A Superior Court Judge ruled Friday that 20-year-old Jerome Bailey can be tried for the shooting death of Rico Matthews. Matthews, a 36-year-old D.C. resident, was shot at least twice on Nov. 5, 2010 while inside a single family home in the 4000 block of First Street Southeast D.C., according to the criminal complaint against Bailey.
The complaint alleges that Matthews and Bailey were in an argument when witnesses heard gunshots and saw Bailey flee the house.
One of the witnesses quoted in the complaint said Bailey was recently upset about a sexual relationship the witness had had with Matthews. When the witness told Bailey that she had not had a relationship with Matthews, he “punched her in the eye, knocking her to the ground. The next day [Bailey] confronted [Matthews] again, stating ‘I’ll smoke his ass.’ … On the morning of Friday, November 5, 2010, [Bailey] called and accused her of arranging a sexual encounter with [Matthews] for $250.”
At a preliminary hearing Friday Metro Police Homicide Detective Truby testified that the shooting occurred in a known drug house that Bailey and Matthews both frequented and that officials with Metro Police’s Seventh District had a narcotics search warrant on the house when the shooting occurred.
Judge Lynn Leibovitz set a felony status hearing in the case for March 16.
