UPDATE: Man charged in airman's death
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 15, 2017 1:45 AM
Bobby Mandrell Williams
The Goldsboro Police Department charged a man Friday night in connection to the July 31, 2016, murder of U.S. Air Force airman Ryan Apollo Morgan, who was stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base when he was killed.
Bobby Mandrell Williams, 36, of Walstonburg, is charged with an open count of murder for his role in the shooting death of 32-year-old Morgan, and is being held without bond in the Greene County Detention Center pending his first appearance in Wayne County District Court on Jan. 17.
Williams was already incarcerated in Greene County on unrelated charges when he was served with today's arrest warrant, according to a press release.
Maj. Anthony Carmon, head of the Goldsboro Police Department's Investigative Services Bureau, said the motive for the killing currently appears to be related to some sort of an altercation, but that theory is not yet confirmed.
"We haven't confirmed it yet, but it appears there was some sort of altercation," Carmon said.
Carmon said Williams has not given police a motive for the shooting, and investigators plan to continue to interview witnesses to confirm what exactly led to the shooting that killed Morgan.
The warrant charging Williams' for the murder was issued Friday night around 9 p.m., Carmon said, after police finished interviewing witnesses and felt they had enough information to charge Williams with an open count of murder.
Carmon said Williams was already in jail for charges of probation violation, and does not have a history of committing violent crimes as far as he knows.
Carmon declined to go into the specifics of how Williams was developed as a suspect by police.
Morgan was shot in the 100 block of North Center Street around 2:30 a.m. July 31, 2016, and then taken to the emergency room at Wayne Memorial Hospital, where he died from his wounds.
A press release from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base at the time of his slaying said that Morgan was originally from Alabama and had been stationed at SJAFB since 2013. He enlisted in the Air Force in 2009.
Morgan was a senior airman working as a contract specialist for the 4th Contracting Squadron on base.