Devin Wilson appears in a mugshot after his recent arrest on a murder warrant.
An 8-year-old boy was shot in the head and killed in Baltimore late last year. Now, his older brother faces charges in the tragic slaying.
The case allegedly involves a bizarre trade of a small dog for the long gun that took his brother’s life.
Devin Wilson, 18, is accused of seven counts including murder in the first and second degrees. He also is accused of assault in the first and second degrees, use of a firearm in a violent crime, discharging a firearm in the city limits, and use of a long-barrel firearm with intent, in the Dec. 30, 2022 incident that took the life of Dylan King.
According to court records obtained by The National Desk, police arrived to find a neighbor performing CPR on the boy just after 5 p.m. at the residence in West Baltimore. King died at a hospital.
“He would always come and knock on the door for my grandson and I would say, ‘Come on in, Dylan.’ He was a good kid,” neighbor Shirell Williams told Baltimore-based Fox affiliate WBFF. “It hurts everybody in the neighborhood. Dylan was a wonderful little boy. He picked some flowers one day and said, ‘These are for you.’ I said, ‘Dylan, that’s so sweet.’ He was a lovable little boy.”
Officers also said they heard sobbing coming from an upstairs bedroom. In that bedroom, police said, the suspect was pointing a shotgun at his forehead and threatening to kill himself. One officer, however, convinced the teenager otherwise.
“Our detectives will be working to find out what happened,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the night of the shooting. “And we will make sure that we will bring justice and hold whoever’s responsible and accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Wilson was immediately taken into custody and subject to a psychiatric evaluation – the results of which have not been made public. He was charged on Jan. 10 in Baltimore District Court, according to court records reviewed by Law&Crime. He was arrested on Tuesday.
According to the charging documents, Wilson was the sole legal adult at home watching his four younger siblings that night. He allegedly used his phone call upon arrest to ask his mother to return to his family’s house. Both parents arrived and the suspect allegedly told his father that his brother shot himself by accident.
Authorities claim the shot pattern of the room where the victim was found did not support the idea that his wound had been self-inflicted.
According to the Baltimore Sun, police said Wilson is believed to have recently obtained the shotgun by trading a puppy for it. The defendant had allegedly recently expressed an interest in firearms and attended a session at a shooting range for his 18th birthday.
The dog-for-gun trade, police said, was likely legal – because Wilson was over 18 at the time and shotguns are not regulated firearms.
He’s set to appear in court on Feb. 15. He does not currently have a counsel of record and is being held without bail.
The third grader was remembered as a “ball of life” and “everybody’s best friend” at a funeral service last week, the Sun reported.
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