Man, 26, held in gun death
Man held in slaying
BY KEITH EPPS
Date published: 1/7/2009
BY KEITH EPPS
Two people have been arrested and charged in connection with Fredericksburg's first homicide of the year.
Toronto Deshawn Eura, 26, is charged with first-degree murder, city police spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe said. Eura is accused of shooting 21-year-old Jamair Ellis to death in the parking lot at Forest Village apartments early Tuesday morning. He was arrested at his home today in Prince William County.
Ebony Charde Boone of Fredericksburg, who will turn 22 tomorrow, was arrested later Tuesday morning and charged with being an accessory to murder. It was not clear yesterday what alleged role Boone played in the slaying.
According to Bledsoe, police first learned of the shooting about 1:25 a.m. after receiving a call from Mary Washington Hospital. Ellis, of Unionville in Orange County, had been driven to the hospital by a friend who witnessed the shooting and was highly agitated, police said.
Ellis, who had been shot multiple times in the upper torso while sitting in the driver's seat of his car, was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital. His friend somehow managed to drive Ellis to the hospital with Ellis still in the driver's seat, Bledsoe said.
The witness told police that he and Ellis were sitting in the car when a man approached and began firing shots into Ellis at close range. Bledsoe said police have a good idea of what led to the shooting, but yesterday would only describe it as a "personal dispute."
Bledsoe said police are still interviewing witnesses who either heard the shooting or saw the immediate aftermath. She said police received no calls from Forest Village about the incident.
A special person of interest who police would like to speak with is a large black man who was with Eura at the time, Bledsoe said. He is described as being 6 feet 5 inches tall and 300 pounds with a beard and shoulder-length dreadlocks.
Bledsoe said city police have requested help from the FBI in processing the vehicle Ellis was in for a forensic examination.
Eura is well known to city police and has numerous relatives and friends living in the Fredericksburg area, Bledsoe said.
He is scheduled to stand trial in Fredericksburg Circuit Court next week on a distributing marijuana charge, and he was already wanted in the city for failing to appear in court on some driving charges, court records show.
His local convictions include eluding police in both Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania and unlawful wounding in the city.
Keith Epps: 540/374-5404 Email: kepps@freelancestar.com
Date published: 1/7/2009
Most recent reader comments:
Hey Keith...
(posted by
Mandrake
, Jan. 11, 2009 4:09 pm)  
Sounds
(posted by
BLK
, Jan. 7, 2009 2:35 pm)  
like there is A LOT more to this story that we don't know Yet. Guns are safe, the Idiots that do things like this are the Real Problem. ... this kinda sounds like a bad drug deal to me.
"Legal" or not, the firearm used in this crime....
(posted by
Trippletap
, Jan. 7, 2009 1:29 pm)  
was apparently in posession of a convicted felon, someone not legally entitled to have a firearm in the first place. The implement in this case is not the issue, the person willing to commit a crime with it (and also willing to carry it on their person, even though it was illegal) is the real problem. If private firearm ownership were to become illegal, does anyone honestly think the perpetrator would have acted differently? Once again, we see that criminals don't care about the law.
FLS never disappoints...
(posted by
TPKeller
, Jan. 7, 2009 12:46 pm)  
Anything to cast evil and blame on the inanimate hunk of metal. If the victim had been hit in the head with a hammer, would the headline then read " Man, 26, held in hammer death"?
Murder by firearm
(posted by
Einstein
, Jan. 7, 2009 12:11 pm)  
likely cause of death, multiple gunshot wounds. What was once a legal firearm became, legal terms, a murder weapon. Not a rare circumstance.
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