VAN BUREN COUNTY (WKZO-AM) — A Van Buren County man who took his case all the way to the State Supreme Court to win a new trial in a 28-year-old murder case has now bargained it away for what he hopes will be a better deal.
Junior Blackston of Bangor has accepted a plea bargain with prosecutors and will enter a guilty plea to second degree murder.
Court papers say in accepting the reduced charge, Blackston has agreed to give information on alleged co-conspirator Guy Simpson, who is scheduled for trial in the cold case murder in June.
Blackston will be resentenced in July. He has been serving a life term.
The two are charged in the drug related shooting death of Charles Miller, whose body was buried in a shallow grave near a marijuana grow operation near Grand Junction in 1988.
The motive was allegedly a bad drug debt.