MACON, Ga. — Macon's first homicide of 2021 may not be a homicide after all. The man initially charged with murdering Brenda Settles apparently will not be prosecuted on murder charges.
Anthony Walker spent 251 days in the Bibb County jail on a murder charge, but on Friday, the district attorney's office said they're dropping the charge.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Greg Winters dismissed the charge, claiming lack of "prosecutorial merit."
But why? The district attorney's office says it's because of the conclusion the GBI Medical Examiner's Office made in the autopsy and toxicology reports.
On the evening of January 2, Walker called 911, saying he found 40-year-old Brenda Settles dead in a home on Andrea Drive. The Bibb County Sheriff's Office investigated the death as a homicide.
Incident reports show that the couple had a history of domestic violence. Investigators have not released Settle's cause of death for months until now.
The GBI Medical Examiner's report on Brenda Settle's autopsy lists at least three pages of injuries including; scrapes, bruises and bleeding to her head, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, hands and legs.
The examiner reported Settles clearly suffered from blunt force trauma, but the report says none of those injuries appeared to be fatal.
It says Settles also had methamphetamine in her system. The GBI documented 0.70 mg/L (+/-0.19 mg/L) of methamphetamine in her system.
The GBI concluded her cause of death was a meth overdose combined with generalized blunt force trauma.
The manner of death, or how she died, was undetermined.
District Attorney Anita Reynolds Howard said on Friday that's why her office dropped the murder charge against Walker.
"The evidence will not support a conviction of murder," said Howard in a Friday news conference.
Brenda's parents, Linda and Gerald Settles, say they still believe she was murdered.
"Drugs did not cause her to look like she did," said Linda.
They described the injuries to her body and how they chose to close her casket.
"The left side of her face and her eye was caved in. They tried to fix it the best they could, but we closed it because we didn't want the family to see what we were looking at," said Gerald Settles.
Walker's attorney, Travis Griffin, says Walker has always denied killing her.
"Mr. Walker has always maintained that he found her in the shower, started giving her CPR. He's the one that called 911. He was on the phone with 911 until EMS arrived," said Griffin.
Investigator Todd Durbin, who worked the homicide investigation, says the Bibb County Sheriff's Office confirmed Walker's account of Settles just slipping in the shower was false.
"That investigator told us when he seen Brenda and stood there and locked up Anthony Walker and put the cuffs on him... he said the only way that woman could have slipped in the shower was -- and got the signs on her that she had -- she would have had to fell three stories," said Linda.
Although that murder charge was dropped, Anthony Walker remains in the Bibb County Jail charged with possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. His bond is set at $181,700.
Sheriff David Davis told 13WMAZ he is confident in his investigators and that they were ready to go to trial with the murder case. Davis says he believed it would have ended in a conviction.
However, Davis added that the sheriff's office works on "probable cause" and the district attorney's office standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt."
As we reported earlier this year, Settles and Walker had a history of domestic abuse.
According to a Bibb County incident report from Sept 2020, Settles told deputies that Walker beat her. She had bruises on her arms and chest, and a mark above her right eye.
The report says he was not arrested at that time for assault because deputies were trying to get a battery warrant.
Sheriff David Davis says in Nov 2020, Walker was charged with criminal trespass and battery. In Oct 2019, Davis says Walker was charged with aggravated assault.
Statement from District Attorney Anita Reynolds Howard:
“This Office’s top priority is to seek justice and to protect our community. After receiving the State Medical Examiner’s report, our Office continued to conduct a full investigation into the untimely death of Ms. Settles. We have engaged in conversations with the Medical Examiner in order to fully understand his ruling. After exhausting every avenue we have in this investigation, it has been determined that the stated manner and cause of death cannot legally support a charge of murder. Without the needed evidence to support the murder charge against Mr. Walker, Senior ADA Greg Winters formally dismissed this charge.”
13WMAZ reached out to Walker's family for comment. They declined to comment.
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