WASHINGTON — The fourth man charged in the shooting death of a 10-year-old girl, who was killed on her way to an ice cream truck over the summer, is already in jail and suspected in another killing that took place just weeks after the girl was gunned down.
Mark Tee Price, 24, of Southeast D.C., was charged in August with first-degree murder while armed in the July 30 death of a Maryland man, 47-year-old Andre Young, in a shooting that was sparked by a housing dispute. Before the shooting, several witnesses said Price threatened them, exclaiming, “I’m the reason the murder rate is so high,” according to court documents. The suspects in Makiyah Wilson’s killing were seen on social media videos the night of her killing rapping along to a song with similar lyrics.
A D.C. police source confirmed to WTOP that Price is the fourth suspect to be charged in Wilson’s killing.
Young’s killing came two weeks after Wilson was killed in a hail of bullets after four gunmen opened fire on a crowd of people gathered in an apartment courtyard in the Clay Terrace neighborhood of Northeast D.C.
In the second shooting, court documents say Price became enraged after he learned his girlfriend was being evicted from her apartment on 19th Street in Southeast D.C. Multiple witnesses said he threatened other people who lived in the apartment, lifting up his shirt to reveal a black handgun poking out of the waistband of his pants and making threats: “If I can’t live here, can’t nobody live here.”
Police said Young was shot after helping escort residents back to their apartments to retrieve their belongings.
The announcement of Price’s arrest in Wilson’s killing came one day after three other suspects charged in her killing appeared before a D.C. Superior Court judge and were ordered held without bond.
Police have said Wilson’s killing was spurred by a feud between two rival neighborhood gangs.
During the hearing Wednesday, prosecutors presented evidence linking three of the suspects — Qujuan Thomas, Gregory Taylor, and Quentin Michals — to that shooting. The three men planned the shooting for weeks, recruited other crew members to take part, and secured the firearms and the getaway car used in the attack, according to court documents.
Instagram videos posted live on Michals’ account the night of the shooting shows the three defendants flipping off the camera and singing along to a song whose lyrics included: “Homicide — we the reason why the murder rate high.”
Defense lawyers for the three men, however, argued there is only circumstantial evidence connecting them to the shooting — no eyewitnesses saw them there and no forensic evidence links them to the crime scene.
The guns used in the shooting were never recovered, and the lawyers argued the majority of the evidence is based on D.C. police detectives’ interpretation of text messages and phone calls.
(WTOP’s Megan Cloherty contributed to this report).
