Ervin Ingraham and Ronnetta Hurley-Brown were already dead when police found them shortly before 4:00 p.m. on January 30, according to court documents.
Inches from the front door, Ingraham lay face down on the living room floor. In the kitchen, Hurley-Brown was found lying on her back, nude from the waist down. They each sustained a single bullet to the back of the head.
The victims’ 1- and the 2-year-old children, who documents say were unharmed, were alone in the apartment for over 14 hours after their parents were shot execution-style.
On Saturday, A judge found probable cause to hold 22-year-old Tyrron Sweeney for the double homicide of Ingraham and Hurley-Brown.
On the afternoon on January 30, Hurley-Brown’s caretaker and a neighbor tried to enter the apartment, which they discovered was unlocked. A police report states that the two individuals immediately retrieved the children and called police.
According to charging documents, the caretaker said that neither Hurley-Brown nor Ingraham were answering their cell phones. When she called Ingraham’s phone at 12:02 p.m., “the baby answered the phone,” she told police. Concerned, she went to their apartment located in the 1600 block of 17th Street Southeast.
When police arrived at the scene, the bathroom and kitchen sinks were running and the floors were covered with water. Documents say that police noticed a strong odor of bleach in the apartment. Additionally, police found a potato with a hole in it, which they believe was used to silence the gunshots, documents say. A .38 caliber projectile was found on the floor near the potato.
According to charging documents, the caretaker was the last person to see Ingraham and Hurley-Brown alive when she left their apartment at 8:00 p.m. on January 29. The caretaker told police a friend of Ingraham’s was in the apartment when she left.
When asked to identify the friend in a photo array, the caretaker pointed to a picture of Sweeney. She told police that about a month ago, she entered the apartment without knocking and saw Ingraham and the same friend wearing blue gloves and mixing something in a bowl, documents say.
A second witness identified a photo of Sweeney as the man it saw leaving the victims’ apartment at 10:00 p.m. the night before Ingraham and Hurley-Brown were found dead.
According to charging documents, Sweeney told police that he had last seen Ingraham, who he said was his best friend, on January 27 or January 28. Documents say that video footage pulled from Sweeney’s girlfriend’s residence doesn’t show Sweeney arriving until 12:15 a.m. on January 30, more than two hours after the couple claimed they were together.
Sweeney is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Judge John Ramsey Johnson on November 21.
