Thomas Kevin Blewett, the 18-year-old Berryville man who is charged with first-degree in the death of 19-year-old Alexzander Drake Bernhardt of Green Forest, entered a plea of not guilty on Monday, Aug. 4, in Carroll County Circuit Court.
Accompanied by attorneys W.H. Taylor and Ryan Jewell, Blewett appeared before Circuit Judge Scott Jackson in the Carroll County Eastern District Courthouse in Berryville. Blewett was handcuffed and shackled at the ankles. He also wore a bulletproof vest, and multiple sheriff’s deputies were present in the courtroom.
While inmates from the Carroll County Detention Center were seated together in the courtroom’s jury box, Blewett was led in separately from a side entrance to the courtroom. His case was the first one called on a lengthy docket.
After accepting Blewtt’s plea, Jackson scheduled his next court appearance for Monday, Sept. 22, in the same courtroom.
Blewett is being held at the Carroll County Detention Center in Berryville on a $1 million bond. He was arrested by the Arkansas State Police on Friday, July 18, nine days after Bernhardt’s death.
Medical and law enforcement personnel responded to a report of a male lying in the middle of County Road 435 north of Oak Grove at 8:37 p.m. on Wednesday, July 9. Bernhardt was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Arkansas State Police led the investigation into Bernhardt’s death at the request of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, according to an affidavit seeking an arrest warrant that was written by ASP Special Agent Jana Cordes.
In the affidavit, Cordes writes that Blewett shot Bernhardt in the forehead with a 9-millimeter pistol, then removed Bernhardt’s body from the 2016 Kia Soul where he had been shot, abandoned Bernhardt’s body and attempted to clean the vehicle before driving it to a hidden location.
Cordes’ affidavit says witnesses were interviewed at the scene and later at the sheriff’s office in Berryville.
According to the affidavit, a deputy sheriff was informed by a witness that the Life 360 application showed that Zander Bodean Slay and a minor whose name was redacted from a copy of the affidavit provided to the Times-Echo had checked into an address off of Arkansas Highway 311.
Deputies and ASP troopers made contact with Slay and the minor and transported them to the sheriff’s office. The minor’s mother was transported by personal vehicle to join her child for the interview.
Deputies joined in a search for the white 2016 Kia Soul based on a tip that was called into Carroll County dispatchers by Green Forest police officer Tommy Blewett, the father of Thomas K. Blewett, the affidavit says.
Tommy Blewett had told dispatchers that the car was in a wooded area near the Boyd Church on Carroll County Road 436 in rural Oak Grove, according to the affidavit. A CCSO detective found the vehicle and it was secured by the state police, the affidavit says. A deputy observed “an extensive amount” of blood in the back passenger compartment behind the driver’s seat, the affidavit says.
Initial interviews with both Slay and the minor witness disclosed that Thomas K. Blewett was in the vehicle with Bernhardt but failed to disclose that Blewett was holding the firearm when Bernhardt was shot, the affidavit says.
Within approximately 30 minutes after leaving the sheriff’s office, Cordes’ affidavit says, both Slay and the minor witness returned and voluntarily gave secondary statements.
The minor witness was driving the vehicle with Slay in the front passenger seat, Blewett in the rear passenger’s seat and Bernhardt in the passenger’s seat directly behind the driver, the affidavit says.
Slay reported that he heard a gunshot, turned to the back seat and saw Blewett holding a tan pistol in his right hand, according to the affidavit. The minor witness said that when Slay discovered that Bernhardt had been shot, Slay immediately demanded to be let out of the vehicle, the affidavit says. The minor said that Slay was let out of the vehicle on Arkansas Highway 21 North, according to the affidavit. The driver continued to drive a short distance and turned onto County Road 435, the affidavit says. A short distance down County Road 435, the driver stopped the vehicle and Blewett removed Bernhardt’s body from the vehicle, the affidavit says.
Both witnesses reported that Blewett said: “I’m gonna go to prison for life,” immediately after the shooting, according to the affidavit.
The minor witness said that after Blewett removed Bernhardt’s body, he attempted to clean up the vehicle using cleaning wipes that the driver kept in the vehicle, the affidavit says. The driver and Blewett then drove back onto the highway and picked up Slay, according to the affidavit.
