FAYETTEVILLE -- Josh Melton was found innocent of second-degree murder by a Washington County Circuit Court jury Thursday morning.
Melton, 34, also was acquitted of the lesser included charge of manslaughter in the Aug. 28, 2013, death of Michael Gover.
Gover, 30, of West Fork had an enlarged heart and a blood alcohol content of 0.20 when the men got into a fight inside Melton's Fayetteville duplex after a night of softball games and heavy drinking. Melton found Gover dead on the living-room floor the next morning. Melton didn't testify during the trial.
Members of Gover's family left the courtroom in tears, then several gathered on the courthouse steps, hugging and comforting one another. They didn't comment on the verdict.
Friends had earlier described Gover as a fun-loving guy who liked to fish and hang out with friends. Gover worked as a service manager at Ozark Mountain Air, a heating and air-conditioning company in Fayetteville. He was a 2001 graduate of West Fork High School, unmarried and had no children.
Melton and his family waited quietly in the courtroom until the Gover family had gone. Drew Ledbetter, Melton's attorney, said Melton didn't want to comment immediately after the trial and was going somewhere to "decompress" after the ordeal, which included an earlier mistrial.
Melton, a Batesville native, played for the Razorbacks from 1999 to 2002. He was the starting center as a red-shirt freshman, before being benched two games into his junior year. A preseason knee injury kept Melton off the field for most of the 2002 season.
Melton received a bachelor's degree in kinesiology in 2001 and a master's degree in recreation and sport management in 2003, according to university records. He was on the Southeastern Conference's Academic Honor Roll multiple times. He worked as parks and recreation supervisor for Miami, Okla., for about a year and a half, before taking a job in Northwest Arkansas as a pharmaceutical salesman with Pfizer.
"Josh has had his life on pause for 18 months," Ledbetter said. "He couldn't go into any restaurant or convenience store for the last 18 months without being recognized. He lost his job. He's going to be rebuilding his life."
Dr. Daniel Dye, who did an autopsy on Gover at the state Crime Laboratory, told jurors Tuesday that Gover's physical injuries weren't sufficient to cause his death, in and of themselves. But, the beating combined with Gover's enlarged heart and blood alcohol level pushed him over the edge. Gover was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 312 pounds. Dye told jurors Gover's heart condition, had he lived that night, would have killed him at some point, but he could not say when.
"The key to the verdict was the medical testimony, no doubt about it. Dr. Dye told me in May his heart was a ticking time bomb," Ledbetter said after the verdicts were read. "On this particular night the circumstances aligned and caused a heart attack. The injuries to his face didn't cause it."
Matt Durrett, chief deputy prosecutor, said he knew causation was going to be an issue, but he wanted a jury to look at the evidence and make a decision.
"We knew it was a possibility; it was a difficult case," Durrett said. "We knew some people were going to look at the fact he had an enlarged heart and have a hard time finding Mr. Melton responsible."
Melton told police during his interrogation that Gover threw up in the living room, made lewd comments and grabbed Melton's genitalia, so he punched Gover several times in the face.
Ledbetter said Melton couldn't remember many of the events that occurred on the night of Aug. 28, but police persuaded him during an eight-hour interrogation to agree to their assertion of what happened.
"The police, in my opinion, were trying to build a conviction on murder two rather than trying to find out what happened at Josh's house," said Ledbetter, a former Benton County prosecutor. Prosecutors and police said they believed, based on blood spatter on the walls of the room and the lack of blood under Gover's body, Melton beat Gover as he lay on the floor with a bag containing about 12 pounds of computer equipment. There was blood under, inside and on top of the bag.
Durrett said police did a good job despite the outcome.
"The Fayetteville Police Department did a fabulous job with this one despite what the defense contended," Durrett said.
Metro on 12/05/2014