Bixby Men Facing First Degree Murder Charges in Court Next Week

(Ironton) Preliminary hearings for two men from Bixby, charged with first degree murder and armed criminal action in the killing of 51-year-old Donald Ray Barton Jr. of Boss, have their preliminary hearings set in Iron County court.

48-year-old Jeffery Preston Asher and 25-year-old Lorenzo McGee will both have their hearings on Thursday, June 1st.

The two were arrested following the March 27th shooting and killing of Barton on Neals Creek Road, a few miles away from the Bixby General Store.

Sources told Regional Radio that Barton had been shot in the stomach and he was discovered by motorists who found him bleeding out, laying on the gravel road, just southeast of the Pump Cemetery, in an unpopulated wooded area.

Barton was flown to the hospital in Sullivan but it was too late.

Not long after arriving at Missouri Baptist, he was pronounced dead by hospital staff.

If convicted, Asher and McGee could receive life in prison and there is the possibility they could even receive the death penalty.