Officials: Alleged Ryan Matko killer had gang ties

Teen charged in Matko's death had gang ties, officials say

A 17-year-old charged with killing Chesterfield County teen Ryan Anthony Matko was affiliated with the notorious Bloods gang at the time of the August 2007 slaying, law-enforcement sources confirmed yesterday.

Detavis J. King's gang affiliation figured into the events leading to Matko's death, but precisely how remained unclear last night. Officially, Chesterfield police would say only that Matko and King knew each other.

"They were not strangers," said police Capt. Robert Skowron, who declined to comment further.

King made his first courtroom appearance yesterday since his arrest Wednesday on first-degree murder and felony firearm charges in the Aug. 22, 2007, slaying of Matko, the 16-year-old son of Richmond homicide cold-case detective Max Matko.

Dressed in a green jumpsuit with white T-shirt, King's image was beamed into a Chesterfield Juvenile and Domestic Relations District courtroom via closed-circuit television from the Chesterfield Juvenile Detention Home. He appeared attentive and answered politely when queried by Judge Lynn S. Brice.

Few details about the killing emerged during yesterday's proceeding after defense attorney Cary B. Bowen, appointed yesterday to represent King, agreed that prosecutor M. Duncan Minton Jr. had sufficient probable cause to move the case forward.

But in reading the arrest warrants, the judge disclosed that the suspected murder weapon was a .32-caliber Harrington & Richardson revolver.

Neither of King's parents attended the hearing, although both apparently were made aware of the time and location, the judge was told yesterday.

Brice ordered King be held without bond pending a preliminary hearing March 17.

Among the law-enforcement officers attending yesterday's hearing was Chesterfield Detective Keith Applewhite, the department's gang expert. But he was not called to testify yesterday and declined to talk after the hearing about what ties King had to the Bloods.

According to a legal source, King was questioned by police soon after Matko's killing, and he remained in the area until he was sent to the Natural Bridge Juvenile Correctional Center for a minor criminal offense. The judge yesterday said King had a prior infraction and was known to the court.

After his release, King went to live with relatives in Giles County in Southwest Virginia. But he recently returned to the Richmond area to find work. He was arrested Wednesday as he was applying for a job near downtown Richmond. He had been living with a sister near Huguenot High School.

Chesterfield schools spokesman Shawn Smith said no one by the name of Detavis King attended county schools this year. But he declined to say whether someone by that name previously was enrolled.

Matko, a Thomas Dale High School student, disappeared sometime after the evening of Aug. 21, when he and his mother, Rose Matko, watched a television crime show together before going to bed. The next day, Matko failed to show up for work at his mother's Wild Rose Café, where he was employed as the chief chef.

Police found Matko's car about 7 p.m. Aug. 23 parked on a dead-end, unpopulated street near Cogbill Road. A K-9 unit immediately tracked Matko's scent from the car to an isolated area in a subdivision under construction near Cogbill and Belmont roads. That's where officers found Ryan's body, with gunshot wounds to his head and back.

Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or .