Press Release

The Office of State Attorney Glenn Hess announces that on September 8, 2016, Jason Cantrell entered a plea to the charge of Accessory After the Fact to Second Degree Murder.

The Honorable Michael C. Overstreet sentenced Cantrell to 9 years in prison. Mr. Cantrell’s charges stemmed from his role in events that followed the October 19, 2015 murder of Mr. Clifford Lewis by Melissa Kennedy. Assistant State Attorney Bob Sombathy was prepared to prove that a few days after acquiring the handgun from Cantrell, Kennedy shot and killed her boyfriend, Clifford Lewis, in his home.  Evidence showed that Kennedy was upset that Lewis was preparing to evict her out of his house.  After the murder, Jason Cantrell retrieved the handgun from Kennedy, partially disassembled it, and hid it in his storage shed.  Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigators Wade Boan and David Sullivan conducted an investigation which ultimately led to obtaining a search warrant for Cantrell’s storage shed where the handgun was recovered.  Ballistics testing confirmed that the handgun hidden by Cantrell was the same handgun used by Melissa Kennedy to murder Clifford Lewis.

On July 28, 2016, Melissa Kennedy was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the charge of Second Degree Murder with a Firearm.  Kennedy is 43 years old.

Aug. 24, 2016

For Immediate Release

The Office of State Attorney Glenn Hess announced that the First District Court of Appeals upheld the life sentence of a Fountain man convicted of molesting a child for more than three years.

Last October, a jury convicted Raymond Scott Beck as charged of three counts of sexual battery on a child younger than 12 and two counts of sexual battery of a child 12 years old or older and two counts of soliciting a child to engage in an act which would constitute sexual battery. On Nov. 5, Circuit Judge Hentz McClellan sentenced Beck to life in prison.

Beck had appealed Judge McClellan’s decision to allow other victims to testify about Beck’s abuse upon them. However, on Monday, Chief Judge L.Clayton Roberts, Judge T. Kent Wetherell II and Judge Ross L. Bilbrey affirmed Beck’s conviction and sentence without comment.