleging rape and second degree murder. The grand jury returned two indictments against Duncan, one charging him with continuous sexual abuse of a child between 2014 and 2019, along with five counts of rape, and another charging him with raping the same girl on the date of Jan. 31, 2022, and second degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, April Duncan.
In March 2025, Duncan pleaded guilty to the first indictment, entering a guilty plea on the charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child and four counts of rape. One of the counts of rape was dismissed. He was sentenced by Scott County Criminal Court Judge Zachary Walden to 40 years in prison, and was transferred from the custody of the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office to the TN Dept. of Corrections.
On Jan. 28, 2026, the day he was scheduled to go to trial on the remaining charges, Duncan entered a plea of guilty on the remaining rape charge, and an Alford plea to the second degree murder charge. An Alford plea is a “best interests” plea that allows a defendant to admit there is enough evidence that a jury would likely find them guilty while maintaining their innocence. Judge Walden sentenced Duncan to an additional 12 years for the rape charge and 15 years for the second degree murder charge. The 12-year sentence was ordered to be served concurrently with the original sentence, and the 15-year sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to the original sentence, for an effective sentence of 55 years, which must be served at 100% without a possibility of parole.