MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The first degree murder case of a Martinsburg man accused in the shooting death of another will be bound on to circuit court.
That ruling was handed down Monday morning in Berkeley County Magistrate Mary Laing’s courtroom.
53-year-old Steven Tracy Beach of Martinsburg stands accused of one count each of First and Second Degree murder in the death of Julius Alexander of Martinsburg.
Steven Tracy Beach (ERJ)
During Monday’s preliminary hearing, Assistant Berkeley County Prosecutor Garrett Robinson painted a picture that Beach and the decedent, who also went by “Man,” during Monday’s preliminary hearing, had been left at Beach’s home together while their wives went to northern Virginia on a spa day.
Beach’s wife got calls later that day from others who said something had happened at the house and either Beach or the decedent had fallen and hit their head.
West Virginia State Police testified as they were responding to the call around 10 p.m. for a welfare check at the home off Creighton Court in Martinsburg, they found the victim’s body. They testified he had been shot and had suffered bruises consistent with bite marks.
West Virginia State Police Trooper C Grant testified he arrived on scene at 11:40 p.m. after Trooper Bowman had reported seeing the man’s body.
He said he went inside where Alexander’s body was lying in the living room. Grant said the man had “been there for a few hours”
Beach had reportedly told police he was passed out drunk, asleep, and didn’t know what had happened.
On the stand, the trooper testified that a firearm was found pressed up against the left side of the body. Grant testified the victim had been right handed.
Grant said there was a pool of blood up against the wall, away from the body, which the prosecutor seemed to imply meant the body had been moved.
Defense attorney Sherman Lambert, Sr. objected to a statement from the trooper that surmised as much.
Grant said he saw spent shell casings in the room and a cup in the kitchen sink that looked to have an entrance and exit hole.
Trooper Grant described the weapon as a Smith and Wesson 9 mm handgun. He declined to say definitively if the gun belonged to Beach and said that would have to be determined by the ATF. He also said swabs taken of Beach’s hands to test for gunpowder residue would be sent to the state lab in Charleston for evaluation.
Trooper Grant testified there was a case of Michelob Ultra under the dining room table and “a bottle or two” of liquor on the kitchen counter but he could not say definitively if any of them were open.
He testified that he did not see any drugs at the home.
The trooper further testified that the defendant was “lucid and coherent. He did not seem intoxicated.”
West Virginia State Police Sergeant T Perry, an 18-year-veteran of law enforcement, took the stand next and testified that he saw multiple shell casings and testified to evidence he saw around the room that indicated that the gun had been shot, including the cup that had been shot through.
He testified the victim, known as “Man” was the brother of Beach’s wife. Sgt. Perry said the wives of the two men had gone out on a spa day in Centreville, Virginia that day and left them at the house.
He said Mrs. Beach had been contacted while she was out by someone who said something had happened at the house and indicated one of the two men had perhaps fallen and hit his head.
The family called for a welfare check, according to Sgt. Perry, which the state police were carrying out when they discovered the body.
Sgt. Perry indicated that the defendant’s mother had told another trooper that Beach told her he had shot the man thinking he was an intruder.
“Did you get a written statement from Beach’s mother?” Defense Attorney Lambert asked, to which Sgt. Perry replied the statement was recorded on a body cam.
Sgt. Perry indicated he saw what appeared to be bite marks on Alexander’s arms.
Defense attorney Lambert questioned why the prosecution did not bring witnesses up to testify to support the trooper’s statement that Beach had admitted to shooting a person he thought was an intruder. “If (the defendant’s) mother heard a confession, why isn’t she here? The prosecution had ample opportunity to subpoena her.”
“In a case like this, capital murder, the burden of proof is on the state,” he said, questioning why the defendant’s wife was not called to the witness stand.
Assistant Prosecutor Robinson said the burden of proof is different in a probable cause hearing, instead asking the judge to determine whether there probable cause that a crime occurred and that the defendant committed it.
Robinson said he believed the firearm belonged to the defendant, and that Beach typically would keep it locked and unloaded on a shelf upstairs. “Evidence indicates the deceased lost his life as a result of being shot by that weapon,” according to Robinson, who indicated that would mean a ‘willful and deliberate’ act because the gun would have to be taken out and loaded.
He said the pool of blood that was not in the same location as the body was located indicated there was an attempt to clean up the scene.
Robinson said based on the information shared by the witnesses in court, the magistrate “is allowed to make reasonable inferences for probable cause.”
In the end Magistrate Laing ruled there is probable cause to send the case on to the circuit court.
Beach has been held at the Eastern Regional Jail without bail since his arrest.
