Four suspects in the shooting death of a 19-year-old Wells County man set out to rob him of his drugs and money before they killed him, court documents filed Friday said.
Dustin Jackson, 22, Cody Barkley, 18, Jonathan Thatcher, 18, and Cody A. Mendez, 17, face charges of murder, murder during the commission of a felony and conspiracy to commit robbery resulting in serious injury.
All are from Adams County.
The four appeared in a Wells County court Friday for an initial hearing.
They are accused of riddling Justin Sprow’s Chevrolet Cavalier with shotgun slugs about 8 p.m. Wednesday in northern Wells County and then fleeing in a black pickup truck.
Sprow, a 2009 Norwell High School graduate who loved to race BMX bicycles, was shot once in the head and died.
A 19-year-old friend who was in the passenger seat fled to a nearby cornfield where he called police.
The victim had been arguing with at least one of his attackers over the phone shortly before the shooting, police said. Police tracked the cell phone call to a home in Adams County where they found two of the suspects.
Those two identified the others, and police found them in Adams County as well, Wells County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Scott Holliday said.
The four planned the attack in retaliation against Sprow for a bad drug deal that happened more than two weeks ago, according to police.
The killing was the second in two days for mostly rural Wells County.
On Tuesday, police found 28-year-old Amy Meyer White shot to death at a home southwest of Bluffton. Her estranged husband, 27-year-old Tyler White, is charged with her death.
He told police the two were exchanging custody of their 16-month-old son when she pointed a gun at him.
He told police he pulled a gun of his own and shot her twice in the chest.
