ZsaKenya Mathews testified Tuesday she heard rapid-fire gunfire, then ran down to find her son Daqwuan Walker, 23, shot outside the front door “more than 10 times.”
He was “mumbling” and “moaning.” A young woman with him ran when the shooting started.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Mathews said. “I was trying to help him.”
Virgil “Reese” King, 23, of Gary, is on trial this week. He is charged with murder in Walker’s Jan. 25, 2023 death. He is also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, and two counts of unlawful carrying of a handgun. He has pleaded not guilty.
Co-defendant Micah “Mike” Sanders, 25, took a plea deal Friday on murder. He is facing a 45-year term if Judge Gina Jones accepts the agreement.
His sentencing is scheduled for June 28.
In opening statements on Monday, Deputy Prosecutor Keith Anderson said there was no video footage showing the shooting. However, there was a video showing two men running up the street afterward.
Cops also followed footsteps in the snow with a K-9 to the 2500 block of Waverly Drive where the pair were arrested.
Defense lawyer Adam Tavitas said in opening statements the state didn’t have the evidence to prove the case. There were no witnesses who saw the shooting. There was “little evidence” that King knew Walker, the lawyer said.
The handgun cops found in a bedroom closet where they were arrested had Sander’s DNA, not King’s, he said.
Gary Police Detective Daryl Gordon was called at 8:17 a.m. on Jan. 25, 2023, to the 500 block of Chase Street where Walker was lying lifeless on his back near the home’s front stoop, according to court records.
Police found several 9-millimeter bullet casings nearby.
A witness told police Walker was walking back from a gas station around 6 a.m. when gunshots rang out, according to court records.
Police discovered a dog had been shot dead on the 500 block of Taney Street not long after Walker’s slaying. It was the same bullet type, the affidavit alleges.
A K-9 dog tracked a scent from the crime scene to the same house on the 500 block of Taney, then stopped at a house on the 2500 block of Waverly Drive, five blocks away from the murder scene, charges state.
Officers surrounded the home. A man appeared to try crawling out a back window with possibly a gun in his pocket before closing it shut. Officers arrested King and Sanders, according to the affidavit. A woman and several kids were inside.
A witness told police King and Sanders knocked on the door asking to come inside and he knew them “through our (relative).”
The men were inside for 10 minutes before police came, according to court documents.
mcolias@post-trib.com
