Court denies bond for suspect in 2017 Columbia homicide
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Columbia murder suspect will continue to be held without bond.
The court declined to change the bond for Jeffrey McWilliams, 28, during a hearing Friday morning, according to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Chris Shelton.
McWilliams is charged with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. He is suspected in the death of Augustus Roberts, who died at a home in the 1900 block of Lasso Circle on Dec. 11, 2017.
Columbia police believe McWilliams was at least present when someone shot and killed Roberts. Investigators have said Roberts sold large amounts of high-grade marijuana, and that the people involved may have tried to rob him. Police said a person implicated someone named "Jeff" as one of three people that robbed Roberts, with a different member of the group shooting Roberts.
CPD took a saliva swab of McWilliams in April and said the sample matched with DNA found on a pullover at the crime scene. Police arrested McWilliams on May 10.
This week Stephen Wyse, the attorney for McWilliams, asked Judge Jeff Harris to set a $50,000 cash or surety bond in the case. Wyse said McWilliams never left the area after police took his DNA. He also referenced McWilliams' ties to Boone County, including his family's ownership of McLanks Restaurant.
"As an innocent man Jeffrey McWilliams did not flee the jurisdiction or otherwise conceal himself after providing a DNA sample to the government," Wyse wrote.
McWilliams and his family opened McLanks on Paris Road just four days before Roberts' death. A letter sent by his mother, Sheila Lankford, said McWilliams would be in the store by 5 a.m. to open it. Another letter from one of the wait staff that worked with him in 2017 said she would often see McWilliams working in the kitchen when she got in at 6 a.m. Lankford said she would continue to look into the restaurants security and point of sale system to provide more information.
Police said officers were called to the scene around 3:30 a.m. that night. Phone records allegedly show McWilliams calling one of the people implicated by the informant several times between 4 and 5 a.m.
