Crime

Macon man charged with murder in girlfriend’s death was accused of stalking in 2019

Anthony Ray Walker, accused of murder in the Saturday slaying of his girlfriend who was found dead inside a south Bibb County home, was jailed a year and a half ago for allegedly stalking another woman he had dated, according to court records.

In the hours after the body of 40-year-old Brenda Settles was discovered, Walker, 53, was arrested and charged in her death.

Bibb sheriff’s officials said Walker reported finding Settles dead at a house on Andrea Drive, just off Ga. 247 below Allen Road.

Walker, according to an address listed in a jail file, lives nearby in a house overlooking the highway at the end of the street where Settles’ body was discovered.

Details about what may have led to Settles’ death on Jan. 2 have not been divulged.

Sheriff’s deputies that day were called to a house in the 6000 block of Andrea Drive shortly before 5 p.m.

Settles’ cause of death was not immediately known.

Bibb Coroner Leon Jones said Monday morning that an autopsy had not been completed.

Sheriff’s officials said in a Sunday statement announcing Walker’s arrest that he was interviewed by investigators after Settles’ body was found and that “after his interview” he was charged with murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

He was being held at the Bibb jail.

In August 2019, Walker was jailed on an aggravated stalking charge after a woman who described him as a former boyfriend obtained a temporary protective order against him, which he allegedly violated.

The woman in that case, which is yet to be resolved, told the authorities that Walker, in July 2019, had been repairing a fence at her place when she repeatedly asked him to leave.

Walker, the woman wrote in her petition for the protective order, then “went into a rage” and began throwing things in her kitchen and struck her in the head “multiple times.”

Walker served about year and a half in a Florida prison for convictions that included aggravated assault with a weapon and selling cocaine. He was released in September 2015.

Joe Kovac Jr.
The Telegraph
Joe Kovac Jr. writes about local news and features for The Telegraph, with an eye for human-interest stories. Joe is a Warner Robins native and graduate of Warner Robins High. He joined the Telegraph in 1991 after graduating from the University of Georgia. As a Pulliam Fellowship recipient in 1991, Joe worked for the Indianapolis News. His stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and Atlanta Magazine. He has been a Livingston Award finalist and won numerous Georgia Press Association and Georgia Associated Press awards.
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