Michael Dewayne Jones, a 17-year-old teenager was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of an Australian college baseball player. Jones is the third suspect to be facing felony charges.
The other two suspects - Chancey Allen Luna and James Francis Edwards Jr., both 16 - have already been charged with first-degree murder.
Jason Hicks, the district attorney upgraded the charge against Jones to first-degree murder, who initially faced lesser charges in the death of Christopher Lane. Jones will be prosecuted as an adult. Prosecutors initially planned to charge him as a juvenile.
Claiming that Jones might be a threat to the community, Hicks told the courtroom, "We believe total denial of bond is appropriate in this case. This defendant may have been involved in another shooting earlier in the day and the night before," Reuters reports.
Lane, the 22-year-old Melbourne native, was shot in the back, Aug. 16 while jogging along a residential street in Oklahoma. He was visiting his girlfriend's parents in Duncan. Lane was attending East Central University on a baseball scholarship and was a member of the Oklahoma college baseball team. He aspired to enter the real estate business.
Dan Ford, the Duncan Police Chief said that Jones confessed to the investigators that the three were 'bored' and decided to kill someone for the 'fun of it,' Huffington Post reports.
The three perpetrators randomly selected Lane and used a .22 caliber revolver and a Ford Focus in the August 16 shooting.
Jones, the alleged driver, is currently being held without bond on the first-degree murder charge. He initially faced charges of being an accessory in the murder and use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for him on Nov. 20.
All the three offenders might face life imprisonment without parole if convicted. In the United States, people who commit capital crimes before age 18 cannot be sentenced to death.
