Teen Who Bashed Best Friend's Mother With Bat Still Hung Out With Pal After Murder

A virtual docket hearing held on Monday has heard prosecutors are seeking to try 16-year-old murder suspect Amadeus Ballou-Meyer as an adult in the heinous homicide case of Hester Workman.

The female victim Workman, 46, was found dead on a Saturday night at her home in the 2800 block of S.W. James. Police arrived at the Topeka address around 7:13 p.m. on April 25 following a 911 call, which requested medical personnel to be deployed at that location, WIBW reported.

Responding officers then stumbled upon the grim discovery of a woman's corpse, which was later confirmed to belong to Workman. Her death has since been investigated as “suspicious” in nature by police.

The victim's son, Dillon Jay, said he had been at work during the incident when he came home to find his mother dead in their garage. He told the court that he initially thought he had rammed his mother on the driveway after feeling a bump when he drove past the body, WGNO noted.

Investigators proceeded to determine that Workman’s death was a homicide. They noted that blood near her corpse was the result of being pummelled with a blunt object multiple times.

According to Workman's son, he proceeded to invite his best friend, Ballou-Meyer, over to his home as a distraction from the loss of his mother that same night.

“I hung out with Amadeus the day after it happened,” he said. “He hugged me and told me he couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a parent.”

However, the grieving son found out the next day that his best friend could be the main suspect in his mother's death after he reviewed a neighbor’s security camera footage. He positively identified the person running away from his home down James Street and armed with a baseball bat as Ballou-Meyer.

Ballou-Meyer fronted court on Monday where prosecutors called for him to be charged as an adult. The court heard several versions of the fatal night that claimed the life of Workman, but the teen suspect later admitted that he was upset with Workman's son Dillon after he was called out for smoking in his car earlier in the day.

He told the court that he saw the Workman matriarch outside their James Street home and decided to pull a scary prank on her for fun. Workman then allegedly fell backward and hit her head on the metal rails of the garage door after the suspect frightened her from behind.

The man proceeded to end the woman's suffering by hitting her twice in the head using a baseball bat he fished out from the victim's garage. The assailant then fled the scene and dumped the bat into Shunga Creek, the court was told.

Further investigations have also unraveled that Ballou-Meyer is tied to a separate sex crime case involving an underage relative. A hearing for the motion is slated for Sept. 16.