Car, Change Said to Spur Homicide

A woman was charged with murder Tuesday in the apparent hatchet slaying of an 83-year-old man police say was killed for his car and $510 in quarters.

Shonda Walter, 23, was arrested and charged with murder and theft in the killing of James Sementelli, a World War II veteran who survived Pearl Harbor.

Family members and neighbors hadn’t seen Sementelli, a widower, since last Wednesday. Authorities found Sementelli’s body in his home Monday after another woman reported that on March 25, Walter told her that she had just killed a man.

The woman, Shanee Gaines, said the two went to Sementelli’s home, where she saw the body.

Gaines said Walter told her she killed Sementelli for his car, a 2002 Toyota Camry, and also took a large number of quarters, which turned out to total $510.

Gaines had not been charged with a crime.