After he was lured to a North Suffolk lake, a man was choked with a garrote and beaten in the head with a hammer, before being pushed off a bridge into the water below, according to readings from police interview transcripts presented in General District Court.

During a preliminary hearing Monday, Judge James A. Moore certified charges of first-degree murder; shoot, stab, cut or wound; and conspiracy to commit a felony against Portsmouth’s Kyle Purvis, 25, and Nathaniel McCoy, 22, and Suffolk’s Tremayne Johnson, 21.

Probable cause was “shown easily,” Moore concluded.

Portsmouth police issued an appeal for information into the disappearance of 20-year-old Donta Williams on Jan. 20.

The missing person case was closed and the murder case opened after an employee at the Department of Defense complex off College Drive found Williams’ body in the lake between College and Burbage drives on March 9.

During Monday’s hearing, passages from transcripts of police interview with all three defendants were by read by prosecution witness Detective C. Thomas, Suffolk Police Department’s lead investigator on the case.

Thomas said McCoy agreed to be interviewed in Michigan on March 2. According to her readings of the transcript from that encounter, McCoy said he restrained Williams with a “pocket saw,” which was later in the hearing described as like a garrote, while Purvis struck him “multiple times” with a hammer.

McCoy said Williams grabbed at the garrote around his neck, according to the readings, “like he was trying to get it off.”

Purvis struck with the hammer until the handle broke, McCoy told police, according to the transcript Thomas read. “He was, like, twitching,” McCoy said of Williams’ condition afterward.

According to the readings, McCoy told investigators he and Purvis then pushed Williams off a bridge into the lake.

He also told them, according to Thomas, that Williams had left with the trio from a house by choice, indicating he was lured with talk about “going and drinking and smoking.”

During an April 22 police interview in Portsmouth, according to Thomas’ transcript, Purvis said McCoy had given him the hammer inside the black Chevy Malibu they allegedly drove to the lake with the alleged victim.

Purvis said McCoy instructed him to use the hammer. “Nate planned on jumping him,” he told police, according to the transcript.

“I know they had a genuine beef with Donta, but it should never have gone that far.”

After Williams fell to the ground following his first hammer-blow, Purvis told investigators, according to the transcript, “It looked like his lips were beginning to part, like he wanted to say something … but he didn’t say anything.”

Purvis told police, according to Thomas’ readings, that he didn’t know how many times he struck Williams, adding, “After the first time I hit him, Nate had the pocket saw on his neck. … He kept saying, ‘Finish him!’”

Purvis told police the three had gone to a Walmart before the alleged attack, obtaining three pairs of mechanic’s gloves and zip ties. The hammer was allegedly taken from McCoy’s mother’s house, Purvis said.

Johnson, according to the transcript of his interview, told police he hit Williams when they first walked out onto the bridge on Jan. 20. He said the instrument McCoy used to allegedly choke Williams “looked like some kind of string,” but thicker.

According to the transcript of Johnson’s police interview, McCoy said to Williams as he choked him, “You know, you have done a lot of f-d up sh– in your life.”

Johnson told police Purvis had sent him messages to convince him to join the alleged attack, and told him the day before, “I hate his gay a–.”

No clear motive for the alleged attack was evident after the hearing. “There might be multiple motives at this point,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney James Wiser said outside the courtroom afterward.

Williams’ fiancée told The Virginian-Pilot that McCoy’s family had introduced Williams to his Norfolk church, New Abundant Life Christian Center.

She last saw Williams when they rode a church van home together after Bible study the night he went missing, according to the report.

The case now goes to a grand jury.