Charges intensify in South River killing

A prosecutor on Wednesday convinced a judge to elevate charges against two Waynesboro men accused in a May killing.

Waynesboro Circuit Court Judge Humes J. Franklin Jr. approved a motion by Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Ledbetter to upgrade a charge against Matthew Alan Painter, 36, from second-degree to first-degree murder.

Franklin also amended a charge against Painter’s co-defendant, Nicholas Adam Holloway, 24, from disposal of a human body to principle in the second degree to the murder.

The amended charges came three weeks ahead of a scheduled jury trial. Ledbetter said he made the move upon reviewing a forensic pathologist’s examination of victim, John Kelley Miller, 44, of 260 N. Commerce Ave.

“Our medical examiner will testify … that the probable cause of death was ligature strangulation followed by a beating,” he said.

Defense Attorney John Hill, representing Painter, requested $1,000 in state money to hire Jack Daniel, a Charlottesville-based forensic pathologist, to “determine whether the Commonwealth’s medical examiner is accurate,” Hill said.

Authorities said the examiner’s report listed blunt force trauma as a possible secondary cause of death.

“The evidence of the ligature strangulation is based only on the medical examiner’s report,” Hill said. “The difference between these two causes of death is the difference between first and second-degree murder.”

Franklin approved the motion, but offered Hill a budget of $750.

Attorneys also argued over several other motions, including Defense Attorney Tate C. Love’s attempt to exclude from evidence a criminal complaint Holloway filed against Miller in 2009. In the handwritten complaint, Holloway wrote out a scene describing a threat from Miller.

“Last nite John Miller bust me in the door an called me an Tonya names an threaten to kill me to where I would be floating down the river,” he wrote. “Then he came [illegible] again today and was cussing me out again.”

Holloway dated the assault to April 2009. An arrest warrant for Miller, however, listed the argument in early October. Authorities on Wednesday could not explain the discrepancy.

Love said admitting the record into evidence would create a “mini-trial” for an unrelated misdemeanor assault for which Miller had already served jail time.

“I think it has the potential of distracting the jury from the case,” he argued. “I think it’s of limited relevance.”

Ledbetter asked Franklin to allow the document into evidence. He said it illustrated a possible motive for Holloway to participate in the crime.

“It goes to a bias against Miller that Holloway held,” Ledbetter said. “He had the idea of where to put the body because Miller had put the idea in his head.”

Franklin ordered the document be allowed.

Authorities charged the men in May after police found Miller’s body partially submerged in the South River.

During an Oct. 8 preliminary hearing, investigators said the killing followed an afternoon of drinking. They also spoke about their interrogation of Holloway, in which he said he helped move Miller’s body from a nearby homeless camp to the river.

Painter is scheduled for a Feb. 22 jury trial. Holloway’s trial has yet to be scheduled.