The apartment door burst open and four men, one armed with a shotgun, charged into the apartment and began to attack the residents and visitors inside.
A James City County man who was in the apartment during the incident shared those details and more on Thursday, during a preliminary hearing for three 21-year-old men — Christopher Allen Williams, Devonte J. Hayes and Marklin Antonio Mitchell — who are accused of participating in the violent January home invasion at an apartment in Lafayette Village off Longhill Road. D’Andre Andrews Hardy, a fourth man accused of participating, waived his preliminary hearing. The case against all four will now go to Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court, where it will be considered by a grand jury.
The James City County Police Department arrested the four men in Grove hours after the incident occurred on Jan. 5. Each is charged with attempted murder and robbery.
During Thursday’s hearing, Williamsburg-James City County District Court Judge Colleen Killilea heard testimony from some of the seven people who were in the apartment when the invasion occurred as well as police officers who investigated the incident and arrested the four men.
One man who was visiting the apartment when the incident occurred testified Thursday he was sitting at a table and using his phone around 8 p.m. when he heard loud knocks on the door. The door then burst open, and he saw the barrel of a shotgun coming around a corner that obscured his view of the door. He said he jumped to the floor as four men began beating up the people in the living room.
He said the four mens’ faces were covered, one by a bandana and others with “something black.” The men collected wallets and phones from the people in the apartment. One of the four men also went to the kitchen and got a .22 Taurus handgun from a drawer.
The man said he was on the ground, with his face buried in his arms, when one of the men behind him shot him in the back of the head. The bullet entered his head right above his neck and exited below one of his ears. He said he got up and began to “tussle” with one of the invaders, punching him a few times. He said the four men then “bum rushed” him and knocked him to the ground, where he pleaded for his life. He was later airlifted to MCV Hospital in Richmond where he recovered from his injuries.
Another man, who lives in the apartment, also testified. He said he heard a commotion in the front of the house. He was in the back with his children. The .22 handgun in the kitchen belonged to him, and he noticed it was missing when he left the bedroom after the invaders had “trashed” the apartment left.
A third man who was a guest at the apartment when the incident occurred said four men with blue bandanas broke in, one of whom had a shotgun. He said the men attacked him and others in the room. He described Hayes’ voice as slurred and easy to remember.
The invaders got away with money, cell phones and other miscellaneous items.
James City County Police Department Patrol Officer Gregory White testified he was on patrol in Grove on the night of Jan. 5 when he heard radio chatter about the home invasion. A witness at the Lafayette Village Apartments provided police with a license plate number, which White said he heard over the radio.
He said police were pinging one of the stolen cell phones, which revealed it to be somewhere in Grove. White said he saw a gold Ford Taurus with the license plate number he heard over the radio parked in a spot on Algonquin Trail, the main road in the Pocahontas Square townhouses. The vehicle was empty when he approached, and officers watched the vehicle until two men, later identified to be Mitchell and Hayes, got inside the car and drove away. White said police followed, then initiated a “high-risk stop” at the 7-Eleven on Pocahontas Trail, a short distance from Pocahontas Square. Hayes and Mitchell were taken into custody at that time.
Williams and Hardy were arrested a short time later behind the Algonquin Trail townhouse, according to Investigator Jason Shadrix of the James City County Police Department.
Investigator Jake Rice of the James City County Police Department said he executed a search warrant on the Ford Taurus on Jan. 7. He said he found a .22 handgun beneath the driver’s seat of the vehicle and a Mossberg shotgun in the vehicle’s trunk. The resident of the apartment later identified the handgun as his. He also found a wallet containing a driver’s license belonging to one of the people in the apartment.
He said he searched the backyard of the house, where he found a trash can containing a burned blue bandana, a partially burned GPS unit, three Winchester shotgun shells, some burnt cell phone cases and a burnt cell phone. On the ground near to the trash can was a burnt iPhone, another shotgun shell and a Walgreens bottle containing a small amount of what appeared to be marijuana.
Brandon Waltrip, Williams’ attorney, asked Killilea to throw out the case against his client. He said he hadn’t heard any testimony tying Williams to what happened other than that he was about 100 feet away from the trash can containing the burned electronics. She said there was enough evidence for the case to proceed to Circuit Court.
The four alleged invaders offered police different accounts of what happened, according to criminal complaints filed against them in District Court.
Mitchell told investigators they had gone to the Lafayette Village apartment to buy marijuana and it all turned “real bad.”
Hardy said he was “chilling” at his house with “Mark, Devonte and Chris” and that he had been dropped off with Williams at the Happy Shopper by Hayes and Mitchell, who left the area in the Ford Taurus.
Williams said he was hanging out with Hardy, Hayes and “some other guy” at Hardy’s home. He said they took a drive and ended up at Lafayette Village, where he got out of the car with Hardy to use the bathroom. He said they both got back into the car after using the bathroom, at which point one of the men had a shotgun, but he could not say who it was. He denied being in the apartment.
Hayes said he was hanging out with Hardy, Mitchell and Williams and that the four drove around in Grove that night. He denied going to Lafayette Village.
Some of the people in the apartment knew some of the alleged invaders, though the extent of their relationships remains unclear. The man who was shot in the back of the head said he knew a few of the invaders, saying he had “seen them around.” The resident of the apartment said Hayes and Williams and visited his apartment in the past.
The case against the four men — all from Williamsburg besides Mitchell, who is a resident of White Plains, N.Y. — will go before a grand jury in March.
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