The Evansville Police Department has submitted an affidavit of probable cause requesting Earl Bernard Martin Jr. be charged with the murder of Erica Bradfield-Fox.
On Friday, December 22, 2017, officers with the Evansville Police Department were dispatched to 906 Bellemeade Avenue in reference to a possible dead body. Donna Stephens, the mother of Earl Martin Jr., and the owner of the residence, called 911. Stephens told Central Dispatch that there was a trash can in her back yard and she thought there had been a body placed in it.
Earl Martin Jr. was also living at the residence and had been arrested there on December 19, 2017 and charged with murder on an unrelated incident.
Officers went to the residence and secured it. EPD Detective Breivogel spoke to Martin`s juvenile son, “J.M” and J.M. stated that on Saturday, December 16th he was at the residence visiting his father, Earl Martin Jr.. He stated that his father told him that someone had broken into the residence and his father shot at the intruder twice. One bullet struck an interior door and the other bullet struck the intruder in the head. J.M. stated that his father then told him that he put a trash bag over the person`s head and dragged the body into the basement.
Once in the basement, Martin told J.M. that he had gotten some tools from the garage and proceeded to cut up the body. He told J.M. that he put the body into a trash bag and put it in the old trash can in the back yard. Martin told J.M. that he was going to place the trash can out with the regular trash so the body would be taken to the landfill so it would not be found. He also told J.M. that he took the limbs and head and placed them in a separate trash can and put them somewhere else.
