MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man and a teenage girl are facing a second-degree murder charge after Miami-Dade deputies said they were involved in a deadly February shooting in the unincorporated Naranja area.
Deputies said one of the suspects is the victim’s sister.
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Deputies arrested Elton Hightower, 19, of Florida City, and Deashia Smith, 17, of southwest Miami-Dade, on Wednesday. The latter was already in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center after a March arrest on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm.
Deashia Smith is accused of joining Hightower in shooting and killing her 20-year-old brother, Raequan Smith. Deputies said the gun in Deashia Smith’s possession on March 10 was “forensically linked” to her brother’s murder.
According to the report, MDSO deputies responded to the 13800 block of Southwest 266th Street at around 11:55 p.m. on Feb. 7 after being alerted by ShotSpotter to 39 rounds being fired in the area.
Deputies said they “discovered multiple casings on the scene scattered within the block.”
According to the report, staff at HCA Florida’s freestanding emergency room in Cutler Bay called MDSO soon after to report that two men had brought Raequan Smith in with “multiple gunshot wounds.”
Doctors pronounced Raequan Smith dead about 45 minutes after the shooting.
Authorities said a witness came forward on April 23 and identified Deashia Smith and Hightower as suspects.
“(Redacted) saw the victim standing on the side of the street and (Smith and Hightower) discharged their firearms towards the victim, then fled the scene,” the report states.
Authorities said cellphone data placed Hightower at the crime scene.
Deputies said they detained Hightower at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building courthouse in Miami and arrested him after questioning at MDSO’s Homicide Bureau in Doral.
According to the report, Hightower “denied any involvement” in the killing.
The report states that when detectives interviewed Deashia Smith, she admitted to her mother that she was in the “homicide vehicle” with Hightower and two others at the time of the killing.
“She told her mother that they were going to do a drill on a person named Rashad,” it states.
As of Thursday, both were being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.