2 arrested in shooting at Columbia Halloween party
The home where two men were shot early Sunday morning. The Forest Glen development in which the house sits is a relatively wealthy, secluded area. (Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna / November 1, 2009)
Howard County police on Monday morning announced the arrests of two Elkridge men in the shooting death of a Silver Spring man during a Halloween party over the weekend at a million-dollar brick home in Columbia.
Devin “Devon” O’Brian Dixon, 22, was charged with the murder of Aaron T. Brice, 19, and the attempted murder of Nathaniel Quick, 22, who may be paralyzed as a result of his injury, police said. Dean Schroyer, 21, was charged as an accessory to the murder after the fact and a drug violation, according to police.
Gunfire erupted early Sunday at the 4,600-square-foot home on Manorstone Lane that police said had been rented out for the party. The victims were not residents of the home, which sits on two acres of land near a golf course in a neighborhood usually untouched by crime.
Police said Brice was shot on the driveway of the house and declared dead at the scene — becoming the second homicide victim in the suburban county this year. Quick was sent to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in critical condition, but the Columbia resident was expected to survive. Two more partygoers with injuries that authorities said did not appear to be related to the shooting were sent to Howard County General Hospital.
Witnesses told police that Dixon was the shooter and Schroyer drove the car in which Dixon fled. Warrants were served at the home in the 8000 block of Paul Martin Drive where the suspects live, and police seized a handgun that they believe might have been used in the shooting, along with approximately 3 pounds of marijuana.
Dixon, who was also charged with assault, was being held without bail at the Howard County Detention Center. Schroyer was also at the detention center, being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Brice and Quick were among at least 100 young adults who flocked to the party, after word of the event spread through social networking Web sites. Police could not say who organized the party, or allowed it to take place.
Anthony Brice, father of the slain teenager, said his son went with a group from Montgomery County. Brice knew something was wrong when he didn’t hear from his son by his curfew. But it wasn’t until one of those friends called hours later, distraught, that he discovered what had happened. He rushed to the scene looking for more information, but found little.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m thinking it’s a bad dream,” said Brice, 48.
He said his son, who lived at the family’s Silver Spring home, was a grocery-store cashier who worked at a Christian day camp over the summer. He planned to attend Montgomery College in January to study criminal justice. Brice was told his son was shot just as he was leaving the party “because he saw the situation was not good.”
“Crime can be anywhere,” Brice said, adding that kids need to know that just because they’re “going to a million-dollar neighborhood doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
Celestine Howard, Quick’s grandmother, said he was shot in the spine. Quick is a student at Bowie State University, and Howard said he attended the party with a friend who had heard about the event through a social networking Web site.
When police arrived at the home about 1:15 a.m., more than 100 young people were still at the party. Officers said the house was the location of another loud party in June that prompted at least one phone call to 911.
“This summer, there was a similar cadre of cars up and down the street,” said neighbor Rob Weiss, who has lived on the street for a year and a half. “And there were a lot of kids running around, screaming and yelling, pushing and shoving.”
Joanne Powell, listed in land records as the owner of the Columbia house with Dennis Edwards, filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Both owners were facing foreclosure proceedings until the case was dismissed in August. They could not be reached by telephone for a comment, and no one answered the door Sunday afternoon. The house was purchased for $1.6 million three years ago.
Blood stained the driveway less than a dozen feet from the front steps of the house. Signs of damage were visible inside, including a bashed-in staircase.
“What we know from witnesses is there was some kind of ongoing altercation throughout the evening,” Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said Sunday. “What we don’t know yet is whether that altercation started before the party began. We don’t know what the motive was or what the argument was about.”
Llewellyn said police have no reason to think the shooting was related to gangs or drugs. Neighbors didn’t know what to make of the ruckus.
“We thought it was firecrackers. Then we heard the screams,” said Teri Deuel, who lives behind the house on a neighboring street. “It took us about a half-hour to figure out that somebody got shot.”
Bans Sandhu, who lives nearby, said he heard multiple shots ring out.
“I don’t know how many, but a full magazine,” he said. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”
Neighbor Fadeke Iluyomade, 51, was working in her study when she heard what sounded to her like fireworks, except louder. “Then suddenly there were a lot of people running, running away from the house. Some were running on my lawn,” she said. “That was when I called the police because I didn’t know what was going on.”
Police said they received a dozen calls in all.
Officers interviewed dozens of potential witnesses into Sunday morning, and shut down Route 108 near the Manorstone Lane intersection for hours as they investigated. The first Howard homicide took place in August, when police said an assisted-living-facility patient suffering from dementia beat a fellow resident to death.
The scene evoked memories of a 2005 incident in Anne Arundel County, where two National Football League teams rented a mansion in a residential neighborhood in Gambrills for a 400-guest party that ended in a non-fatal shooting. Neighbors of the property had earlier complained that the owners of the house were running an unauthorized nightclub where admission was charged. A judge issued an injunction preventing additional events.
Deuel, the neighbor to the rear, said she wished she had called police earlier in the evening when music from the overly boisterous party made her house pulsate.
She didn’t call then, she said, because “we were nice neighbors.” But now, she thinks, if she hadn’t been so nice, police might have broken the party up — “and it wouldn’t have gotten out of control.”
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