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An 18-year-old Newport News man told police on Monday that a man and a teenager were trying to steal a gun. So he shot them first.
Dionte Fries told the detective that he had taken a 9mm Taurus pistol from his neighbor’s couch and put it in his pocket just before shooting at Wickham Avenue at 6:20 pm.
But when he returned to his apartment, he said he had heard Marika Antonio Forbes, 20, of Hampton, “talking on the phone about the sale of Taurus firearms.”
“Fries said he thought he was talking about the firearms he had in his pocket,” according to a criminal accusation filed in the Newport News General District Court.
Flythe also told the detective that he had heard Ma’alik Herbert Edwards, 17, and said on the phone that he “wants to leave.”
“Fries believed that Edwards and Forbes were preparing to steal firearms from him,” police detective MA Clark wrote in the complaint. “The milling cutter got out of the bathroom, pointed the firearm at Forbes, and triggered it.”
But there were no rounds in the room.
“Forbes tried to reach for the firearm on his waist,” he said, but Milling was able to slip a new round into the chamber and shoot first.
“Then, Fries turned around and shot Edwards twice and fell into the kitchen,” the complaint said.
Forbes and Milling ran out of house — Forbes came out of the front door and Milling came out of the back. According to the complaint, Milling fired two more shots outside Forbes, near 36th Avenue and Wickham Avenue.
Police received a firing warning from “Shot Spotter”. This is a system that identifies the location of the shot by an acoustic signal. According to the complaint, two police officers in the area soon saw Milling pass by with a gun in his hand, shirtless.
According to the search warrant affidavit, he threw weapons near several railroad tracks. However, the officers caught up with him and found a firearm.
The life-threatening wounded Forbes was taken to the Riverside Community Medical Center. His condition could not be determined on Friday.
On-site police also heard screams from Wickham Avenue’s apartment and found Edwards suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in the kitchen near the seven cartridge casings.
He was declared dead on the scene.
Flythe has been charged with one murder, worsening malicious injuries, and a number of several guns.
During a cross-examination on Monday night, the complaint stated that Fries had confessed that he had shot both Edwards and Forbes.
Flythe explained that he lived in an apartment on Wickham Avenue with his aunt, brother and teenage cousin. Edwards lived “intermittently” at home, he said, and Fries told police that his cousin was pregnant with Edwards’ foetation.
Fries told the detective that when Forbes came home on Monday, he felt “strange” about what was about to happen.
“My neighbor wasn’t at home,” he complained, but he said he “put himself in” and took the gun off the couch. Then he went home, and when he heard Edwards and Forbes on the phone, he began to dress and pack his bags.
On Friday, Edwards’ 16-year-old girlfriend said she “don’t want to believe” her cousin killed him and said she was looking forward to her baby daughter seven months later.
“He was just focused on having a baby,” she said. “That’s all he said … he was funny, sweet, stupid and loved to eat. To be honest, he loved to eat anything.”
Meanwhile, a neighbor next door told Daily Press that Milling’s story of recovering a gun from the couch wasn’t true.
“When he came to my house and said he found a gun, no one hit my house,” said neighbor Ebony Beamon. “I was at home and stayed there all the time and he didn’t rush here.”
She said that only Edwards’ girlfriend after being shot came that night. “I was trying to comfort her,” Beamon said.
Flythe is conducting a probable cause inquiry scheduled for November 10 regarding the number of guns associated with the alleged murder.
Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, [email protected]
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