Updated: Man charged with murder of 62-year-old Lexington woman found hidden at home
A man previously arrested after a Lexington woman was found dead in her home has now been charged with her murder, according to Lexington police.
William Parker Brown, 52, was served with a warrant for murder on Monday, police said. He had been in the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center since October 2020.
Brown is accused of killing Ava Creech, 62. Creech had been missing for weeks before she was found dead on Oct. 2, police said. Creech’s body was hidden inside her apartment, and identifying the body took the Fayette County coroner’s office “some time,” police said. The coroner’s office hasn’t publicly revealed the cause of death.
“She was a very loving and caring person and she protected everything and everybody that she cared about,” said Rhonda Hamm, who had known Creech about five years. “Somebody came in and ripped us of a very valuable treasure.”
Creech’s friends said previously that she had been missing since Sept. 11.
Hamm said Creech called one day, and when Hamm answered, she could hear a man and woman yelling. But Creech wasn’t talking to Hamm. Then, the phone hung up, and every time Hamm tried to call her back, the call went to voicemail.
Hamm messaged her and didn’t hear back again, so she got on Facebook and saw that Creech hadn’t been active in a while.
“I had opened up messenger and I saw where she was not active and I thought, ‘well there’s something up here because she’s never not active,’” Hamm said.
That’s when she found out Creech was missing. Hamm described Creech as short and slight in stature but “she would not back down or let anyone run over her, that’s for sure.”
“She was a ball of spitfire and she got blindsided,” Hamm said.
Brown and Creech casually knew each other and he had stayed with her briefly, Hamm said.
Brown was detained in October after he was seen driving Creech’s stolen car, according to an arrest citation. Brown also had some of Creech’s belongings and a revolver with him when he was arrested, according to the citation.
He was charged in October with receiving stolen property of $10,000 or more and being a felon in possession of a handgun, according to court records.
Creech’s obituary said, “Ava was taken from this earth way before her time and we can only hope now that she is in a better place free of pain and sorrow. She was a mother, daughter, sister and grandmother. She will be missed very much.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 12:32 PM.