Adair County Teen Facing Murder Charge In Connection With Beating Death

NewsOn6.com & Lacie Lowry, News On 6

STILWELL, Oklahoma -- An 18-year-old Stilwell teen is in the Adair County jail following his arrest Friday morning in connection with the carjacking and beating death of a 56-year old man.

According to Jessica Brown with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, sheriff's deputies were dispatched Thursday evening to the Liberty Baptist Church near Stilwell on a report of a body found in front of the church. 

Brown says 56-year-old Edgar L. Brown was taken to a Stilwell hospital where he was pronounced dead. The body was then taken to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Tulsa to determine how he was killed.

Brown says the victim's SUV, a 2008 Ford Sport-Trac had also been stolen in what appeared to be a carjacking. 

Deputy Johnny Sanders was working the murder investigation and didn't realize the victim was his friend, until he heard the name.

"Wouldn't think it would have been him. He'd help anybody. But evidently, today in the world now, it doesn't pay to help people," Sanders said.

Later Thursday night, sheriff's deputies found Brown's SUV burning in the Piney area, which is northwest of Stilwell in Adair County. 

With assistance from the OSBI, sheriff's deputies located and arrested Zachary Wade in the eastern side of Adair County at 8:30 a.m. Friday. 

Wade was taken to the Adair County jail where he was booked on a complaint of first degree murder.

Deputy Sanders hopes his friend of more than forty years is remembered for the way he lived, not how he died.

"He helped everybody, that's how I would remember him and I know that's how a lot of people will remember him," he said.