Damartay “R.J.” Dejuan Bonner, a 23-year-old Black/African American man, was shot during the evening of August 16, 2016, inside a residence in the Kanawha City section of Charleston, West Virginia. Contemporary local reporting identified Bonner as being from Detroit, rather than Charleston. The shooting was reported at about 9:30 p.m. at a home in the 800 block of 57th Street, with one report identifying the address as 803 57th Street. Bonner was found in the living room after being shot and was pronounced dead the following morning, August 17.
The investigation quickly focused on James “J.J.” Bennett III of Charleston. According to the criminal complaint, Bonner and Bennett had been sitting across from one another in the living room shortly before the gunfire. Two other people were elsewhere in the house when they heard a gunshot.
One witness told investigators that when he went back into the living room, he saw Bennett holding a handgun and standing over Bonner’s body. The witness further alleged that Bennett pointed or waved the weapon toward him and ordered him back into the other room. According to the complaint, Bennett then used the gun to prod Bonner’s body while demanding to know where something was before leaving the residence.
Police located Bennett a short time later near Hillcrest Drive and Costello Street in Charleston and arrested him. He was initially charged with murder, with local reporting describing the charge as first-degree murder, and he was taken to South Central Regional Jail. As Bennett was being transported after his arraignment, he publicly denied killing Bonner and called the accusation a lie. Charleston Police Chief of Detectives Lt. Steve Cooper said investigators believed heroin sales were connected to the killing. Police said they had identified a specific motive but were not prepared to disclose it publicly at that stage. Cooper also indicated that investigators had witnesses and did not expect additional arrests in connection with Bonner’s death.
The prosecution continued into 2017. In January, a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge refused to grant Bennett bond, leaving him jailed while facing the murder charge. A trial was then scheduled for February 27. The case ultimately ended without a murder trial. On April 18, 2017, Bennett pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Bonner’s shooting death and was sentenced to eight years in prison. The plea reduced the case from the murder charge originally filed after the shooting, but it established Bennett’s criminal responsibility for Bonner’s death. Later federal records also list a Kanawha County voluntary-manslaughter conviction among Bennett’s prior felony convictions. No reporting located from the permitted online sources identified another person as having been arrested, charged, tried, or convicted in Bonner’s killing.
