Brandon Elkins is an adjunct instructor of Criminal Justice at Cumberland University. Mr. Elkins has been a Special Agent Criminal Investigator with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) since 2013. He is currently assigned to the TBI Criminal Investigation Division in Knoxville, TN where he oversees TBI’s Cold Case Homicide Initiative.

Prior to serving with the TBI, Special Agent Elkins served as Captain of the Criminal Investigation Division for the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office in Jacksboro, TN.

He holds an Associate of Applied Science from Walters State Community College, Bachelor of Arts Degree from Cumberland College, and a Master of Science in Justice Administration from the University of the Cumberlands.

During his career, he has investigated criminal offenses of all kinds, including many homicides, and has a passion for cold case homicide investigations. Mr. Elkins has been successful in identifying five unidentified individuals that were located across the state of Tennessee beginning in the 1970s.

Mr. Elkins has completed hundreds of hours of law enforcement and criminal investigation related training in his career. He is a graduate of the National Forensics Academy, TBI Basic Criminal Investigation School, the TBI Director’s Academy, and is a Nationally Certified Public Manager. He also serves as an instructor for Interview and Interrogation, Cold Case Homicide Investigation, Close Quarter Command and Control, Homicide Investigations, and Crime Scene Investigations for the TBI Special Agent Academy.

He was recognized as one of the “Forty under Forty” by the LaFollette Press in 2017, the recipient of the 2017 Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement from the US Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Tennessee, as the 2018 Special Agent of the Year by the Optimist Club of Knoxville, and the 2021 Tennessee Bureau of Investigation CID Special Agent of the Year. Mr. Elkins was featured on the Investigation Discovery show “See No Evil” in 2018 for a complex murder investigation he conducted in rural East Tennessee. He is also a member of the International Homicide Investigator’s Association.

Di Ann Callicott Perry is a native of Union City, Tennessee where she was born and raised. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Martin and has done graduate work at Union University and Cumberland University.

She is a retired public-school teacher, having taught in the Union City School System, Obion County School System, and Wilson County Schools. In addition, she has taught English at UT-Martin and worked as a writing consultant in the Hortense Parrish Writing Center. Mrs. Perry has served on the Development Committee at UTM and served as chairman of the Friends of UTM. She was also a member of the SACS committee.

She is the mother of two daughters and one son. In addition, she has two grandsons. She is very active in the First Baptist Church of Nashville where she is a member of the Sanctuary Choir, Keyboards at Christmas, Encouragers, VBS, and an instructor in the Music Arts Camp.

Mrs. Perry is actively involved in various community activities, including the parent group of Mount Juliet Christian Academy, where her son attends.

Jared Oakes is an English adjunct instructor teaching courses in freshman composition and sophomore literature. He began teaching at Cumberland University in 2019. A Tennessee native, he did most of his growing up in Knoxville before earning his Bachelor of Arts from Welch College and his Master of Arts from the University of Dallas. Besides Cumberland, he has also taught classes for Welch College, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Nashville State Community College.

Dr. McMurray began his professional career as a patrolman with the Bristol Tennessee Police Department in July 1989. I worked my last semester as a patrolman and graduated in December 1989 from King University. During the summer of 1991, Trevor left the BTPD and started taking accounting classes at ETSU, attending classes from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM each day for 8 weeks. Once classes were over, he began working as an accountant at Jay Construction Company in Abingdon, Virginia. After a year or so, Mr. McMurray was promoted to Manager of Accounting and Data Systems.

After leaving Jay Construction in 1993, Trevor worked as a Staff Accountant in a CPA firm for the next two years. Mr. McMurray had previously interned with this firm while attending a college. When the CPA firm closed its doors and moved to Nashville, he found himself headed to the Virginia State Police Academy as a trooper in September 1996.

Dr. McMurray spent the next two years patrolling Appomattox and Prince Edward Counties in Central Virginia just east of Lynchburg. In 1998, he was promoted to Special Agent Accountant, and for the next three years, Dr. McMurray investigated financial crimes all over Central Virginia.

In August 2001, at 34 years old, Dr. McMurray reported to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy in Brunswick, Georgia. Upon graduation in February 2002, he was assigned to the IRS-CI office in the Bristol Virginia Post of Duty investigating money laundering, tax fraud, public corruption, and other financial crimes. He was promoted in June 2021 and became the Supervisory Special Agent for IRS-CI in Roanoke, Virginia, where he supervised and led six agents in all criminal financial investigations before retiring in April 2022. Dr. McMurray is now employed as a government contractor working for the United States Department of Justice US Attorney’s Office as a Financial Investigator.

Dr. McMurray has taught online classes at Southwest Virginia Community College, Virginia Western Community College, and Cumberland University.

Dr. McMurray holds a PhD in Leadership with a concentration in Justice Administration from the University of the Cumberlands from which he also holds a master’s in justice administration as well as an MBA. His graduate degrees have allowed him the opportunity to teach at the collegiate level and prepare the next generation of patrolmen/women, correction and probation officers, and investigators in the most rewarding and honorable profession known – law enforcement.

In his spare time, Dr. McMurray dons a kilt, and throws heavy objects as a Highlands Games Athlete. He has also added leatherwork and blacksmithing to his hobby list.  A world-class athlete, Dr. McMurray travels and competes all over the United States. He finished second in the Master’s World Championships in both 2019, and 2021.