‘I could throw a party’: Teens discussed killing rapper YBC Dul on video, prosecutor says
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Just moments after the teens shot and killed
West Philadelphia rapper Abdul Vicks, prosecutors say, they drove to their friend’s home and celebrated.
“Check your mans in the car! Check the Citizens app!” said 16-year-old Aiden Waters, according to surveillance video.
“Oh my God ... I could throw a party! ... It’s Dul or Baby 35th Street,” he said, referring to Vicks, a.k.a. YBC Dul, and his business manager Nymir Nash, who was also in the car at the time of the shooting.
Others were more effusive, said Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope.
“I seen Dul! I seen Dul!” Zahkime Blake, 14, repeated into his phone.
And in the days that followed, Pope said, when someone questioned who killed Vicks,
Naier Briscoe wanted credit.
“You’re talking to one of the killers right now,” Briscoe, 19, told a friend over Instagram, according to Pope.
At that, people seated in the courtroom gallery gasped.
That was just some of the evidence presented in court Monday as Pope laid out in greatest detail yet how detectives tied the four teens to the death of Vicks, 25, and Marquise Saunders, 16, in separate shootings in August.
Detectives said in court Monday that they now believe Waters, who was the first person to be charged with Vicks’ killing, did not participate in the shooting, and was at home at the time. Waters’ attorney Ellis Palividas said this alone should get the murder charge against his client thrown out.
But Pope said Waters helped orchestrate and plan the killing. Waters purchased the getaway cars they would use in the crimes, she said, and, on Aug. 23, just an hour before Vicks was gunned down, Waters’ friends came to his home on the 1600 block of 68th Avenue to pick up the guns.
In fact, Pope said, it was Waters’ mother,
Latoya Donaldson, who handed the rifle to 18-year-old
Rashawn Williams, just before he and others drove off to find and kill the rapper.
Pope said they trailed Vicks as he drove down the 100 block of
Olney Avenue, firing multiple shots into his car as he was stopped at a red light. Vicks was fatally struck in the chest and hand.
Immediately after the shooting, Pope said, the teens returned to Donaldson’s home. Blake, she said, then drove their getaway car a few blocks away and set it on fire. Investigators have not yet arrested Blake, who remains at large, she said.
Investigators know most of this, Pope said, because it’s all on video. Donaldson, 39, had a robust surveillance system set up inside and outside of her home that captured many of the teens’ movements and conversations before and after the shooting.
Surveillance footage, ballistic evidence, and social media messages also connected Waters and Briscoe to the death of 16-year-old Marquise Saunders.
Saunders, a junior at Olney High, had sneaked out with his friends to go to
Wawa on the night of Aug. 19 when his car was ambushed by bullets. Saunders was fatally struck in the head. Another 16-year-old was also shot in the head but, in a “miracle,” Pope said, he survived.
Waters and Briscoe bragged about the shooting afterward, she said, and Briscoe told a friend he left Saunders’ “head in his lap.”
And yet it’s not clear why the teen and his friends were targeted that night, Pope said. Saunders’ parents said he was a loving brother and good student, and was not affiliated with any gangs. He was the youngest of three children, and played football for the Olney Trojans and Swag Hawks, said his mother, Marquita Duncan.
“All of this happened because of the internet,” Duncan said through tears Monday. “He did not deserve to die.”
Palividas, Waters’ attorney, said the evidence against his client was circumstantial and did not show he conspired to kill Vicks. Just because Waters was told about the shooting after, he said, doesn’t mean he helped orchestrate it.
“The others could have taken advantage of an opportunity, but that doesn’t mean my client was involved,” he said.
Briscoe’s attorney, Walter Chisholm, said the messages allegedly sent by his client about the shooting were “nonsensical” and exaggerated — part of the “trolling” social media culture and not a direct admission.
Williams’ attorney, Paul DiMaio, said nothing.
Municipal Court Judge Joffie C. Pittman III ultimately said there was enough evidence for the case to move toward a potential trial on all charges.
Vicks’ mother, Candice Sanders, said she was happy that police caught her son’s killers. She said her son worked tirelessly at his music career to build a better life for his family. And while he was known for his cruel lyrics, she said that was in part because her son was traumatized by the number of friends and family he had lost to shootings.
“He didn’t deserve this,” she said.
