A Roanoke man charged with aggravated murder in connection with an April homicide in Bedford County told law enforcement he shot the victim from Pennsylvania and disposed of his body in a burning vehicle, according to search warrant records and accompanying documents filed in Roanoke City Circuit Court.Joseph Richard Walker, 29, also is accused of two counts of using a firearm in commission of a murder and a robbery and one count each of robbery, arson of personal property, possessing a firearm as a felony and transporting a dead body.He awaits a jury trial on the charges set for 11 a.m.Dec.11 in Bedford Circuit Court.The victim in the case has been identified as Ethan Ryan Bert, 20, of York, Pennsylvania.Firefighters arrived at about 12:45 a.m.April 18 to find a vehicle fully in flames on Sandy Level Road off Virginia 24 in the Goodview area of Bedford County, law enforcement has said.
Virginia State Police have said Bert died by “violent circumstances” before the vehicle was set ablaze.People are also reading… After the fire was put out, crews found human remains later identified as Bert.The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported to state police following the autopsy that Bert had been shot twice in the head, according to search warrant records filed in Roanoke City Circuit Court in May.An affidavit filed in the case states a woman living with Bert informed a special agent during the investigation Bert routinely sold marijuana to distributors and dealt in crypto currency; and on April 4, he left Pennsylvania with a quantity of marijuana.
The woman accompanied Bert to a residence in Roanoke where the marijuana was unloaded and one person Bert sold to was “Joe,” a reference to Walker, the affidavit states.The woman told investigators Bert again left York, Pennsylvania for Virginia on April 17 with a quantity of marijuana to deliver to Joe and another individual, and she talked by phone with Bert at about 7:10 p.m., the documents show.Bert told her by phone he was on schedule for the marijuana delivery and he planned to return directly to Pennsylvania; about 10 minutes to midnight she reported his phone was no longer in service, the affidavit states.On April 19, a North Carolina woman reported to law enforcement her sister who lives in Florida said her stepdaughter and boyfriend, identified in the documents as Walker, arrived from Roanoke with Walker in possession of two firearms, according to the affidavit.
Walker reportedly told several people, including his girlfriend, he recently killed a man in Virginia and “burned him up in a car,” the search warrant document states.The North Carolina woman provided “highly specific information” where Walker claimed to have shot a 20-year-old man “once in the face near the eye, and one in the head,” which was consistent with the autopsy results, according to court documents.
The woman also reported Walker shot the man because he “received a significant amount of marijuana from the victim and was that he (Joe) was not going to pay him back,” the affidavit states.Walker also reportedly told family members of evidence of the homicide in the kitchen of his Roanoke residence; specifically, blood on the floor he tried to clean up with bleach, court documents show.On April 19, a search warrant was executed at his residence on Gladstone Avenue in Roanoke and state police found “what appeared to be dried bloodstain patterns in the kitchen of the residence, what appeared to be a trail of falling/dripping blood leading from the kitchen, out the front door of the residence, and out to the public street,” the search warrant documents read.“Also found was a handgun in the kitchen, near the apparent bloodstain patterns.The patterns were consistent with impact patterns associated with gunshot wounds.” On April 20, Walker was taken into custody by the United States Marshal Service without incident in Brevard County, Florida, and at the time of the arrest law enforcement officials seized a firearm and about a pound of marijuana, the affidavit states.A detailed handwritten statement from Walker was obtained during an April 24 Virginia State Police interview with the defendant in Brevard County, Florida, in which he admitted to shooting and killing Bert, according to court documents.
Details he provided in the interview were consistent with what was found at his Roanoke residence and the arson crime scene in Bedford County and he also provided a description of the gunshot wounds what were positively identified on Bert’s body by the medical examiner’s office, court documents show.Walker also told Virginia State Police agents that Jonathan Dewayne Bell was present at Walker’s residence when Walker killed Bert with a .45 ACP semiautomatic handgun and Bell helped with burning the body and car in Bedford County, the search warrant documents state.After setting the vehicle ablaze the two drove to Bell’s residence in Goodview, a short distance from the burnt vehicle, and Bell advised against getting rid of the handgun by throwing it into a lake, according to Walker’s statement to investigators, according to the search warrant records.Walker told investigators Bert was a drug source for another individual who pooled money with Walker to buy drugs from him on multiple occasions and that person owed Bert about $50,000 of unpaid drug debt, the search warrant documents state.The plan was to set up a drug deal on April 17 and to abduct and rough up Bert, release him in a rural area and tell him not to come back but the other person didn’t show – Walker told VSP agents the person told Walker he could keep the drugs if he “roughed up” Bert, the affidavit states.Bell, who was arrested April 25, faces a felony charge of accessory after the fact to murder.According to Bell’s interview with VSP, he went to the bathroom at Walker’s residence on April 17 when he heard two gunshots and immediately observed Bert lying on the kitchen floor and “Walker standing nearby holding a handgun,” the search warrant document states.Bell said Walker threatened him and his family if he said anything and later drove Walker near the burn site “but did not go past the beginning of Sandy Level Road to the location of the car fire but observed a glow on the horizon,” the document states.
Bell told officers he drove Walker that night to a lake shore location at the end of Board Mountain Road and observed him disassemble a handgun and throw it into a lake, the affidavit states.The sister of Walker’s girlfriend also was interviewed and said she observed a “blood-like spatter substance on the side of Joe’s face” and that Walker told her he shot and killed a man after coming to her residence the night of the killing and showering at her residence, the affidavit states.That same witness also told an investigator she observed Walker remove a handgun magazine from his pocket during the late-night visit, according to court documents.
Bell is released on bond is scheduled to enter a plea during a hearing in Bedford Circuit Court set for Jan.
26, court records show.Justin Faulconer, (434) 385-5551 The Roanoke Times contributed to this report..
