Hearing on murder set for Wednesday

The Lawrence County prosecutor will not be seeking the death penalty in the case of a grandson accused of murdering his grandfather in Ironton.

Kace Deleon Pleasant was indicted on Tuesday during a special grand jury hearing in the Oct. 26 death of his grandfather, 73-year-old Harold “Tim” Pleasant, at their shared residence at 1217 S. Ninth St., Ironton.

“This case doesn’t have the aggravating circumstance that a death penalty case requires,” Prosecutor Brigham Anderson. An aggravating circumstance that would lead to a death penalty case would be if someone is murdered during the commission of a felony crime like a robbery, if two or more people are killed at the same time, the murder of police officer or a child under 13. “We don’t have any of those happening in this crime.”

According to an indictment, the charges against Kace Pleasant are aggravated murder with a firearm specification, saying that “he possessed a firearm or used it to facilitate the crime;” murder with a same firearm specification; fifth-degree felony abuse of corpse, third-degree felony tampering with evidence; third-degree felony failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer; and fourth-degree felony theft of motor vehicle, specifically the elder Pleasant’s Corvette.

Anderson has received a copy of the autopsy and wouldn’t speak to much of what the document contained.

He did say that the cause of death was three gunshots to the head.

As to a motive for the murder, Anderson said he couldn’t speak about that yet.

Kace Pleasant is being held on a $1 million bond in the Lawrence County Jail.

Normally, grand jury indictments are handed down at the end of the month.

Because of the nature of this case, Anderson called a special session of the grand jury.

“This is a major case and we felt there is sufficient evidence to present to the grand jury,” he said, adding that detectives are still going through evidence. “And we have 90 days to take a case to court after someone is charged. We felt like we needed to get the ball rolling.”

Anderson said the case would likely go to trial in January unless the attorney for Kace Pleasant makes a motion to waive the right to a speedy trial.

“They may very well do that,” Anderson said. “There is a vast amount of evidence to go through.”

Kace Pleasant will have his first hearing on Wednesday in the Lawrence County Common Pleas Court of Christen Finley.

The case began early on the morning of Oct. 26 when a sanitation crew picking up trash encountered a man who they said had attempted to discard several “suspicious” bags in their garbage truck.

The crew called the Ironton Police Department and, when officers arrived, they found the bags contained bloody clothing. The officer called in the detectives to find out where the clothes came from and who put the clothes in the bag.

A short time later, they confirmed that the bloody bags, and the male who was trying to dispose of them, had come from a red house located at 1217 S. Ninth St.

As officers were trying to do a well-being check on any residents of the house and get a search warrant for the residence, they said a man, later identified as Kace Pleasant, came out of the house, got into a vehicle and left the scene. He was arrested on a charge of fleeing and eluding by the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office in Lucasville.

Once the IPD officers got a search warrant of the house and grounds, and they said what appeared to be a dead body wrapped in a rug was found under the back deck of the house.

It was later confirmed to be the body of Harold “Tim” Pleasant.

If anyone has information regarding this case, they can contact the IPD detectives at 740-532-5606.