Putnam County charged Michael Ludwick and his father, Joshua Ludwick, with murder in Zachary Smith's death.

A Friday-night murder booking is the charge. It is not a finding that Michael Ludwick fired the rifle a witness described, or that Joshua Ludwick's drive from the creek decides the case. WSB-TV's sheriff's office account and Sheriff Howard R. Sills's interview with The Union-Recorder agree on the names and the murder charges. They do not agree on every clock time. An autopsy is still ahead.

The Union-Recorder reported Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, that Putnam County Sheriff Howard R. Sills said a woman found a body at Flat Rock on Rooty Creek near Pea Ridge Road about 6:40 p.m. Friday, maybe 100 to 200 yards from the bridge, and that the man had died from multiple gunshots. WSB-TV, citing the sheriff's office, reported the body of Zachary Brandon Smith, 19, of Milledgeville, was found at 6:40 p.m. Friday along Rooty Creek, about eight miles south of Eatonton off Pea Ridge Road, and that he had been shot multiple times in the chest with a rifle. Sills told The Union-Recorder that Smith was believed to have been living in Milledgeville although his driver's license listed Eatonton, that the body was partially in the water, and that he was pronounced dead at the scene. The paper reported the body will go to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Decatur for an autopsy. A body at a creek and a rifle in the sheriff's account are the start of the file. The autopsy is the cause and manner still to come.

Sills told The Union-Recorder someone witnessed the shooting, that it was committed with a rifle, and that "The witness identified the perpetrator and his accomplice." He said he then got warrants from Putnam County Deputy Magistrate Christine Holmes. WSB-TV reported the witness identified 20-year-old Michael David Ludwick as the alleged shooter and his father, 38-year-old Joshua David Ludwick, as a party to the crime. Sills told the paper, "We arrested Michael David Ludwick, 20, of Madison, whom we charged with murder," and, "And we also arrested his father, Joshua David Ludwick, 38, and charged him with murder as a party to the crime." WSB-TV reported both men were charged with murder. A witness identification in a sheriff's interview is the accusation. It has not been tested in court.

The arrest times are where the two accounts split. WSB-TV reported that, with help from the Morgan and Walton County sheriff's offices, authorities arrested both men at their homes in Madison at 10:45 p.m. Friday. Sills told The Union-Recorder that he and other Putnam deputies drove to a residence in Madison, met Morgan and Walton deputies, and converged on a residence. He said he arrested the reported shooter in the living room without incident, that he had spoken with the father by phone before they arrived, and that the father was waiting across the street and was taken into custody there. The paper reported the younger man was placed in the Putnam County Jail in Eatonton shortly before midnight. Sills said Joshua Ludwick drove his son away from the scene, and that the father "has been cooperative with us and actually been of assistance." A 10:45 p.m. arrest at the homes and a jail booking shortly before midnight can be two lines in one night. WSB-TV is the outlet that puts both arrests at 10:45. The sheriff's interview is the one that splits the living room from the other side of the street.

The gun and the motive are what Sills said he did not have yet. He told The Union-Recorder that, at the time of the interview, deputies were still looking for the murder weapon, and that he had called the Baldwin County Public Safety Dive Team to the creek. The paper reported it was not immediately known whether the gun was found. Sills said, "It appears to be an insignificant discord," and that authorities were still working to learn a motive. WSB-TV reported the investigation remains ongoing and that both men are being held in the Putnam County Jail. A rifle divers are still looking for is not, by itself, a finding of who fired it. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.