FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. - Sixteen years after the pieces of a man's badly burned body were recovered near Oak Hill, his alleged killer was arraigned Thursday in Fayette Circuit Court.
Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler, who as a detective began the investigation into Jonathan Wesley Skaggs' death in 1999, was in the courtroom when a judge handed Alfred Clinton Toney, 44, a copy of the murder indictment against him.
Skaggs' badly burned body was recovered in pieces near Oak Hill, beginning on Aug. 20, 1999. His mother had reported her 24-year-old son missing.
In previous interviews, Toney has maintained he had nothing to do with Skaggs' murder, and expressed sympathy for the Skaggs family. Several times Thursday, he tried to turn in his seat and face members of the Skaggs' family. An officer who had Toney in custody kept telling him to face the front of the courtroom.
Fayette Circuit Judge John Hatcher appointed Public Defender Scott Stanton to represent Toney. On Toney's behalf, Stanton told the judge that Toney pleaded not guilty.
As he was led out of the courtroom, Toney mouthed the words, "I'm so sorry" to Skaggs' family members, including his father, Gary Skaggs, and several others.
Kessler and Fayette County Prosecuting Attorney Larry E. Harrah II met with the Skaggs family behind closed doors. Both men acknowledged how pleased they were that the family may come closer to finding out what happened to their son.
After the arraignment, Harrah told reporters that the case was never closed. He also said it was a credit to the "resiliency of Steve Kessler" and the toughness of the Skaggs family that the case could move forward.
In an answer to reporters' questions, Harrah said he had no new evidence or witnesses. Harrah took office in January, but he said he was always aware of the case.
"I bring a different way of looking at the case," the prosecutor said.
In 1999, Toney was living in Dempsey Branch, a tiny community outside Oak Hill. He hosted a party on Aug. 15, 1999, the last day Skaggs was seen alive.
A group of people found Skaggs intoxicated and in the middle of the road. They called police and an ambulance. (The Skaggs family filed a wrongful death suit against county officials after they learned a deputy drove Jonathan Skaggs to Toney's party. According to the suit, Skaggs told the deputy he would be in trouble if he came home so drunk.)
In a previous interview, Toney said many people threw items into a growing fire in his fire pit at the party. He also said trash, tires and wood were in the fire, and some members of his family asked him to clean up around the family home, so there was furniture in the fire pit, too. The fire burned for days.
Deputies and other experts eventually sifted through the fire debris, they used a wire screen. Eventually, they took several hundred pounds of debris, including bone fragments, to the state Medical Examiner's office. An expert from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. was also called in to help identify remains.
Since Skaggs' death, Toney has been in and out of court. For the last few years, he has been an inmate at the St. Marys Correctional Center, serving time for credit card fraud.
He was set to be arraigned Friday along with others indicted by the Fayette County grand jury. But Fayette Circuit Judge Hatcher heard Toney's case separately Thursday.
They agreed that Toney will be returned to St. Marys for now, but they also agreed they will work out housing for him so that he can work with his lawyer.
The judge set Nov. 2 as the trial date.