Evidence collected from the scene where a stray bullet killed an innocent bystander on a busy street in Northwest D.C. last June potentially links the guns from that crime to other incidents of gun violence since 2018, according to court documents.
Jeremy Black died after he was shot June 29 on14th Street. He was a Takoma Park, Maryland, resident, father of two and Peace Corps executive. He was 53.
Dearay Anthony Wilson, 25, of Northeast D.C., was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree murder while armed, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee said.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives analysts investigated more than 80 pieces of ballistics evidence and potentially tied it to other shootings and homicides, including:
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- A shooting caught on cellphone less than a month later a block away on 14th Street NW,
- A Jan. 7 shooting in the 1300 block of Columbia Road NW that left three teenagers and two adults injured,
- And the August 2020 mass shooting at a large outdoor gathering on Dubois Place SE that wounded 21 people and left a 17-year-old Christopher Brown dead.
On the night of June 29, gunfire sprayed from Johnson Avenue NW, which is perpendicular to 14th Street, as Black was taking a walk with his wife and friends after dinner at a nearby restaurant, court documents say. Black was struck and taken to a hospital, where he died.
When Wilson was arrested Wednesday, police found in his jacket pocket a fully loaded gun of the same caliber that killed Black, court documents say.
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Charging documents include images of Wilson walking into Washington Hospital Center about 20 minutes later with a bloody T-shirt wrapped around a gunshot to his hand. When detectives called to the hospital didn’t believe his explanation he’d been shot during a robbery, they took his clothes, shoes and the bloody T-shirt into evidence before he left.
DNA from Wilson’s T-shirt matched blood found in the Chevy Equinox the gunmen drove away from the scene.
Wilson’s pants and black and blue Air Jordan shoes recovered from the hospital matched images recorded by security cameras in the alley the night of the shooting, court documents say.
“It was through investigative collaboration and, as I said, science that certainly led us to the arrest of this individual,” Contee said.
At his first appearance in D.C. Superior Court Thursday afternoon, a judge ordered Wilson be held without bond pending a felony status conference Dec. 6.
Police are still seeking “other individuals who may be involved” in Black’s killing, Contee said.
Wilson was charged with operating an all-terrain vehicle in a public space after crashing an ATV into another vehicle in Chinatown in 2018, according to a police report.
Contee said Wednesday he spoke with Black’s widow, Cathy Feingold, who is working to help other people who have lost family members to gun violence.
“She simply said, ’Thank you,’ and that she was ecstatic at the news,” Contee said.
Fourteenth Street NW is a major nightlife corridor and home to some of the most celebrated restaurants in D.C.
