An 18-year-old man has been charged with murder in the killings of a congressional intern, who was hit by stray gunfire in D.C.’s Mount Vernon Square in late June, and a teen girl, who was gunned down inside a home in the Carver-Langston neighborhood on the Fourth of July.
Naqwan Lucas, 18, faces a slew of charges, including murder, in the June 30 shooting of 21-year-old Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, of Granby, Massachusetts. Tarpinian-Jachym was a congressional intern for Kansas Rep. Ron Estes.
Two other teens are also charged with murder in that case.
Police said they did not believe the intern was the intended target. A woman and a teenage boy were also injured in the shooting.
According to the preliminary investigation, the teens exited from a car and began firing at 鈥渁 group.鈥�
“They were a crew. They were the Tyler House. They were masked up and they were gunned up and they were ready for a fight,” U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said during a Thursday news conference.
Pirro said Lucas is the brother of 17-year-old Jailen Lucas, who was also charged in the shooting, along with 17-year-old Kelvin Thomas Jr.
Officers found Tarpinian-Jachym unconscious at the scene. He died days later. Two others were shot in the barrage of gunfire, totaling 79 rounds, according to police, but survived.
Estes 聽that Tarpinian-Jachym was a rising senior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, majoring in finance with a minor in political science.
Police said that during the course of their investigation into that shooting, they connected Lucas to the July 4 fatal shooting of his girlfriend, 17-year-old Zoey Kelley. She was killed around 5:15 p.m. inside a home on Benning Road in the Northeast neighborhood of Carver-Langston.
Her body was found in a storage container in a closet inside the home which was rented by Lucas’ father, according to authorities.
Pirro read a letter by Kelley’s mother, Shanika, saying, “I see my baby that morning. That evening, I didn’t see her no more. She never came back home. She never returned to us.”
Days before Lucas’ arrest, police, in addition to the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, had offered a $75,000 reward for any information that led to his arrest.
麻豆官网’s Gaby Arancibia and Ciara Wells contributed to this report.
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