His weed went missing. 2 NC teens were kidnapped and shot. What the jury decided.
A 27-year-old man was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury found him guilty of a scheme that involved marijuana, kidnapping and a shooting that left one teen dead and another shot in the face.
Quashaun Niajel Slade was convicted of murder, kidnapping, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously injure and other charges on Wednesday.
He was sentenced to life in prison, the automatic punishment for a first-degree murder conviction, plus up to an additional 37 years.
Five other suspects face murder and other charges in the case. Slade was the first person to go to trial.
Dymond Patrice Fowler, 19, was found dead in a ditch on Glenn Road on the evening of Aug. 24, 2015.
Her close friend Alexis Patterson, then 17, was shot in the face and hand. Patterson pretended to be dead until the shooters drove off shooting at them, according to the prosecutor.
Patterson then walked about a mile and made her way to a home off the road where a resident called 911 around 9:17 p.m. Aug. 24, 2015.
“I don’t know who she is, but she said she has been shot in the mouth,” the caller told a 911 operator. “Looks like they blew off one of her fingers. I can’t see her mouth, but on one of her hands, her index finger looks gone.”
The crime stems from Slade’s marijuana going missing days before from an apartment off Ross Road in Durham, Assistant Attorney General Boz Zellinger told the jury in closing statements Tuesday.
The trial included testimony from Patterson.
Brittany Lassiter, Dominique Faulkner and Alezai Deciara Clay, who all also face murder and other charges in the case, also testified in the case against Slade.
Slade’s attorney, Robert Singagliese, argued that the co-defendants who testified were looking out for themselves. He questioned the accuracy of their testimony and pointed out it was different from what they initially told police.
Jesus Arce and Donovan Amire Bright are also charged in the murder but didn’t testify.
Missing marijuana
The apartment where Slade’s marijuana was being sent belonged to a friend of Lassiter.
Lassiter and her friend had been accepting the packages for Slade, and he had been compensating them for their help, Zellinger told the jury in closing statements Tuesday.
Lassiter, however, wasn’t loyal to her then roommate and friend but to Slade, whom she was romantically involved with, Zellinger said.
On Aug. 22, 2015, Slade searched the apartment and then cars for the weed that he had sent to the apartment but didn’t find it.
Lassiter and others began to suspect that the roommate and her sister, Patterson, had taken the weed, Zellinger said.
By Aug. 24, the day of the killing, Slade and his co-defendants were executing a plan that included buying marijuana from Patterson in the Northgate Mall parking area to see if it was Slade’s missing marijuana.
After Slade said it was his marijuana, another drug transaction was set up at Red Roof Inn, where Fowler and Patterson were picked up.
On Glenn Road, Slade ordered Bright to shoot Fowler and shot Patterson, Zellinger said.
This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 2:31 PM.
