Update: Man found guilty, sentenced to life in prison in fatal Conway motel shooting

CONWAY, Ark.- A man has been sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of capital murder in the 2018 shooting death of Leonel “Leo” Panduro.

Zachery Scott Keesee was sentenced Friday afternoon.

He was an accomplice in Panduro’s shooting death at the Days Inn Motel on Oak Street in Conway.

Christopher Bynum pleaded guilty to first degree murder in December and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

UPDATE:

CONWAY, Ark. — A week long trial is wrapping up for a local man accused as an accomplice in a 2018 murder.

Closing arguments were underway Friday in the trial of Zachary Keesee, 27.

The May 2018 shooting death of Leonel Panduro, 48, happened at the Days Inn Motel on Oak Street.

Christoper Bynum already pleaded guilty in this killing back in December and is serving a 30 year prison sentence.

Update: 

CONWAY, Ark. – A man found dead inside a Conway motel on Tuesday has been identified.

Conway Police say the homicide victim is Leonel Panduro, 48, of Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Currently there are no suspect leads, authorities say.

Original story: 

CONWAY, Ark. – Police launched a homicide investigation Tuesday at a Conway motel after a man was found dead inside a room.

People staying at the motel woke up to police cars in the parking lot. One of them was Jared Bartholomew.

Whether something is broken or needs to be built, chances are Bartholomew can piece it together.

“I just carry tools with me everywhere,” Bartholomew says.

Jared is spending his week at The Days Inn on Oak Street in Conway while working a contracting job.

Just feet from Jared’s room, police continue to piece together what led to a murder.

“I didn’t even see nothing until I got back,” Bartholomew says.

Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the motel parking lot. As many as 50 evidence markers dotted the ground outside.

Police say 911 calls came in reporting gunshots around 6 a.m. Tuesday.

“When officers got to the scene, they found a man inside room 106,” LaTresha Woodruff, PIO for the Conway Police Department says. “He has been shot, and he was dead at the time.”

The victim, a 49-year-old Hispanic man, had not been identified and no arrests had been made as of Tuesday afternoon.

“There are things that lead us to believe that this person was targeted,” Woodruff says.

Detectives spent much of the morning combing the area.

It marks the second homicide reported at this very motel in less than two years. Police say a woman was killed here in 2016.