WINDSOR—A note and driver’s license found Saturday at the Windsor Dairy Queen led authorities to a murder scene.

Johnny Ray Hubbard, 45, of Chesapeake, a registered sex offender, has been charged with the murder of his estranged wife, Beverly Gail Hubbard, 60, of Portsmouth, police said.

A teenage boy passing through Windsor with his mother at 9:30 a.m. found a driver’s license belonging to the victim in the men’s restroom, Windsor Dairy Queen General Manager Thomas LoMonaco said. Attached to the license was a note, which indicated that whoever found the note could expect the worst.

“He turned it over to his mother and they turned it in to me,” LoMonaco said Monday.

LoMonaco contacted authorities.

“They proceeded to do a little leg work on their end as far as trying to find the whereabouts of this lady,” he said.

Police found Beverly Hubbard dead in her home on Reese Drive in Portsmouth.

At about the same time, the suspect surrendered to police in Wilson, N.C.

LoMonaco isn’t sure why Johnny Hubbard left the note at Dairy Queen.

“We had overheard she may have had some relatives in the Southampton County area,” LoMonaco said.

Finding the note and learning about the murder was disturbing.

“I was hoping for the best,” LoMonaco said. “Something like this is very troubling.”

According to the Virginia State Police sex offender Web site, Johnny Hubbard was convicted and jailed in 1999 for taking indecent liberties with children and sexual battery in Currituck County, N.C.

He got out of jail, and a judge revoked his probation in May because of a probation violation. After six months, he was released.