May 20, 2025 – After a five-year investigation by a joint task force, police have charged a man with the murder of a Burns man in 2010.
Landon “LG” Gray, 48, of Waverly, was arrested by Dickson Police Department Det. Kirk Davidson and Josh Ethridge of the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office Saturday, May 17, for the 2010 murder of Joshua Lars Strickland of Burns. He was indicted by the Dickson County Grand Jury for first-degree murder and felony murder and is being held in the Dickson County Jail on $500,000 bond.
Strickland’s body was discovered around 3:30 am Sept. 10, 2010, after a passerby reported seeing a fire behind the former Regal Cinemas building at 7741 Highway 70 in Bellevue, which had been closed since the historic May 1, 2010, floods and is now the Royal Range USA. Responding officers found a truck fully engulfed in flames and after the fire was extinguished discovered Strickland’s body inside.
Det. Davidson said an autopsy determined the 25-year-old Strickland had been shot before the truck was set on fire. He said investigators developed evidence leading them to believe that Strickland was killed in Dickson and his body driven to Nashville where it was set ablaze.
In 2020, District Attorney General Ray Crouch of the 23d Judicial District formed a task force that included investigators from his office and District Attorney General Glenn Funk of the 20th Judicial District, the Dickson Police Department, Metro Nashville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
“We gathered new evidence and obtained indictments that led to the arrest,” Det. Davidson said.
Det. Davidson confirmed that Strickland and Gray were familiar with each other, with both of them being involved in the rap music industry. The detective said he could not release any information regarding a possible motive for the shooting.
Gray was arraigned in Dickson County Circuit Court Monday, May 19.
The arrest and pending prosecution of Gray leaves two major unsolved criminal investigations in Dickson County. The April 15, 1987, disappearance and presumed abduction of 17-year-old Martha Leanne Green and the 2009 shooting death of 33-year-old Franklin “Scotty” Brown remain under investigation by the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office.
Green vanished from a disabled car on Highway 46 near Pomona while her twin brother hitched a ride to get gas. She has not been seen or heard from since and was declared dead by the court.
Brown was found shot to death in a van on Lee Brown Road Aug. 12, 2009. A newspaper delivery man had seen the van in the same location the previous day and found Brown inside. Investigators discovered several bullet holes in the van. Nobody has been charged in connection with the death.
Anyone with information regarding the deaths of Strickland or Brown and the disappearance of Green can call the Dickson Police Department at 615-446-8041, Dickson County Sheriff’s Office at 615-789-4130 or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
Source: City of Dickson
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