Federal marshals and local detectives tracked down the two remaining suspects in a fatal Evansville parking lot shooting Wednesday, arresting one in Missouri and deploying SWAT to seize the other at an Evansville home, while officials warned additional arrests could be forthcoming.
U.S. marshals took 19-year-old Deshawndre Brown into custody without incident Wednesday evening in St. Louis after investigators tracked him to a hotel there, the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office announced in a news release. Authorities arrested 18-year-old Pierce Butler later Wednesday night after Evansville Police Department SWAT officers executed a search warrant at a South Kentucky Avenue residence.
Their arrests came after a man was fatally shot Tuesday in the parking lot of the AMC Theatres at 5600 Pearl Drive during what investigators say was a robbery staged as a marijuana deal. Authorities arrested a third suspect, Kardae Langley, 19, within hours of the shooting. The victim’s name has not been released.
According to sworn arrest affidavits filed in Vanderburgh County Circuit Court, Langley spoke to detectives following his arrest and implicated himself, Butler and Brown in the robbery. Langley is alleged to have identified Brown as the shooter.
Prosecutors have charged all three men with murder under Indiana’s felony murder statute, which holds every participant in certain violent felonies — including robbery — legally responsible for any killing that results, regardless of who fired the weapon.
Under that theory, Langley and Butler face the same murder charge as the alleged shooter by virtue of their participation in the robbery. Brown faces an additional murder count alleging the killing was intentional.
Wednesday afternoon, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Noah Robinson called on Brown and Butler to surrender.
“Don’t drag your family members into this; don’t drag any more of your friends into this,” Robinson said. “Go ahead and turn yourselves in and we will address the issue through the proper channels.”
Meanwhile, intelligence gathered by local narcotics officers and the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force led detectives to conclude Brown had traveled from Evansville to St. Louis and had taken up residence in a hotel, according to Robinson, who said detectives also made use of Flock Safety’s sprawling network of vehicle-tracking cameras to confirm Brown’s location.
The U.S. Marshals Service’s St. Louis office established surveillance on the hotel before taking Brown into custody at about 5:30 p.m., the sheriff’s office said. Detectives were en route to interview him Wednesday evening. Brown faces extradition to Indiana.
Butler’s arrest followed a parallel investigation that traced him to a home in the 400 block of South Kentucky Avenue, according to the sheriff’s office. Shortly after 8 p.m., Evansville SWAT personnel executed a search warrant at the home and took Butler into custody “without incident,” the sheriff’s office stated in a news release.
To date, investigators had executed at least 23 search warrants targeting vehicles, phones and residences related to the case. Citing the widening scope of the investigation, Robinson warned of the potential for additional arrests Wednesday evening.
“Any individual who provided assistance to these suspects following the commission of these crimes will be referred to the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office for felony charges,” Robinson said in a statement. “Helping a murder suspect evade justice is a crime, and we will treat it as one.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Three Evansville shooting suspects now in custody, sheriff says
Reporting by Houston Harwood, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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