A Mount Airy man is being held in the Surry County Jail without privilege of bond on a murder charge filed in the death of another city resident last week.
The case against Daniel Joseph Murphy, 40, who has been listed with an address on Andrews Street, transpired through the results of an autopsy on the body of Bobby Wayne Sizemore. Sizemore, 55, was found dead on a floor inside his home at 338 Durham St. last Thursday afternoon.
He had suffered an apparent head wound, according to previous information from the Mount Airy Police Department. The autopsy on the victim performed a day afterward indicated that the cause of death was intentional in nature.
This led to Murphy being arrested and charged with murder this week, although no degree is specified.
“This individual was a person of interest from the start,” Police Chief Dale Watson said Wednesday regarding Murphy.
“They were acquaintances,” Watson added, although it is not known what led up the slaying. “We don’t have a motive yet,” which investigators hope to uncover as the case proceeds.
It is not known what type of weapon might have been used in the crime, the chief said.
In May of 2022, Murphy was charged with assault, inflicting serious injury, for allegedly striking another man in the head with a closed fist, according to previous reports.
Police responded just before 2 p.m. last Thursday to the home of Sizemore, who is believed to have lived alone, after a report of his body being discovered inside.
Neighbors said that a woman had run from the house screaming hysterically over the situation.
There was some belief in the neighborhood that a homeless man who had a tent encampment in a forested area behind Sizemore’s home and visited it frequently was a possible suspect in the death.
This information was relayed to police, who visited the site where the man had been camping, but he was not there and had not been seen in the immediate aftermath of the slaying.
But Chief Watson disclosed that the homeless person was not the one implicated in the alleged murder.
“That’s not him,” he said.
Murphy is scheduled for an initial appearance in Surry District Court next Monday.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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