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TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm says the agency’s violent-crime response team was called to the scene on Renegade Mountain near Crossville on Thursday morning.
She said the car was found near an abandoned guard shack at a resort community about 50 miles west of Knoxville.
The Renegade Mountain Resort was built in 1969 as part of a gated community, and at one time had a lounge, restaurant, lodge and ski slope. The lodge burned down in 2000.
Homeowners association President John Moore said the resort’s owners got rid of the controlled access in 2010. He said a resident found the bodies on the way to work Thursday morning after seeing a parked car and going to investigate.
Moore said the community is on 3,000 acres on the top of a mountain. The area is wooded and isolated, with 141 houses and only 43 full-time residents.
“There are 10 miles of road on 3,000 acres,” he said. “It’s easy to get lost or be invisible once you get past the gate.”
He said the car with the bodies was about 100 feet off the main road going up the mountain.
Moore moved to Renegade Mountain in 2006 and calls it “the best place in the world.”
However, he said, residents are fighting the owners of the community over how they have managed it. The residents sued in 2011, and one of their concerns is lack of security.
Since the owners got rid of the controlled access, Moore said, “there’ve been some break-ins, some sight-seers, some drug dealers and some parkers.”
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