Sep 05, 2003  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

Over the objections of police and prosecutors, a D.C. Superior Court judge on Aug. 27 ordered a man charged with the murder of District transgendered resident Emonie Kiera Spaulding released on his own recognizance while he awaits trial.

D.C. Police last week charged Derrick Antwan Lewis, 22, with shooting Spaulding, 25, at an undetermined location on Aug. 21 and dumping her nude body in a grassy area near 2nd Street and Malcolm X Avenue, S.E. Lewis has been charged with second-degree murder while armed.

Police say there is no evidence of premeditation, which would warrant a first-degree murder charge.

During an Aug. 27 arraignment, Judge Richard A. Levie acknowledged that the government presented sufficient evidence to show probable cause exists to charge Lewis in the murder. But Levie said the government’s case so far is based on circumstantial evidence and it has yet to meet a higher standard of “substantial probability” that Lewis is guilty, a standard that must be met to hold Lewis in jail pending trial.

Levie also noted that Lewis has no prior criminal record, was employed at the time of his arrest, and has longstanding ties to the D.C. community. Judges are required under the city’s criminal code to consider such factors as being favorable to release of defendants charged in crimes.

Three trans women shot in six days
Spaulding, whose birth name was Aaryn Marshall, was one of three D.C. transgendered residents shot in the city in a six-day period last month.

Bella Evangelista, 25, whose birth name was Elvys Perez, was shot to death Aug. 16, at Allison Street and Arkansas Avenue, NW. A suspect has been arrested in that case.

Dee Andre, whose legal name is said to be Dee Walker, was shot and critically wounded on Aug. 20, on the 300 Block of I Street, NW. Police said they have no suspects in the Walker case, although they were hopeful that several leads would enable them to make an arrest soon.

A police affidavit filed in Superior Court shows that homicide detectives linked Lewis to the Spaulding murder through Spaulding’s cell phone, which apparently was stolen at the time of the murder. The affidavit says a witness who knew Spaulding informed detectives of Spaulding’s cell phone number.

The detectives traced calls placed from the phone and discovered one call was made about six minutes after the police 911 emergency call center received a call reporting gunshots wounds in the area where Spaulding’s body was found. An investigation into the address where the call was placed led to Lewis’ identification, the affidavit says.

Another witness led detectives to a car that Lewis reportedly borrowed on the night of the murder, the affidavit says. The affidavit says police found the inside of the car spattered with blood. It says Lewis, upon returning the car to its owner, said the blood came from a cut on his hand, which he said he received in a fight with someone in a strip club.

According to the affidavit, at the time police questioned Lewis about the murder, they found only a small scratch on Lewis’s hand. Police said the scratch could not have generated the amount of blood found inside the car Lewis drove on the night of the murder.

The affidavit says Lewis also had access to a .38 caliber revolver on the night of the murder.

Police still looking for murder weapon
During Lewis’s Aug. 27 arraignment, Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie Pendell, the prosecutor in the case, said police had yet to find the gun used to shoot Spaulding, and police had not completed ballistics tests on the bullets found in Spaulding’s body. Pendell also said police had not completed tests on the blood found in the car.

Bella Evagelista was shot and killed on Aug. 16. (Photo courtesy of WUSA TV 9)

Judge Levie, after denying Pendell’s motion to have Lewis held until the time of his trial, scheduled a preliminary hearing for Sept. 18.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said he could not comment on any details of the case other than to say the government always requests that defendants be held in jail pending trial in murder cases.

Sources familiar with the case said the government would likely file another motion at the preliminary hearing calling for Lewis to be held until his trial.

Ballistics and blood test results are expected to be completed at the time ...