A man charged with murdering his stepson sat in a nearly empty courtroom on Friday while a D.C. homicide detective described the events that lead to the killing on Jan. 5.
The family and friends of Ronald Page did not attend the preliminary hearing for the 58-year-old D.C. murder suspect. Instead, they were at the funeral for Page’s stepson, Nicholas Satcher. While Satcher, 22, was being buried at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Maryland Friday morning, a D.C. Superior Court Judge was finding probable cause the murder case against Page, the man who had raised Satcher.
Page is accused of shooting Satcher in the family’s home on the 4200 block of Gault Place, NE. Page identified himself as the shooter when police arrived at the scene, according to court documents. Satcher died later that night of gunshot wounds to the chest.
The question now is if Page will face first-degree or second-degree murder charges in the upcoming trial. According to defense attorney Lawrence Kupers, Page said he planned to shoot only at the ceiling of the home to scare Satcher and Page’s biological son, Adrian Page. But when the two boys “lunged at him,” Ronald shot Satcher, according Kupers.
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Shawn Davis, a 36-year-old Southeast D.C. man, was charged yesterday with first-degree murder in the December 7 stabbing death of Tawanna Barnes Copeland in her Southwest D.C. apartment.
Davis is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in D.C. Superior Court on Jan. 24. He is being held at D.C. jail.
I’m out of town on family business today. Will post charging docs Monday. Laura
The man suspected in the shooting death of Ricardo Vondell Minger last Friday (Jan. 7) is expected in court Feb. 1 for a preliminary hearing on first degree murder charges. Kevin Clark, 23, was arrested Sunday (Jan. 9) and is currently being held at D.C. jail.
Minger, a 17-year-old resident of Southeast D.C., was shot in the face and abdomen Jan. 7 in an apartment in Southeast D.C. He was identified by his fingerprints, according to charging documents in the case against Clark.
The charging documents do not give a reason for the shooting, saying only that a person in an nearby apartment saw three men enter the apartment then watched as one produced a gun and shot the teen.
it observed three male subjects enter the apartment. [Clark] walked to the balcony door and looked out the door while the other two subjects stood by the front door, produced a revolver style handgun that was silver with a brown handle and fired multiple shots at the victim. [Clark] and the other two subjects fled the apartment on foot.
Charging documents follow after the jump.
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This just in from Metro PD:
January 13, 2011
Arrest Made in the Homicide of Tawanna Barnes-Copeland
( Washington, DC)- Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch have announced an arrest has been made in the homicide of Tawanna Barnes-Copeland.
On Tuesday, December 7, 2010, at approximately 8:40 pm, units from the Seventh District responded to the unit block of Galveston Place, SW, to investigate the report of an unconscious person. Upon their arrival, they discovered a victim lying in an apartment suffering from apparent stab wounds. Personnel from the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded to the scene and determined the decedent, 41 year-old Tawanna Barnes-Copeland, had no signs consistent with life. She was later pronounced dead and her death was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, at approximately 3:20 pm, 36 year-old Shawn Davis, of Southeast, DC was arrested and charged with Murder One While Armed in the homicide of Tawanna Barnes-Copeland.
Tomorrow morning when Craig Satcher is burying his brother Nicholas, there is one family member that won’t be there: the mens’ stepfather, who has an appointment that same hour in D.C. Superior Court. As Nicholas Satcher is buried, Ronald Page will likely be listening to a homicide detective describe his stepson’s last moments and why Page is suspected in the murder.
“My brother and stepfather are all in the same family,” Craig Satcher said. “I can’t even look at things the same.”
Nicholas Satcher was shot in the chest at about 7:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 5 at his mother’s and stepfather’s home in the 4200 block of Gault Place, NE. He was transported by EMS to a local hospital and died that night. Ronald Page was detained at the scene of the shooting and arrested that night on homicide charges. According to charging documents Page had been in an argument with his 17-year-old son before the shooting.
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UPDATE Jan. 13 1 p.m. The preliminary hearing in this case has been rescheduled for Feb. 11 at 9:30 a.m. in Judge William Jackson’s courtroom (302).
Steven Cephas is expected in court Thursday morning for a preliminary hearing in the death of a toddler he was babysitting while its mother was at work. Cephas is also known as Steve Dawson and Savion Dawson, according to charging documents in the case. He will be 21 years old on Sunday.
According to the charging documents, 20-month-old Dominic Dwayne Kingsbury Jr. was found unconscious by paramedics responding to an emergency call about the child at about 2 a.m. on Monday, November 8, 2010. He was transported to Children’s National Medical Center and pronounced dead at 3:17 that morning. An autopsy concluded that he had suffered multiple blunt force injuries and that his death was a homicide.
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Last week Homicide Watch D.C. debuted it’s Documents Library, an online resource for all documents related to homicide cases in the District of Columbia.
Here you’ll be able to find unsolved case fliers, news releases, charging documents, case dismissals and more.
Here’s the back story:
One of our primary goals in building Homicide Watch D.C. has always been to display our primary source documents in public whenever possible. Originally that meant just court documents, but as we’ve worked on the site the past four months the field of documents has grown to include reward posters, news releases and more.
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This excerpt is from The Hungry Spirit: Rachel’s Wail for a Murdered Teen, by Rose Marie Berger. The article appeared in February’s issue of Soujourners magazine. To read the whole story, click here.
Last week the body of a young woman was found near my house. She was 17 years old. She’d been murdered. The garbage men reported finding her in a supercan in the alley. For a few days she had no name. Now I know her name was Ebony Franklin.
Ebony took a bus from her dad’s apartment in my neighborhood to her mom’s on the other side of town. She never made it home.
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A New York Times opinion piece this morning looks at the United States’ daily murder rate through the eyes of last weekend’s tragic shooting in Tucson.
Excluding the people killed in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than 150,000 Americans have been murdered since the beginning of the 21st century. This endlessly proliferating parade of death, which does not spare women or children, ought to make our knees go weak. But we never even notice most of the killings. Homicide is white noise in this society.
The overwhelming majority of the people who claim to be so outraged by last weekend’s shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others — six of them fatally — will take absolutely no steps, none whatsoever, to prevent a similar tragedy in the future. And similar tragedies are coming as surely as the sun makes its daily appearance over the eastern horizon because this is an American ritual: the mowing down of the innocents.
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A funeral is planned for Tuesday, Jan 11 for Brian Scott, who was was shot to death in Southeast D.C. on Sunday, Jan. 2.
Scott was 21 years old.
According to his obituary, Scott is survived by his daughter, Ailea Scott, his parents, Bonnie Scott and Eric Waddy, and other family and friends.
In an online memorial, Artesia Robinson of Upper Marlboro, Md wrote:
My Nephew I love you and will miss you daily. I hold in my heart all the memories of you from birth until you were called home. Keep an eye on your Aunt Tisha. Sister I love you I’m here for you. As you have been doing continue to lean on God for your strength we will get through this with Gods help. Love you!!!
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