On Christmas Eve, law enforcement learned about the body of a fifty-year-old woman that was dumped on the side of a rural Chattoogaville Road in southern Chattooga County.  The body turned out to be that of Summerville resident Sherri Little.  Officers gathered enough evidence to get a warrant for the suspect, identified as forty-four-year-old John Wayne Siffles.  Siffles was shot and killed by law enforcement while trying to serve the warrant.  As is standard procedure, the GBI was called in to investigate the officer-involved shooting.  It marked the 101st such incident in 2023.

According to records from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, last year in 2022, there were 112 officer-involved shootings.  The first one of 2022 was on January 1st in Dade County and the last one was in Cartersville on December 23, 2022.

Before the Christmas Eve officer-involved shooting in Chattooga County, the most recent was in Spalding County.

The GBI will complete their investigation of the shooting in Summerville and turn their findings over to the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney to be reviewed.  At that time the District Attorney will review the findings of the GBI and issue a statement about the officer involved shooting.