Lewis Maurell Bartlett III was a 37-year-old White man whose killing became part of a complicated investigation involving kidnapping, robbery, drugs and several defendants in Calhoun County, West Virginia. Contemporary reporting identified Bartlett as a Parkersburg resident, although the shooting occurred near Mount Zion on Hardman Fork. His obituary states that he was born in Marietta, Ohio, worked as a carpenter, owned LMB Flooring, enjoyed four-wheeling, fishing, nature and racing, and was the father of three children. The obituary records his death as July 22, 2016; his body was discovered the following morning, July 23, along Hardman Fork Road.
The events surrounding the killing began with an alleged kidnapping involving Joshua Darwin Shrader. According to criminal complaints summarized in local reporting, Shrader said he had been abducted and assaulted by members of a group who were trying to locate a missing Jeep belonging to Alisha Dawn Walker.
He reportedly suffered burns, cuts, injuries to his head and knocked-out teeth and eventually escaped to a nearby residence seeking help. Investigators said Bartlett was among the people suspected of involvement in Shrader's captivity. The group was led to the Hughes property on Hardman Fork, where an unoccupied residence was broken into and where authorities said methamphetamine and cash had been hidden because of concerns that police might arrive.
Bartlett apparently separated from the group during the developing situation. Local reporting stated that a woman picked him up from the remote area and drove toward Parkersburg. During that trip, a Wirt County sheriff's traffic stop identified Bartlett as the passenger. Authorities found that he had outstanding warrants from Texas, but the offenses did not call for extradition, so he and the driver were allowed to continue. Bartlett later returned to the Hardman Fork area. Authorities never publicly announced a definitive motive for why he returned or why the others then turned against him, although investigators consistently connected the killing to the retrieval of drugs and money.
According to the criminal complaint, the confrontation became fatal after the methamphetamine and cash were recovered. West Virginia State Police identified Alex Justin Dunn as the alleged gunman. Investigators said Dunn shot Bartlett four times with a. 22-caliber or other small-caliber revolver; accounts described wounds to the back and head. Derryl Anderson was accused of taking methamphetamine and a firearm that Bartlett had been carrying in his waistband after the shooting. Police said the others then fled, leaving Bartlett along the roadside or ditch line. Residents in the area reported hearing four gunshots at approximately 8:30 p.m. on July 22.
At about 8:44 the next morning, a person traveling on Ace Haney Hill to pick berries discovered Bartlett's body just off the roadway near Hardman Fork. The discovery was close to the Hughes property where the previous day's kidnapping, alleged torture and break-in had unfolded. The West Virginia State Police Crime Lab was called to process the scene, and Bartlett's remains were taken to the state medical examiner's office. What initially appeared to be a collection of separate incidents was soon treated by investigators as one connected sequence involving Shrader's kidnapping, the search for the Jeep, the break-in, drugs and money, and Bartlett's shooting.
Police began making arrests almost immediately. Dunn and Walker were taken into custody on charges connected to the kidnapping, burglary and conspiracy investigation, while Adam Michael Miller was charged with offenses that included kidnapping, burglary, conspiracy to commit a felony, trespassing and obstruction-related counts. By July 28, investigators had charged Dunn, Walker, Derryl "Obama" Anderson and Trudy Ellen Dowler in connection with Bartlett's killing. News reports described the principal accusations against the four as first-degree murder, armed or first-degree robbery and conspiracy. Dunn was publicly identified from the beginning as the alleged triggerman.
The prosecution continued into 2017, when a Calhoun County grand jury returned a broader set of indictments. Dunn, Anderson, Dowler and Walker were indicted on murder, first-degree robbery and two conspiracy counts. Dunn, Walker and Miller were additionally indicted on kidnapping, malicious assault, burglary and three conspiracy counts arising from the connected events involving Shrader. The case appeared headed toward trials, with pretrial hearings scheduled during 2017, but the defendants eventually began resolving their charges through pleas rather than taking the entire case before a jury.
Dowler pleaded to conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree. Anderson pleaded to concealment of a deceased human body. Anderson was subsequently sentenced to one to five years in the state penitentiary and received credit for 512 days already spent incarcerated. Dowler received five years of probation on the robbery-conspiracy conviction and likewise received credit for 512 days previously spent in jail. Their final convictions were therefore substantially different from the original murder charges brought during the early stages of the investigation.
Dunn, the defendant accused by police of firing the fatal shots, entered a no-contest plea in November 2017 to second-degree murder and attempted kidnapping. In January 2018, Calhoun Circuit Judge Anita Ashley sentenced him to 20 years in the state penitentiary for second-degree murder and 15 years for attempted kidnapping. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning they were served at the same time rather than consecutively. Dunn also received credit for 544 days already served. His disposition provided the central homicide conviction in Bartlett's death without a murder trial.
Walker also entered a no-contest plea, accepting responsibility for attempted kidnapping without injury rather than proceeding to trial on the original murder and robbery allegations. She was sentenced in January 2018 to one to three years in the state penitentiary and received credit for 544 days already served. Miller, who was tied primarily to the Shrader kidnapping and related break-in rather than identified as one of the four defendants originally charged with Bartlett's murder, was convicted of felony burglary in Calhoun County in December 2017. Federal authorities later confirmed that the burglary conviction arose from his role in the July 2016 kidnapping and torture of Shrader and that Miller received an indeterminate prison term of one to fifteen years.
The investigation therefore produced arrests and criminal dispositions against multiple participants. Bartlett's death was initially prosecuted as a first-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy case against four defendants, but the final outcomes were divided according to the conduct prosecutors ultimately attributed to each person. Dunn received the second-degree murder conviction and the longest sentence for the killing itself; Anderson was convicted of concealing Bartlett's body; Dowler was convicted of participating in the robbery conspiracy; Walker was convicted of attempted kidnapping; and Miller was convicted of burglary for his role in the connected kidnapping episode. Authorities did not publicly establish a single formal motive beyond the circumstances described in the criminal complaints, but the evidence presented in contemporary reporting placed the shooting at the end of a volatile sequence centered on a missing vehicle, the kidnapping and mistreatment of Shrader, a break-in, and the recovery of methamphetamine and cash on Hardman Fork.
