Gets 30 Years in Prison

Joanna Michelle Alder, who is now 38, pleaded guilty Tuesday to the January 23, 2019 murder of a 60-year-old woman. Judge Don Poole approved the plea agreement, in which Alder agreed to serve 30 years in the state prison at 100 percent. 

Executive Assistant District Attorney Cameron Williams said the day of the murder, a woman said she stopped by the victim’s home on Willie Way in Lookout Valley to visit and found the front door locked. She said that when she looked through the living room window, she could see the victim bleeding from the head. She also said that she saw Alder walk by the window and then heard a loud noise coming from where the victim was sitting. The witness left and called 911 from a neighbor’s house. The first Chattanooga police officers on the scene found the victim sitting in her recliner, unresponsive and bleeding profusely from the head. 

A subsequent investigation leading up to Tuesday’s plea showed that the victim suffered nine blows to the head, as well as two stab wounds to the head. The investigation also revealed that Alder was one of the beneficiaries of the victim’s life insurance policy. Police located Alder in Morgan County Tennessee and arrested her for the murder.