Rap lyrics may have been the break police in Newport News, Va., needed to solve a double murder from 2007.
Police in the southern Virginia town arrested Antwain Steward, 22, on July 9 after receiving a tip that the rapper had made a song in which investigators believe he describes committing two unsolved murders, NBC’s Newport News affiliate, WAVY, reports.
http://youtu.be/lc_A3qGAqnk
Steward has been charged in connection with a pair of killings dating back to May 10, 2007.
Authorities believe the rapper, who goes by Twain Gotti, shot Brian Dean in the head while he was sitting on the front porch of his Virginia home. They also believe he shot Christopher Horton, 16, who was found dead behind the same home with a gunshot wound to his torso.
The initial investigation went cold, but in 2011, the case was assigned to a different detective with the Newport News Police Department, WAVY reported.
Three men, including Steward, were soon identified as suspects and witnesses told police that Horton and Steward had an argument just days before the shooting, according to WAVY.
Court documents also show that witnesses came to police with information about Steward’s song “Ride Out,” which investigators believe contains information about the killings.
“Listen, walk to your boy and I approached him, 12 midnight on his traphouse porch and everybody saw when I [expletive] smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson [unintelligible] scoped him,” Steward raps in the song.
“Who puts something in a song that they did like that,” Horton’s sister, Tai Horton, told the station. “It’s crazy. That’s what I think. Why would he do that?”
Police believe the shootings were gang related, and court documents show, Steward and the other two suspects were involved with a street gang called Wickzoo in 2007.
Steward is being held without bond on two counts of felony murder, one count of unlawfully discharging a firearm and two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
