By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
A misunderstanding between two men Wednesday night at a home near Joplin may have escalated into a fatal bludgeoning with a baseball bat and a murder charge.
Ralph Ivy, 50, died of injuries he suffered in a fight outside a former girlfriend’s home at 2805 N. Red Fox Road. Authorities charged Aaron Eugene Pilgrim, 37, on Thursday with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in connection with Ivy’s death.
“Aaron beat him in the head with a baseball bat,” Ivy’s former girlfriend, Crystal Lynch, 23, told the Globe.
She blamed it on an unfortunate misunderstanding between the two men shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday at her home. Ivy’s death and Pilgrim’s arrest have left both men’s families and friends confused and emotionally devastated.
“This is very shocking to me, and I’m just brokenhearted,” the accused man’s mother, Elizabeth Pilgrim, said in a telephone interview.
She said it was her understanding that her son was coming to the defense of Lynch’s younger sister, Shandra, 11, in the fight between the two men. But she acknowledged that she was at church at the time and did not witness the homicide. All her information had been received secondhand, she said.
She said she hadn’t seen or talked to her son in the wake of his arrest Wednesday night.
“I’d like to hear from him what happened,” she said.
News release
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department was releasing few details about the death. A news release Thursday morning said deputies responded to a call at 7:15 p.m. from the home on Red Fox Road concerning an assault with weapons. The caller reported that two men were fighting, and that one of them had a bat and a knife, according to the news release.
Ivy was found at the scene and taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, where he later died, authorities said. Pilgrim was arrested at a nearby home and was held overnight at the Jasper County Jail in Carthage on suspicion of murder, according to the news release.
An autopsy was performed Thursday in Springfield. Sheriff’s Capt. Derek Walrod told the Globe late Thursday afternoon that preliminary results were not yet known, and that no information concerning cause of death would be released until today. He also would not discuss the weapons involved in the assault. But a probable-cause affidavit filed with the charges against Pilgrim states that a baseball bat was used to inflict serious injury to Ivy.
Witness’s account
Crystal Lynch told the Globe that she and others witnessed the entire incident.
She said Ivy had been living at the Red Fox Road address with Lynch’s family since returning to the Joplin area from California about two months ago. She dated the older man a few years ago when she was 17 and 18, and he remained a good friend of the family, she said. Pilgrim lived down the road with his parents, Lynch said.
Wednesday night, Ivy had been drinking beer and was somewhat drunk, she said. Lynch said Ivy was playing with her little sister and chased her into a bathroom at one point.
“Well, Aaron thought they were serious and told him to go sit down,” she said.
Ivy resented being spoken to in that manner, and the two men became angry with each other, she said. Lynch said Ivy had a pocketknife on him, and he pulled it out to keep Pilgrim at a distance. Ivy then suggested that they step outside and fight. Lynch said the two men went outside and began throwing punches at each other and scuffling.
“Then Ralph came in here and got a baseball bat because Aaron picked up a stick,” Lynch said.
She said the “stick” was actually a broken hoe handle. As Ivy went back outside, he swung at Pilgrim with the bat, but Pilgrim blocked the swing with the hoe handle, she said.
“Then Ralph dropped the baseball bat, and Aaron picked it up and hit him six times in the back of the head,” Lynch said.
She said Ivy was walking away from Pilgrim at the time, and that all the blows appeared to her to have struck the back of Ivy’s head. Ivy did not collapse to the ground on his back until the final blow, she said. Then Pilgrim got on top of him and started hitting him in the face with his fists, she said.
Lynch said she ran to them and tried to pull Pilgrim off Ivy. She said her current boyfriend, Scott Noone, 45, was on the phone to the Sheriff’s Department by that time, and she told Pilgrim that officers would be coming.
Lynch said Pilgrim got up off the other man and fled to the yard of a neighbor’s house on nearby Rabbit Run Road, where deputies later found him and took him into custody.
Witnesses
Crystal Lynch said that besides herself, her 11-year-old sister, her father and her boyfriend were witnesses to the beating death of Ralph Ivy.
