The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Cops say thieves tried to enter Fleming home




The Letcher County Sheriff ’s Department is investigating a reported burglary at the home of homicide victim Dradrick “Drad” Fleming.

Deputy Matt Gayheart said nothing appears to have been stolen from inside Fleming’s mobile home, but that someone tried to break into the residence late Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

According to Gayheart, a front window was broken and glass and leaves were found inside the home. He said it would have taken a small person to enter through the window.

“It was really odd,” said Gayheart.

Gayheart said it appears that someone tried to pry the back door open, but that no one entered the house through the back. Some tire tracks were found in the yard and footprints were found by the back door, he said.

“They were trying to get inside,” said Gayheart.

Fleming’s mother, Kathy Bentley, reported the burglary to police. Fleming’s family hasn’t found anything missing from inside the home, Gayheart said.

Fleming’s home is located at 860 Highway 2425, which is between Millstone and Thornton. The sheriff ’s department will continue to investigate the burglary.

Fleming’s badly burned body was found in his pickup on the afternoon of June 23 after James Maggard, who was having an affair with Drad Fleming’s wife, walked into the sheriff ’s department and confessed to killing Fleming. Maggard then led police to the site of Fleming’s body near a mine site on Black Mountain near Eolia.

Maggard told deputies he beat Fleming, who worked as an underground coal miner, with a baseball bat, and said the incident occurred on Pine Mountain near Whitesburg after Fleming confronted him with the bat. Investigators say the beating was an ambush which took place near the Flemings’ mobile home near Millstone on the night of June 20, and that Maggard then drove a still-alive Fleming to the mine site near Franks Creek before pouring an accelerant on Fleming and the truck and setting them both afire.

Video surveillance taken from a coal mine near Little Fork of Franks Creek shows Fleming’s truck driving by the mine site at a high rate of speed at 10:15 p.m. on June 20. The same recording shows Maggard walking back down the same road one hour and 37 minutes later. Maggard’s cousin, who works at a nearby mine site, told police that Drad Fleming’s wife, Stephanie Yvonne Jones Fleming, showed up a short time later and brought cleaning supplies and clean clothes to Maggard, who then washed and changed into the clothes in a guard shack.

Police still haven’t found the bat used in the assault on Drad Fleming or the bag containing the clothes James Maggard was wearing.

The Letcher County Grand Jury has charged Maggard, of 410 Goose Creek Road, Neon, with capital murder, tampering with physical evidence, theft, hindering prosecution, arson, and kidnapping.

Mrs. Fleming is charged with complicity to capital murder, complicity to tampering with physical evidence, complicity to theft, hindering prosecution, complicity to arson, complicity to kidnapping, and being a persistent felony offender.

A third suspect in the case was also charged recently. The grand jury last month indicted Austin L. Ison, 24, of Pert Creek, with complicity to murder, complicity to arson, complicity to kidnapping, complicity to tampering with physical evidence, and hindering prosecution. Ison is accused of helping Maggard and Mrs. Maggard plan the murder and then withholding information from investigators.



Leave a Reply