Mystery on Lovejoy Road

Dateline: Missing In America

NBC News

True Crime

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On May 5, 2024, Roy Whited did not show up to preach his Sunday service at DeRossett Church of Christ in Sparta, Tennessee. When church members went to his house to check on the 64-year-old, they found his truck parked in the driveway. His sermon had been prepared and his phone was in the charger, but there was no sign of Roy. Investigators soon learned no one had seen or heard from the popular pastor since two days earlier. Extensive searches failed to uncover a single trace of Roy, and there has been no activity on his bank accounts. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz talks with Roy’s brother, Lynn Whited, his close friends Doug Watts and Barb Witzigman, and close friend White County Sheriff Steve Page. Roy Whited is 5’11” and 175 lbs., with brown eyes and auburn hair that is graying. At the time of his disappearance he’s believed to have been wearing a beige shirt and either cowboy boots or tennis shoes. He would be 65 years old today. If you have any information on Roy's whereabouts, please contact the White County Sheriff's Office at 931-836-2700. Get more information and see pictures of Roy Whited here: https://www.nbcnews.com/datelinemissing

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tucked into the rolling hills and valleys of Middle Tennessee is Sparta, a rural community
0:09.0	where neighbors aren't strangers, and many who live here see each other every week at church.
0:20.0	For almost a decade at the Derosset Church of Christ, gospel music and the sermons of
0:26.3	Pastor Roy Whited made the Sunday morning service soar.
0:32.0	He was a good preacher, you know, he had the way with the word.
0:36.0	Doug Watts says Roy is the reason he started going to church again, more than 20 years after he'd
0:42.4	quit.
0:43.2	I told him, he did it, and he said, no, God done it.
0:45.9	I said, he did it through you, you know.
0:49.2	And I believe that.
0:53.6	In the first week of May 24,
0:57.4	something happened in Sparta that seemed almost impossible to believe.
1:03.3	That's when 64-year-old Roy White had vanished.
1:08.1	He's just gone like a puff of smoke, isn't he? Yes, sir. It's just unbelievable.
1:14.1	For White County Sheriff Steve Page, Roy's case is personal. I mean, Roy are friends.
1:21.2	The sheriff is as baffled as anyone else, wondering how anyone as recognizable as Roy could disappear in plain sight.
1:30.3	I would dare to say 95% of the people in this county know Roy Wighted, or maybe even 100%.
1:37.3	It is a mystery that has forced Roy's closest friends and family into the fellowship of the missing. It's a group no one chooses to join.
1:48.6	Certainly not Roy's brother, Lynn White it. I pray, I pray, I pray that he is somewhere and we will
1:56.6	find him because otherwise I have to think the worst.
2:03.5	I'm Josh Mancowitz, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline.
2:09.3	This episode is Mystery on Lovejoy Road.
	...

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