Authorities arrested a Columbus man accused of murder in a March 2013 homicide after he exchanged gunfire Wednesday afternoon with an officer near Dayton, according to police.
Breyon Bryant, 31, previously of Columbus’ Northeast Side, is currently being held in the Greene County jail, charged with two counts of felonious assault on a police officer. He is also charged in Franklin County Municipal Court in the March 2013 death of 22-year-old Daivena Clay in Columbus.
Clay’s death was initially investigated as suspicious with her autopsy report indicating her death was the result of asphyxiation, according to The Dispatch’s reporting at the time.
Consensual sex act or purposeful killing?
Columbus police’s case file indicated detectives believed Clay’s death was the result of a consensual sex act, according to a October 2013 story in The Dispatch.
Clay had been picked up by Bryant about two hours before she was found on March 5, 2013, according to what her family told The Dispatch at the time.
On the day of Clay’s death, Clay and Bryant, who was 19 at the time, went to Bryant’s mother’s home on the 1100 block of Wildwood Avenue on the Near East Side.
Columbus police allege in court records filed in Franklin County Municipal Court on Wednesday that Bryant and Clay, a mother of four, went into a bedroom at the home and Bryant “strangled … Clay until she stopped moving.”
According to Franklin County court records, Bryant tried to drag Clay’s body into the home’s basement and pour bleach on it. Bryant’s mother, Roshell Tuck, woke up and began to ask why the home smelled like bleach, prompting Bryant to yell at her.
“She ran out of the house to a neighbor’s and called 911,” court records state.
The Dispatch reported that Tuck told 911 dispatchers that Bryant claimed the devil told him to sacrifice his mother.
Clay was found at the top of the basement steps wrapped in a bed sheet with tape over her eyes, according to The Dispatch’s 2013 reporting on the case.
Bryant and his teenaged girlfriend, who was also at the Wildwood Avenue home at the time of Clay’s death, left the scene on March 5, 2013, before talking to police. The Dispatch reported Bryant later declined to talk with investigators until he spoke with a lawyer, saying his mother’s mental health had previously caused him to get into trouble.
Police did not charge Bryant at the time in connection with Clay’s death, according to court records, and Tuck has since died.
The documents filed in Franklin County on Wednesday give little indication about what prompted the change in thinking in the investigation over the previous decade. However, in December, a detective went to Bryant’s home in Fairborn, located northeast of Dayton, to attempt to interview the now 31-year-old and get a DNA sample.
The sample of DNA is currently being tested for comparison to evidence found at the scene, according to records.
A phone call, gunshots and an arrest
On Wednesday, Columbus police received a call from a Fairborn police detective who said Bryant’s wife, who was being interviewed for an unrelated case, said the December visit had prompted an unsavory confession from her husband.
“Breyon Bryant confessed to her that he killed Ms. Clay by strangling her,” court records said.
It is unclear if the unrelated case Bryant’s wife was being interviewed about involves the exchange of gunfire between a Fairborn police sergeant and Bryant.
Fairborn police Sgt. Nathan Penrod told WHIO TV in Dayton that around 5 p.m. Wednesday, Columbus police called their Fairborn counterparts about Bryant, saying he was at an apartment complex on the 400 block of West Funderburg Road.
“He was outside in the parking lot from the residence nearby and when they confronted him, the Fairborn officers confronted him, he opened fire on the officers,” Penrod said.
A Fairborn sergeant returned fire. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the shooting. Neither Bryant nor the sergeant were hurt in the exchange. The sergeant, who has not been identified, is on paid administrative leave.
Bryant appeared in Fairborn Municipal Court Friday morning where his bond was set at $1.5 million. It is unclear when he might have his first appearance in Franklin County Municipal Court.
Source: Bethany Bruner, The Columbus Dispatch. Click here to view original post