CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Detroit man was shot and killed in a Charleston residence Tuesday night and the case has a connection with drugs, police said.
Damartay “R.J.” Dejuan Bonner, 23, was found dead in the living room of a residence at 803 57th Street in Kanawha City, according to Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Lt. Steve Cooper. Police arrested James Bennett III, 25, of Charleston, and charged him with murder.
“There is an element of heroin sales going on in this case,” Cooper said, adding police have a specific motive but they were unable to release it Wednesday morning.
Cooper said there were witnesses and he didn’t expect any other arrests.
Bennett denied the charges during his arraignment Wednesday morning telling reporters the allegations were a lie.
There’s a lot of crime associated with the heroin trade, Cooper said.
“Charleston and Huntington are just one satellite from Detroit. They have Toledo and other cities like that–the hierarchy goes all of the way back up to Detroit,” Cooper said. “Heroin is coming from there, it’s coming from Atlanta via Mexico. It’s the worst epidemic I’ve seen in my 23 years.”
Bennett is being held in the South Central Regional Jail without bail.
The death was the seventh murder recorded in Charleston in 2016.