GEORGETOWN, Ohio | Documents released on Friday appear to reveal more details than ever about what may have motivated a killer to murder Brittany Stykes on Aug. 28, 2013.
A search warrant affidavit for a property on Hogg Ridge Road in Pendleton County, which police searched on Sept. 22, points to a debt and sending a message, in what may have been a $20,000 contracted murder of “Brit,” for a debt of her “old man.”
According to Brown County Sheriff’s office, Stykes husband, Shane Stykes, passed a polygraph test and was eliminated from the suspect list shortly after the murder.
According to the documents, a female witness told detectives she was with her ex-boyfriend when he allegedly “murdered a female in Brown County, Ohio,” and had killed others in the past.
Using a portable blue light to mimic a police car, the suspect allegedly tricked Stykes into stopping her yellow Jeep Wrangler on U.S. 68, where she was shot, along with her toddler daughter Aubree, after the suspect approached the vehicle.
He may have also taken a “trophy” photo of Stykes after she was murdered, the witness told police.
Stykes died, but her daughter is now thriving, following surgeries, her grandmother Mary Dodson said.
Aubree lives with her father, Shane Stykes
According to the affidavit, the witness allegedly refrained from coming forward with the information until after the suspect had been jailed on drug charges elsewhere.
She also claimed the suspect saw Stykes driving the Jeep at a gas station, after using a GPS device, and recognized it as Shane Stykes’ vehicle; they allegedly followed Brittany Stykes for 20 to 25 minutes.
Stykes had been driving from her in-laws’ home to her parents’ home for her father, David Dodson’s birthday party, relatives said.
Brittany Stykes was a cautious person, said her mother, especially with Aubree in the Jeep with her.
“She would not have stopped for anybody except for a police car or someone she knew,” Mary Dodson said, still patient, although the investigation has stretched for two years.
It has been reported that BCSO investigators confiscated several items on the warrant list, during the Sept. 22 search, including cell phones, GPS devices, weapons, letters, notes and computer equipment.
The suspect’s name is not being released, due to charges not being filed in the Stykes case, and police are looking into other murders the suspect is alleged to have committed.
The alleged witness has not been identified, for her safety.
