Timothy Michael Morris was a 26-year-old White/Caucasian man whose life ended during a violent confrontation at a home in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, on July 3, 2014. The shooting occurred during the early-morning hours after Dustin Wayne Bodkins went to the residence of his former fiancée, Lindsey Winans. Authorities said Bodkins and Winans had recently separated, and Bodkins told investigators that he had returned to the home to retrieve medication.
Once inside, however, he began looking through the residence and discovered Morris there.
According to the criminal complaint, Bodkins found Morris hiding in a closet. A physical confrontation followed, and during that struggle Morris was shot. Winans later told police that the violence did not immediately stop after the gunfire. She alleged that Bodkins became enraged and kicked Morris while Morris was lying on the floor severely wounded and bleeding. Investigators also alleged that Bodkins pointed a firearm at Winans and threatened to shoot or kill her.
The situation then developed into a standoff. Bodkins reportedly barricaded himself inside a bedroom while armed with a gun. Members of the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department, including its SWAT team, responded to the residence, and Bodkins was taken into custody before 4 a.m. He was initially jailed on charges connected with Morris's death as well as the alleged threat against Winans. The investigation treated Bodkins as the person responsible for the fatal shooting rather than as an unidentified or at-large suspect.
As the case moved through Kanawha County Circuit Court, Bodkins faced first-degree murder and wanton endangerment charges. In October 2014, he appeared in court and pleaded not guilty. Morris's relatives attended the proceeding together, wearing red in a show of solidarity. His mother described him as someone who tried to make peace and who was a friend to many people, while expressing some comfort that the man accused of killing her son remained incarcerated while the case proceeded.
The prosecution ultimately did not go to a murder trial. On December 21, 2015, Bodkins reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. As part of the agreement, the wanton endangerment charge stemming from the alleged threat against Winans was dismissed. The plea reduced the homicide charge from the first-degree murder count to which Bodkins had originally pleaded not guilty.
Bodkins was sentenced in Kanawha County Circuit Court to 20 years in prison for Morris's killing. The guilty plea and sentence brought the criminal prosecution to a conclusion without the uncertainty of a jury trial. What began as an early-morning encounter at the home of Bodkins's former fiancée ended with Morris fatally shot, an armed standoff with law enforcement, Bodkins's arrest, and ultimately his admission of guilt to second-degree murder.
