Jerry Dale Harlow, a 48-year-old White/Caucasian man from Richwood, West Virginia, was killed during the early morning hours of December 2, 2014, after an altercation at a residence along Grassy Creek Road in Leivasy, Nicholas County. Authorities were called to the area at approximately 4:30 a.m. What initially emerged as a report of a shooting quickly developed into a homicide investigation after deputies found Harlow suffering from a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the Nicholas County Sheriff's Office, Harlow had been involved in an argument or physical confrontation with Kermit Ivan Hammonds, a Leivasy resident. Investigators alleged that during the confrontation, Hammonds obtained a rifle and shot Harlow. Contemporary reports did not describe what started the dispute, how long the confrontation lasted, or whether anyone else witnessed the shooting firsthand.
The shooting occurred at Hammonds' home, and investigators continued working the scene after Harlow's death to determine the circumstances that led to the fatal encounter.
In the earliest hours of the investigation, authorities described having a person of interest in custody and said that person initially had been arrested on an unrelated charge. As the investigation progressed that same day, the Nicholas County Sheriff's Office publicly identified Hammonds as the person accused of shooting Harlow and charged him with murder. He was taken to the Central Regional Jail. A law-enforcement spokesperson also reported that Hammonds was too intoxicated to be arraigned immediately on the day of the shooting, meaning the formal arraignment had to await a later time.
The accounts released immediately after the killing consistently described the confrontation between Harlow and Hammonds as the central event in the case. Authorities said the two men had been fighting before the rifle was fired, but they did not publicly provide a detailed motive or identify another suspect. There was also no indication in the initial reports that investigators were searching for an additional gunman. Hammonds therefore became the sole publicly identified suspect in Harlow's death, and the murder accusation against him arose directly from the sheriff's department's investigation of the Grassy Creek Road shooting.
Publicly accessible reporting located for the case confirms Hammonds' arrest, incarceration and murder charge, but reliable online sources located during the search do not establish a subsequent trial verdict, guilty plea, conviction, acquittal, sentencing, or dismissal of the charge. The verifiable public record therefore leaves the case at the stage in which Hammonds was being held in connection with Harlow's killing and the Nicholas County Sheriff's Department continued investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal confrontation.
