He was convicted of trying to strangle a woman. Now he’s charged with killing her son

Hollywood’s Richard Walker was convicted of battery after trying to strangle Stephanie Gardner. He also has been arrested and accused of not stopping the car when she had one foot out the door, leading to her screaming for help out the window.

That sparked Gardner to get a protective order against Walker for seven months.

They were back together Sunday when police say Walker’s next round of violence ended with a stabbing death of Gardner’s 24-year-old son, Marquise Reeves.

Police wrote in their arrest affidavit they arrived at 2338 Charleston St. to find Reeves “lying on the living room floor covered with blood.” Also on the family room floor: pieces of a broken glass table, a green-handled folding knife and pooling blood.

Walker, 36, sits in Broward Main Jail on a charge of murder depraved without premeditation.

Gardner, 49, told police Sunday’s fight began when Walker objected to her refusal to have sex with him. The sounds of the bedroom dispute involving his mother beckoned Reeves, who began arguing with Walker. Reeves and Walker eventually went into the living room, where Reeves plopped onto the couch.

This is where Gardner’s account, given at the home, diverges from Walker’s, given after he turned himself in at the Hollywood police headquarters.

Gardner says she saw Walker continue the confrontation by standing in front of the sitting Reeves. Reeves rose. After trading the preliminary chest bumps and pushes, the two fought on the sofa, off the sofa, onto and through the glass coffee table. Gardner said she saw her son with a bloody shirt straddling Walker on the sofa and Walker with the green folding knife in his hand. After the stabbing, which she said she didn’t see, she locked herself in the bedroom and called 911.

Walker told police upon leaving the bedroom he sat on a bar stool across the room from where Reeves sat on the couch. When he tried to talk to Reeves, he said, the 24-year-old approached with a hook to a jaw. That opening shot sparked a fight that progressed quickly to the sofa. Walker said he whipped out his folding knife to stab Reeves twice in the torso because he thought Reeves was getting ready to pull out some kind of weapon.

Walker said he tried to sit Reeves up to help his breathing. Then, knowing the cops were on the way, he ran.

This story was originally published July 18, 2017 at 2:57 PM with the headline "He was convicted of trying to strangle a woman. Now he’s charged with killing her son."