Suspects in brutal 2017 'revenge' murders of man, woman found guilty in DC court
WASHINGTON - Two men have been found guilty of the brutal kidnappings and murders of a man and a woman that happened just days after Christmas in 2017.
According to the United States Attorney for D.C., 26-year-old Malique Lewis and 28-year-old Marcel Vines were found guilty by a federal jury in the armed kidnappings of Armani "Nico" Coles and Kerrice "Kay Kay" Lewis in Washington, D.C., which ended in the murders of the two victims.
Malique Lewis
The verdict was handed down in a D.C. court on Aug. 19 after a four-week trial.
A sentencing hearing will be scheduled for Lewis and Vines in the coming days. Both men face two consecutive mandatory-minimum sentences of life imprisonment.
Police say Kerrice Lewis and Coles were killed on Dec. 28, 2017 after a credit card scheme involving several people spun out of control, leading to their deaths as well as one other person — Ronzay Green.
Green was found dead in a 7-Eleven parking lot in Northeast D.C. Police say he was shot and killed by a man named Dennis Whitaker. Whitaker was connected directly to Green's murder and charged on Dec. 31.
According to an affidavit, Malique Lewis, Coles and Green were all involved in the credit card scheme with Whitaker, who thought he was being set up for a robbery and decided to take the three associates out.
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When Malique Lewis, Vines and a third defendant, Ashton Briscoe, determined that Whitaker had killed Green, they decided to retaliate against him. Lewis and Vines went to the neighborhood where Whitaker lived and began looking for him.
Ashton Briscoe
According to investigators, when the men got to the neighborhood they saw Kerrice Lewis — no relation to Malique Lewis — who they knew was friends with Whitaker. The men began following her and around 3 p.m., police say they kidnapped her from an AutoZone parking lot in Northwest D.C. at gunpoint.
They forced Karrice Lewis into the backseat of her own car and drove around hoping that she would lure Whitaker to them. When that didn’t work, the suspects took her phone and used it to get Coles to meet them, hoping he would lead them to Whitaker.
When Coles arrived at the meeting point around 6 p.m., the men forced him into the back of Kerrice Lewis’ car and put her into the trunk.
As they were driving toward the Clay Terrace neighborhood, the suspects hit traffic on I-295 in Maryland. At that time, they shot Coles twice and pushed him out of the car, leaving him on the shoulder of the highway to die as they fled to D.C.
About an hour later, they drove the stolen car into an alley in Southeast D.C. with the female victim still in the trunk. The men then opened up the trunk, shot Karrice Lewis at least 13 times and set the car on fire with her remains still inside.
Malique Lewis and Vines were both arrested on Jan. 5, 2018, on unrelated charges. Shortly after, Malique Lewis was charged by Prince George’s County States Attorney’s Office with the murder of Coles. Then, in August 2018, Malique Lewis and Vines were charged in D.C. Superior Court with both murders.
Ashton Briscoe was arrested in February 2018. He was charged with first-degree murder while armed for the death of Karrice Lewis.