Trial begins in '08 slaying of Deep Creek mechanic

CHESAPEAKE

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Stephanie Pass held up a poster board covered by disconnected puzzle pieces.

That represented the task facing Detective James Thomas as he worked on the December 2008 killing of Olive Bruce "BJ" Jones Jr. in his Deep Creek auto-repair shop.

"It's really what he was doing: putting together a puzzle," Pass said to open the first day of testimony in the murder, robbery and check-forgery trial of Keith Alan Bradshaw. "It was tedious. Piece by piece."

Th e pieces include bank records and video, cell phone records, a jailhouse informant and witnesses that, taken together, put Bradshaw at Jones' shop and various banks after the killing, Pass said.

Friends found the 57-year-old Jones' body in his shop on Dec. 18, 2008, several days after his death - the last date he X'd out on his garage calendar was Dec. 10, testimony showed.

A grand jury in February 2010 indicted Bradshaw, now 39, a Western Branch landscaper and sometime hunting buddy of Jones.

Bradshaw is accused of shooting Jones in the head, taking money, guns and checks from the business, and passing the checks afterward. Bradshaw told police he was there when Jones was killed, but another man did it, according to court documents.

Robert Kowalsky Jr., the attorney representing Bradshaw, told the jury it was "a strange case":

A man was missing as long as a week and his girlfriend didn't look for him. Police took 14 months to gather enough evidence to indict Bradshaw. His face doesn't appear on bank videos, but there is video another man, also charged in the check passings.

That same man, who worked for Bradshaw, also had access to his truck and cell phone, Kowalsky suggested to the jury. And it's hard to provide an alibi after so much time has passed, he said. "Who's going to remember where they were 14 months earlier, at some particular point?" he asked.

Two who did remember testified early. Robert "Joey" McClain, a hunting friend of Jones, said sometime before the killing he relayed a complaint from Jones to Bradshaw about a late repayment of a loan.

And Steve Bradshaw testified his out-of-work brother suddenly had money for nice Christmas presents that December and never let his cell phone "out of his sight."

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-5221, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com