A man charged with capital murder in a fatal shooting last month pleaded innocent Friday, and Little Rock police issued an arrest warrant for a second suspect in the case.
District Judge Alice Lightle ordered Brandon Montel Nevels, 21, to be held without bail at the Pulaski County jail. Nevels is accused of killing Feron Shadell Whitley, 22, on Dec. 16 at Autumn Park Apartments in Little Rock. Nevels was already in jail in an unrelated case when police charged him Thursday.
Police said Friday afternoon that Nautica Champeal Finney, 19, was also involved in the slaying. She's wanted on a charge of capital murder.
Court filings released Friday provided new details on the case.
According to a police affidavit, Finney and Nevels told other people that they had killed Whitley while trying to rob him of money and drugs. Two of those people, who were not identified in the affidavit, later went to police with the pair's account.
Finney lured Whitley to the apartment complex at 43 Warren Drive with the promise of oral sex, and the two were in a Dodge Avenger on the east side of the property, near Building 10, when an armed Nevels approached at 5:17 p.m., the affidavit states.
Whitley saw Nevels and reached for a pistol. Nevels then fired into the vehicle multiple times and struck Whitley in the right thigh, according to the affidavit.
Police said Whitley drove away after being shot, but didn't get far. He crashed into two vehicles at Warren Drive and Valley Drive, just outside the gated apartment complex. Officers found him dead in the wrecked Avenger with a large amount of cash, a .40-caliber pistol and a cellphone on the floorboard.
An autopsy report showed the fatal shot struck Whitley's femoral artery, police said.
The witnesses listed in the affidavit reportedly knew details of the case that police hadn't made public.
One told police that Nevels was carrying a bag of clothing and a 9mm pistol after the killing; investigators found six shell casings of the same caliber at the apartment complex, the affidavit states.
Police detective Greg Siegler wrote in the court filing that "the conversations between the witnesses and what Brandon Nevels and Nautica Finney told the witnesses are consistent with the evidence found at the crime scene and of evidence that only someone involved in this crime would know."
Nevels of Little Rock, who was on parole after theft and burglary convictions, was scheduled to appear in court again March 29.
Police were still seeking Finney late Friday. She's described as black with dark hair and braces and as having tattoos on her arms and chest. Police said she is known to drive a red 1998 Pontiac Grand Am.
Court records show Finney has no adult criminal history.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette interviewed Finney at a state Children and Family Services Division event in August. She was representing the Arkansas Youth Advisory Board, an arm of the state foster-care system in which she said she grew up.
Finney told a reporter that after landing in the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center as a youth, she'd made "a complete 180 turnaround" with her life and was a student at Pulaski Technical College. She said she planned to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
Finney said she'd opted to remain a ward of the state until she turned 21, the maximum age allowed. She was last known to reside at the Centers for Youth and Families' Youth Emergency Shelter at 6425 W. 12th St.
Metro on 01/30/2016