NATCHEZ — At 16 years old, Jamon Williams doesn’t look old enough to shave, much less kill a person.

But that’s what he’s accused of, and the baby-faced suspect in the Sept. 25 death of 62-year-old John “Body Man” Henderson made his initial appearance in Natchez Municipal Court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing.

A preliminary hearing is used by the court to establish if there is probable cause to charge a person with a given crime. During the hearing a number of witnesses testified about the events of the night Henderson received the critical head wound that would claim his life the next day.

Some of the witnesses only gave a small part of the story.

Willie Thomas was sitting on the porch of his Madison Street residence at the time of the incident.

“All I saw was four little boys walking and I saw Body Man walking toward them,” Thomas said.

At first, Thomas thought the boys and Henderson knew each other, but then someone with him said they thought the group was going to fight.

“They were having words,” Thomas said.

He testified that he looked away, and when he turned around Henderson was on the ground.

Naomi Walton was sitting on her porch on Beaumont Street that evening when Henderson passed her, she said.

“He told me, ‘Hi, young lady,’ and I said, ‘Hi, young man,” Walton said.

Shortly thereafter, she left, and on her way back home Walton saw two young males running near Martin Luther King Jr. Street. She recognized one of them as a fifth-grade student she taught.

Passing Madison Street, she saw Henderson on the ground, surrounded by a crowd, but did not stop.

She testified she never saw Jamon Williams.

The most revealing testimony came from James Williams, 20, who testified he and Jamon, along with two of their cousins — who were minors — walked to a store in the area.

The group later met up with two other individuals, James Williams testified.

A statement from one of the minors, read by Natchez Police Investigator Joe Belling, said the group bought juice and chips at the store.

The group sat on the steps of Cathedral School for a while before heading for home, and James Williams said he and one other person were walking ahead of the group. He had headphone speakers in his ears.

James Williams said he didn’t see or hear the incident, but one of the other boys ran up to him and got his attention.

“One of the guys ran up and said, ‘They did something stupid, they did something stupid,’” James Williams said.

That person ran on, and James kept walking until a man in a white truck pulled up next to him and demanded he get in and identify the person responsible for injuring Henderson, he said.

James Williams refused, eventually meeting his mother on a different street.

In court, prosecuting attorney William McGehee had James Williams read the statement he made for police following the incident in which he said he saw Jamon hit Henderson.

Belling read a statement from a minor that said that prior to going to the store the group had run into Henderson and Jamon had harassed him, while the others told him to leave Henderson alone because he was an old man.

One of the statements referred to Jamon as “Tootie,” and said that on Madison Street he bumped into Henderson, and Henderson grabbed his shirt.

The statement said Jamon handed his cup to someone and, “Tootie reached back as far as he could and hit him.”

When Henderson hit the ground, the noise was, ‘as loud as a gunshot,” the statement said.

Hospital notes from Henderson’s treatment refer to a wound to the back of his head caused by a blunt object, but police have since said they believe that Henderson hit his head when he fell, causing the significant brain damage that killed him. Formal autopsy findings have not been released.

That evening, an officer on patrol discovered Henderson on the ground, and initially the case was treated as a simple assault, and was upgraded to an aggravated assault before becoming a murder case at the time of Henderson’s death, Belling said.

Based on the evidence presented Tuesday, Jamon Williams’ attorney Tim Cotton said charges against Williams should be amended to involuntary manslaughter from the current second-degree murder count.

Had it not resulted in death, the punch Jamon allegedly threw would not have resulted in a felony charge, Cotton said.

“That one punch, under normal circumstances, would not be likely to cause death,” Cotton said.

“There has been nothing here to indicate any intent to cause serious bodily harm.”

McGehee disagreed.

“The consequences of that act were not unforeseeable,” he said.

Judge Jim Blough declined to change the charges, and bound the case over to the grand jury, stating he found that Williams had provoked the incident and the state had produced probable cause.

The grand jury can upgrade, downgrade or drop the charges against the defendant.

While he had the judicial privilege to set bond in the matter, Blough declined to do so and said he would leave that up to the district attorney’s office.