A 24-year-old suspect faces a criminal count after a gun discharged in the parking lot of the Tennessee dinner attraction, killing a young man from Illinois.
Evan Cogdill, 24, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide for the shooting death of 22-year-old Jacob Inselmann outside Dolly Parton’s Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The Sevier County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Cogdill was booked on Sunday, April 26, one day after the incident.
Police reports place both men inside a car in the venue’s parking lot around 7:35 p.m. on Saturday when Cogdill’s firearm discharged, striking Inselmann. Inselmann, from Steeleville, Illinois, was taken to LeConte Medical Center and pronounced dead. Cogdill, who is from Marissa, Illinois, contacted authorities after the shooting.
The Stampede is a dinner theater built on horseback stunts, country music, and Dolly Parton’s brand of broad American nostalgia. It sits at the core of Pigeon Forge tourism, a family-friendly corridor that rarely intersects with violent crime. A death on the property punctures that bubble, if only momentarily, and forces attention onto the mundane circumstances that can turn lethal.
Law enforcement has not released further details about the relationship between the two men or what led to the discharge. The investigation remains active.
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ROMBO Editorial Staff
The collective voice behind ROMBO Magazine’s news, reviews, features, and cultural coverage.
