Murder trial delayed

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:00 AM |

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Mandy Clontz

By Shavonne Potts

spotts@salisburypost.com

A murder trial slated to begin next week has been postponed and the defendant, Mandy Latasha Clontz, remains in the Rowan County Detention Center.

Rowan District Attorney Bill Kenerly said Monday the case has been postponed but declined to say why.

Clontz was expected to stand trial in the 2006 murder of Kannapolis nightclub owner Jeffery Allen Wills, 37.

She's been in jail since her Sept. 8, 2006, arrest.

Her boyfriend Nicholas Jermaine Steele, 26, of Biscoe, faces similar charges.

A third suspect, Travis Lee Chriscoe, 31, of Seagrove, is charged with helping the two hide the body.

Wills' mother reported him missing in August 2006, and a week later his Ford Explorer was found in a creek in Moore County.

Clontz told investigators Wills was killed inside her Landis home.

He was brutally beaten with a hammer.

Investigators said in 2006 they believed the now 27-year-old woman, Steele and Chriscoe took the body to an abandoned home in Montgomery County.

Two months after Wills was reported missing, his decomposed body was found in the crawl space of the home.

Montgomery investigators said money appeared to be the motive for the murder. In 2007, prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty for Clontz and Steele.

Court records show a March 30 court date for Steele and Clontz on larceny and possession of stolen property charges related to the 2006 murder.

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