Nevada man is second person charged in 2018 kidnapping of Danville resident later found shot to death

Federal authorities have charged a second man within the kidnapping of a Danville resident who was discovered shot to dying in 2018. Courtroom information present that investigators imagine extra individuals have been concerned within the alleged plot.

Aron Lee Ethridge, 41, of Henderson, Nevada, was charged by a Vermont grand jury on Thursday for conspiring with a Colorado man to kidnap Gregory Davis, 49, someday between October 2017 and January 2018.

Ethridge’s co-defendant, Jerry Banks, 34, was additionally indicted on Thursday for kidnapping Davis from his home in Danville on Jan. 6, 2018 — a day earlier than Davis’ physique was present in a snowbank a number of miles from the residence. Authorities stated Davis had been handcuffed and shot within the head and torso.

Police allege that Banks took Davis away whereas posing as a U.S. Marshal who arrested him on racketeering costs. The Marshals Service later stated the company didn’t arrest Davis nor did it have any energetic arrest warrants for him.

Ethridge’s charging doc alleges that his conspiracy with Banks came about in Vermont and different locations, whereas Banks was touring throughout state traces and the lads “used a facility or instrumentality of interstate commerce.” This phrase refers to technique of communication from one state to a different, corresponding to automobiles, cellphones and the web.

The doc lays out the next narrative: Someday round Jan. 5, 2018, Banks purchased a pay as you go cellphone at a Walmart retailer in Clearfield, Pennsylvania.

Round Jan. 6, 2018, he used the cellphone to name 911 to report a “fictitious capturing” and knocked on Davis’ door dressed as a U.S. Marshal, claiming to have an arrest warrant for Davis.

And round Jan. 7, 2018, Banks known as Ethridge to “inform him that Davis had been efficiently kidnapped and murdered.”

In an announcement to assist Banks’ cost, an FBI particular agent stated he believes Banks “was paid to kidnap and homicide” Davis as a result of police couldn’t discover a private connection between the 2 males.

The assertion added that Banks put down $4,500 in money for an SUV and added a minimum of $15,000 in money to his debit card between October 2017 and the primary half of 2018, across the time he’d been making lower than $500 every week working for a neighborhood sheriff.

The FBI didn’t say who police imagine paid Banks or masterminded the alleged kidnapping and homicide plot. Ethridge’s charging doc additionally states that he conspired with Banks and “others identified and unknown” to authorities. 

The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Vermont declined to remark when reached on Tuesday about Ethridge’s indictment.

Ethridge was booked on the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans on Tuesday, in keeping with the Vermont Division of Corrections’ on-line information. He’s scheduled to seem on the federal courthouse in Burlington on Wednesday.

Banks was arrested in Wyoming on April 6. A federal choose within the space has ordered that he be transported to Vermont to face the kidnapping cost. It’s unclear when he’ll make his first court docket look right here.