CHIPLEY — Two Alabama men have been indicted in the April 19 slaying of retired Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission game warden James William Shores.
The indictment was handed down Monday by a Washington County grand jury.
Grand jurors found probable cause that Zachary Taylor Wood, 23, and Dillon Scott Rafsky, 21, both of Geneva, committed first-degree murder, burglary while armed and robbery while armed.
A panel of senior prosecutors with the State Attorney’s Office will meet within the next few months to review the case and determine whether it meets the statutory requirements to pursue the death penalty.
Shores, 66, of 2754 Dauphin Road, was found at his family’s 2842 Johnson Road homestead after the Alabama Bureau of Investigation notified the Washington County Sheriff’s Office that a vehicle connected to the April 19 shooting of an Alabama state trooper was registered to Shores. The trooper in that case, Marcel Phillips, was treated and released from a Dothan, Ala., hospital for injuries obtained during a gunfight that took place when he stopped the suspects for speeding.
Officers discovered Shores’ body while performing a welfare check of his property.
Investigators said Wood and Rafsky were “out mudding” in a Jeep stolen from Woods’ girlfriend when they bogged down near Shores’ home. The suspects allegedly ransacked the house in what Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock referred to as a “crime of opportunity” and were trying to free the Jeep when Shores arrived and told them to get off the property.
The two men then followed Shores to the back of the house, where they beat him with a garden hoe, bound his hands and feet, and left him face down in the grass, authorities report. After attempting and failing to light the still-living Shores on fire, the men allegedly killed him with a shotgun blast to the back of the head before stealing his 2011 Toyota Camry.