A Poplar Bluff man will spend the next 13 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections after he pleaded guilty Tuesday to amended charges.
Bryce D. Davis was originally charged as an accomplice to Curtis Walker in the October 2014 homicide of Salvador Ramirez, whose body was found in the Black River near the Dan River access south of Poplar Bluff. Davis has been in jail since that time.
Charges were amended to the felonies of second degree attempted robbery and first degree burglary.
“That case had a lengthy history. It was a Butler County case that went to Dunklin County, and then ended back in Butler County,” said Butler County Prosecutor Kacey Proctor.
According to an earlier news release from Proctor, Davis met up with Walker around 10 p.m. Oct. 21, 2014, at his Sycamore Street residence, and Ramirez was alive at the time.
Davis then followed Walker in another vehicle to the Dan River access, but “when he arrived, Walker had already shot Ramirez and he witnessed Walker drag Ramirez’s body to the end of the boat ramp and place him in the river,” Proctor said.
Also that night, the Butler County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene of a burning car, which was determined to be owned by a girlfriend of Walker.
It also was determined there was a third crime scene, that being Ramirez’s residence at 1224 Tremont, where the home was “burglarized, ransacked and set on fire,” Proctor said.
Surveillance cameras on the house recorded Walker and Davis breaking into the residence.
Walker later was captured in Wright County after a high-speed pursuit.
Davis testified at Walker’s trial as to the disposition of Ramirez’s body, and Walker testified he shot Ramirez in self defense.
At Walker’s trial, Proctor said, the defendant “took the stand and stated that Bryce Davis wasn’t anywhere around when he killed Salvador Ramirez, nor did he know he was going to do that.
“It basically exonerated Bryce Davis of the murder.”
Given that testimony, Proctor said, he amended the charge against Davis from accomplice in murder in the second degree to attempted robbery and burglary.
“Bryce Davis was more involved in a burglary after the fact than anything else,” Proctor said.
Davis’s 13 year sentence on the first-degree burglary charge and seven years on the attempted second-degree robbery charge, Proctor said, were ordered by Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Pritchett to be served concurrently following a plea deal.
Walker was found guilty in early April at his trial and faces up to 30 years in jail for second-degree murder, a minimum of three years for armed criminal action and 15 years for first-degree burglary. He is to be sentenced May 11.