Ethan Samuel Chic-Colbert, a 34-year-old Black/African American man, was shot and killed during the early morning hours of January 26, 2025, on Charleston’s East End in West Virginia. Although he was born in Charleston, published reports and his obituary identified him as a resident of St. Albans at the time of his death. Charleston police were called to the 400 block of Elizabeth Street at about 3:50 a.m., where Chic-Colbert was found inside a vehicle parked in a parking lot.
He was seated in the driver’s seat and had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. He died at the scene. The killing was reported as Charleston’s first homicide of 2025.
Witnesses initially told investigators that a man dressed in dark clothing approached Chic-Colbert’s vehicle and fired several rounds while he was sitting inside. The gunman then fled the area, leaving police with an active homicide investigation and, at first, no publicly identified suspect. Investigators later obtained surveillance evidence that provided a much clearer picture of the attack. Reporting on the investigation indicated that a maroon Hyundai Sonata with front-end damage and a handicap placard hanging from its rearview mirror was connected to the shooting. Video reportedly showed a person dressed in a black hoodie, black pants and a mask, with white shoes, approaching Chic-Colbert’s vehicle, producing a handgun and firing repeatedly into it. Approximately 15 rounds were reportedly fired, with Chic-Colbert struck multiple times, including from behind. The shooter then escaped in the Hyundai.
Police determined that the Hyundai Sonata had been stolen from the Kanawha City area. Three days after the homicide, on January 29, investigators located the vehicle behind apartments in the 4900 block of Washington Avenue Southeast. The abandoned car became an important piece of evidence. Gunshot residue was reportedly discovered on the steering wheel and gearshift, and detectives also found three scratch-off lottery tickets inside. Investigators traced the tickets to a woman connected with people who had been involved in selling the stolen vehicle. That investigative trail ultimately led authorities to Joshua Robert Scales of Hyattsville, Maryland.
On February 20, 2025, nearly a month after Chic-Colbert’s death, Charleston police announced that they had obtained a first-degree murder warrant for Scales, then 33. Officers took him into custody at approximately 5 p.m. in the 800 block of Walters Road in Charleston. He was jailed at the South Central Regional Jail without bond. Police accused Scales of being the man who shot Chic-Colbert while he sat in the parked vehicle on Elizabeth Street.
The criminal case moved forward during 2025. In August, a Kanawha County grand jury indicted Scales on a first-degree murder charge. During his August 22 arraignment before Kanawha County Circuit Judge Carrie Webster, Scales pleaded not guilty. His attorney sought several forms of relief, including authorization for a private investigator, discovery and home confinement. Scales remained incarcerated without bail, and the court initially scheduled his trial for January 5, 2026.
The case continued into 2026 and encountered delays. By April, the trial had been moved, and prosecutors requested another continuance because the lead detective would not be available to testify on the scheduled May 4 trial date. Judge Webster granted the request and rescheduled jury selection for June 5. Scales’ defense also tried to have the indictment dismissed, arguing that prosecutors had improperly presented evidence to the grand jury. Prosecutors disputed that argument, and Judge Webster ruled that the defense had not met the legal threshold required to dismiss the indictment. The defense separately sought bail, proposing that Scales live with a cousin under home confinement if released, but the judge denied that request as well.
Scales ultimately did not go to trial on the original murder accusation. On August 14, 2026, shortly before a newly scheduled trial was expected to begin, he entered a guilty plea to the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. The plea resolved the prosecution arising from Chic-Colbert’s shooting without a murder trial. During coverage of the plea, authorities again pointed to the scratch-off lottery ticket evidence recovered from the getaway vehicle as a significant part of the investigation that led police to Scales.
Under the plea, Scales acknowledged criminal responsibility for the January 2025 shooting death, replacing the first-degree murder charge with a voluntary manslaughter conviction. Judge Carrie Webster presided over the plea hearing. Sentencing was scheduled for September 29, 2026, meaning that as of the latest published reporting, Scales had been convicted through his guilty plea but had not yet received his final sentence.
Chic-Colbert’s obituary said he had been born in Charleston on June 2, 1990, to Wayne Bumpus and Cynthia Colbert and worked as a welder at the Toyota plant in Buffalo, West Virginia. He was survived by his parents, a brother, three daughters and a son. His death ended with an initially unidentified gunman fleeing into the darkness from an East End parking lot, but the investigation eventually moved from surveillance footage and a stolen getaway car to physical evidence inside that vehicle, the arrest of Scales, a first-degree murder indictment and, more than a year later, Scales’ guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter.
