Twin brothers face murder charges in two separate Fort Worth shooting deaths
Twin brothers who were arrested Thursday in connection with the killing of an employee outside a Fort Worth restaurant are also suspects in another young man’s death, according to police records.
Samuel and Solomon Gbadebo, both 20 years old, face murder charges in a shooting that occurred 15 days prior on the grounds of an apartment complex.
In that case, 19-year-old Devan Gene Randles was shot multiple times while he was trying to steal items from cars in the complex’s parking lot, Fort Worth police wrote in an affidavit supporting a warrant to search the Gbadebo home.
Shortly before he was shot early in the morning on Nov. 15, Randles and three other men wearing masks and hoodies walked from his house to the apartment complex in the 3300 block of Augusta Lane, off Western Center Boulevard, according to the affidavit. They began checking for unlocked vehicles in the lot, Randles’ friends told police. Randles was shot right after he opened the front passenger door of a white sedan, one of the witnesses said.
Surveillance videos from both the apartment complex and Flips Patio Grill, where the second homicide occurred on Nov. 30, showed the suspects fleeing in the same white Nissan Altima, a detective wrote in the affidavit.
Records showed that the car was registered to the Gbadebo twins’ mother, and surveillance footage from their apartment complex appeared to show at least one of brothers entering an elevator around the time the car left and returned during the timeframe of the Nov. 30 shooting, police said.
A few days after the shooting outside Flips restaurant, a caller told police that the victim in that case, 20-year-old Isaiah Gonzales, had robbed the brothers at gunpoint about four years earlier and forced them to undress, according to the affidavit. The caller told police they had heard the twins were responsible for killing Gonzales.
In a video found on Gonzales’ phone, multiple people are seen holding two naked young men at gunpoint, according to the affidavit.
Using facial recognition software and a previous report of the robbery, police determined the robbery victims in that video were Samuel and Solomon Gbadebo, according to the affidavit.
Police also reviewed surveillance video from Flips, at 6613 Fossil Bluff Drive, which showed the shooting on Nov. 30, the affidavit states. The video showed two people wearing hoodies emerge from tall grass west of the restaurant. The two gunmen loitered in the parking lot between Flips and Landmark Bar & Kitchen for more than 30 minutes until Gonzales and his girlfriend left the restaurant and got into their car at 2:35 a.m.
As soon as Gonzales closed the door, the two shooters ran up, stood directly in front of the car and fired their handguns into the windshield, the affidavit states.
The brothers are being held in the Tarrant County Jail and each faces two counts of murder, according to jail records.
Information about their bond was not immediately available Friday.
