‘The break that we needed’: How Conway police think they solved a four-year old cold case
Conway police were stymied trying to track down Jahili Drayton’s killer in spring 2016. Every lead they had dried up. They went nowhere.
New detectives joined the department, new technologies became available and still no arrests. That was until a few weeks ago when detectives hoped they had the lead four years in the making. Detectives spent the last few weeks tracking down the source of the new evidence in Drayton’s death.
“We were thinking maybe this will be one of those again where maybe someone says ‘I didn’t say that’ or we can’t ever find them,” Chief Dale Long said on Friday. “But, we were able to track down the source of the information.
“It was like finally, this is the break that we needed.”
Nearly 1,400 days after Drayton was shot and found in a 5th Avenue home, police announced Antonio Xavier Mccray as the suspected killer.
Mccray is a familiar face to Conway police as the agency charged him in connection to a string of robberies in November. He was still in J. Reuben Long Detention Center when police served him with murder warrants.
“We didn’t have to go hunt him,” Long said with a wide grin plastered across his face.
The robbery cases were not linked to the murder, nor did his arrest lead police further in the homicide investigation, the chief said.
Long declined to discuss the suspected motive behind the murder.
It was pleas from the family for new information and new witnesses that helped lead police to an arrest, Long said. He praised the Drayton’s family’s work to keep the case in people’s minds.
“I promise you, they were the first people to know,” Long said of Mccray’s arrest. “They never gave up hope.”
Drayton’s friends and family could not be reached in time for this report. Nobody answered the door at 5th Avenue house that served as the scene of the murder.
Chief Long was Detective Long when Drayton died and admitted it was frustrating when the case went cold. The sense of urgency grows with murder cases because of the threat to the community and the desire to bring the victim’s family closure, Long said.
“As time passes and as things just seem to slow down and there are no leads and no information, it’s extremely frustrating,” Long said. “We want so much to get that person off the street.
“And to help that family to know what happened.”
