Sterling Dean King, 33, of Billings, Mo. has been charged with 2nd Degree Murder, and 2nd Degree Arson, by the Laclede County Prosecutor’s Office.
King is accused of killing Aden Bryant, 62, of Lebanon on July 9. Bryant’s body was found some 100 yards from his Oklahoma Drive residence on July 11th, by a friend. An autopsy found Bryant died from blunt force trauma.
According to Laclede County Sheriff David Millsap, Bryant’s mobile home burned on July 9, when fire personnel and friends of the victim arrived at the fire, Bryant was not there, and his 1994 Ford pickup was not at his residence. Bryant’s family reported him missing on July 10.
King had been introduced to Bryant, by a friend, during the week of July 4, shortly after King had come to Lebanon. Bryant allowed King to stay with him at his mobile home in exchange for some work. Bryant accused King of stealing tools and methamphetamine from him and asked a friend to have King removed from the residence on Saturday, July 8th. Bryant kept in his possession a motorcycle that belong to King, in retaliation of the tools and methamphetamine that King had taken.
Investigators believe King killed Bryant, started the fire to cover up evidence of the murder, and then took Bryant’s truck. King was contacted by a St. Clair County Deputy when he ran out of gas near Osceola on July 10. At that time Bryant’s body had not been located and the truck had not been entered as stolen. The deputy gave King a ride to an acquaintance home in St. Clair County. King told his acquaintance he had killed someone in Lebanon.
King was arrested in Springfield on July 12, by Springfield Police Officers, who spotted Bryant’s truck at a Fast N Friendly on Kansas Expressway near Division Street. King was arrested on a drug charge. He was later brought to Laclede County for violating an order of protection. On July 13th he was charged in Christian County for distribution of a controlled substance.
“We received invaluable help from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office, Springfield Police Department and the Christian County Sheriff’s Office, and Missouri Highway Patrol’s Information Analysis Center,” said Sheriff David Millsap in a press release. “The suspect wasn’t in our area long and investigators did a good job connecting the dots in this case. When we started the homicide investigation, we had a nickname of a possible suspect and we were able to put a name to the suspect rather quickly while interviewing local people,” Millsap said. “Obviously, the contact in St. Clair County helped us find someone who the suspect confessed to, and then SPD finding the suspect with the victim’s vehicle was a major turn of events in the investigation.”
King is being held in the Laclede County Jail with no bond.
