Fort Worth-area man arrested for second time in same 2017 double murder case
A man who was arrested almost two years ago and then released after being implicated in a double homicide in Southeast Fort Worth was indicted Thursday in connection with the same case.
Kailon Shaw, 25, of Crowley, is facing a capital murder charge and is accused in the deaths of Shemeka Rodriguez and Ramsez Hall, two people gunned down in the summer of 2017.
Rodriguez and Hall, both 32, were shot to death while standing with a group of people outside a vacant residence in the 900 block of East Davis Avenue about 11 p.m. on June 9, 2017. Five others were wounded in the shooting.
People in the surrounding neighborhood described the shooting as one of the bloodiest nights of that year.
Shaw was initially charged in the case in 2018 but was released from jail three months later when prosecutors dropped the charges, according to court records. Police said they recovered new evidence that has led to this new capital murder indictment, but have declined to discuss the case beyond that.
Using witness statements and crime scene evidence, detectives concluded that the attackers executed “a triangulated effort to ambush the victims,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit issued when Shaw was initially accused of the murders.
Four shooters opened fire on a targeted group, according to the affidavit. The number of people who were in the group when the shooting took place is unclear.
Witnesses told officers that two groups of shooters flanked the victims on the right and left and opened fire. By most definitions it was a mass shooting, but the incident did not meet the FBI stipulation that a mass shooting consist of at least four deaths.
Rodriguez’s mother, Melinda Hamilton, a community activist and political organizer, declined to comment on the new developments in the case.
Rodriguez’s death was caused by wounds to the head and chest, officials with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled. The second shooting victim, Hall, died from gunshot wounds to the chest.
When Shaw was accused of the murders and named as a suspect in March 2018, Hamilton said she was told there was not enough evidence to hold him. Prosecutors dropped charges against Shaw and released him from jail in June 2018, on the basis of prosecutorial discretion.
Neither the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office nor the Fort Worth Police Department commented on the dismissal or Shaw’s release from jail at that time because it was a pending case.
Shaw now has been in the Tarrant County jail since November, according to court records.
The ambush
After the shooting, crime scene technicians recovered 9 mm, 7.62-, 5.56- and .308-caliber shell casings from two different locations — one at the corner of New York and East Davis Avenues and one in the driveway of a vacant house in the 900 block of East Davis, the arrest warrant affidavit said.
Witnesses told officers they heard gunshots coming from both locations and that the two groups of shooters flanked the victims on the right and left and opened fire on them. Police found homes and vehicles damaged from the gunfire.
One witness said she saw four shooters emerge from two cars, a black four-door sedan and a small maroon car. The only person the witness could see clearly, a tall, thin, black man with a short haircut, shot in the direction of the victims and then drove away in the maroon car. The maroon car and the black four-door sedan were both seen traveling south on New York Avenue, the affidavit said.
Police obtained cellphone records that placed Shaw in the vicinity of the shooting that day in June and statements from witnesses tied him to a dark blue Chevrolet Tahoe and a black Chevrolet Malibu with weapons inside, according to his arrest warrant.
The two vehicles were found illegally parked in handicapped spaces, with the keys inside and the windows down. Inside the vehicles, police discovered four weapons — an AK-47 style rifle (7.62 caliber), Smith and Wesson M&P 15 rifle (5.56 caliber), Smith and Wesson MPIO rifle (.308 caliber), and a Beretta handgun (.40 caliber), the affidavit said.
Those guns were collected as evidence and at least one was test-fired for ballistics, the affidavit said.
“I requested that the .308 caliber rifle be tested and compared to the .308 shell casings collected from this offense,” Detective J.W. Galloway wrote. “The Fort Worth Crime Lab confirmed that the .308 rifle was a match to the shell casings from this offense.”
Based on the statements of a witness, investigators determined that Shaw was driving a blue Chevrolet Tahoe that belonged to someone else. A witness told a police officer that he saw guns in the Tahoe and described one as a big gun that was camouflage colored.
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
