Teen accused of driving her boyfriend faces murder charge in shooting of Fort Worth man
A 19-year-old woman was arrested Monday and accused of driving her boyfriend to a south Fort Worth neighborhood where he fatally shot a man in January.
Ashlynn Durham, of Fort Worth, was booked on suspicion of murder in the killing of 47-year-old Kevin Brown, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
On Jan. 25, around 5 p.m., responding police officers found Brown suffering from a gunshot wound to the head outside his residence in the 2100 block of Beacon Way. He was taken to a nearby hospital and was pronounced dead once he was in the emergency room, police said.
Durham’s arrest is the second in the case. Damond Cotton, 19, also of Fort Worth, was arrested last month.
According to Durham’s arrest warrant, she and Cotton were in a relationship. Police believe the pair planned Brown’s killing. Detectives obtained several text messages the two exchanged before and after the drive-by shooting.
The warrant said that on the day before the shooting, Cotton asked Durham to pick him up and she wasn’t able to do so. Cotton reportedly asked Durham to take him “by that one house,” before telling her not to come. He later told Durham that he was going to tell an “unknown third party that they will ‘do it tomorrow,” according to the warrant.
On the afternoon of Jan. 25, the couple exchanged multiple text messages around 4 p.m., just minutes before the shooting, the warrant said. In the messages, Durham said that she was outside ready to pick up Cotton, and no further text messages were exchanged until after the shooting occurred.
According to neighbors’ video surveillance footage, a black 2015-2019 Chrysler 200 arrived in the Beacon Way neighborhood around 4:43 p.m. The vehicle parked outside a residence in the neighborhood and remained there for about 20 minutes before the car rolled slowly northbound and “the rear passenger (fired) a firearm out the rear passenger side window,” the warrant said.
Another neighbor’s surveillance footage showed a “large puff of dust from the mailbox,” and Brown falling to the ground and not moving again.
Witnesses were able to identify the vehicle by damage to the right fender and back right tire. They also noted that the driver was a woman wearing a shower cap.
After using witness statements and the surveillance video, police said they were able to find the car and that it was linked to Durham and Cotton in previous police reports, including Cotton’s suspected involvement in a robbery and previously being named a suspect in another drive-by shooting.
Two days after the shooting, Durham was interviewed by police and she told officers she had picked her boyfriend up and drove straight to the shooting location. She admitted that Cotton had sat in the right rear seat and often carried an AR-15, according to the warrant.
She told police after she parked near a curb, Cotton said it was time to go, and that’s when she heard loud gunfire and continued driving, dropping him off at his apartment with no stops in between, according to the warrant.
Cotton was arrested on suspicion of murder on the morning of Feb. 9.
Police had requested the text messages between the pair in early February and were granted the warrant last week. Through the text exchanges, investigators concluded the shooting was planned and that Durham “was aware of where they were going and why on the day of the murder,” and that the 19-year-old “made no attempts to stop the shooting from occurring,” the warrant said.
“She provided the transportation to the scene of the murder, parked with the victim’s house in view until he came outside to his mailbox and then facilitated (Cotton’s) escape afterward,” the warrant added.
Durham is being held on $100,000 bond.
Police have not described a motive for the shooting.
This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 8:07 AM.
