A Sumner County man will spend the next 42 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted first-degree murder, soliciting the murder of his former spouse and the victim’s family, and assaulting two correctional officers while in jail.
Larry Wayne Cole was sentenced Tuesday by Judge Jennifer Nichols after pleading guilty to all charges. He will serve his sentence in the Tennessee Department of Correction.
The case began in 2024 when prosecutors say Cole secretly placed an electronic tracking device on his former spouse’s vehicle to monitor the victim’s movements. After locating the victim in a Gallatin Walmart parking lot, Cole broke into the vehicle and repeatedly stabbed the victim before fleeing.
Authorities later tracked Cole across the country and arrested him while he was attempting to cross the U.S.-Canada border in Maine.
While awaiting trial in the Sumner County Jail in 2025, prosecutors say Cole tried to arrange another attack by asking a fellow inmate to kill the victim and the victim’s entire family at their Wilson County home.
The inmate immediately alerted authorities, allowing investigators with the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office and Gallatin Police Department to stop the plot before anyone was harmed. During the investigation, detectives recovered maps of the victim’s home, coded notes identifying the location, and evidence that Cole had offered payment in exchange for the killings.
Cole also admitted to assaulting two Sumner County Sheriff’s Office correctional officers while incarcerated.
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