Dave Boucher, Stacey Barchenger, Natalie Neysa Alund, and Matt Lakin

The Tennessean

Another missing Tennessee teenage girl purportedly taken by an older man gripped the attention of the Volunteer State on Wednesday.

But this girl, unlike the 15-year-old student taken last month to California by her former teacher, is a suspect in a murder.

The case of 15-year-old Trinity Quinn and 28-year-old Daniel Clark presents police with the task of distinguishing between abduction victim and willing accomplice, with competing narratives from different law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, a 58-year-old U.S. Navy veteran is dead, and police think they may have the two people responsible.

15-year-old girl goes missing

By the time Clark and Quinn entered an Exxon gas station on Charlotte Pike on Tuesday night in Nashville, a small East Tennessee police department was already looking for the pair.

The girl was seen at a local elementary school in Dayton, a town about 150 miles southeast of Nashville, at about 7 a.m. Monday. But instead of hopping on a bus to get to the high school, her mother told a television station the girl jumped in a vehicle with Clark. Quinn's mother reported her missing at 4 p.m. Monday after she didn't come home from school, but the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation didn't immediately issue an Amber Alert because the situation didn't appear to meet the criteria, said Dayton police investigator Steve Rievley.

Read more: Nashville police investigating Daniel Clark, 15-year-old girl for homicide of store clerk

Quinn's family thought the pair were friends, according to social media posts. But Dayton police said they thought Clark had groomed the girl, trying to earn her trust for some time.

Clark and Quinn had each turned off their cellphones, so efforts to ping the the phones and pinpoint their location failed. Rievley obtained text message data from Quinn's cell provider that "showed they had something more than a friendship," he said.

"They were not what a 28-year-old and a 15-year-old should be texting about," Rievley said.

A similar scenario played out weeks ago in the case involving Tad Cummins, according to the FBI, who said the former Maury County teacher fled Tennessee with his student, Elizabeth Thomas. Cummins and Elizabeth were found in California on April 20. Cummins is facing federal charges, and Elizabeth was reunited with her family.

On Tuesday, as the Dayton police tried to learn more about what happened to Quinn, she and Clark were headed to Nashville. Clark and Quinn planned to flee Dayton for the past several weeks, Nashville police said.

When the two walked into a gas station west of downtown a little before 9:30 p.m., Clark brought a gun.

Was she a willing accomplice?

Nashville police say what happened next was a brutal murder.

Spokesman Don Aaron said Quinn shopped in the Exxon store for a few minutes Tuesday evening. Then Clark went up to the counter where John Daniel Stevens stood, his usual post as a worker on the third shift at the gas station.

Initially Clark held the gun low on the counter, Aaron said. After speaking with Stevens, Aaron says surveillance video shows Clark raising the gun, pointing it at Stevens’ head.



Stevens tried to either get the gun or knock it away. Aaron says Clark stepped back from the counter and shot Stevens multiple times. He then pulled the clerk's body out from behind the counter and went through Stevens’ pockets. He took keys but they didn’t work for any vehicle parked at the station, Aaron said.



Clark and Quinn were then seen on the surveillance video walking away from the station.

As Clark confronted Stevens, Aaron said Quinn had a chance to leave or escape. She did not, something Nashville police find suspicious.

"Both individuals are under investigation for a homicide. Both are homicide suspects. It is this department’s belief that Miss Quinn had the opportunity to flee. We do not see any indication she was held against her will," Aaron said Wednesday morning.

Just as a Nashville officer began investigating the murder, Aaron says the officer received a notification through Facebook that a girl was missing from East Tennessee. Authorities looked at surveillance footage from the gas station, and realized they were working the same case.

From Amber Alert to homicide charges

The Amber Alert went out early Wednesday. The TBI put Clark on its top 10 most wanted list. But it was a young girl on the side of the road that piqued the interest of a dump truck driver.

The driver spotted Quinn near the intersection of Charlotte Pike and Old Hickory Boulevard, an area near Bellevue that’s a few miles west of downtown Nashville. Having seen the alerts about a missing girl, Aaron says the driver pulled over a short distance later and called the police.

The pair spent Tuesday night in the woods, Nashville police said. After receiving the call from the truck driver, SWAT officers "flooded" the area, Aaron said, descending on the scene almost immediately. Officers weren’t just looking for a missing girl — they were looking for murder suspects.

Quinn was handcuffed at the scene and officers searched her clothing. They found a backpack with a pistol in it at the scene. Aaron says the pair surrendered without a struggle.

Wednesday afternoon both were charged with criminal homicide, attempted auto theft and especially aggravated robbery. The district attorney has 90 days to decide whether to prosecute Quinn as an adult.

Dayton police plan to travel Thursday to Nashville to question the pair.

Victim's family left with questions

As Nashville police try to determine culpability, and Dayton police investigate what caused Quinn to go with Clark, a family is trying to understand why their loved one is dead.

The victim's sister-in-law, Elise Stevens, called his slaying senseless as she stood in the threshold of his apartment off Bellevue Road near Creekside Meadow Condos late Wednesday morning.

Read more: Family of slain Nashville gas station clerk: 'He was the gentlest man'



"He was the gentlest man," the 70-year-old woman said, weeping as she spoke of her brother-in-law. He'd worked the overnight shift at the Exxon for years after retiring from the U.S. Navy.



"He would never hurt anyone," Elise Stevens said.

Reach Dave Boucher at 615-259-8892 or dboucher@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1. Reach Natalie Alund at 615-259-8072 or nalund@tennessean.com and on Twitter @nataliealund. Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 or sbarchenger@tennessean.com and on Twitter @sbarchenger. Reach Matt Lakin at matt.lakin@knoxnews.com.