Police have now charged two men with first-degree murder in the investigation of a Portsmouth man who went missing in January and was found dead in a lake last week.
Family and friends tell WAVY.com the victim knew both of the suspects.
Donta Williams, 22, was last seen late in the evening on January 20, just off Towne Point Road in Portsmouth. On March 9, an employee at the Department of Defense Suffolk Complex noticed a body in Matthews Lake, which is behind the building. On Wednesday, Suffolk police announced a medical examiner had identified the body as Williams.
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The medical examiner ruled Williams’ death a homicide. Suffolk police have not said how Williams died.
Kyle Lamar Purvis, 21, of Portsmouth, was arrested Tuesday night and Tremayne Laron Johnson, 25, of Suffolk, was arrested Wednesday afternoon, according to Suffolk police spokeswoman Diana Klink. Both suspects were also charged with shoot, stab, cut, or wound and conspiracy to commit a felony.
“Why? Why a person like Donta?” asked Spencer Riddick, Williams’ pastor at New Abundant Life Christian Center in Norfolk. “I would love to know why. I can’t figure it out.”
In previous reports, WAVY.com had traced Williams’ last steps before he disappeared. The 22-year-old had been at a church event the evening of January 20. According to friends with him that night, the church van dropped him off at his home off Towne Point Road. But he never went inside.
Williams’ fiancee, Terri Douglas, talked to him on the phone after he was dropped off and said he had been chatting with a friend in the apartment complex. No one knew what happened to Williams after he left his friend.
Pastor Riddick, Douglas and other family members said Williams knew both suspects. In fact, Douglas said Williams was friends with Purvis. Family and friends said they had reached out to Purvis and Johnson because they heard the two had seen the missing man the night he disappeared.
Pastor Riddick said he and Williams’ brother went to talk with Purvis and Johnson in the days after Williams disappeared. They wanted to know where they had seen Williams so they could organize search parties.
Douglas, who knows the suspects, said she also reached out to Purvis multiple times. “I was just asking him, ‘ok, do you know what direction he went in? Did he go right or did he go left?’” she said.
Riddick said Williams had a big impact on his church community. He said Williams wanted to be a pastor in the future. His brother, Leon Williams, said he cared deeply for the people in his life.
“He just loved everybody,” Leon Williams said.
Johnson is being held at Western Tidewater Regional Jail and Purvis is in custody at Hampton Roads Regional Jail.
