In April 2009, 19-year-old Megan Maxwell disappeared. She wasn’t missing long before investigators started suspecting Jeffery Stock of being involved in her disappearance. Her burnt car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse, was found off Highway 25-70 near the location of the former Riverside Truck Stop.
Stock was eventually convicted of her murder in 2013, and was released from prison earlier this week.
Nineteen months after Maxwell’s disappearance, human remains were found in a rural, wooded area about five miles from where Maxwell’s car was discovered, which was 12 miles east of Newport. The remains were wearing clothing that matched what Maxwell was last seen wearing and the remains were later positively identified.
At the time of Maxwell’s disappearance, Stock was living in Del Rio.
Stock was extradited from Arizona to Blount County to face charges of first-degree murder, rape and arson in the death of Maxwell. His charges were reduced and he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for second-degree murder, theft and arson in the death of Maxwell per a plea agreement. However, four years of his sentence were taken off as time served at the time of his conviction in January 2013, which would have set his release date as sometime in 2027.
According to the Tennessee Department of Correction, Stock, who is now 56, was released from state custody on Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Stock was previously a convicted sex offender in Indiana. He was convicted in Indiana in 1998 on two counts of sexual battery and was subject to registration on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life.
He was convicted of violating the sex offender registration and notification act after traveling from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Knoxville on Aug. 12, 2008 without notifying law enforcement authorities in either state and sentenced to 72 months.
However, that sentence was thrown out by the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Sixth Circuit, which ruled Stock’s sentencing for the crime of not registering as a sex offender was too high, and threw out his 72-month (six-year) sentence.
The Honorable James S. Gwin, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, ruled that Stock’s conviction for failing to register should stand, but also he should have been subject to a sentencing guideline of 33 to 41 months. The judge, therefore, vacated his sentencing.
Stock, following his conviction in Blount County on second-degree murder, was subsequently sentenced to 46 months in prison on Feb. 27, 2013 after previously pleading guilty to a federal indictment charging him with interstate travel and failure to register as a sex offender. The sentence also called for him to be placed on federal supervised release for life.
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