Officials plan to seek the death penalty for a Tennessee man charged with killing 4 people

TIPTONVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a Tennessee man charged with killing the parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found abandoned in a home's front yard, authorities said Thursday.

Austin Robert Drummond, 28, appeared by a video feed from jail before a judge in Tiptonville, two days after he was arrested in the killings that set mostly rural areas of western Tennessee on edge.

District Attorney Danny Goodman told the judge that the state intends to seek the death penalty. Lake County General Sessions Judge Andrew T. Cook ordered Drummond held without bond because it is a capital case.

Drummond was sitting in a black and white striped jumpsuit. He told a judge he operated a business and he said he wants a speedy trial. The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and granted him a court-appointed attorney, who did not immediately return a calls seeking comment Thursday.

The judge also arraigned Branden Powell, who authorities say was stopped in a vehicle with Drummond days before the shootings as they were attempting to deliver marijuana to the jail in Lake County. Powell did not enter a plea because he is trying to hire a lawyer, he said during his hearing.

Drummond is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and weapons offenses. A weeklong search for Drummond ended in Jackson, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of the location of the July 29 slayings.

Officers had responded to a call of an infant in a car seat being dropped at a “random individual’s front yard" in the Tigrett area, roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Tiptonville, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office said.

Then, investigators in neighboring Lake County reported that four people had been found dead from gunshot wounds in Tiptonville. Officials determined they were the baby's parents, James M. Wilson, 21, and Adrianna Williams, 20; Williams' brother, Braydon Williams, 15; and their mother, Cortney Rose, 38.

Investigators determined the four had not been seen since the night before, Goodman said. A relative had called 911 after finding two vehicles in a remote area, and the four bodies were found in nearby woods, Goodman said.

Goodman said Drummond’s girlfriend is the sister of the infant’s grandmother.

Kim Hamil, Wilson's mother, said Thursday that it was a “really bad situation” for the relatives and they were trying to let justice take its course. They were going to be in court every chance they could, Hamil said.

“It’s a whole family gone,” said Hamil. “It’s unbelievable."

She said the family loved each other and that Wilson was a good father and son. Relatives are caring for the baby.

"As a family, we’re just broken,” Hamil said.

It’s believed Drummond targeted the victims, said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch. The agency has also charged three other people with helping Drummond after the killings.

Drummond was arrested based on tips after police released a surveillance clip showing a man they said was Drummond wearing camouflage and carrying a firearm, authorities said. Drummond had been staying in a vacant building near the woods.

Drummond has served prison time for robbing a convenience store and threatening to go after jurors. He was also charged with attempted murder while behind bars, and was out on bond at the time of the killings, Goodman said.

With a population of about 3,400 people, Tiptonville is near the Mississippi River and scenic Reelfoot Lake. A popular tourist destination, the 15,000-acre (6,070-hectare) lake was created by violent earthquakes in 1811-1812 that caused the river to flow backward and essentially flood a forest.

This story has been corrected to show that authorities said three others helped Drummond, not Goodman. This story has also been corrected to show the dateline is in Tiptonville, not Titponville.

Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

The Lake County Courthouse, where a hearing was held for a man charged with killing four relatives of an infant found abandoned in a home's front yard, is seen on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Tiptonville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

CORRECTS NAME TO ANDREW NOT ANTHONY Lake County General Sessions Judge Andrew T. Cook speaks to Austin Drummond via video conference during an arraignment on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Tiptonville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

This photo provided by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025 shows Austin Drummond, moments after having been taken into custody. (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation via AP)

The parents of James M. Wilson, Matthew Wilson, left, and Kim Hamil, speak with reporters after a court hearing for a man charged with killing four people, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Tiptonville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

Schools and universities across the country are recovering from an outage that knocked down Canvas, an online platform that manages exams, course notes, lecture videos and grades. The disruption tied to a cyberattack hit in the middle of finals period for many colleges, a high-stress time when students and instructors rely heavily on the platform.

By late Thursday, Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, said the platform was available again to most users.

The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. On Friday, Instructure and Canvas no longer appeared on a site where ShinyHunters lists its targets.

Some schools, however, have continued to block students and teachers from accessing Canvas, citing an abundance of caution while assessing security threats.

Here's what to know about the outage.

Schools and universities use Canvas to manage nearly all aspects of instruction. The platform acts as a gradebook, a hub for digital lectures and course materials, a discussion board for classroom projects, and a messaging platform between students and instructors.

Some courses also give quizzes and exams on the platform, or use it as a portal where final projects and papers are submitted on deadline.

ShinyHunters is a loose association of teenage and young adult hackers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom who have been linked to other large-scale cyberattacks, including one on Ticketmaster, Connolly said. On the page listing their targets, the group describes itself as “rooting your systems since ‘19,” using a term for accessing a computer system’s deepest layer.

Earlier this week, ShinyHunters said that nearly 9,000 schools and 275 million individuals' data could be leaked if schools did not pay the ransom by a deadline of May 6. The group then extended the deadline, indicating some schools had engaged with them to negotiate.

In a statement posted to ShinyHunters' ransomware site, the group said it would not be commenting on the incident.

Schools and universities, rich in personally-identifiable information on students, teachers and employees, have become prime targets for criminal hackers in ransomware attacks. Targets can be individual districts, like the Minneapolis Public Schools or Los Angeles Unified School District, or external vendor platforms like Canvas or PowerSchool that education systems increasingly rely on to manage schedules, courses and exams.

The data breach appeared to involve student ID numbers, email addresses, names and messages on the Canvas platform, Instructure’s chief information security officer, Steve Proud, said in an update shared Saturday. He said the company had not found evidence that passwords, dates of birth, government identification or financial information were compromised.

Though most schools seem to have restored access to Canvas, the disruptions to finals period are likely to ripple throughout the week.

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth said that it would postpone exams scheduled for Friday and Saturday to ensure students had time to review course materials that would not have been accessible during the shutdown.

The University of Illinois postponed all exams that were scheduled to take place Friday, Saturday or Sunday for all classes, regardless of whether the courses utilized Canvas.

And Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland continued to limit access to Canvas on Friday, citing an abundance of caution “while we work to better understand the full impact of the incident and any potential vulnerabilities involving information connected to the platform.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - People take photos near a John Harvard statue, left, on the Harvard University campus, Jan. 2, 2024, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)