Police arrested a Lynchburg man Monday evening and charged him with first-degree murder less than 11 hours after a man was found dead in the 400 block of Lakewood Street.

Jeremiah Wayne Overman, 29, was arrested just before 6 p.m. on the porch of his home in the 4600 block of Fairmont Avenue, about a mile away from where the body was found, said Lt. Jeff Bauserman of the Lynchburg Police Department. He is also charged with use of a firearm in commission of a felony, Bauserman said.

Theodore Curtis Poe, 20, of Concord, and Overman were at a party at 333 Stafford Street on Sunday that lasted until the early morning hours of Monday, Bauserman said.

Poe was found dead with gunshot wounds Monday morning behind a hedgerow in the front yard of the Lakewood Street home about a block away.

“We do believe there was a relationship,” Bauserman said. “We don’t know to what degree… at this point. We do know they were together.”

He said he was unsure whether there was some conflict at the party that resulted in the shooting.

Overman’s name came up several times in interviews of partygoers, residents of the Stafford Street home and neighbors, Bauserman said.

An armored car from the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office, members of tactical and crisis teams, investigators and other police officers surrounded the Fairmont Avenue home to ensure the safety of neighbors, he said.

Police spokesman Capt. Todd Swisher said Lynchburg’s emergency dispatch center received a call from Stafford Street at about 2:30 a.m. Monday — the caller reported hearing gunshots. Officers checked the area but discovered nothing, Swisher said.

A check of local court records showed that Overman was sentenced in Lynchburg Circuit Court to six months in jail and fined $1,000 in March after pleading guilty to driving after forfeiting his license. Inmates sentenced to less than 12 months in jail can often serve shorter sentences by earning credit for good behavior. He accumulated three misdemeanor marijuana possession charges in Appomattox County in 2007 and an assault and battery conviction in Lynchburg in 2006.

Bauserman said police seized drug paraphernalia in a search of Overman’s home Monday.

On Monday in the Lynchburg College area, Maggie Patterson said she had passed by the Stafford Street party around 11 p.m. Sunday while walking her friend’s dogs.

“It bothers me that something like this has crept in,” Patterson said Monday as investigators made their way through the neighborhood. “It’s like you have a great garden and all of a sudden some atrocious weed comes in.”

She noticed the party and remembered the women in sundresses on the porch on the cool summer evening. The partiers greeted her.

“There’s always a party at that house,” Patterson said, adding that she never knew the parties to get out of control. Patterson lived in the neighborhood for eight years before moving in November, but said many in the neighborhood have been there for decades.

“It’s very, very disturbing,” she said. “This changes who you are and how you feel about things. This will be the new topic of conversation. … This will be all people will talk about.”

Swisher said there is no indication that anyone involved in the case attends any college in the area.

Shannon Brennan, director of media relations for Lynchburg College, said no one involved in the case seems to have a connection to Lynchburg College, which is near the scene.A note was sent out to those on campus to notify them of the street closings, Brennan said, but because it is summer and few people are on campus, nothing else was done.

Poe’s brother, David Poe, was murdered at his home in the 1600 block of Early Street in a 2006 home invasion and robbery.

This is the second homicide in Lynchburg this year. In May, Derrick Lee Payne, 25, died at Lynchburg General Hospital after he was shot near 17th and Floyd streets. Two other men were wounded in the incident.

No arrest has been made in that shooting, which detectives believe involved people from rival gangs, Swisher said Monday.

Police ask anyone with information on the shooting to call Lynchburg Police Det. Collin Byrne at (434) 455-6054.