ROCKVILLE, Md. — A young couple is being held without bond, and each is charged with murder, in the death of a Bowie man Saturday night that prosecutors are calling revenge for a robbery.
Reuben Ortiz, 20, and his girlfriend, Shanee Cox, 19, are charged in the murder of 24-year-old Sulaimon Jalloh, who was killed in the parking lot of a motel in Silver Spring Saturday night. Prosecutors said they were drug dealers who retaliated after Jalloh and some of his friends robbed them.
After Ortiz and Cox approached Jalloh and his friends to sell them marijuana at the Silver Spring Metro Saturday night, charging documents say, Jalloh and his group robbed Ortiz of his Nike shoes and money. The documents said Cox called police, and officers responded. In the process, they recorded Ortiz on body-camera video.
The documents say Ortiz and Cox got some friends together and tracked Jalloh to the Days Inn on 13th Street in Silver Spring to get their items back. The document said Ortiz, Cox and their group broke a window to Jalloh’s room to break in. Prosecutors say they got the shoes and money back.
Shortly after that, Jalloh left his room, and a witness told police he saw Jalloh attacked by a woman matching Cox’s description and a group of men. Jalloh was injured, and later died from his injuries at a hospital.
Ortiz was identified through the body-camera footage from earlier that night, and put himself at the scene in a statement to police, but in court Tuesday, his public defender told the judge it’s “tough to tell who did what and who intended to do what,” referring to the attack on Jalloh.
Both Ortiz and Cox are facing first-degree murder and armed robbery charges. The group took the watch Jalloh was wearing, according to court documents.
When a judge ordered Ortiz, a father, held without bond, his mother broke down in the courtroom.
