The Bend man suspected of beating his roommate to death with a baseball bat last month was formally charged on Monday with one count of murder.

Richard Ward Clarke, 25, was arrested on Oct. 17, not long after a neighbor found 36-year-old Matthew Fitzhenry on the floor in his Northwest Georgia Avenue home, suffering from serious head injuries. Fitzhenry was taken to St. Charles Bend, where he died.

Since his arrest, Clarke has been held at the Deschutes County jail on a probation violation charge.

After police completed their investigation, they turned over the case to the Deschutes County District Attorneys Office. A grand jury convened to consider evidence in the case indicted Clarke on Friday on one count of murder.

Clarke, who appeared in court via a video link from the jail, did not speak during his arraignment Monday.

He is scheduled to enter a plea on the charge Jan. 18.

The indictment did not provide any additional details about a possible motive for the crime.

On the night Clarke was arrested, 911 dispatchers received a call about a fight in the area of Clarke and Fitzhenry’s apartment. Police searched the area but didn’t find anything suspicious.

About 30 minutes later, dispatchers received the call from the neighbor who found Fitzhenry.

Police and Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue volunteers spent the next few days searching for evidence in a large area around the roommates’ neighborhood and in the Deschutes River, where they believe a weapon could have been dumped.

An aluminum baseball bat believed to be the murder weapon was eventually spotted by police in the bushes near McMenamins Old St. Francis School, a few blocks from the crime scene.

Police said Fitzhenry and Clarke moved into the apartment on Northwest Georgia Avenue a few months before Fitzhenry’s death.

According to court records, Clarke lived in Astoria in 2005 and 2006, but had moved to Bend by 2008.

He has felony convictions in Clatsop, Lincoln and Deschutes counties for burglary, theft and identity theft.