BENTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) – An active homicide investigation is underway in the small community of Benton County.

Benton County Sheriff Kenny Christopher says 55-year-old Timothy Ring was found shot multiple times Tuesday on his rental property in the Lower Big Sandy Road area off of Barnes Road. 

Crime scene tape still hangs around the cornfield where Sheriff Christopher says Ring’s body was found some 25 yards away from his truck in the wood line.

“It’s just tragic that these things happen and you just have to ask yourself over and over ‘why?'” Sheriff Christopher said shaking his head, calling the act “cold-blooded.”

Ring told his family he was going to work on his deer stand and hours later they found his truck in the field in what the sheriff described as a gruesome discovery.

“He was shot. I’m going to say multiple shots. It was very gruesome. The fact of where it was, how he was left lying in the woods like that,” he explained, saying he was shot at close range.

Ring’s deer stand was found in the back of his truck. His body was discovered by family after hearing his phone ring.

A hunter and a farmer, Sheriff Christopher said Ring was well known and liked in the community.

“Mr. Ring has lived in this area all of his life. I’ve known him all of his life. I don’t know of him having any enemies or anything like that. (He’s) pretty well thought of in Benton County. Just a good guy, just not the kind of guy that you ever worried about getting into anything. You could leave anything with him. He was honest, hard-working,” he went on. 

Benton County investigators have been working the homicide case nonstop with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

“I really, really feel sorry for the family at this time and they’re at a loss, and of course they are like any other family and they want results and they want them quick. And we are doing the best we can on it and are going to continue to until we come up with an answer. We will get an answer before we are done.”

Investigators are asking everyone in the Lower Big Sandy Road area to check their security and trail cameras from Oct.19 between 2 and 7 p.m. If anyone has information, call the Benton County Sheriff’s Department’s anonymous tip line at 731-441-3519 or TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND.