WILMINGTON — The case is closed in the death of 56-year-old Yolanda Bentley, who was killed in 2018 at Hanover Landing Apartment Complex.
According to a release from the district attorney’s office, Jonathan Dwight Southers will serve 11.8 years after taking an Alford plea for voluntary manslaughter. The 56-year-old was sentenced in New Hanover County Superior Court Wednesday.
An Alford plea means a defendant does not admit guilt rather consents to being punished as if he were guilty, in order to avoid a trial.
The crime took place in the early morning of April 12, 2018. Southers stabbed 56-year-old Bentley in the chest and fled on his bicycle. Bentley perished at the scene.
A female who was in a relationship with Southers informed law enforcement he had been drinking with a friend and the woman in her apartment the evening before the incident. A fight ensued between Southers and the woman over her friendship with Bentley. It ended with Southers pushing the woman down and taking away her phone when she tried to call Bentley.
“The woman contacted her daughter who arrived and escorted the defendant out of the apartment,” the press release noted. “He left on his bike, only to come back later.”
According to neighbors, another heated argument ensued outside of the woman’s apartment after 2 a.m. where Bentley was found dead with a stab wound. A resident reported to officers she saw a man leave the apartment complex on a bicycle as another woman called for someone to dial 911.
Phone records indicate Southers was in the vicinity at the time of the crime, the release detailed. Southers told detectives, upon being interviewed, he left the apartment before anyone was killed and was on the way to Myrtle Beach. Yet, he did not indicate transportation or specifics to verify the alibi.
He also said his phone broke and he disposed of it. Yet, his phone records revealed he remained in Wilmington days after the murder.
Investigators believe Bentley and Southers confronted each other before the encounter escalated to violence. “A wooden chair leg was found near her body, which appeared to have come from a chair in Bentley’s apartment,” the release indicated.
He was booked into the New Hanover County Detention Center, where his recorded phone conversations detail instructions he gave to another woman to throw his phone in the Cape Fear River.
She confirmed with officers she did toss it and said Southers “was acting strangely shortly after the murder and told her that he had done something to a woman and needed to turn himself in.”
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