Man Among Last To See Victim Arrested After Fingerprints Found In Dead Man’S Car

A Spokane man whose body was found on the shores of Moses Lake was last seen driving with a group of people who thought he had stolen money from a friend, a man arrested in connection with the case said Saturday.

Joseph B. Jordan, 22, arrested Friday and charged with being an accessory to murder, denied playing a role in the killing, saying he got out of the car before anything happened.

“It wasn’t my beef,” he said in a jail interview.

Police arrested Jordan on Friday afternoon after finding his fingerprints inside 23-year-old Eric Brace’s car.

A student walking home from school found Brace’s body early last week in Moses Lake.

Police said his skull was fractured.

On Thursday, sheriff’s deputies found the victim’s car, abandoned on Aubrey L. White Parkway west of Spokane.

Jordan said the last time he saw Brace was shortly before midnight on Jan. 2, when Brace dropped him and a friend off downtown.

Brace and four others were apparently heading to Moses Lake to pick up a couple more passengers, Jordan said.

Earlier that night, Jordan said he was partying with friends at his home on West 11th Avenue. Brace showed up with a group of people.

Jordan said he and five others left the party in Brace’s car around 10 p.m. to get cigarettes and beer.

There was an underlying tension, Jordan said.

Some of the passengers suspected Brace had stolen $225 from a female friend’s backpack a few days earlier.

Jordan said he didn’t get involved. He didn’t know the group very well. He said he only knew Brace as a “cool kid” who bought marijuana from him at a downtown pool hall.

When one of the men in the car wanted to go to Moses Lake, Jordan and a friend said they didn’t want to go.

Neither did Brace, who said he had to work early the next morning, Jordan said.

Jordan said Brace dropped him off at Main and Division and that was the last he saw of him.

The victim worked at a Kirby vacuum cleaner sales and service shop on North Monroe. Manager Leland Lightbody said the store isn’t open on Sunday, but Brace was expected at work Monday at 9 a.m.

Brace was arrested on a burglary charge in 1996, but it was later dropped, according to court records.

Jordan said he is on probation for a possession of stolen property conviction in Tacoma. He said he moved to Spokane last summer.

Spokane Police Department spokesman Dick Cottam said he knew of no other arrests in connection to the killing.

Moses Lake police detectives are leading the investigation and expect to make more arrests, he said.

Jordan’s mother, Monique, said she was shocked to hear her son was in jail, facing such a serious charge.

She and her husband, a Tacoma pastor, haven’t spoken to their son in months because they disagree with his lifestyle, she said.

“I would see him doing little, petty stuff. I can’t see him trying to kill anybody,” she said.