Teresa Harmon, a 55-year-old White/Caucasian woman from Delbarton, West Virginia, was found dead on March 31, 2022, inside her home near Delbarton in Mingo County. Her death quickly became a homicide investigation after authorities determined she had been shot. Reports later described her as being found at her home in the William Ann Camp area, just outside Delbarton, where the quiet of the community was broken by the discovery of her body.
Investigators said Harmon had been shot in the head, with later reports describing the wound as being to the back of her head. The nature of the shooting led authorities to treat the case as deliberate and violent rather than accidental or unexplained.
No public motive was immediately released, leaving family, neighbors, and the surrounding community shaken while deputies worked to determine who was responsible and why Harmon had been targeted in her own home.
The first arrest came in late April 2022, when Chase Michael Prater, also reported as Chace M. Prater, was taken into custody. Prater, who was identified as Harmon’s nephew, was accused of shooting and killing her. According to reports citing the Mingo County Sheriff’s Department and court documents, authorities alleged that Prater willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation shot Harmon at her residence near Delbarton. He was charged with first-degree murder and held without bond at the Southwestern Regional Jail.
The investigation did not end with Prater’s arrest. In early May 2022, authorities announced a second arrest: Alex Dewayne Likens of Ragland. Likens was charged in connection with Harmon’s fatal shooting, and deputies said both Likens and Prater faced charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Reports stated that both men were held without bail while awaiting court proceedings.
Later that month, the case expanded again when Brittany Garlock of Delbarton was arrested by the U.S. Marshals CUFFED Task Force in Charleston. Early reporting stated she was arrested on warrants connected to the homicide investigation, including first-degree murder and accessory after the fact, while other reporting described her as charged with accessory after the fact. Court records cited in news reports said Garlock had been questioned by investigators about a gun after the homicide. She reportedly acknowledged having a gun in her possession after the killing and said it had later been stolen from her camper and passed through several people. During a second interview, investigators told her that her boyfriend, Alex Likens, had said she had the gun, and she allegedly called another person about it; when asked what was said, she reportedly told officers the gun had been melted.
By the time the arrests were reported, authorities had publicly tied three people to the investigation: Chase Michael Prater, Alex Dewayne Likens, and Brittany Garlock. Prater and Likens were reported as facing murder and conspiracy charges, while Garlock was reported as being accused in connection with the aftermath of the killing and the handling or disappearance of the firearm. Publicly available reports did not provide a clear final motive or a confirmed trial outcome, but the case was described as an ongoing murder investigation centered on the fatal shooting of Teresa Harmon inside her Delbarton-area home.
