Nashville, Tenn.
The man they said they’re looking for has a lengthy arrest record and was charged just the day before with hitting a woman and stealing her car.
That woman was in the car with the suspect when he pulled the trigger and she is now jailed on a murder charge in the death of sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Baker, according to court documents.
The deputy’s body was found in his patrol car in a wooded area several miles from where he had stopped a suspicious car on Wednesday.
Rewards totaling $35,000 have been offered for information leading to the arrest of Steven Joshua Wiggins, 31, a white male with balding brown hair.
Officials said they believe he is armed and dangerous.
“It’s very imperative for everyone to keep their eyes, their ears open for this individual,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Susan Niland said at a news conference on Thursday.
“He could be in Dickson County. He could be in a neighboring county. But the fact is, we don’t know where he is.”
Federal, state and local authorities have joined the search. They are checking into hundreds of tips, though authorities said there have been no confirmed sightings as of Thursday evening. Wiggins was last seen wearing blue jeans and a black polo shirt, but could have changed his outfit, Niland said. Still, Dickson County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe said he believes Wiggins might be on foot in the area.
“At this point, we’re going to work with all our agencies and all of our partners, and there will be no rest until he’s taken into custody,” Bledsoe said at the news conference.
Baker couldn’t be contacted for some time after responding to a call about a suspicious car Wednesday, Niland said. The deputy’s car was tracked by GPS to a wooded area about 2 miles away, and Baker was found dead inside the vehicle.
Wiggins was identified as the suspect from a video recording, and the sheriff said he is even more heartbroken over what Baker endured after watching the “disturbing” footage. Bledsoe declined to discuss specifics, citing the ongoing investigation.
Wiggins was already wanted on charges that he assaulted the woman and stole her car when he was pulled over, according to a report from the Kingston Springs Police Department.
The woman, Erika Castro-Miles, 38, was charged on Wednesday with first-degree murder after investigators realized that she had participated in Baker’s death, the TBI said.