Trial begins for one of five people charged with Durham man’s 2016 murder

An Orange County prosecutor told jurors they will hear “a roadmap of evidence” over the next week about a Durham man accused of first-degree murder in a 2016 shooting death.

Andre Lamar Dixon, 24, is one of five men charged with murder in the Jan. 18, 2016, death of Tevin Kendrick, 22, of Buxton Street in Durham. Dixon could face life in prison if the jury convicts him of first-degree murder.

Another defendant, Terry Jones Jr., 24, of Durham pleaded to a reduced charge of second-degree murder in August and is serving 25 to 31 years in prison.

Three others charged with first-degree murder are: Devon Antonio Harris, Barry Dion Holt and Jermauciyae Rysuan Abram, all of Durham. A fifth man, Savian Jacoby Turrentine of Durham is charged with being an accessory after the fact to a felony.

Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputies responding to a gunfire call found Kendrick dead behind a white Nissan Altima just after 2 p.m. that day in the Efland-Cheeks Community Center parking lot off U.S. 70 West.

The car was still running with its trunk open, and investigators found numerous shell casings at the scene from four weapons: 380-caliber, 45-caliber, 40-caliber and 9mm handguns.

Associate Chief Medical Examiner Susan Venuti testified Monday that she recovered eight bullets from Kendrick’s body. There were 23 entrance wounds and 14 or 15 exit wounds to his front, side and arms, she said.

Kendrick was a kind-hearted father of four young children, his mother Myra Snead said Monday, as she testified about her son’s death.

He had called her that morning, asking for a ride, Snead said, but she was working at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Fayetteville. She got another call — from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office — after returning home that evening.

The deputies wouldn’t tell her what had happened over the phone, Snead said. Instead, several deputies came to her house in Durham to tell her that Kendrick was dead.

“I think I fell to the ground,” she said. “I asked to see him. I asked where he was. I just wanted to see my baby.”

Orange County sheriff’s deputies, a Roxboro police detective skilled in fingerprint analysis and two Raleigh-Wake County crime analysts testified Monday about evidence collected from the shooting scene and from an earlier home invasion in Cary.

Dixon and Harris were among a group of men charged in connection with the home invasion, which led Durham police to La Quinta Inn in Durham, where they found cars and weapons thought to be connected to the Orange County shooting.

Orange County Assistant District Attorney Byron Beasley said a fingerprint taken from the white Altima was matched to Turrentine, providing one of the first breaks in the case. The rest was unraveled over four months through fingerprints, surveillance videos and multiple interviews, Beasley has said.

Turrentine told investigators that he met Kendrick and the other men at a Durham hotel, and then traveled with Kendrick to the community center, while the others followed.

Turrentine has testified that he got in the car with Dixon at the center, and that Jones shot Kendrick first, followed by Harris, Holt and Dixon. Abram later confirmed which defendants used handguns in the murder, Beasley said in the August trial.

A jailhouse witness, who shared a Durham County jail cell with some of the defendants, has told investigators the men set up Kendrick because they thought he was going to rob them, Beasley said.

The witness, who initially said Jones told him that he, Dixon, Holt and Harris killed Kendrick, later changed his story to suggest Dixon and Harris set up Kendrick. He said Jones might not have been the shooter.

Video surveillance presented during Jones’ trial showed the white Altima, which another man had rented and given to Kendrick earlier that day, traveling on U.S. 70 toward the community center. It was followed by a black Chevrolet Malibu, which Jones’ girlfriend let him drive, and a bronze Nissan Altima, which Dixon’s mother had rented, he said.

Video footage later showed the Malibu and the bronze Altima leaving the center toward Durham, but not the white Altima.

Although witnesses have testified that Dixon used a 45-caliber handgun to shoot Kendrick, no fingerprints or other evidence linking him to the crime was presented Monday. Defense attorney Amos Tyndall had few questions for the expert witnesses who testified Monday for the prosecution.

However, Tyndall noted in his opening argument that witnesses are critical to the prosecutor’s case. Other witnesses against Dixon, including his co-defendants, have changed their stories, he said, and investigators have not asked why, because the witnesses confirmed what law enforcement believed.

“Without these people, the state cannot prove its case,” Tyndall said.

The trial will continue Tuesday morning.

This story was originally published October 29, 2018 at 5:24 PM.