Testimony details killing of bar owner

Nicholas Jermaine Steele

Mandy Latasha Clontz

By Jessie Burchette

jburchette@salisburypost.com

Allen Wills' family members groaned when investigators described finding his body stuffed under a house in Montgomery County.

An investigator said odor from the decaying body was nearly overwhelming.

Testimony began Wednesday in Rowan County Superior Court for the Biscoe man charged in the August 2006 beating death of Wills, owner of the Saturday Night Lounge, a North Kannapolis bar. Wills lived at 1080 Hidden Circle in Salisbury.

Nicholas Jermaine Steele, 28, of Biscoe, is being tried for first-degree murder. Last year, prosecutors said they planned to seek the death penalty, but that is now off the table.

The 37-year-old Wills was reported missing by his mother, Judy Gaddy of China Grove. His 2005 Ford Explorer was found in Moore County on Aug. 19, 2006.

Testimony on the first day dealt with recovery of the vehicle, and the series of events that led investigators to the home of Mandy Latasha Clontz, 203 Meriah St., Landis, where Wills was killed, and to the unoccupied house were his body was found.

Clontz, Steele's girlfriend, was identified as a murder suspect when a friend, Toneca McBride of Troy, saw a poster seeking information on the missing Kannapolis bar owner.

McBride told investigators in August 2006 that a drunken Clontz talked about killing a Kannapolis bar owner at her home.

A dancer, Clontz performed at clubs and bars. She told McBride the bar owner hired her to do a private dance at her Meriah Street home, where he grabbed her and attempted to rape her.

McBride took the stand Wednesday afternoon and recounted what she told investigators, including that Clontz picked up a hammer and hit the man over the head.

McBride said initially she didn't believe Clontz, who she described as "like a sister," saying she told stories when she was drinking.

But when she saw the poster, she changed her mind and went to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

McBride also testified she saw Steele, known as "Nick," with Clontz at the Days Inn in Biscoe where they stayed for four days immediately after the murder.

Rowan Sheriff's deputies, including Investigator Jody Burelyson, and SBI agent Steven Holmes went to Montgomery County to interview McBride.

Based on McBride's information, they obtained search warrants for the house in Landis that Clontz rented.

Burelyson described how they found the Meriah Street house, including the master bedroom with blood covering the mattress, floor and a closet area. Blood was also spattered on walls.

He also said a bone fragment was found in a bloody towel or blanket.

Clontz eventually led investigators to the house in a rural area of Montgomery County where the body was found nearly two weeks later.

While investigators were at that house around 3 a.m. on Sept. 10, a man was observed watching them.

Officers went to a nearby house and after talking with occupants found Travis Lee Chriscoe and his white truck, which investigators determined later was used to take Wills' body from Landis to the house, where it was hidden.

Chriscoe of Seagrove is charged with accessory after the fact.

The first day of testimony was not without glitches. McBride couldn't be found on two occasions when she was called. An official later said she got lost in Salisbury when she went to lunch.

Responding to questions from District Attorney Bill Kenerly, McBride acknowledged she was arrested in Montgomery County on Tuesday for driving while her license was revoked, and she was put in jail.

While in jail in Montgomery County, her car was repossessed. She had to get her mother to drive her to Salisbury.

Also while in jail, she was put in a cell next to Clontz, who is being kept there because of overcrowding in Rowan. McBride said she did not talk to Clontz.

Among the first witnesses Wednesday was Ava Kiker, who lived at 408 West St., near the Clontz house on Meriah Street.

The week of Aug. 21, 2006, was her vacation week. She detailed seeing Clontz, her children and two men come to the house and back up a white pickup to the deck of the Meriah Street house.

Kiker said she was sitting on her deck, talking on the phone to her daughter, when a black male came to her yard and asked if she had a garbage bag. Kiker recalled, he said, "She's got to move."

She gave him a bag and watched as two men and a woman (Clontz) went into the house. She said the woman came out about five minutes later, but the men remained in the house for 15 to 20 minutes.

McBride said she thought at the time it was strange that the men would be doing the packing.

When they came out, she said the black male was pulling the bag and the white male was pushing it. Again she thought it was strange that a bag of clothes would weigh that much.

Looking at Steele, she identified him as the man who got the garbage bag.

Concord attorney Jay White, who is representing Steele, repeatedly questioned investigators about their recollections and about their notes from the murder three years ago.

Superior Court Judge Stuart Albright of Greensboro is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last for another week or more.