CARTER COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Carter County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) on Tuesday labeled what was originally described only as a case involving burned remains in a vehicle as a homicide investigation.
New details emerged as authorities revealed the search for Brandon Carrier continues. The investigation began when authorities discovered remains in a burned vehicle on Dry Branch Road on Aug. 23. According to police, Carrier has not been seen since.
Earlier that same day, his wife, identified as Shannon Marie Isaacs, 35, of Elizabethton, was reported missing to the Elizabethton Police Department (EPD) after not picking up her children from school. A police report filed with the EPD states family members recalled Isaacs and Carrier arguing before dropping the children off at school that day. One family member said she saw Carrier take Isaacs’s cell phone during the argument.
Family members informed the EPD that after another relative brought the children home, they found a broken television remote, the television in a different position, blankets strewn about and a dent in the wall of Isaacs’s bedroom. According to relatives, Isaacs and Carrier had been “engaged in physical altercations” before, making them concerned for her safety.
On Aug. 24, the CCSO announced the burned vehicle incident with minimal details — only revealing that remains had been found and that the agency was working alongside the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
On Tuesday, a news release from the sheriff’s office stated that those remains belonged to a woman and are undergoing positive identification at the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center.
“The remains are believed to be those of Shannon Marie Isaacs, who was reported missing earlier that day to the Elizabethton Police Department,” said Carter County Sheriff Mike Fraley in the news release.
The body also underwent an autopsy at the ETSU William L. Jenkins Forensic Center, with those results pending. Further forensic analysis at UT will identify a positive identification as well as a cause of death, Fraley added.
The agency has an outstanding warrant for Carrier’s arrest for violating probation. Fraley said investigators also want to question him in relation to the disappearance of his wife and the “burned remains inside the vehicle at his home.”
Further charges were not mentioned in the release. Carrier is described as standing 6 feet and 1 inch tall and weighing approximately 150 pounds. The sheriff’s office has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to Carrier.
According to court documents filed in Carter County Criminal Court, Carrier was charged with violating his community corrections supervision by not appearing to multiple counseling sessions throughout August and failing to provide drug test samples. Carrier was required to do so as a condition of his release following a 2019 conviction on aggravated burglary charges, theft over $1,000 and theft over $2,500.
The CCSO continues to investigate the disappearance of Isaacs, of Pine Ridge Circle. Anyone with information regarding the case — including events that led up to the vehicle fire along with the whereabouts of Carrier — should contact the CCSO at 423-542-1845 or call 911.
No further details have been released at this time.
