ONEONTA (AP) -- A 27-year-old New York man was charged with killing a woman he spent a night drinking with at bars in an upstate city, police said Monday.
William A. Sprague III of Oneonta was arraigned Sunday afternoon on a second-degree murder charge and was being held without bail at the Otsego County Jail, Oneonta Police Chief Joseph Redmond said.
Redmond said Sprague and a male friend spent Friday night and early Saturday morning drinking with 26-year-old Sonja Ridge of Oneonta at downtown bars in the city about 65 miles southeast of Albany.
Redmond said Ridge and Sprague left downtown in Ridge's car around 2:15 a.m. Saturday, while Sprague's friend took a cab home a short time later. Around 3:15 a.m., police say witnesses saw the two men carrying a partially naked and unresponsive Ridge up the back stairs to the friend's Oneonta apartment.
Redmond said one of the witnesses called 911. Police and emergency crews arrived and tried to resuscitate Ridge, he said. She was pronounced dead at A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital in Oneonta.
An autopsy conducted at a Binghamton hospital showed Ridge had head injuries, Redmond said. Police aren't saying if a weapon was used or what may have led to the killing.
Police charged Sprague after questioning him at the police station, but his friend hasn't been charged, Redmond said.
It couldn't be determined Monday if Sprague had a lawyer. A call to District Attorney John Muehl wasn't immediately returned.
Oneonta is home to two colleges and the city's downtown bar district is popular with students. Sprague and Ridge weren't college students, but police believe they knew one another while attending Oneonta High School.
The slaying was the first in Oneonta since December 2005, Redmond said. It was just the sixth homicide that Redmond could recall during his 31 years with the police department, the last four as chief, he said.
The Daily Star of Oneonta reported that Ridge had a 2-year-old son. The newspaper also reported that she worked for a pharmaceutical company in Hobart in neighboring Delaware County.
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