Lawyer for man accused of shooting teens says Watauga double homicide was self defense
The man accused of fatally shooting two 17-year-olds in Watauga on March 12 told his family that someone attempted to rob him when he was trying to sell a gun, according to court documents and the suspect’s attorney.
Keiwone Morris, 18, is accused of killing Johnny Rojas and Klodian Ramaj, both 17, as they sat in a pickup truck parked on Caribou Ridge Drive. Police have called the killings a “senseless tragedy.”
Morris’ attorney said he believes that if Morris committed the shooting, it would have been in response to an attempted robbery.
Defense attorney Wes Ball, who represents Morris, told the Star-Telegram that he’s “not conceding he’s responsible for this, but it looks like if there’s truth for that, there’s a reason and I think the reason might be consistent with the law.”
Police arrested Morris on March 22 after launching a multi-agency manhunt for him. Ball said his client turned himself in to police after contacting Ball and meeting him at a courthouse. Morris faces two counts of capital murder and is being held at the Tarrant County Jail on a combined $1 million bond.
An affidavit supporting a search warrant to collect a sample of Morris’ DNA mentions that he was trying to raise money to support a baby he and his girlfriend were expecting and that he sold plasma earlier in the day and then went to sell other things.
The search warrant was for a sample of saliva, hair or blood.
Morris’ mother, Yolanda Palmer, told police that Morris came home after the shooting and told his family that somebody “tried to rob me,” according to the warrant. After seeing a TV news story about the shooting, Morris “jumped up and threw a fit” and repeated that “(expletive) tried to rob me,” and then he abruptly left the house, his mother told police. Palmer tried to call Morris several times after he left but he did not answer, she said.
Morris had recently lost his job, prompting him to look for other ways to make money and told his mother and father earlier in the day that he was going to sell something to make money, according to the search warrant affidavit.
Police wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit for Morris that they searched the phone of Ramaj, one of the teens who was killed. Messages on the phone showed Ramaj and Morris had been communicating over Instagram to set up a meeting to “possibly purchase a weapon that same day,” the warrant says.
Ball said he believes Morris was trying to sell an AR-15 style rifle. The search warrant says witnesses described the weapon used in the shooting as an AR-style rifle. Ball said he believes that, if Morris did shoot the two teens, it was because they were trying to rob him of the gun instead of paying him for it.
“Timing is everything,” Ball said. “I would not suggest somebody robbing someone holding an AR-15.”
Detectives found about “35 fired shell casings in and around the crime scene,” according to the warrant.
Police said in the search warrant for Morris’ DNA that they met with a childhood friend of Rojas and Ramaj who confirmed the Instagram used in the message belonged to Morris.
The childhood friend “immediately looked very shocked and was adamant that ‘trippy_dk’ was his friend Keiwone Morris,” according to the search warrant.
Police said they asked the friend again if he was certain and he told them “he was 100% sure” and that trippy_dk was the same screen name Morris used when playing PS4 games online. Police said he showed them screenshots to confirm the information and that it “confirms that Morris is the owner/user of this information and the person who was involved in the shooting.”
Police wrote in the warrant that Billy Gene Jackson, Morris’ father, called them around 11:20 p.m. on March 14 and told non-emergency dispatchers that he believed his son was the one who committed the shooting.
“The two 17-year-old guys that y’all found dead in the truck, my son just confessed to that so I’m about to come and turn him in,” police said Jackson told the dispatcher.
He told police his son’s name was Keiwone Morris. When police went to meet with Jackson and Morris, Jackson told them Morris had found out his father was attempting to turn him in, and got out of the vehicle and ran.
The friend who spoke to police said Morris attended the same school as the teens. All three lived in north Fort Worth. Rojas and Ramaj were seniors at Fossil Ridge High School in the Keller school district.
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 5:49 PM.