A Sumner County jury convicted Joseph Anthony Scrofne after prosecutors said his own statements described a deliberate killing inside the couple’s Portland home.

PORTLAND, Tenn. — An 83-year-old Tennessee man was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of premeditated first-degree murder in the January 2025 death of his wife, a case that began when he told authorities she had fallen during the night and ended with prosecutors presenting his admission that he had decided to kill her.

The conviction of Joseph Anthony Scrofne followed a three-day jury trial in Sumner County and resolved the central criminal charge stemming from the death of his wife, Linda “Carole” Scrofne, 81. District Attorney General Thomas Dean’s office said Judge Jennifer S. Nichols imposed the mandatory life sentence immediately after the verdict. Under Tennessee law, first-degree murder includes a premeditated and intentional killing, and the statute defines premeditation as an intent to kill formed before the act after reflection and judgment. Prosecutors said Scrofne’s own account to investigators became a major part of the case against him.

The investigation did not begin with a murder confession. Authorities said Scrofne contacted law enforcement after his wife was found dead at the couple’s home in Portland, a Sumner County city northeast of Nashville. He initially said she had fallen during the night. Deputies and detectives continued examining the death because injuries they saw did not fit that explanation, according to the district attorney’s office. An arrest affidavit cited in local reporting described bruising around Linda Scrofne’s neck, blood on the side of her face and petechiae in both eyes. Those observations changed the direction of what had first been presented as a fatal fall.

The following day, Jan. 28, 2025, deputies returned after receiving information that Joseph Scrofne had made suicidal comments, according to the affidavit and subsequent news reports. Officers detained him for his safety and investigators questioned him again about what had happened to his wife. This time, authorities said, he acknowledged hurting her. Prosecutors later said he told Sumner County Sheriff’s Office Detective Phillip Douglas that he had made the decision to kill Linda Scrofne. The shift from an accidental-fall account to an admission gave investigators a direct statement to compare with the physical evidence already documented inside the home.

Scrofne then described the killing in terms that prosecutors said showed more than a sudden unexplained death. According to the district attorney’s account, he said he first tried to smother his wife with a pillow. When she resisted, he retrieved a rope and strangled her. Earlier coverage based on the arrest affidavit reported that Scrofne said his wife had gotten up during the night and fallen more than once before he got her back into bed. The affidavit also attributed to him a statement that he then decided to kill her. The jury ultimately convicted him of the premeditated form of first-degree murder charged by the state.

Investigators also asked why he had done it. The district attorney’s office said Scrofne expressed a belief that his wife would eventually be placed in a nursing home and described a future in which she would be given oatmeal until she died. The record made public in news reports does not establish that Linda Scrofne was then scheduled to enter a nursing facility, nor does it show that such a placement was imminent. The remark was reported as Scrofne’s explanation to investigators, not as an independent finding about his wife’s medical condition, care needs or plans for long-term care.

Other statements attributed to Scrofne became part of the public account of the case well before trial. The January 2025 arrest affidavit, as quoted by local news organizations, said he referred to killing his wife as doing his family a favor and spoke about an intention to die himself after the homicide. Authorities did not report that he carried out that second part of the plan. The statements prompted deputies to detain him for safety before the murder questioning continued. Because the later conviction rested on a jury verdict, the case is no longer only an allegation that he killed Linda Scrofne; the jury found him guilty of doing so with premeditation.

Assistant District Attorneys Tara A. Wyllie and Christopher V. Boiano prosecuted the case during the three-day trial, according to the district attorney’s office. Public reports of the verdict have not provided a full day-by-day account of the evidence, witness testimony or defense case presented to jurors. What prosecutors highlighted after the conviction was the contrast between Scrofne’s first explanation and the injuries investigators observed, followed by his admission to Detective Douglas and his description of how he killed his wife. No publicly reviewed source in this reporting identified a separate eyewitness to the killing itself.

The verdict carried an immediate sentencing consequence. Tennessee’s first-degree murder statute authorizes life imprisonment, life without parole or death, depending on the case and the sentencing procedure. The district attorney’s office said Nichols imposed the mandatory life sentence applicable to Scrofne after this verdict. Tennessee’s release-eligibility law treats a life sentence as a 60-year sentence for calculation purposes and sets stringent rules for people convicted of first-degree murder. Because Scrofne was already 83 at the time of conviction, the sentence is effectively one that will keep him incarcerated for the remainder of his natural life absent a later court ruling or other lawful change.

The prosecution publicly credited several agencies and individuals after the verdict. Dean’s office thanked the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office, including Detectives Phillip Douglas, Reed Pasley and Ron Brawner; Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Devyn Ramsey; and Sumner County EMS Lt. Beau Summers for their work. Prosecutors also thanked members of Linda Scrofne’s family for assisting the prosecution and Victim-Witness Coordinator Sally Ann Pirtle for supporting relatives, witnesses and the prosecution through the case. Those acknowledgments underscored how a death initially reported inside a private home developed into a multi-agency homicide investigation and jury trial.

The case also leaves limits on what can responsibly be said about the couple’s circumstances before the killing. Public reporting identifies Linda Scrofne by name and age and records her husband’s statements about falls, possible future nursing-home care and his view that he was helping the family. It does not establish that Linda shared those views, that she wanted her life ended, or that any medical professional had recommended the course Joseph Scrofne imagined. Prosecutors presented his statements as evidence of his motive and decision-making; they were not presented as consent from the victim or as a legal justification for homicide.

What moved the case from a suspicious death to a first-degree murder conviction was the combination of investigative observations and Scrofne’s later statements, as described by prosecutors and the arrest record. His first account attributed Linda Scrofne’s death to a fall. Investigators saw injuries that led them to keep looking. Within a day, authorities said, he acknowledged killing her and described both an initial attempt and a second method after she resisted. More than 19 months later, a jury heard the case and returned a guilty verdict after three days of trial, allowing the judge to impose the sentence required by law.

Scrofne remains convicted of premeditated first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for Linda Scrofne’s death. No later ruling reviewed for this report has disturbed that judgment. The September verdict therefore remains the controlling outcome of a case that began with an account of an accidental fall and ended with a jury finding that the killing was intentional and planned.

Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.