HOT SPRINGS -- A teenager arrested last week in the beating of a 75-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder after the victim died of his injuries, the Garland County prosecutor said Tuesday.
Hunter Allen Byers, 19, of Hot Springs was arrested May 1 and was originally charged with aggravated residential burglary, first-degree battery and aggravated assault, according to authorities.
Garland County Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Lawrence confirmed Tuesday that the battery charge was being upgraded to a charge of first-degree murder after the victim, Silas Turner of Hot Springs, was removed from life support and died. First-degree murder is punishable by up to life in prison.
Byers appeared via video Friday in Garland County District Court where he pleaded innocent to the original charges.
Judge Joe Graham set Byers' bail at $50,000 at that time and set a felony review hearing for June 17. Lawrence said she was filing a motion to have the bail increased, and Byers will have to be arraigned again on the new charge.
Byers had no previous criminal history before his arrest last week, according to records.
Hot Springs police officer Tyler Cox was dispatched shortly after 11 p.m. on April 30 to an address on Judy Court where a man had shown up banging on the door yelling for help, according to a probably cause affidavit.
The man stated that a person, later identified as Byers, had attacked and beaten Turner with a blunt object at Turner's residence "just around the corner" at 115 Ranch St.
Cox and Sgt. John Tinney went to the residence and found Turner unconscious on the floor in "a pool of blood" with signs of trauma on his head and face. Turner was taken to CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, where he was admitted into the intensive care unit with life-threatening brain injuries and had reportedly lost one eye.
Police said Monday that Turner died Friday night.
Detectives Scott Lampinen and Phillip DeFoor went to the scene and talked to the witness, who stated that Turner had just hired him to replace an employee Turner had fired a few days earlier. The witness said he also had moved in with Turner earlier that day.
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He said he had met the former employee, described as a biracial teenage male, a couple of days before but couldn't remember his name, according to the affidavit. He said the same teen showed up at the house around 11 p.m. and knocked on the door.
The witness said he answered the door, and when he saw who it was he told Turner that the visitor was for him and then walked toward his bedroom, the affidavit said. He said "all of a sudden" he heard Turner yelling for help and saw the teen beating him with a black, metal object that appeared to be a tire iron.
The witness said he was trying to help Turner when a second person entered the room and the teen, still holding the metal object, went after the witness, according to the affidavit. The witness said he fought him off and fled from the house to get help. He gave police the name of another employee of Turner's, who he said would know the teen's name.
Lampinen contacted the second employee, who identified the teen as Byers and told police where Byers lived, the affidavit said. A Hot Springs records check indicated that Byers lived at that address and was "an exact match" to the description given by the witness, according to the affidavit. The employee stated that he had known Byers for about a year and confirmed that Turner had fired Byers earlier.
On May 1, the witness was shown a photo lineup of six males, including Byers, and "instantly and without hesitation" identified Byers as the person he saw beating Turner and who had tried to attack him, the affidavit said.
Detectives went to Byers' residence and talked with Byers' mother, who told them Byers was at home, according to the affidavit. Byers then emerged and was arrested.
Byers' mother told police that her son had left the house around 10 p.m. on April 30 and returned around midnight, according to reports. She said he "kept going into the basement area," and she told police they needed to search that area, the affidavit said.
According to the affidavit, items seized from the basement included three small white towels, clothing and a hammer.
State Desk on 05/08/2019