ST. JOSEPH – Niles resident John Benton Lewis will stand trial in January on murder and marijuana charges after a preliminary hearing Monday in Berrien County Trial Court. Lewis is accused in the Aug. 13 slaying of his wife, Carla Lewis.
Witnesses testifying Monday before Trial Judge Donna Howard included a man who worked for Lewis, the woman Lewis was having an affair with, police officers who investigated the case and people who said that John Lewis had told his wife about his affair and that Carla Lewis was planning to leave her husband.
Justin Hicks testified that he was doing some renovations on buildings Lewis was renting in the Belle Plaza shopping center. Hicks said Lewis contacted him the day of the murder and asked him to pick up a bag of ammunition from one of the buildings.
Hicks said Lewis had never asked him to do something like pick up a container of ammunition for him before, calling it “out of the norm”. He heard a few hours later that Lewis’ wife had been shot and killed at their home and then contacted police.
“It made no sense that he wanted me to get rid of the ammunition,” Hicks said.
April King also testified, saying that she had a longterm relationship with Lewis where they would “hang out” together, smoke marijuana and have sexual relations. She said she was at the Lewis home the afternoon of the murder and left shortly after Lewis got a text indicating his wife was coming home.
King said Lewis asked her periodically whether she would leave her boyfriend and what she would do if he became a “widow”.
Judge Howard ruled there was enough evidence to bind Lewis over for trial on both an open murder charge and a manufacturing of marijuana charge. The trial has been scheduled to start Jan. 9 and run through Jan. 19 in St. Joseph.
As reported earlier, court documents showed that Lewis had made plans to kill his wife in the past. The police report noted that King told police detectives that she had been having an affair with Lewis and that he told her previously about how he planned to kill his wife by drugging her with Xanax and other drugs.
The report gave more details about what police found Aug. 13 when they responded to a southern Niles Township home as well as the investigation afterwards. Police arrived at the Lawndale Avenue home around 6 p.m. Aug. 13 and found the body of Carla Lewis in the basement of the home.
Police reported that Carla Lewis was discovered in a crouched position with her head resting on a planter containing a marijuana plant. John Lewis maintained a marijuana growing operation in the home. She had a gunshot wound to her head. John Lewis was laying nearby uninjured and “had made no attempt to provide care/first aid to his wife.”
An autopsy conducted a few days later found that Carla Lewis had multiple gunshot wounds. John Lewis was originally arrested on a charge of violating medical marijuana rules and then for first-degree premeditated murder.
Police described John Lewis as making inconsistent statements in interviews. He initially said that two black males broke into the home, killed his wife and stole her vehicle. The vehicle was found abandoned a few days later in a Howard Township cornfield.
Police reported that they had interviewed neighbors and none of them had seen the two black males John Lewis said had broken into the home and shot his wife.
Carla Lewis’ daughter told police that her mother had showed her surveillance cameras recently installed in their home, cameras which police found were disconnected the day of the murder.
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