Man charged in teen's slaying Council Grove blah blah blah

Boys had been at site of old missile silo.

Related stories on missile silo and basketball game.

Pages 12-A, 1-D

By STEVE SWARTZ

The Capital-Journal

EMPORIA --- A rural Lyon County man who lives in a house at the site of an abandoned missile silo was arrested Friday on a warrant charging him with the shooting death of a Council Grove teenager.

Late Friday, Robert Keith Cordray, 49, was being held in the Lyon County Jail on $250,000 bond, said Special Agent Scott Teeselink, of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Cordray was arrested without incident at 3:30 p.m. at his work place in Emporia on a warrant alleging first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery, Teeselink said.

He is accused of killing Scott Richard Brown, a 17-year-old athlete and honor student at Council Grove High School, late Wednesday near the old missile silo, a site that for years has been frequented by area teens. The property is about five miles east of Council Grove in northwest Lyon County.

Brown suffered a gunshot wound to the head as he sat in a car driven by his friend, Jeremy Bowman, 17. Also in the car was Brent Simonis, 16. All of the boys are from Council Grove.

Teeselink said Bowman and Simonis suffered minor injuries when struck by either glass or bullet fragments.

According to the KBI, the shooting occurred after the boys had returned to the site at about 8 p.m. following an encounter with a person in the area earlier in the evening. The KBI didn't say what led to the shooting.

Council Grove resident Ray Turner, who was returning home at about 8:20 p.m. from his job as a disc jockey at Topeka's Twister 106.9 radio, encountered the boys on US-56 highway, just into Morris County. The boys' car had a flat tire and was parked on the westbound side of the road.

Turner, who was traveling with his sister, said one of the boys motioned for him to pull over.

The boy was "frantic, panic stricken," Turner said.

The teen, who was covered in blood, told Turner they had been shot. When he asked the teens if they had guns, they replied they didn't.

When Turner looked in the car, he said he saw a boy sitting upright in the front passenger seat, his head back. The boy had suffered a head wound and was dead, Turner said. There were bullet holes in the windshield and in the back quarter panel on the passenger side, he said.

The boys told Turner someone had been shooting at their car as they drove away from the silo property at speeds approaching 100 mph. Turner said they told him they had been "nosing around" at the silo when someone started shooting at them.

Turner said he flagged down the next car to pass the scene, which was a Morris County sheriff's deputy on patrol.

Cordray is expected to make his first court appearance early next week.

Nutgraph cjcjc cjcjcjxjxjxj xjxjx

Xjxjxjxj Xjxjxjxj Xjxjxjxj Xjxjxjxj xjxjx Xjxjxjxj Xjxjxjxj xjxjx

Page X-X

Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.