(AP) -- KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - An eastern Missouri truck driver says a drifter he befriended last year was killed because he attacked the trucker's wife and three of his five sons.

Chester "C.J. Harvey Jr." tells The Associated Press that he was desperate for cash when he got involved in a drug scheme with 20-year-old James William Boyd McNeeley. The 38-year-old had picked up McNeeley at a Tennessee truck stop in November and gave him a ride to Ohio.

Harvey says McNeeley persuaded him to deliver drugs around the country, and that some of the drugs were in his rig when McNeeley's body was found there Dec. 22. Harvey, of Laddonia, Mo., says he was in Texas when he heard that McNeeley had attacked his family. He says he didn't go to police because he was worried McNeeley would post bond and hurt his family.

Prosecutors say Harvey suffocated McNeeley with a plastic trash bag at his home and others wrapped wire around the man's neck.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)