The Tennessee Court of Appeals has shot down a DeKalb County ruling in the wrongful death case filed by the mother of Lauren Taylor Agee, the young Hendersonville woman whose body was found in Center Hill Lake back in 2015 – her passing the center of much speculation as to what caused her death.

The ruling, which came in favor of the plaintiff (the person filing the lawsuit), Sherry Smith, overturned an evidentiary ruling on the case by Judge Jonathan Young. The ruling had barred several pieces of important evidence for the plaintiff including testimony from former police officers, current police officers, private detectives, a forensic specialist as well as Ms. Smith herself. With the unanimous ruling by the appeals court, allowing the evidence to be heard, the case will continue to trial.

The ruling comes in the case of the 21-year-old Hendersonville woman who died mysteriously while she and friends were camping out atop a 90-foot-high cliff during Wakefest in July 2015. Her body was found in a cove in Center Hill Lake by fishermen the day she went missing – the cove located a significant ways from their campsite.. Her belongings were found in the hammock where she had been sleeping atop the cliff. Her friends gave different accounts about what they knew about her disappearance.

Her mother believes something is amiss in the circumstances of her daughter’s death, alleging the friends she was camping with caused her daughter’s death and then conspired to cover it up. She is suing those friends regarding the mysterious passing of Agee.

The suit specifically maintains that Agee went camping with Hannah Nicole Palmer and Palmer’s boyfriend, Aaron Lilly and Lilly’s friend, Christopher Stout to attend the three day Wakefest event. She feels their stories and actions suggest they knew more about her daughter’s death than what they revealed. She also questions the results of the investigation by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department that brought no charges.