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The body of a Carrsville man whose April 21 death was initially attributed to natural causes was at a funeral home three days later when Isle of Wight County sheriff’s investigators realized he’d been shot, court documents say.

A deputy responding to a reported cardiac arrest death had found March on top of his bed, deceased.

According to a criminal complaint against 74-year-old Suffolk resident Mark Honaker, who’s charged with killing 54-year-old Steven March, investigators learned on April 24 that a shell casing had been located next to the bed, and noticed a gunshot wound under March’s chin as his body lay in the funeral home. An April 25 autopsy revealed a second gunshot wound.

The complaint states March’s mother, Mary March, told investigators she’d last talked to her son around 8 the night before his death, and he told her he planned to visit her the next morning. When Steven didn’t show or call, his mother went to his house and noticed a key in the door, later determined to be a spare that Steven had kept in his home’s mudroom.

It was Mary, according to the complaint, who first discovered her son’s body and called police. She told them that Steven’s grandniece had likely been the last person to see him alive. She knew where Steven kept the spare key and told investigators she’d visited Steven on April 20 around the same time as his call with Mary, and said she hadn’t seen the key in the door at the time.

The complaint states the trail then took investigators to the ABC store where Steven had worked in the nearby city of Franklin. There, a manager told deputies that Honaker had been asking questions about Steven since mid-2022 under the belief that Steven had been sleeping with Honaker’s wife, who denied knowing Steven or having ever been to his house, but confirmed that Mark had suspected an affair.

According to the complaint, deputies obtained from a camera located roughly 2 miles from Steven’s house an image of a Lexus allegedly belonging to Honaker entering Isle of Wight County on Carrsville Highway at 10:35 p.m. on April 20. The complaint states Honaker initially claimed to know Steven only in passing, but later admitted to knowing where Steven lived and his suspicions of his wife’s alleged affair.

A search of the Honker residence produced several .22-caliber firearms and the same brand of ammunition in Steven’s bedroom, as well as a journal entry allegedly written by Honaker stating he “knows who the other man is” and has “thought about killing him several times.”

Honaker faces a second-degree murder charge as well as charges of breaking and entering with the intent to commit murder and use or display of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

No court date is listed yet under the name Honaker in Isle of Wight County’s or Suffolk’s circuit courts.