Tennessee state documents reveal incompetence, corruption in death of Grant Solomon

We weren’t planning on a post today, as it’s a grey, rainy Monday morning. But this image of an email between Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Governor Bill Lee about the death of Grant Solomon crossed our desks this morning, and it’s worth covering.

The Gallatin goofy loop

At the highest level, the email again confirms a fundamental problem with the so-called investigation into Grant’s death: The level of evidence collected was ludicrously inadequate.

Why is that a problem?

Simply put, without evidence, there’s no basis to reach a defensible conclusion.

Consider: If a passenger jet is breaks apart mid-flight, and investigators casually look at the debris and say, “The plane broke apart at 20,000 feet, so clearly it exploded,” does that tell us anything?

Indeed, at that level, a plane that abruptly depressurizes may well explode, but it doesn’t answer the question why.

Then, if government officials decide to defend their conclusion, we get a goofy loop of arguments:

1. The plane broke apart mid-air.
2. There’s no doubt it exploded.
3. Thus, there’s no reason to reopen the investigation.

But at the end of the day, we still don’t know why or how the plane broke apart.

That same pattern pertains in the death of Grant Solomon. The reality is that the Gallatin police department’s so-called investigation was scarcely more than the filling out of an accident report form. Indeed, in many jurisdictions, a retail theft or other relatively minor criminal offense gets more time and attention.

As a result, Skrmetti and other state officials now are left defending a spectacularly indefensible claim, which is that a meaningful investigation answered the questions about the circumstances of Grant’s death.

Open questions

It is not unusual in the event of a tragedy or criminal event for witnesses and others to have differing recollections or conclusions about what happened. That doesn’t mean anyone is lying; it just reflects varying vantage points, life experiences, and other factors.

As a result, Skrmetti’s claim that information circulating about the circumstances of Grant’s death isn’t accurate is problematic from two perspectives:

1. Again, the so-called investigation did not include even a rudimentary level of evidentiary collection. Without those data points, we cannot reach any meaningful conclusion, either about the circumstances of Grant’s death or the information that is available about Grant’s death.
2. What little data is available is inconsistent with the notion that Grant was dragged by his truck to his death. It simply is not possible for Grant to have been dragged to his death. In other words, to the extent we have information, all of the data points to the conclusion that Grant was not dragged to his death. None of the evidence supports the conclusion that Grant’s death was caused by being struck by his pickup truck.

Breakdown in Skrmetti’s logic

Relatedly, Skrmetti states that the executive director of the state district attorney’s conference reviewed the evidence relating to Grant’s death and visited the site of the incident.

However, there’s a big problem with that: district attorneys are not trained investigators. Their role is to litigate matters, typically in criminal prosecutions.

That paradigm brings us back to the Gallatin Goofy Loop. With no “smoking gun” in the original so-called investigation, a district attorney is going to look at the reports and say, “There’s nothing actionable here. I can’t prosecute anyone in this case.”

Of course not.

The appropriate referral was not to the district attorney’s conference, but rather to the Tennessee Highway Patrol or other agency with investigatory authority.

Looking forward

Where does that leave us?

The appropriate next step is to conduct a full investigation. That would include:

1. An exhumation of Grant’s remains and full autopsy.
2. Collection and review of telemetry from Grant’s truck, from nearby cell phone towers, and data from the Life 360 app that Grant shared with his girlfriend.
3. An investigation into the circumstances around the removal of Grant’s cellphone from the scene and its travel to the home of Holly Thompson—including fabrications by Grant’s father, Aaron, that the phone was found by a good Samaritan. It was not.
4. Interviews with witnesses, bystanders, Aaron, and others. A request to polygraph Aaron would be appropriate.

Gracie Solomon

Then we come to the other big issue, which is the mountain of evidence that Gracie Solomon was sexually abused by her father and its relationship with Grant’s death.

For starters, it is well known that children rarely lie about sexual abuse. That begs the question: Does anyone really think both Grant and Gracie would lie about this issue?

Thus, if we conclude that Grant and Gracie are telling the truth, their claims cast Aaron’s statements about Grant’s death in a whole new light.

Nor is there any question that Grace Christian Academy attempted a cover-up of Gracie’s claims. Not only did Amy Curle and other school officials try to get Gracie to quit discussing the issue, but they refused to act as mandated reporters as required by state law.

That means that any meaningful investigation into Grant’s death includes an investigation into Gracie’s claims. And we are confident that Gracie would prove a compelling witness, and that she would be willing to take a polygraph.

So, what’s stopping Skrmetti?

Insurance fraud

Just in case the allegations that Aaron Solomon sexually abused his daughter are not adequate to impeach his witness statement about Grant’s death, there is another wrinkle that must be considered, which is the allegation that Aaron Solomon committed insurance fraud by having Grant’s truck totaled.

Not only would this claim undercut the credibility of Aaron’s statements, but this is the easiest part of the puzzle to investigate. Either the truck was operational, or it was not.

On this issue, Skrmetti’s email evinces a masterful attempt to foist the issue onto others, including the FBI and postal inspectors.

Leaving aside the fact that we see no evidence that he or Bill Lee forwarded the matter to federal officials, insurance fraud is a Tennessee state crime, fully within the investigatory and prosecutorial authority of state officials. Thus, Aaron Solomon’s alleged felonious conduct, which could result in a five-year prison sentence under state law, needs to be investigated in order to fully understand the circumstances of Grant’s death.

Any other outcome makes it clear that Gov. Bill Lee and Jonathan Skrmetti are either corrupt, incompetent, indifferent, or all of the above.