Jury Finds Eugene Kelly Guilty of Isaiah Harris Murder

A jury found Eugene Antoine Kelly guilty Monday of first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and related weapons offenses in connection with the 2011 shooting death of 15-year-old Isaiah Daniel Harris.

Judge Herbert Dixon is scheduled to sentence Kelly Aug. 6.

Prosecutors argued at trial that Kelly was “frustrated” because his family did not want to visit his brother’s gravesite on Memorial Day, so he went to the neighborhood where his brother was killed and “took out his grief” by shooting Harris and another teen, who survived the shooting.

One witness testified at trial that on the evening of May 30, 2011, Kelly approached him riding a bike, with a ski mask and started talking about his brother’s death. The witness said that after Kelly rode away, he stopped by a dumpster and retrieved a gun. Minutes later, the witness heard gunshots.

A different witness testified that she saw someone who looked like Kelly biking away from the scene, seconds after she heard four or five gunshots.

And another witness testified that he was sitting on his front porch the night of the murder and saw the shooter, riding a “mini-sized bicycle,” hide behind a vehicle moments before Harris and Wilson appeared. The witness said there were no verbal exchanges between the shooter and the teens. After firing several times, the shooter “hauled tail at cartoon speed,” the witness testified.

A search warrant recovered a lime green “trick bike” from Kelly’s residence, and cellphone tower records introduced at trial indicate that Kelly was within areas near the crime scene at the time of Harris’ death. A man resembling Kelly was also captured on nearby surveillance cameras.

blog comments powered by Disqus