1 charged in fatal stabbing at Tennessee counseling business

Published 10:14 am Monday, December 9, 2019

MADISON (AP) — A man has been arrested and charged in the death of a Tennessee woman found stabbed to death at a counseling business.

Brian D. Conley, 31, is charged with the “brutal murder” of Melissa Hamilton, who was found dead early Wednesday, Metro Nashville police said in a statement.

Surveillance video shows Conley entering Crossroads Counseling in Madison at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, when the group counseling session she was working with ended, news outlets report, citing another police statement. Hamilton and Conley had a “brief interaction” before the center’s lights were turned off and Conley left through a rear exit, police said. There’s no indication that he was a client at the center, which provides domestic violence and alcohol and drug treatment counseling, sometimes to court-appointed clients. There’s also no indication that Conley knew Hamilton, police said.

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Hours later, Hamilton’s husband of 25 years called police to say that his wife had never come home from work. Responding officers found Hamilton, the center’s assistant director, dead in a back office of the business.

Conley was arrested Thursday just outside of the Madison Public Library, which sits directly across from the counseling center. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer. His right hand had a wound consistent with Hamilton’s stab wounds, police said.