Eddie O’Neal Ward, 45, is scheduled for a hearing before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles this Thursday, May 26.
Ward, who is from Hale County, is currently incarcerated in Alabama’s Elmore Correctional Facility on charges of murder.
A Hale County jury convicted Ward in December of 2006 for the murder of Stephen Bradley Arrington, better known as Brad, who was 24 at the time of the crime. Prosecutors said Ward kidnapped, robbed, and ultimately killed Arrington one night in Greensboro.
The murder happened in the late night/early morning hours of April 5, 2003, in the Baptist Hill neighborhood of Greensboro. Police said Ward, then 26, asked Arrington for a ride home that night.
At trial, prosecutors said witnesses saw Ward later that night driving Arrington’s truck at East Ridge Apartments. When someone said he was driving it recklessly, Ward reportedly told them the vehicle’s owner wasn’t worried about it. Police later found the truck crashed outside Newbern near the intersection of Co. Rd. 10 and Ala. Highway 61.
Ward reportedly later told witnesses Arrington had to “take one to the dome” for the cash he had on him.
A custodian at Greensboro Public School, East Campus discovered Arrington’s body the morning of April 5. He had been shot in the head.
Ward turned himself in a few days after the murder, but entered a not guilty plea when arraigned on the murder charge.
The case took three years to prosecute. At the end of it, in January 2007, Ward was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
