Witnesses implicate Western Branch landscaper in slaying

CHESAPEAKE

Gary C. Carpenter didn't like the bragging and didn't like the deed, and so he wrote police to tell them what he heard.

Keith Alan Bradshaw, charged with the December 2008 slaying of Olive Bruce "BJ" Jones Jr., confessed to Carpenter in jail about nine to 10 months ago, he told a Circuit Court jury Wednesday. Shooting Jones in the head. Taking his money, checks and guns. Trying to pin it on one of Bradshaw's employees.

"I got a code I live by," said Carpenter, 47, who's serving time for burglary and has several felonies on his record. He may be a thief, but he didn't like to see people hurt, he said.

"And Mr. Bradshaw had been bragging about how he's going to beat it.... His business wasn't doing no good, and he needed money. He said they had a real good Christmas over it.... Right is right, wrong is wrong, and he did wrong..."

He was the second witness of the day to directly implicate Bradshaw, 39, a Western Branch landscaper. John J. McMahon, who worked for Bradshaw, testified that he and Bradshaw cashed checks stolen from Jones.

Together, McMahon said, they drove to banks in Chesapeake, Suffolk and Virginia Beach in the days after Jones' death. Bradshaw forged them, switched seats so McMahon would appear on the drive-thrus' security videos, and paid McMahon $100 out of each of the transactions, which generally were for $1,000.

McMahon, 48, said he didn't know Jones was dead but figured the checks were stolen.

Why do it, he was asked.

"I needed the money," he said with a shrug.

Friends found the body of Jones, 57, dead for several days, in his Deep Creek auto shop. A grand jury indicted Bradshaw in February 2010. His trial began last week, almost a year later.

Prosecutors said they hope to wind up their case today.

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