PEA RIDGE — “You prepare yourself (for death), when someone’s ill. Something like this, you can’t prepare for,” Brentley Bone said tearfully, remembering his father’s murder one year ago. Over the past few weeks he relived the night his father went to see Thomas and the following day when his body was found as he answered questions posed to him by both the prosecuting and defense attorneys in preparation for the upcoming trial.
Jury selection is set to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday, July 27, in McDonald County, Mo., Circuit Court in front of associate Circuit Judge John LePage.
Newton Countyprosecuting attorney Jake Skouby said the defense requested the change of venue to McDonald County.
Brentley’s father, Darrell Bone was shot three times the evening of Tuesday, July 26, 2011, outside ahouse he owned by the man he allowed to live there. That man, Danny Kay Thomas, 61, is the brother to Bone’s long-time companion, Veldia Rideout. Boneand Rideout lived in Longview, Mo. Bone, 54, was a 1975 graduate of Pea Ridge High School and coowner of Automotive Solutions with Kent Rylee in Rogers.
Bone’s body was found in the yard of Thomas’ residence at19348 Missouri Highway O, Stella, Mo., after Thomas told David Bunch, a Missouri parole and probation officer, he had shot Bone the night before. Thomas told deputies he felt threatened.
He said Bone “beat loudly on the door,” that Thomas opened the door, was threatened by Bone, then shut the door and went to another room to get a rifle. He told deputies he opened the door and shot Bone once in the back as he was walking away from him, then walked up to him and shot him again in the face, according to the affidavit.
Bone had gone to see Thomas to tell him to move out as he had sold the 110-acre farm, according to Newton County Sheriff’s Detective Randy Scott.
Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland and deputies found the body with one gunshot to the back and two to the face. Thomas told deputies he drove around all night in Bone’s truck “thinking about what he had done,” according to the affidavit filed July 28, 2011.
Thomas is charged with first degree murder. He has been held in the Newton County, Mo., jail since his arrest.
News, Pages 1 on 07/18/2012