photo by: Lawrence Police Department

Owen Gage Walker is pictured in this notice from the Lawrence Police Department. Walker is suspected of felony obstruction in connection with the shooting death of 14-year-old Kamarjay Shaw on March 18, 2023.

Updated at 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 7

A young man who was wanted by police during the murder trial of Derrick Del Reed was arrested early Tuesday morning at a Lawrence convenience store.

Owen Gage Walker, 20, was taken into custody on charges of obstructing apprehension or prosecution and interference with law enforcement by concealing or destroying evidence in a felony.

Reed stood trial for the March 2023 killing of 14-year-old Kamarjay Shaw, but he was acquitted a year later. Reed’s defense attorney, Mark Hartman, said at trial that Walker was with Reed when Shaw was shot, and he attempted to cast suspicion on Walker as the shooter. Police took a statement from Walker the night of the shooting in which Walker said that Reed had fired the shots, and he was later released by police only to be charged with obstruction later.

Police were then unable to locate Walker and sought the public’s help in finding him. An arrest warrant was issued on June 5, 2023.

Walker was arrested on that warrant shortly before 3:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Dino Mart at 2220 Harper St. and was being held on a $25,000 bond. Police said he had called to turn himself in.

When he made his first appearance in court Tuesday afternoon, the state, represented by legal intern Easton Hunter, characterized Walker as “a major flight risk” and asked the court to set bond at $75,000 cash or surety, which the court declined to do, leaving bond at $25,000 until Judge Sally Pokorny can review the matter on Wednesday. A condition of the bond is that Walker have no contact with Reed or any civilian witnesses in that case.

Public defender Gary West, who stood by Walker’s side as he appeared via Zoom from the jail, asked for an own-recognizance bond, saying that Walker hadn’t been charged as a conspirator in a more serious crime and that the charges he did face would be presumptive probation crimes. West said that Walker had been living at his mother’s house and he didn’t know why the police had had any trouble finding him.

“He’s been right here in Lawrence, Kansas,” West told Judge Stacey Donovan.

Donovan asked Hunter, who was representing the state without anyone else from the District Attorney’s Office in the courtroom, if the state had made any effort to go to Walker’s home.

Hunter said he couldn’t say “one way or another.”