Flashback to 1998: Democratic State Senator shot dead by Republican Challenger.

[onehandle]

MONTEREY, Tenn., Oct. 23 — In rural, rugged middle Tennessee, the race for one State Senate seat has been altered by a single bullet, and the surviving candidate in District 15 will watch the outcome from behind a jail door.

Tommy Burks, the popular Democrat who was expected to win re-election easily, is dead and buried. Mr. Burks, 58, was shot in the forehead on Monday at his 1,000-acre hog farm outside the little town of Monterey, not far from his pumpkin patch.

The crime left just one name on the ballot in the Nov. 3 election, that of the Republican challenger, Byron (Low Tax) Looper, who was arrested this morning and charged with the murder of Mr. Burks.

Because under state law a dead man may not appear on the ballot, but a man charged but not convicted of a felony may, only Mr. Looper's name will confront shaken citizens in voting booths.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/24/us/tennessee-senator-s-killing-and-opponent-s-arrest-upend-small-town.html