Friends Speak on Chattanooga Veteran Killed

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – Annie Johnson says, "He asked me, ma’am can you dial 911, I just found a body.  I said, Frank that’s Steve."

Johnson saw her long-time friend, Steven Bell, under a bridge on Workman Road with only a t-shirt and underwear on.

Johnson adds, "He looked like he was drawed up, folded up with his knees, but you could see his feet and stuff."

Another friend says, "They said when they throwed him over there he was still alive."

Johnson adds, "You couldn’t tell if he was beat up, hit in the head or whatever, you couldn’t tell that."

Without hesitation, friends say this homicide is the result of money.

They say he was actually robbed two separate times in the last three months.

Johnson adds, "Because he always got his check on the first and the third."

Friends tell us Bell got social security and disability checks every month.

Now, Bell lived on Lynchburg Avenue, and we’re told he often let people stay with him.

Johnson says, "We’d sit in the yard, we drank beer, stuff like that. He couldn’t walk from this step to the gate without his chair."

The wheelchair bound veteran was reported missing about two days before he was found.

At the crime scene investigators did not find the things Bell needed to survive, like his wheelchair.

Johnson says, "He didn’t have his glasses, chair, nothing."

Now, the man a lot of people called, Uncle Steve, is in his final resting place.

Even so, friends tell us they cannot rest.

One even told us he hasn’t been sober since witnessing this scene for himself.

If you know anything about this crime, you are asked to call Chattanooga Police.