Joseph Ray Daniels: ‘Quiet’ but when triggered, ‘it wasn't pretty’

The Joseph Ray Daniels who authorities say beat his own 5-year-old son, Joe Clyde, to death last week displayed quiet, calm and eccentric behavior throughout his life, according to classmates and a former taekwondo instructor, but with violent outbursts always just a moment away.

“He was quiet most of the time, but it was like an on and off switch,” said Heaven Seyler who attended school with Daniels, a 2008 graduate of Dickson County High School. “He had a very short fuse. There was incidents of him getting so angry he would get kicked out of class.”

Seyler said she attended middle school and high school with Daniels. They were also in band together, she said. Seyler repeated that Daniels was usually quiet but “when something or someone triggered him, it wasn't pretty.”

“He even threw a desk,” Seyler said. “He would threaten to choke someone with a shoelace or say he would do it to himself.”

Alex Chappell, another Dickson County High classmate who had homeroom with Daniels, remembered Daniels talking to himself regularly in class.

“He always had a short temper and just a real out-there kind of guy,” Chappell said. “(He) did not connect to the planet.”

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Daniels, 28, also showed an academically focused side. He earned scholarships for computer information technology at Tennessee College of Applied Technology in Dickson. Later, he landed a job at a Dickson information technology company.

Signs of job trouble

In recent years, Daniels started taking taekwondo classes and earned a black belt at Dickson Taekwondo.

“He was supposed to start back taking classes this week,” said Dickson Taekwondo owner Tony Lewis.

When he first started as early as 2016, Daniels would attend class at least “a couple times a week for a while.”

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He seemed OK. He seemed ready to help people,” Lewis said. “Last year, he really tried and was good and he wanted to be more involved.”

“It was all last year,” Lewis added.

This year, Daniels stopped paying, attended only four times and had not set foot in the business since March 5, Lewis said.

“I found out he quit his job and he wanted to know if I could give him a referral for another one,” Lewis said. “I said, ‘I can tell the folks you come to class here and got your black belt here. I don’t know what else I can say.’”

Lewis said another possible employer never called, though.

Lewis said he was “not close” to Daniels. But he never saw the flashes of anger and short fuse others described.

“He was always kind of humble,” Lewis said. “He was never out of control in sparring or anything.”

'The perfect family'

Lewis recalls seeing Daniels’ wife, Krystal, in the studio at times. But none of their children took part in the lessons.

“We are all shocked at what happened, heartbroken. ... We don’t understand anything,” Lewis said.

Seyler, who works at a popular Dickson fast food restaurant, said despite her memories of Daniels’ temper, she was “shocked” when she heard the news.

“I would never had guessed he do this,” said Seyler, adding that the family ate at the restaurant almost daily.

She said the family, including Joseph, Krystal, and Joe Clyde and the other children “would seem like the perfect family.”

“That's why this whole thing is just too much to process,” said Seyler, adding she would get a remembrance tattoo for Joe Clyde. “This is something I could never forget.”

Chris Gadd, editor of the Dickson Herald, can be reached at cgadd@dicksonherald.com.



